proving themselves the defenders of that unrivalled fyftem, have fuggefted and purfued meafures, which, if perfifted in, muft, in our humble apprehenfion, inevitably effect the total annihilation of that conftitution, and the invaluable rights and liberties of your faithful people.

We acknowledge the proximity which that glorious fabric bears to perfection, and we are mindful too that your majefty's and our own offspring claim its tranfmiffion as a facred due.

We feel it, fire, a duty which we owe to your majefty, to ourselves, and to our pofterity, moft unequivocally to declare our deteftation of thofe recent defigns in particular, that directly tend to deftroy the freedom of fpeech, and to fubvert the boasted polity of thefe realms.

We folicit permiffion alfo to represent to your majefty, that from the most afflicting experience and obfervation, we conceive the continuation of the prefent calamitous war to be utterly inconfiftent with the happiness and profperity of these kingdoms.

We are deeply fenfible of the paternal goodness and anxiety which your majesty has conftantly evinced for the fafety and welfare of your people, and we as fincerely lament that thofe perfons whom your majefty has honoured with your royal confidence, fhould fo far fruftrate your majefty's intentions and defigns; fhould fo far forget their own duty and the interefts of your people, as to urge meafures fo deftructive of that conftitution they affect to support. We hefitate not, therefore, to pronounce in the firm accents of a free but injured people, that your majefty's minifters have forfeited our confidence. And we hold it our bounden duty most ar.

dently, yet most humbly, to entreat your majefty gracioufly to withhold your royal affent from their, unconftitutional innovations; to fpeedily restore to your diftreffed fubjects the ineftimable bleffings of peace; and to difmifs from your majefty's prefence and councils thofe perfons who, if fuffered to proceed in their wonted fyftem, will, we are perfuaded, alienate the affections of your people from your majefty's perfon and government, and plunge this once happy country into mifery and destruction.

Proceedings of a Meeting held at the London Tavern, in Bishopfgate Street, Nov. 27.

London Tavern, Nov. 27. At a meeting held here this day, prefent-SAMUEL BOSANQUET, efq. in the chair.

Rt hon. Thoms Harley.
Sir Charles Pole, bart."
Sir James Sanderson, bart.
Sir Richard Neave, bart.
William Albin, efq.
John William Anderfon, efq.
Thomas Bainbridge, efq.
Thomas Boddington, efq.
William Bofanquet, efq.
Alexander Champion, efq.
Abel Chapman, efq.
Jofeph Cotton, efq.
Thomas Dea, efq.
Jofeph Denison, efq.
George Dorrien, efq.
Richard Down, efq.
Jofeph Fletcher, efq.
Daniel Giles, efq.
George Grote, efq.
John Harman, efq.
Jeremiah Harman, efq.
Robert Hunter, efq.
John Pooley Kenfington, efq.
Edward Kensington, efq.
Beefton Long, efq.

John

John Smith, efq.

Samuel Thornton, efq.

Refolved, That these resolutions be figned by the chairman, and printed in the public papers.

SAM. BOSANQUET, chairman.

Refolutions paffed at a late Meeting of the London Correfponding Society, held near Copenhagen Houfe, in the vicinity of Islington.

Refolved, that the thanks of this meeting be given to his grace the duke of Bedford, lord Lauderdale, the right honourable Charles James

Godfrey Thornton, efq.
John Whitmore, efq.
William Whitmore, efq.
Mark Weyland, efq.

Refolved unanimoufly, That it is expedient at the prefent important crifis that a meeting fhould be convened of fuch merchants, bankers, traders, and other inhabitants of London as have not joined in the proceedings of fome meetings lately held at the Paul's Head Tavern, Cateaton-street, purporting to be meetings of "the merchants, bankers, manufacturers, traders, and other inhabitants of the city of London," in order to take into confideration the propriety of making a declaration to the public, that they have had no concern in the proceedings and refolutions of thofe meetings, but that, on the contrary, they are of opinion it has become neceffary for parliament to adopt fome temporary meafures for the more effectual fupport of peace and good order.

Refolved, That a meeting be held accordingly at Grocers' Hall, in the Poultry, on Wednesday next, the 2d day of December, 1795, at 12 o'clock at noon.

Charles Grey, John Chriftian Curwen, Charles Sturt, and all thofe diftinguished members of the two houfes of parliament, who, in the prefent hour of trial, have proved themselves to be the true friends of the rights and liberties of the people.

Refolved, That the thanks af this meeting be given to the Whig Club, for their fpirited proceedings and refolutions of yesterday; and to all thofe perfons whofe patriotic exertions have conduced to the accomplishment of the prefent happy unanimity among the friends of freedom.

Refolved, That the London Correfponding Society, and the other friends of liberty and juftice here affembled, entertain the most fettled and decided abhorrence of all tymult and violence; that they refpect the peace and happinefs of fociety, and regard, therefore, with becoming reverence, the inviolability of all magiftrates, and others engaged in the conftitutional dif charge of their respective functions.

Refolved, That we deplore, in common with all true lovers of the genuine principles of liberty and

order,

order, the tumultuary exceffes of an enraged and uninformed populace, on the first day of the prefent feffion of parliament; and mark with our moit unequivocal cenfure, that unhappy delufion which appears to have occafioned mifguided individuals to direct their indignation against the fovereign, for errors and mifconduct for which his minifters alone ought to be rendered refponfible; and that not in a tumultuary but in a legal and conftitutional way;-a delufion which would never have exifted, if the efforts of popular focieties to illuminate the people, had not been counteracted by unprincipled inquifition and illegal perfecutions.

Refolved, That the affertions of certain perfons in high ftations and authority, that the infults offered to the perfon of the chief magiftrate, in his paffage to and from parliament on that day, originated in the meeting held on the preceding Monday, in the neighbourhood of Copenhagen Houfe, is a grofs, unfounded, wilful, and treacherous calumny, invented by interefted and defigning perfons, (who per haps know that these exceffes originated from a very different quarter,) to furnish them with a pretence for tyrannical ufurpation, long before digefted and determined

Petition prefented to the House of Commons, Nov. 23, and figned by twelve thousand one hundred and thirteen Perfons.

To the honourable the commons of Great Britain, in parliament

affembled:

The petition of the underfigned Britons, inhabitants of London, and its environs, affembled together, to exprefs their free fentiments, according to the tenor of the Bill of Rights, on the fubjects of the threatened inva→ fions of their conftitutional liberties :

May it please your honourable house,

Your petitioners approach you, once more, to make their grievan ces and apprehenfious known, in a legal and conftitutional manner, to that branch of the legiflature, which, from its legal ftyle and form, was evidently intended to be the conftitutional guardian of the people's liberties, and the champion of its rights and privileges. But we approach you, not as heretofore, to claim the reformation of existing abufes: If thofe claims had been attended to, the cause of our present petition could never have existed. We come not to repeat our unanfwered arguments on the neceffity of parliamentary reform: (the very propofition of the measures we now proteft against is a demonstrative evidence of the neceflity of fuch reform :) but we approach you with conftitutional reverence and British firmnefs, to conjure you not to drive the people of this diftreffed and irritated nation to fuch defpair, as the adoption of the coercive fyftem in agitation before you, we are firmly perfuaded, in the end muft inevitably produce: We con jure this honourable houfe to re

member

member that the vital energies of the British conftitution confift in the liberties of fpeech and of the prefs; that the fafety and prefervation of our lives and liberties (next after that immortal inftitution, the trial by jury) depend upon the ftrict obfervance of the provifions of that admirable statute of treafons, extorted by a virtuous houfe of commons from Edward the Third. We conjure you also to remember that the invasion of thefe liberties, and the violation of this fafety by arbitrary inftitutions and new theories of conftructive treafons (though fometimes affumed under pretences of ancient prerogatives, and fometimes confirmed by corrupt reprefentatives and arbitrary acts of parliament) have never failed of being productive of confequences the most alarming both to the government and people. That the adoption of those very maxims and precedents upon which the propofed meafures are evidently founded, brought one unhappy prince of the Houfe of Stuart to the fcaffold, and drove another with his pofterity from the throne; and that therefore to propofe and fupport fuch meafures, is, in reality, to endanger not only the tranquillity of the nation, but the fafety of his majefty's perfon and government, in fupport of which thefe measures are faid to be brought forward.

Permit us folemnly to conjure this honourable houfe, to recollect the events that immediately preceded and produced the revolution of 1688-the doctrines advanced in juftification of that memorable event, and the principles which eftablifhed the Houfe of Brunswick on the throne. Let us conjure you alfo to confider with due deliberation, the limits and the facred nature of that compact which exists

between the government and the people; and the dreadful confequences which muft inevitably enfue if ever thofe limits should be violated, or this compact broken ! — If thofe circumstances are duly confidered, we feel a fettled confidence that the strong and hitherto unparalleled attempts to destroy the perfonal fecurity of the people of these realms, and annihilate the facred right of political difcuffion, will meet with the decided reprobation of this honourable houfe, that precedents drawn from the tyrannical reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts will be rejected with indignation; and that this honourable houfe will be ftruck with horror at the idea of ftaining the annals of the Houfe of Brunfvick, by the revival of those very measures which brought the Houfe of Stuart into fuch general odium, and were productive of fuch intolerable oppreffion, as to justify the refiftance of the people, and produce that glorious revolution upon the principles of which, and of which alone, the House of Brunfwick is at this time entitled to the British crown.

Your petitioners therefore pray this honourable house to confider the purport and tendency of the bill introduced, for the reftriction, or rather the utter prevention, of popular affemblies for the purpose of political investigation, and to difmifs it with that marked difapprobation it fo juftly deferves; to guard with the most inviolable refpect that facred inftitution, the trial by jury; and to suffer no arbitrary innovations, under any pretence whatever, on the exifting laws of treafon and fedition; laws which have hitherto been found fully competent to all the juft pur. pofes of free and equitable government,

And

And finally, we entreat this honourable houfe to believe, that when we profefs our abhorrence of all tumult and violence, and reject with the utmost indignation the groundless calumnies that have been fpread againft our peaceful, orderly, and conftitutional meetings, we do it from a firm and long fettled conviction that all acts of violence and outrage are most eminently injurious to that great cause of national and conftitutional liberty to which we are attached. At the fame time we conjure you to confide in the firmnefs and temperance of the people of Great Britain, who, we truft, have not degenerated from the spirit and bravery of their ancestors, nor forgotten the important lessons inculcated by their examples..

the fame fentiments which produced our declaration in fupport of the conftitution of Great Britain made at Merchant Taylors' Hall, on the 5th December, 1792, observing the refolutions of certain meetings lately held at the Paul's Head Tavern, purporting to be meetings of " the merchants, bankers, manufacturers, traders, and other inhabitants of the city of London," feel it our indifpenfable duty thus publicly to difclaim all connexion with those meetings, or approbation of their proceedings.

Perceiving with deep concern that alarming attempts continue to be made to alienate the affections of the people from the government established by law, and to disturb it in the exercife of its most im-portant functions; we think that it has become neceffary for parlia ment to adopt measures for the protection of his majefty's perfon, and the more effectual prefervation of the public peace.

We lament that the difpofition of the times fhould call upon Britons to refign, even for a fhort period, the fmalleft portion of that liberty, which in this country forms the diftinguished privilege of the fubject, and the great object of government itself. We trust therefore, that the legislature (and we have full confidence in its wifdom) will adopt fuch reftrictions only, as the urgency of the cafe demands; that as the danger arifes from the times, the remedies alfo will be temporary, and that while parliament ftrengthens the fecurity, it will refpect the liberties of the people.

Under thefe confiderations, we here make this public declaration of our determined refolution, "to fupport by every means in our power, the ancient and most ex

cellent