"it should be presented to the Princess of "Wales by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, "Sheriffs, and 100 of the Livery. "MR. WAITHMAN then proposed a vote "of thanks to Mr. Whitbread; and Mr. "Thompson, to Sir Francis Burdett, both "of which motions were carried unani"mously." 86 I have been too long an observer of the workings of vanity, conceit, presumption, and selfishness, to be astonished at what took place upon this occasion; but, though I have felt no astonishment, others have, and, therefore, I shall enter into as full an examination of this interesting debate as my confined space will allow of. -The words of the Address, which was proposed by Mr. Wood, and which was carried with, I am well assured, only TWO hands held up against it, have not been given in the Report of the Morning Chronicle, nor in any other newspaper that I have seen; but, the COURIER has published the substance of the Address, in these words: "It stated, "that the sentiments of affection with which the Livery of London had contem66 plated the arrival of the Princess in this country were in no degree diminished: "that they were deeply impressed with respect for every branch of the illustrious house of Brunswick: that they viewed with indignation and abhorrence, the foul conspiracy against her honour and her life; and were inspired with admiration ❝at her moderation, frankness, and mag"nanimity, under her long persecution. It concluded with an expression of confi dence, that the Princess Charlotte, "brought up under such a Mother, would "be a blessing to the country, and with a prayer for the health, happiness, and prosperity of her Royal Highness.' This, I take it for granted, was the substance of the Address, moved by Mr. Wood, and adopted by the Common Hall; and, so taking it, I have no hesitation in saying, that it expressed the feelings of every impartial man in England.- Before I proceed to discuss the several objections, which were unavailingly urged against this Address, I cannot help noticing an omission in the Report of the Morning Chronicle; namely, the vote of thanks to Mr. Cochrane Johnstone. Such a vote was certainly passel, and it would be very curious to come at the precise reason, why Mr. Perry, or his Reporter, thought it right and proper to take no notice of that particular vote; especially when it is considered, that Mr. as really the first person, 66 who took up the cause of the Princess in the -It ALE for the express purpose of opposing that nour to know any thing of Mr. Vander- berty, who has not received marks of combe, but I must say, that I heartily wish friendship from Mr. Wood, who is, upon. him joy of his reason for withdrawing his all such occasions, ready not only with his name. -It gave me great pleasure to see purse but with his personal exertions. Mr. Wood's motion seconded by such a When a man, so eminent for his exertions man as MR. THOMPSON. It is that descrip- in the cause of public liberty, and withal tion of men who ought to come forward; so frank, so unaffected, and so amiable in men who have no views, and who can have his manners, so free from all vanity, conno views other than those tending to the ceit, and ambitious views; when a man public welfare. Such men should not give like this had set his heart upon a measure, way to feelings of disgust or of listlessness. and when it was impossible that that meaThey would soon see babbling impertinence sure could be injurious to public liberty, slink away from their presence. -That Mr. STURCH should, I think, have hesitatSIR WILLIAM CURTIS, though he acknow- ed; I think he should have been very diffiledged the perfect innocence of the Prin- cult to persuade to come, for the first time, cess; that SIR JAMES SHAW, though, speak-out of Westminster to the Common Hall, ing as a magistrate, he viewed the evidence against the Princess, "from beginning to end as a tissue of perjury and suborna"tion;" that Mr. Alderman Atkins, though he saw the matter in nearly the same light; that these Gentlemen, who are well known to be closely attached to the Ministers; that these Gentlemen should wish to stifle the question; that they should wish to draw a veil over the proceedings; that they should call for a dissolution of the Hall, and so get rid of the Address by a side wind; that they should tell the Citizens of London that they ought to look up to the Honourable House for an example; that they should tell the people to follow the footsteps of that paragon of wisdom and purity; that these Gentlemen should thus act and speak could be matter of wonder to nobody; but, there may be, and there must have been, many persons to wonder at the conduct of Messrs. STURCH and WAITHMAN.- -However, I shall not act the foul part of an insinuator. I will neither insinuate nor assert any thing at all respecting the motives of these Gentlemen; but, I will freely examine the grounds upon which they thought proper to overthrow the motion of Mr. Alderman Wood,Mr. STURCH set out by observing, that, though an old Liveryman, he had never before troubled them with a speech. And, he will, I am sure, think it not unnatural, that I should express my regret and my surprise, that he should have deviated from his long-continued course, upon this particular occasion, when the motion to be opposed had, surely, nothing hostile to liberty in it, and when the person making that motion was well known to Mr. STURCH to be one of the most ardent, most indefatigable, and most liberal friends of public freedom. There has, for years past, been no man who has suffered in the cause of li -He said, that the motion was premature; that the question was not ripe for discussion.Not ripe! When, then, I pray, is it to be ripe? The whole of the transactions are before the public; the evidence on both sides is in print; explanations of the conduct of particular parties have been given in parliament and elsewhere; in short, every fact and every circumstance belonging to the matter have found their way into print; and, at the end of seven years of mysterious secrecy, the whole is out in broad day-light, so that nothing is now hidden, or can be hidden, from any person in the kingdom. And yet Mr. STURCH does not think the question ripe for discussion. If it be not yet ripe, it will not be ripe till we are all rotten. Much evidence, he said, remained behind necessary to guard the throne and the nobility against an overweight in the popular scale; these trifling matters, Mr. Sturch thinks that the Livery may be permitted to handle freely; and also the no less trifling matters of peace and war, the extreme simof every understanding!. -But as to a question about an Address to a Princess, whose ill-treatment and whose long-suffering was notorious to all the world: this was a matter too high and too complicated for the Livery to meddle with!-I, for my part, should have thought, that this was, of all others, a matter with regard to which the Livery were competent to decide. It was a question clear in the understanding, and coming home to the heart of every sound-minded and sound-hearted man. It was a question, upon which no man could possibly be in error. There was no room for subtlety or doubt; and the only point upon which a difference of opinion could possibly exist was this: whether the motion for an Address was called for by sound sense as well as by justice.- -Perhaps, Mr. STURCH might mean, that a question of this sort was beneath the Livery to entertain; that the questions as to Parliamentary Reform, Peace and War, and the like, were rendered proper by their importance; and that the present question degraded the Livery by its want of importance.—If Mr. STURCH is ready to avow, that the conduct of the Royal Family is of no consequence to the nation; that Addresses to them, or any of them, are, at all times, under whatever circumstances, degrading to those who move or pass them, his opposition to Mr. Wood's Address will appear consistent; but, then he should have avow as to the SOURCE of the conspiracy.We have no evidence at all to that point. Nor did Mr. Wood want any for his purpose. His address only called the thing a conspiracy, without saying any thing about the way in which that conspiracy originated. No evidence, therefore, was wanted as toplicity of which put them within the scope the source of the conspiracy. It was sufficient for Mr. Wood that the Hall should be convinced that there had been a conspiracy. If it should hereafter appear who were the original hatchers of the conspiracy, Mr. Sturch may then, if he likes, bring forward a motion relative to them. Mr. Wood's Address appears to have had no such object in view. But Mr. STURCH disapproved of the Citizens of London meddling with matters of this kind. He highly approved, he said, of their discussing questions of Parliamentary Reform and of Peace and War, but, he asked, "Why should the Livery "decide, whether Captain Manby did or did not kiss the Princess of Wales?". Perhaps Mr. Sturch meant this for wil, and, if so, let it, in that respect, pass for its full worth; but, taking it in a plain commonsense sort of way, I must say that it is one of the poorest attempts at perversion that I have ever met with. "Why should "the Livery decide, &c. ?" But, Mr. STURCH, why should you ask such a question, when you well know, that they were not, by Mr. Wood's motion, called upon to decide any such point? The Address talked not of kissing; the Address was not foolish enough to deal in any such matters; it said nothing of Captain Manby; nor does it appear to have contained any thing implying a doubt upon any point whatever. Was it, then, fair to endeavour so to pervert its tendency?- Well, but Mr. 'Sturch, while he tells the Livery that heed this opinion, and not have endeavoured disapproves of their discussing of questions of this kind, is obliging enough to point out to them what kind of questions he does approve of their discussing; which (to speak as mildly as possible of it) might as well have been spared by a gentleman, who, according to his own account, appeared before the Livery for the first time. -The questions, however, which he does approve of their discussing, are such as relate to Parliamentary Reform, to Peace and War, and the like.Yes, these trifling concerns, the changing of the state of the representation, the arrangements indispensably necessary to a different mode of collecting the voices of the people, the settling of the points as to who shall and who shall not vote at elections, the making of provisions to disguise his real ground of objection under a plea of want of light, d'ficiency of evidence, and a mis-statement about kissing and Captain Manby. On the other hand, if Mr. Sturch is not ready to avow such an opinion; if he allow, that Addresses presented by the City upon the recovery of the King; upon his escape from the pen-knife of a mad woman, and from the bullet of a mad man; if Mr. Sturch allow, that these Addresses were not degrading to the City of London, upon what ground, I am curious to know, can he build an objection to an Address to the Princess upon her escape from what all the world is ready to designate a foul and detestable conspiracy? Mr. Alderman Shaw said, and he said it manfully, that, speaking as a magistrate, he presumptuous enough to attempt to meddle between man and wife; and the anecdote of Alderman Curtis, though full of characteristic wit, was not at all applicable to the point. The Address was not stupid enough to take off, or to hint at, a restoration to conjugal felicity. The Address was no humdrum thing from Doctors' Commons, talk viewed the evidence against the Princess as being, from beginning to end, a tissue of perjury and subornation. How great, then, must her danger have been! And, shall it be thought degrading to the Citizens of London to express their pleasure at her escape, and also to express their abhorrence of the perjured and suborned accusers? -The object of an Address is to expressing about marriage vows and excommunithe sentiments of those who pass it. There cation. It was called an attempt to force is no immediate practical effect contemplat- the parties to a reconciliation. It does not ed; and to ask what good such an Address appear to have contained even a hint of the can do, is to challenge the propriety of all sort; and all the speeches in opposition to the Addresses that ever were presented in it seem to have been made, to have been the world. Plain, sound sense said, that got up ready prepared, upon the presumpthis was an occasion for the people to ex- tion it would contain some complaint about press their sentiments; a love of truth, a there being two beds for one married coulove of justice and fair-play; compassion ple. Upon any other supposition the for a suffering and friendless woman; the speeches are incomprehensible; for not one sentiments natural to husbands, fathers, word does the Address appear to have consons, and brothers; all the good, all the tained upon the subject of reconciliation. kind, all the generous feelings of the heart, Mr. Wood very judiciously confined rose in an unanimous clamour against the himself to applause of the conduct of the objections of Mr. Sturch, who, though Mr. Princess and abhorrence of her perjured Waithman called him his excellent friend, and suborned traducers, leaving the quesand spoke of his great exertions in the cause tion of reconciliation, and all other matters of liberty in Westminster, will, I imagine, between the illustrious parties themselves, not fail to profit from the lesson he that day totally untouched upon. With what received. Indeed, I cannot help thinking, reason, then, was it that Mr. Waithman that he must have been, in some sort, chose to represent the object to be reconcipressed into the service. He has long been liation and harmony?an active man in Westminster, and, being had been the real object, in what way does so, he seems to have thought, that there this gentleman think it could have been was no necessity for his interference in the more likely to be attained? The Address City of London, where he did not reside; sealed the innocence of the Princess; it deand, it is, on his own account, greatly to be clared the conviction of the Citizens of Jamented, that this particular occasion London, that she was innocent, and that should have been selected for a departure she was worthy of their admiration and from his usual course. -We now come loyal affection. Was this likely to "widen to the speech of MR. WAITHMAN, who evi- "the breach," Mr. Waithman? Do you dently started under the pressure of the dis- think, that the Prince would be less discouragement given by the fate of the speech posed to a reconciliation, because the Citiof Mr. STURCH. He confessed, that he zens of London had shown, that they howas one of those, who had in vain endea- noured and admired the Princess? If you voured to dissuade Mr. Wood from his pur- do, you must suppose His Royal Highness pose; and, it will not fail to strike the to have a most singular taste.- -But, Mr. reader as a little singular, that, in this re- Waithman went further, and said, that this spect, Mr. Waithman should have earnestly was not the way to accelerate redress.— laboured to the same end as Mr. Alderman By redress he, of course, meant a removal Alkins; and, if Mr. Waithman profits from of the obstructions to the visits between the his ill-success upon this occasion, he will Princess and her Daughter, together, per in the end be a gainer; because, it will haps, with some steps relative to an estateach him to avoid such unnatural co-ope- blishment. - And why, pray, why, rations in future.—Mr. WAITHMAN ob- should not this Address tend towards the served, that this was not the way to acce- producing of the desired effect? Supposing lerate redress and promote reconciliation; such an effect to have been its ultimate aim, and, he afterwards said, that the object why should it not tend towards the producwas reconciliation and harmony.Beg-ing of it? The Address appears to conging his pardon, the Address professed to tain not a syllable calculated to offend either have no such object. The Address was not the Prince or his Ministers. It appears to However, if this contain not a hint calculated to sting the | he reproved the Livery for being wanting in the same way; and, I cannot help thinking, that his observation, that "he did not "desire the Livery to submit to his opi"nions if they thought their own betler," would have been full as well omitted; for, it appears to me, that the bare idea of a possibility of their submitting to his opi nions upon any other ground, or from any other consideration, than that of a conviction of the correctness of those opinions, must appear extremely degrading to the body whom he was addressing.But, as to the opinion itself, of which we have last spoken; namely, that the Address was unnecessary, because the whole nation entertained the opinions expressed in the Address. As to this opinion, I say, how will it square with the conduct of Mr. Waithman upon former occasions, and how will it square with reason and common sense? Let Mr. Waithman look back to the Common Halls where he has been the proposer of Addresses and Petitions, and he will find, not only, that the Halls were assembled because the general feeling of the nation went with the sentiments intended to be embodied into the Addresses or Petitions, but that, on almost every oc pride or to wound any feeling of either. It simply pronounces an opinion of the wickedness of the conspirators against the Princess, and of her own innocence and worthiness; and, I should be glad to know from any one holding the opinions of Mr. Waithman, what he could imagine more likely to lead to final redress. -If Mr. Waithman means to say, that to ask for redress by means of Addresses is not the way to obtain it; if he means this as a general proposition, I should be glad to know what may have been his views in the numerous addresses which he has brought forward in Common Halls? Did he not expect thereby to accelerate redress? Yes, surely, or else we must attribute to him motives, which were certainly foreign from his heart. And, if he, by means of Addresses, has so often entertained the hope of accelerating redress, upon what ground can he now say, that Addresses are not calculated to answer that purpose?- Mr. WAITHMAN reproved the Livery for not paying respect to Mr. STURCH'S remarks, which, he said, flowed from a well-informed understanding. I will not quarrel with the grammar of the phrase, which may have suffered under the hands of the Re-casion, those who have supported those porter; but, before Mr. Waithman reprov- Addresses and Petitions have boasted that ed the Livery thus, and applauded Mr. they had the nation with them, an asserSturch's sentiments, he should have consi- tion which has not unfrequently found its dered, whether he himself was prepared to way into the Addresses and Petitions themback those sentiments with his own; or, at selves. But, now, behold, an Address least, he should have made up his mind not to is unnecessary because it only expresses the oppose the Address upon grounds precisely sentiments of the whole nation! Did the contrary of the grounds of Mr. Sturch. Common Sense ever before suggest such an This latter gentleman said, the ques-objection to a Common Hall, or to any tion was premature, that it was not ripe body else possessed of the faculty of rea(which is the same thing); he wanted more soning? When, at the time of the Cinevidence; he wished to wait for additional tra Convention, and at that of the Walchelight; and, upon these grounds he opposed ren Expedition, Mr. Waithman came forthe Address. But, Mr. Waithman, who ward with Addresses to the King, what had reproved the Livery for not paying would he have said to any one, who should respect to these sentiments of his excellent have objected to the addresses as unnecesfriend, so far from thinking the question sary, because the whole nation entertained unripe; so far from wanting more evidence the same sentiments as those contained in and more light, thought the Address un- the Addresses? In short, adopt this new necessary, because "the whole nation was maxim of Mr. Waithman, and you have "united in one sentiment that Her Royal left no rational mode of seeking redress but "Highness was as innocent as her accusers that of open resistance by force of arms; for were guilty;" so that he opposed the when the general sentiment of the nation is Address because the question was over-ripe, not for a demand of redress, it is clear, and because there was no more light to be that it will not be granted to the applicathrown upon the subject.Considering, tions of a few; and, if it be, then, imtherefore, how widely he differed from his proper to demand redress when all the naexcellent friend; considering how little tion are of a mind, it follows, of course, respect he himself paid to that friend's sen- that the only way left of obtaining redress timents, he should have been cautious how is, that of physical force.--Into what |