"'ADDRESS AND PETITION.
"'May it please your Royal Highness,
"'We, his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled, humbly approach your Royal Highness, to represent our national sufferings and grievances, and respectfully to suggest the adoption of measures which we conceive to be indispensably necessary for the safety, the quiet and prosperity of the Realm.
"'We forbear to enter into details of the afflicting scenes of privations and sufferings that every where exist; the distress and misery which for so many years has been progressively accumulating, has at length become insupportable—it is no longer partially felt, nor limited to one portion of the empire—the commercial, the manufacturing, and the agricultural interests are equally sinking under its irresistible pressure; and it has become impossible to find employment for a large mass of the population, much less to bear up against our present enormous burdens.
"'We beg to impress upon your Royal Highness, that our present complicated evils have not arisen from a mere transition from war to peace, nor from any sudden or accidental causes—neither can they be removed by any partial or temporary expedients.
"'Our grievances are the natural effect of rash and ruinous wars, unjustly commenced and pertinaciously persisted in, when no rational object was to be obtained—of immense subsidies to foreign powers to defend their own territories, or to commit aggressions on those of their neighbours—of a delusive paper currency—of an unconstitutional and unprecedented military force in time of peace—of the unexampled and increasing magnitude of the Civil List—of the enormous sums paid for unmerited pensions and sinecures—and of a long course of the most lavish and improvident expenditure of the public money throughout every branch of the Government, all arising from the corrupt and inadequate state of the representation of the people in Parliament, whereby all constitutional controul over the servants of the Crown has been lost, and Parliaments have become subservient to the will of Ministers.
"'We cannot forbear expressing our grief and disappointment, that, notwithstanding your Royal Highness's gracious recommendation of economy at the opening of the last Session of Parliament, your Ministers should have been found opposing every proposition for lessening the national expenditure; and that they should have been able to obtain majorities to support and sanction their conduct, in defiance of your Royal Highness's recommendation and the declared sense of the nation—affording another melancholy proof of the corrupt state of the representation, in addition to those facts so often stated, and offered to be proved at the bar of the House of Commons, in a petition presented in 1793, by the Honourable Charles, now Lord Grey, whereby it appeared that the great body of the people were excluded from all share in the election of Members, and that the majority of the Honourable House were returned by the proprietors of rotten boroughs, the influence of the Treasury, and a few powerful families.
"'We can, Sir, no longer support out of our dilapidated resources, an overwhelming load of taxation; and we humbly submit to your Royal Highness, that nothing but a reformation of these abuses, and restoring to the people their just and constitutional right in the election of Members of Parliament, can afford a security against their recurrence—calm the apprehensions of the people—allay their irritated feelings, and prevent those misfortunes in which the nation must inevitably be involved, by an obstinate and infatuated adherence to the present system of corruption and extravagance.
"'We therefore humbly pray your Royal Highness to assemble Parliament as early as possible; and that you will be graciously pleased to recommend to their immediate consideration these important matters, and the adoption of measures for abolishing all useless places, pensions, and sinecures; for the reduction of our present enormous military establishment; for making every practicable reduction in the Public Expenditure, and restoring to the people their just share and weight in the Legislature.
"'Signed by order of the Court.