CHAPTER VIII. Discontent and Indignation of the Nation on account of the Walcheren Expedition-Meeting of the Common-Hall respecting the Rejection of their Petition on the Subject; and the Mode of presenting their Addresses to the King-Remarks on their Resolutions-Berkshire Meeting-Sketch of the Proceedings and Speaches there-Lord Folkestone's Speech- Adar ss of ibe Meling to the King-Opposed-Arguments used against it-Meeting of Parliament-Ministers endeavour to prevent or keep back an Inquiry into the Failure of the Expedition-The Inquiry legun-Heads under which it may, be classed-The Object of the Expedition, to destroy the Dorks, Arsenals, and Shipping in the Scheldt; this Object examined by itself To assist Austria; this considered by itself, and in connexion with the other Object, not likely to have acted as a Diversion in favour of Austria-A Landing in the North of Germany much more likely. That disaster and disgracetion to HE disaster and disgrace which the Scheldt, an expedition almost unprecedented in the annals of this country in point of naval and military force, and certainly unequalled in point of expense,-made a deep impression of indignation and discontent on the minds of all class es and ranks of men throughout the British dominions. Besides the general causes for these feelings, arising from a failure of the object for which the expedition had been equipped and sent out, there were others still more galling and peculiar, to which the apparently wanton sacrifice of lives, to the pesti. lential climate of an island useless after the mam purpose of the expedition had been abandoned, gave rise. The citizens of London were the first to petition his majesty to cause an inquiry to be instituted, in order that the causes of the failure and the attendant disgrace and sacrifice of lives and treasure might be traced out, and fixed upon the que punishment might be inflicted guilty person or persons, and that upon them. We have already stated in our volume for 1809, that the answer of his majesty did not encourage any very sanguine hopes, that an inquiry, such as would be effectual and satisfactory, would be instituted: indeed, his majesty expressly declared, that in his judgementio investigation was necessary, but that parliament would of course, when they met, take such steps as to them might seem proper, and demanded by the circumstances of the case. The royal answer also reminded the city of London, that it was inconsistent with justice to condemn before investigation; and, by this inculcation of candid sentiment, gave to the minds of many people a presentiment, that, if ever the investigation was actually set on foot, it would fail to detect any culpable mismanagement either in the planning or in the executing of the expedition, and consequently fail to fix upon any individual the blame resulting resulting from its disgrace and dis- purpose the remembrancer of the aster. The address from the common hall gave rise to some circumstances, which require and deserve particular notice and attention. It had been long suspected, that since the weak state of his majesty's sight prevented him from reading the addresses that might be presented to him, they seldom reached the royal car, unless they contained sentiments favourable to ministers, and approving of their measures. The usual channel through which addresses pass, or are supposed to pass, to his majesty, renders it very easy to stop them in their progress, and very difficult for those whose opinions and wishes they contain, to determine whether they have ever reached the sovereign. They are sent to the office of the secretary of state for the home de-, partment, and it is supposed to be his bounden duty to take especial care that all of them, without exception or delay, whatever be the cast of the political sentiments they contain, are communicated to the king. As, however, it may happen, that a secretary of state is too much of a courtier to present an address which holds forth opinions, or states facts, either unpalatable to the royal ear, or which expose the unpopularity of that ministry of which he forms a part; the common hall were desirous that their address should be presented immediately to his majesty, in such a manner, and at such a time, as should prevent the possibility of its being mislaid or neglected. They likewise, considered it as their right to present their petitions and addresses to the king at the levee, and not, as the addresses of other corporate bodies are presented, through the medium of the secretary of state. For this city of London called at the office of the secretary of state, and gave intimation that the address would be presented on the next levee day: he was told, however, that it must be left with the secretary of state, to be by him presented to the king. As this was refused, the lord took it with him when he went to mayor the levee, and there told the secretary of state, he wished to present it in any way which would be least troublesome to his majesty. The secretary of state peremptorily objected to this, and likewise to a demand of an audience which was made by one of the sheriffs. In consequence of these unsuccessful attempts to present the address directly to the king, a common hall was held on the 9th of January. After the report of the lord mayor and sheriffs on the subject had been read, some very bold and spirited resolutions were passed almost unanimously. In the 4th resolution they expressed their conviction, "that all complaints of the misconduct and incapacity of his majesty's servants are most likely to be nugatory, if such complaints must pass through the hands of those very servants; and the people can have no security that their complaints are heard." The 5th resolution accused the person who had advised his majesty not to receive the petition of the livery in the accustomed mode, of a scandalous breach of duty-of having vio lated one of the first principles of the constitution, and abused the confidence of the sovereign. The 7th resolution was grounded on the very questionable right of constituents to instruct their representa tives in parliament; which, while it was cheerfully admitted by Mr. Coombe, one of the members of the right of petitioning, merely because a proper regard to his majesty's in. firmities or ease has dictated some variation in the mode by which the opinions and wishes of his people are communicated to him. Ou the other hand, it may be contend the city, was denied by the others. By this resolution their members were instructed to originate or to support every motion which had for its object an inquiry into the causes of the failures of our continental expeditions--the violation of the subject's right of petitioning-ed, that the citizens of London the wasteful expenditure of the were perfectly justified in every public money-the correction of thing they did, since, unless their public abuses the abolition of un- petitions were immediately presentnecessary places and pensions-ed to the king in person, they not and the restoration of the original purity, independence, and duration of parliament. The sheriffs, attended by the remembrancer, were ordered, without delay, to wait upon his majesty, and to deliver into his majesty's hand, in the name of the lord mayor, aldermen, and livery of London, a copy of the other resolutions. These proceedings of the livery of London will be censured or applauded, according to the particular light in which they are viewed. By some it will with great apparent force and plausibility be urged, that as the state of his majesty's sight, and his increasing age and infirmities, rendered it impossible that he should personally receive and read the petitions that were presented to him, it was indecorous and unfeeling in the highest degree to endeavour to force the petition of the livery of London upon him, especially when their right to present it at the levee, to the king in person, was very questionable. It may also be urged that the right and the benefit of petitioning is not in the smallest degree affected or weakened by the mode in which a petition is presented or received; and that it is absurd, and argues a very blameable degree of party violence, to infer a plan, or even a wish, to deprive a subject of his only did not know whether they ever would reach him, but even had the strongest reason to apprehend, from what it was ascertained had actually taken place, that they never would pass out of the possession of the secretary of state, if they applied to him' as the medium of making their opinions and wishes known to his majesty. Could they be assured that their sovereign regularly received the petitions and addresses of his subjects--to insist on the right of the livery to present theirs to the king in person, merely because they had usually enjoyed that privilege, would undoubtedly have discovered a greater fondness for the form than the reality of the blessings which Britons enjoy; and not to have given up this privilege, out of regard to the infirm state of the monarch, on the assurance that their petitions would still equally reach the throne, would, indeed, have justly exposed them to the character of unfeeling subjects. The sovereign, no doubt, has a right to determine the mode and time when he will receive the petitions of his people; but the people as certainly have a right to object to every me. dium, which will suffer to pass through it only such petitions and addresses as commend ministers and approve their measures, while it effectually stops all such as are intended intended to put the monarch in possession of the complaints of his subjects against them. Berkshire was the first county the freeholders and inhabitants of which met for the purpose of lay ing their complaints before his majesty in the form of an address, arising not only from the failure of the expedition to the Scheldt, but also from the general mismanagement and incapacity imputed to ministers; the inroads which had been made on the constitution; the extreme pressure of the taxes; and the misery resulting to the lower classes from their increase, and the co-existent decline of trade; and in a more especial manner the grievances to which the operation and mode of levying the assessed taxes subjected the people. As these topics of complaint existed more or less generally throughout the kingdom, though they were no where expressed in such unequivocal and strong language, the speeches and proceedings of the meeting of the inhabitants of Berkshire require particular attention and notice. The business of the meeting was opened by lord Folkestone, who in some preliminary remarks contended with great plausibility and force for the right even of those who were not entitled to vote for members of parliament, to attend and give their votes at meetings convened for the purpose of conveying the wishes and sentiments of the county at large, either to his majesty or to the houses of parliament. There is certainly much to be urged in behalf of this proposition: it by no means follows, that the want of the right to vote for members of parliament ought to imply or to be accompanied with a legal incapacity to state their senti ments to the throne or to the legis lature, especially where they feel themselves aggrieved, and wish to state their grievances, and apply for a remedy. When it is urged that the house of commons does not represent the nation at large, because, the members are elected by so comparatively a small portion of it, it is replied, that though the electors do not comprise nearly all those for whom the right of voting is claimed, yet that the members, when chosen, do in their deliberations and measures regard themselves as representing the nation at large, and not merely that portion of it by whom they were returned to parliament. If then it is proper and desirable, and even necessary, that parliament should be put in possession of the sentiments of those for whose welfare they are bound to deliberate and to act, all who may be or have been affected by their deliberations and actions, and not solely those who may have elected them, ought most undoubtedly to have the right of petition. Arguments of a similar nature apply with equal or perhaps with greater force to the propriety of admitting the freeholders at large, without regard to the qualification of the freehold, to state their sentiments, and to give their votes, respecting addresses or petitions to the sovereign. Lord Folkestone, after these preliminary observations, proceeded to draw a contrasted picture between the state of Europe at present, and the state in which it was placed at the beginning of the French revolution. No person who cast his eyes on the map of the continent— who measured with his imagination the immense power which the ruler of France possessed over almost every portion of Europe, and who at the same time reflected that this man's predominant and unremitted object was the destruction of Britain, could hesitate in believing, that we could not be saved, unless there were found united in those who directed our concerns, the practical and useful talents of great statesmen joined to a close and regular attention to rigid economy, and an open and undisguised at tachment to the genuine principles of the British constitution. A ministry in whom these qualifications existed would possess the confidence of the people with this confidence, aided by a wise and judicious application of the means, military, naval, and pecuniary, which from their situation and offices they possessed, Britons might resist every attempt and exertion of her inveterate and implacable foe. But if, on the contrary, the measures of ministry had a manifest and intentional tendency to weaken the empire, by alienating the minds, and separating the interests, of a large portion of its subjects; if, while the nation was groaning under the constantly increasing pressure of taxation, they saw the money won by days of hard and incessant toil, either lavished upon unworthy objects, or spent in fruitless and disgraceful operations; if they found that a deaf ear was turned to their complaints, and that no promise or prospect of amelioration was held forth: if, above all, they perceived the enemy proceeding regularly and steadily towards the accomplishment of his great object, partly by means of the talent he applied to it, and partly by the blindness, the imbecility, and corruption of the continental governments, against whom he directed his attacks; it required no gift of pro phecy to foretel that the glorious and happy days of that country were fast drawing to a close, where the ministry and the people viewed each other with distrust; where the former rested not on the confi dence and good-will of the latter, and where the latter had ceased to look up to and respect the former. In particular illustration of the opinions he advanced respecting the incapacity of ministers, lord Folkestone referred to the state of Ireland, for whose inhabitants nothing had been done to soothe and conciliate, too much to gall and alienate them; who wish. ed to regard us as brothers, and whom nothing but the most aggra vated and repeated insults and degradation would compel utterly to cast away the hope that they might in reality form one kingdom with Britain. The introduction of such a number of foreign troops into the island called forth from his fordship some very pointed remarks; in the course of which he recalled to the recollection of the meeting, the noble stand which our ances tors made, in the time of king Wil liam, against the introduction of even a few Dutch regiments. Lord Folkestone next called the attention of the meeting to the. principal object for which they had been called together-the expe dition to the Scheldt. The arma, ment which had been equipped and sent on this expedition amounted in the different departments to above 100,000 men: and what had this mighty force accomplished? Its triumphs and successes might be summed up in a few words-Flushing and Middleburgh, the latter of which alone was a fortified town, had been taken, but not retained. In the short space of 24 hours the expedition reached its destination: after |