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Other meetings were held in different parts of the town; and at one of them-the Spensonians-the following toasts were drunk :May the last of Kings be strangled in

the Bowels of the last of Priests.

A speedy Amalgamation of Party with the Mass of the People.

Religion without Priests, and Governments without Kings.

A Dish of Fish for the English, and may they always relish an Irish Pike! Vinegar Hill, and may the Foes of the People meet with sour Sauce!

The Heroes of Wexford.

The Rights of the People, and may the People never want Spirit to maintain their Rights!

Honest Men at the Head of Affairs, and those at the Head of Affairs without Heads No Lord, nor Landlord! but the Lord God, our only Lord.

at all.

May the Usurpation of the great Landholders be speedily destroyed, and every Man recover his original Share of Land!

May the Age of Superstition be annihilated, and the Age of Reason be estab.

lished in its stead!

At one of the most recent meetings a supper was given, at the expense of some unknown patron, to celebrate again the release of the champions of their cause; when they were still entertained, with the most seditious songs and toasts, sufficiently descriptive of their at tachment to our foreign enemy, and abhorrence of the form of our own constitution; such as,

Bonaparte! and Success to the Army of Egypt!

The Guillotine I-a Cure for the King's Evil.

The disaffected take steps to win over religious enthusiasts, as well as visionary reformers, though they despise religion. The report next proceeds to state, that societies on similar principles were formed in the chief towns, and that the great object and hope of all was to foment

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rebellion by means of the scarcity of provisions. They represented their numbers trained to arms at 60,000, sometimes double that number; one of their plans was to seize the arms of the loyal associations. They connected themselves with a religious sect (the Jerusalemites) in Yorkshire, whose creed was the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the xxist chapter of Ezekiel. In Lancashire the numbers were great and bold, and an insurrection was proposed for the seed-time. A secret convention sat for six different divisions of the kingdom, and a general meeting was actually held early. in April, near Manches ter, which was dispersed. The disaffected held out encouragement to the enemy to invade this country, by representing they would be joined by great numbers. The report then describes a new plot lately discovered in Ireland for forming the disaffected into regiments, a seditious address to the Irish sailors in our fleet, and solici

tations of assistance from France.

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But the agent who asks this, it is said, stipulates, however, with his proposed allies for the assur ance of their property to all the present possessors, in opposition he states still to look forward with to any claim of the catholics, whom hopes of establishing a popish ascendency; and it appears that he has been given to understand, that both the late directory, and one of the principal ministers of the present government of France, had coincided in the justice and propriety of that stipulation."

The report next details the rebellious and atrocious proceedings in Ireland at considerable length, the plans of assassination, &c. Persons are flogged to compel them to sell cheap provisions;

cattle

cattle are detroyed; horses are stolen to facilitate the designs of the rebels; a general tendency to insurrection exists among the lower class; and the rebellion is not quenched.

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execution is in the hands of the executioner.

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"Given at the Council chamber.". "This account the member received from the brother of the de-. ceased, who showed him another letter to the same effect, which was served on a tenant of Mr. Price at the same time, who in consequence fled the country. Mr. Price was, within a few days, in the open fields at noon, fired at and murdered by a single individual,, who was suffered to depart at his leisure, without any endeavour being made to detain him, though many people were at work at no great distance."

The report here describes and ' justifies the conduct of the Irish · courts-martial.

"That in one county, for a year past, one whole barony has been tributary to and in possession of an armed banditti of about fifty per sons, under two known leaders, who regularly exercise their men, station their pickets, and march, to the sound of a horn, to the commission of all sorts of outrages; and declare their intention of persisting till a general rising may enable them to overturn the existing constitution and government. The robbery of the mail in Kildare in the month of April last, by a gang of eighteen or nineteen The report next states the im-. armed men, who commenced their possibility of disclosing the means. attack by a volley of musketry, is by which government has obtained a striking instance of the manner its information, without endangerin which these outrages are coming the persons, and ruining their mitted; and a recent and well known transaction of the most atrocious nature, in the county of Tipperary, proves that the system of secret proscription and delegated assassination is still in force, supported either by the concurrence of extensive confederacy, or the effects of general intimidation. Your committee refer to the mur der of Mr. Price, who, having taken a farm against the wishes of those who take upon them to regulate the rents of land, ceived a written intimation, which appears, from the evidence of a member of this house, to have been to the following effect:

-

re

"Liberty Hall.

"Take notice; that you have been tried and convicted of having taken farm-you have been sentenced to death-you are to give up the farm, otherwise the warrant for your

channels of intelligence. It notices the small number of persons imprisoned under the suspension of the habeas corpus act, and· sanctions their imprisonment after having enquired the motives. The report concludes with this paragraph:

Under these circumstances, your committee cannot forbear submitting to the wisdom of the house the propriety of such an act of indemnity as may protect all per sons concerned in these commitments from the effects of any legal proceeding, without subjecting them to the necessity, either of suffering for a conduct in itself meritorious, or of disclosing, in their own defence, those particu lars which every consideration of humanity, good faith, and policy,' must render it their duty to conccal."

(M 4)

The

The Appendix consists of the handbill calling the meeting at Kennington Common; papers inflaming the minds of the people on account of the high price of provisions; oaths binding to maintain the rights of man; an extract from Spence's pamphlet, recommending that land should not be the property of individuals but of parishes, and the rents common to all; and that a convention should meet to enforce the plan. There are also several inflammatory papers from the United Irish, and an address to the Irish sailors of the same nature, together with long depositions of persons employed on courts martial in Ireland; and depositions, and other evidence, respecting the general state of that country.

Abstract of the Second Report of the Committee of the House of Lords, which was delivered to their Lordships on April 28.

When it became known to some of the most stirring members of the society, which under the name of the London Corresponding Society is so particularly described in the former report, that the act for preventing seditious meetings had expired, they drew together at first in small parties with a degree of caution, changing frequently their place of meeting, and omitting their accustomed forms, being still apprehensive, as they expressed themselves, of the act which had not then expired for the suspension of the habeas-corpus act. In this condition, various plans were formed in different meetings for resuming and carrying on with more security their former practices. Among other devices, one was proposed and adopted by a considerable number, to assume the name and appearance of a benefit-society.

Those who were thus to take the name of a benefit-society, had no other purpose but to mask under that name a political society formed for purposes the most flagitious; for it was expressly declared that no fund, raised by regular contribution, should form the stock of this society; no persons admitted members but those of democratic sentiments, who were to receive co pies of the rules of a benefit-society, not that they should be observed, but that they might deceive the magistrates in case any of the meetings should be suspected; converting thereby, in fraud of the law, an excellent establishment for the relief of the sober and industrious poor, into an instrument for the destruction of sobriety and industry, Many members of the former corresponding society and their friends were in this manner engaged.Others appear to have been at the same time concerting a deeper design of a secret society, which after it had attained a proper maturity was announced to the benefit-society, that had been established about three weeks, and became numerous, by two persons in the character of delegates from a society for emancipation, and desiring to know whether the pretended benefit-society would connect itself with their society. The proposal was favourably received, and a future meeting appointed, at which they should be furnished with the instructions of the plan of that society. At that meeting the instructions produced in writing were to this effect:-The members to be admitted by a test, or declaration on oath, to be sworn on the Bible when it can be produced; but it is observed, that since Paine's Age of Reason it is looked on as a mark of incivism to keep a Bible. The

persons

persons entrusted to swear others, or, in the phrase of the society, to initiate them, are termed conductors. They receive a written appointment, with a printed in struction and printed declaration (copies of each of these are annexed to this report); ten initiated are allotted to each conductor, who is to make a report of them at stated times to another officer, called a superintendant, appointed over every ten conductors. To each superintendant a messenger is assigned, by whom he is to communicate with the executive, the names and number of which are only to be known by themselves, or perhaps to the messengers; but they are supposed to be persons of superior consequence. Signs are instituted by which the members may know each other; but it does not distinctly appear whether all the initiated, or only the conductors, are intrusted with the knowledge of the signs. The plan thus explained was fully approved, and the benefit society agreed to form one indivisible society, under the name of United Britons. This association appears to have taken place about the middle of the month of March last. Of the practice and habits of this association the committee has received more precise information. In their general meetings they are somewhat reserved on the subject of religion, for fear of frightening away persons who have some respect for religion (which happily has been the case, and has contributed to the detecting of their schemes). But it appears to your committee that a very principal object of their leaders has been to use every means in their power to work upon all persons whose religious opinions differ from those of the establishment: for which purpose

the general executive has recom mended it in the strongest manner to their followers to mix as much as possible with such persons, and, by concealing their own sentiments, which are adverse to all religion, and seemingly adopting those of the persons with whom they should communicate, to gain proselytes to their political designs, and thus to promote the execution of their misthievous and determined purpose, of overthrowing the constitution. In the confidential meetings of the initiated, however, they endeavour to turn the people against religion, in order to overthrow the state through the church: observing, that if there were no priests there would be no king. Amongst the most frequent subjects treated in these confidential meetings of the initiated, plans of insurrections to be excited on the pretext of the high price of provisions, but directed to the subversion of government, have been discussed, and the means traced out for procuring arms of the most dangerous species. The members are instructed to frequent clubs where workmen and soldiers resort, to appear there unconnected, and to hold opposite sides in the ques tions they are instructed to raise. Their purposes are of a more sanguinary complexion than the ordinary mischiefs of a mob; for your committee has had particular in formation of the time and place, and of some persons attending the meeting within a very recent period, when a plan of assassinating certain members of parliament at their own houses, formed with no inconsiderable degree of contriv ance, was proposed, and seemed to meet with the general acquiescence of all the company, that it would be meritorious.

It has also oppeared to your committee

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committee, that societies of a similar formation with this, since the period when it became generally known that the act for preventing seditious meetings had expired, have been formed in various parts of the country, and, after the expiration of the act for suspending the habeas-corpus act, assumed a bold and daring aspect. Besides these places, where the operations of such societies have only been known to the vigilant attention of the magistrates, and kept down by their prudence and firmness, a very dangerous conspiracy of a similar nature has manifested itself in some parts of the country, which from all its forms and habits affords the strongest presumption of mutual intercourse between those conspirators and the, United Britons; the only apparent difference being, that the meeting in the country, being chiefly connected with manufacturers, is obliged to assume a more apparent concern for their in terest in regard to the dearness of living, and ostensibly aims at the reduction of the price of provisions, or the increase of the price of labour; whereas the society of United Britons in London does not hesitate to profess their wish to frustrate every plan for the relief of the poor; the high price of provisions being most favourable to their object of exciting insurrection.

The committee has further to observe, that by most certain intelligence, it appears that there still exist in the dominions of the king's enemies at least two established committees of traitors to the united kingdom of Great-Britain and Ireland, actively employed in carrying on correspondence by their agents with the leaders of these societies, and abetting them in the most atrocious circumstances of the

crimes they are meditating, and encouraging them by holding out hopes of invasion.

The committee has also had great reason to believe that many of the United Irish, who, either by the lenity of the government of that country, or by their own apprêhension of its just severity, have taken refuge here, have, by all the means they had been used to practise, stimulated and inflamed the minds of the members of these meetings to an higher pitch of extravagance, and rendered it more necessary to subject them to that controul, which in its former exercise was as useful to themselves as it was salutary to the state; for it is remarkable that no act of restriction could be more truly pre ventive of evil than the statute in question has proved to be, there having seldom occurred an occasion for enforcing the act during the period of its continuance, It is therefore the unanimous and decided opinion of your committee, that the bill now referred to their consideration ought to pass into a law.

Report of the Committe of the House

of Commons respecting Corn.

The committee appointed to consider of the present high price of provisions, and to report the same, with their opinion thereupon, from time to time, to the house, have proceeded to consider of the present state of the corn trade, with a view to inquire into the abuses supposed to exist therein, and to examine any regulations which it might be thought expedient to propose, in order to the more regular and satisfactory management of the business in future: they now offer the general result of this investigation to the house, together with the evidence which has

been

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