AN ADDRESS,
&c.
Brother Freemen ! ! !
Have you heard the news? Or, are you in a place where you have the blessing of a Whig Corporation, and therefore are all in the dark and don't know what is going on against you in the House of Commons? What this precious set of deceivers, the Whig Ministry, are up to? Perhaps you don't, and therefore, in my plain way, I will endeavour to tell you, not only what they are about, but also what we must do to protect our rights from their destroying hands. You must, however, excuse my plain way of expressing myself. If I had an education like Lord John Russell, I could dip my pen in flummery, and write you such a smooth varnished tale; but as I cannot do this, I will do it in a plain straightforward way; and perhaps that is what would puzzle his Lordship, for "use," they say, "is second nature." You must know, then, brother freemen, that when the Reform Bill was passed, all our rights and privileges of voting, which we might acquire from our fathers, or which were earned by our own servitude and hard work, were preserved to us and our children, which was just and proper. No one then spoke fairer than Lord John Russell and his party who brought in the Reform Bill; no one talked more about protecting our rights; ami it was then thought that they were our best friends and protectors: and that when that Bill was passed our rights were preserved for ever; at any rate, I never thought (or I never would have voted for a Whig as I did) that only three years afterwards I should have that vote, which I obtained by my own servitude and hard work, taken away from me by this very Lord John Russell; by those very Whigs for whom I voted, and who talked so much about our rights, and made some almost believe that after the Reform Bill they would never be able to stuff themselves out enough with the roast beef and plum pudding which they would then get for nothing. The Reform Bill, however, has been three years the law of the land; they have got no roast beef and plum pudding, but a Poor-law Bill, which certainly is enough to give a poor man his supper. And now so it is, brother freemen; that this Lord John Russell has brought in a Bill, which he pretended was to reform Corporations; and which, if it had been for that alone, would be all very well, for we know some of them want a little Reform sauce, especially some of the Whig ones; for, do you know, I recollect reading, some little time since, a speech of Sir Robert Peel's, where he told Lord John Russell, flat to his face, that Whig Corporations were as bad as the others; and he mentioned either Portsmouth or Plymouth, where they spent 400l. out of 500l.—what do you suppose for? For the good of the town? Oh no! For the poor freemen? Oh no!! For widows and orphans? Oh no!!! but for stuffing the precious carcasses of the worthy Whig members, the Whig mayor, and the Whig aldermen, with all the good things they could get!!!! Now, brother freemen, this Corporation Bill, so far as it would stop all this unmerciful stuffing and cramming, and would really reform abuses, is all very well, and every one supposed that such alone was its object. But I come now to the discovery of one of the most trumpery, underhand, dirty, paltry, base, and disgraceful tricks, that a trumpery, underhand, dirty, paltry, mean, and disgraceful set could be guilty of. A clause, brother freemen, was smuggled into this
