Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/24

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
8
MR. MARK PHILIPS;

moralization—was a source of danger from assassinations, conspiracies, rebellions, the machinations of foreign foes, and the judgments of insulted Heaven—led to a disregard of religion, its practices, its ministers, its altars, its ordinances, and its disciples—to the demolition of chapels and the expatriation of missionaries—was the lasting cause of hostility and alienation between the colonies and the parent country—rendered those dependencies in which it existed in the greatest degree insecure—was as impolitic as it was inhuman—was as selfish and partial as it was impolitic—and was withal upheld at an expense of money, character, and life, sufficient to deter the mercenary and appal the humane—was inconsistent with our loud professions of attachment to the principles of civil and religious liberty—was a violation of the constitution of the land—a system of cowardice and murder, supported by means the most paltry and degrading—of decided irreligion and impiety—creating an amount of responsibility the most awful, and a load of guilt which it became a Christian nation to seek deliverance from without delay. Throughout the whole of Mr. Thompson's address there was the most profound and almost breathless attention, interrupted only by bursts of applause, excited by the frequent forcible and eloquent appeals to the morality and the justice of the audience. The more immediate effect was to detach from Mr. Cobbett many of his most influential friends amongst the electors of Manchester.

At the end of the previous June, Mr. Mark Philips issued his address to the electors. After referring to a requisition from 2,350 of his fellow townsmen, signed nearly twelve months before, he said that the arduous struggle which had in that interval taken place, had only more strongly confirmed his convictions that reforms beyond those which had been secured by the Reform Bill, were needed to complete the system of representation. He was therefore in favour of shortening the duration of parlia-