of our natural situation. Such systems cannot have a natural origin.

"If we are asked what government is, we hold it to be nothing more than a national association; and we hold that to be the best which secures to every man his rights and promotes the greatest quantity of happiness with the least expence. We live to improve, or we live in vain; and therefore we admit of no maxims of government or policy on the mere score of antiquity or other men's authority, the old whigs or the new.

"We will exercise the reason with which we are endued, or we possess it unworthily. As reason is given at all times, it is for the purpose of being used at all times.

"Among the blessings which the French revolution has produced to that nation we enumerate the abolition of the feudal system, of injustice, and of tyranny, on the 4th of August, 1789. Beneath the feudal system all Europe has long groaned, and from it England is not yet free. Game laws, bo

rough tenures, and tyrannical monopolies of numerous kinds still remain amongst us; but rejoicing as we sincerely do in the freedom of others till we shall haply accomplish our own, we intended to commemorate this prelude to the universal extirpation of the feudal system by meeting on the anniversary of that day, (the 4th of August) at the Crown and Anchor: from this meeting we were prevented by the interference of certain unnamed and sculking persons with the master of the tavern, who informed us that on their representation he would not receive us. Let those who live by or countenance feudal oppressions take the reproach of this ineffectual meanness and cowardice to themselves: they cannot stifle the public declaration of our honest, open, and avowed opinions. These are our principles, and these our sentiments; they embrace the interest and happiness of the great body of the nation of which we are a part. As to riots and tumults, let those answer for them who by wilful misrepresentations endeavour to excite and promote them; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and lose the great

cause of public good in the outrages of a mis-informed mob. We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid.

"We have nothing to apprehend from the poor for we are pleading their cause; and we fear not proud oppression for we have truth on our side.

"We say and we repeat it, that the French revolution opens to the world an opportunity in which all good citizens must rejoice, that of promoting the general happiness of man, and that it moreover offers to this country in particular an opportunity of reducing our enormous taxes: these are our objects, and we will pursue them.

"JOHN HORNE TOOKE, chairman."

The language of this address is bold and free, but not more so than that of the late Lord Chatham, or of that once violent advocate of reform, the late known by the title of the Human Race.'

Mr. Pitt, better

Enemy of the

"There is a set of men" (says the Earl of Chatham) "in the city of London, who

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are known to live in riot and luxury, upon the plunder of the ignorant, the innocent, and the helpless, upon that part "of the community which stands most in "need of, and best deserves the care and "protection of the legislature. To me, my

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lords, whether they be miserable jobbers "of 'Change Alley, or the lofty Asiatic plunderers of Leadenhall Street, they are equally detestable. I care but little whe"ther a man walks on foot, or is drawn by

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eight horses, or by six horses; if his

luxury be supported by the plunder of "his country, I despise and abhor him.

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My lords, while I had the honour of

serving his majesty, I never ventured to "look at the Treasury but from a distance: "it is a business I am unfit for, and to "which I never could have submitted. The "little I know of it, has not served to "raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called "the monied interest; I mean that bloodsucker, that muckworm, which calls him

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self the friend of government; which pre

"tends to serve this or that administration, "and may be purchased on the same term's

by any administration. Under this descrip"tion I include the whole race of com"missioners, jobbers, contractors, clothiers, "and remitters."*

"No one, Mr. Speaker," says Mr. Pitt, "knows better than I do the decencies that

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are due to the sovereign from this house; "but at the same time, I am not ignorant "of the duty I owe to my country: I scorn "to approach the crown with servility and "adulation; and I cannot countenance or "cherish the determined spirit breathed in "the speech, without betraying my duty to 66 my constituents. The country is almost "drained of men and money,† blood is shed "in profusion, and millions squandered, only

* Vide Earl of Chatham's speech, in the debate on Falkland's Island.

The national debt was then £251,000,000: under the management of this same Mr. Pitt, it is now (1811) nearly £600,000,000; and now (1819) nearly one thousand millions.