Then followed handbills for distribution. The struggle, it must be remembered, was one which could hardly occur in these days: it was, in fact nothing short of a declaration of confidence in the King or the opposite; for or against secret influence; for or against Court direction, and the extension of prerogative. Here is a specimen of what was written at the outset:
“Of all the features which mark the political character of the English nation the most striking and remarkable is a perpetual jealousy of prerogative.... Ask an Englishman what sort of Judge, Crown Lawyer, or Minister, he most dreads: his uniform answer is a prerogative Judge, a prerogative Lawyer, a prerogative Minister. Is then a prerogative King of so little danger to us that we are all at once to forget these jealousies, which seem to have been twisted with our existence, and to fall into a miraculous fondness for that prerogative which our ancestors have shed their dearest blood to check and limit? Let the people of England once confederate with the Crown and the Lords in such a conflict, and who is the man that will answer for one hour of legal liberty afterwards?
“Can the people confide in His Majesty’s secret advisers? I say NO. And I demand one instance, in the twenty-three years of this wretched reign, when a regard to the liberty of the people can be traced in any measure to the secret system.”
This document, which went on in a similar strain to a great length, was handed about from house to house; no doubt a copy was given to the King.
A general meeting of all the electors was called on March 14, in Westminster Hall. This assemblage proved everything that could be desired; the hall was completely packed with an uproarious mob, chiefly on the King’s side; the hustings were made a battlefield for the possession of the chair, which was pulled to pieces in the struggle; then the hustings broke down, and a good many on either side were trampled upon and injured. Nobody could be heard; when it was understood that the meeting was asked to express an opinion on the Address to the King, nearly all the
THE ENTRANCE TO SPEAKER’S YARD AS IT APPEARED BEFORE THE FIRE.
hands went up. Fox tried to speak; a bag of asafetida was thrown in his face; his friends carried him out on their shoulders; finally he addressed the crowd from the bow-window of the King’s Head Tavern, in Palace Yard. After the speech they took the horses from his carriage and dragged him all the way to Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, with shouts and cheers.