Alderman Coombe made a very impressive speech.
Mr. Tierney made a very pointed speech.
Mr. Grey made a very fine speech. He described the ministers as “bold bad men”—their measures he repeatedly declared to be not only “weak, but wicked”.
Mr. Byng said a few words.
General Tarleton and the Electors of Liverpool being given, the General, after an eulogium on Mr. Fox, begged to anticipate their favourite concluding toast, and to give “The Cause of Freedom all over the World”. This toast unfortunately gave rise to an altercation which threatened to disturb the harmony of the evening. Olaudah Equiano, the African, and Henry Yorke, the mulatto, insisted upon being heard; but as it appeared that they were entering upon a subject which would have entirely altered the complexion of the Meeting, they were, though not without some difficulty, withheld from proceeding further.
Mr. Erskine rose, in consequence of some allusions which had been made to Trial by Jury. He professed himself to be highly flattered by the encomiums which had been lavished upon him; at the same time he was conscious that he could not, without some degree of reserve, consent to arrogate to himself those qualities which the partiality of his friends had attributed to him. He had, on former occasions, declared himself to be clothed with the infirmities of man’s nature; and he now begged leave in all humility to reiterate that confession; he should never cease to consider himself as a feeble, and with respect to the extent of his faculties in many respects, a finite being—he had ever borne in mind, and he hoped he should ever continue to bear in mind, those words of the inspired Penman, “Thou hast made him less than the angels, to crown him with glory and honour”. These lines were indeed applicable to the state of man in general, but of no man more than himself; they appeared to him pointed and personal, and little less than prophetic; they were always present to his mind; he could wish to wear them in his breast as a sort of amulet against the enchantment of public applause, and the witcheries of vanity and self-delusion; yet if he were indeed possessed of those superhuman powers—all pretensions to which he again begged leave most earnestly to disclaim—if he were endowed with the eloquence of an angel, and with all those other faculties which we attribute to angelic natures, it would be impossible for him to do justice to the eloquence with which the Honourable Gentleman who opened the meeting had defended the Cause of Freedom, identified as he conceived it to be with the persons and government of the Directory. In his present terrestrial state he could only address it as a prayer to God and as counsel to Man that the words which they had heard from that Honourable Gentleman might work inwardly in their hearts, and in due time, produce the fruit of Liberty and Revolution.
He had not the advantage of being personally acquainted with any of the Gentlemen of the Directory; he understood, however, that one of them (Mr. Merlin) previous to the last change, had stood in a situation similar to his own—he was, in fact, nothing less than a leading Advocate and Barrister in the midst of a free, powerful and enlightened people.
The conduct of the Directory with regard to the exiled Deputies had been objected to by some persons on the score of a pretended rigour. For his part he should only say that having been, as he had been, both a Soldier and a Sailor, if it had been his fortune to have stood in either of those two relations to the Directory—as a Man and as a Major-General he should not have scrupled to direct his artillery against the National Representation:—as a Naval Officer he would undoubtedly have undertaken for the removal of the Exiled Deputies; admitting the exigency, under all its relations, as it appeared to him to exist, and the then circumstances of the times, with all their bearings and dependencies, branching out into an infinity of collateral considerations, and involving in each a variety of objects political, physical, and moral; and these again under their distinct and separate heads, ramifying into endless subdivisions which it was foreign to his purpose to consider.
Having thus disposed of this part of his subject, Mr. Erskine passed in a strain of rapid and brilliant allusions over a variety of points characteristic of the conduct and disposition of the present Ministry; Mr. Burke’s metaphor of “the Swinish Multitude,” Mr. Reeves’ metaphor of the “Tree of Monarchy,” “the Battle of Tranent,” “the March to Paris,” the phrase of “Acquitted Felons,” and the exclamation of “Perish Commerce”—which last expression he declared he should never cease to attribute to Mr. Windham; so long, at least, as it should please the Sovereign Dispenser to continue to him the power of utterance and the enjoyment of his present faculties. He condemned the expedition to Quiberon, he regretted the “Fate of Messrs. Muir and Palmer,” he exulted in the “Acquittal of Citizens Tooke, Hardy, Thelwall, Holcroft and others,” and he blessed that Providence to which (as it had been originally allotted to him (Mr. Erskine) the talents which had been exerted in their defence) the preservation of those Citizens might perhaps be indirectly attributed. He then descanted on the captivity of La Fayette, and the Dividend on the Imperial Loan.
After fully exhausting these subjects, Mr. Erskine resumed a topic on which he had only slightly glanced before. In a most delicate and sportive vein of humour he contended, that if the people were a Swinish Multitude, those who represented them must necessarily be a Swinish Representation. It would be in vain to attempt to do justice to the polite and easy pleasantry which pervaded this part of Mr. Erskine’s speech. Suffice it to say that the taste of the Audience showed itself in complete unison with the genius of the Orator, and the whole of this passage was crowned with loud and reiterated plaudits. After a speech of unexampled exertion, Mr. Erskine now began to enter much at length into a recital of select passages from our most approved English authors, concluding with a copious extract from the several Publications of the late Mr. Burke; but such were the variety and richness of his quotations which he continued to an extent far exceeding the limits of this paper, that we found ourselves under the necessity, either of considerably abridging our original matter, or omitting them altogether, which latter alternative we adopted the more readily as the greater part of these brilliant citations have already passed through the ordeal of a public and patriotic auditory; and as there is every probability that the circumstances of the times will again call them forth on some future emergency.