No

passes with the protecting price at 80s. the houses, I must protest strongly against it. quarter, I shall not raise my rents-and One cannot now walk the streets without if it does not pass, I shall not lower them. running the risk of being rode over by The country has been reduced to such a dragcons. I was told by a gentleman, situation of difficulties, that, according to that in going along the streets the other gentlemen on both sides of the question, night, some soldiers came up to him, and we have only a choice of evils. Now I told him to go home. The gentleman have a measure to propose which is a said to them :-" I do not know that marpositive good, and will remedy every evil. tial law is yet established;-you may go I know that some gentlemen have said that home if you please, for I will not." The it is improper to hash up the subject of the noble lord may say that this military force Corn Laws with Parliamentary Reform. is necessary to put down the disturbances. Now I maintain, that the one measure But I say, and will maintain that they necessarily arises out the other, in so far have been guilty of murder, and that they as the enormous taxation from which the had no power to call out the military to Corn Bill takes its rise, is only necessary ride over the people. This was not the because the Government choose to keep up force which the constitution required to an establishment which will be destructive be called into action for the preservation to the constitution. I am borne out in of the peace. Surely the inhabitants of this view of the subject by what was lately this city might safely be entrusted with delivered in another place, by a noble lord the defence of their own property. (Grenville), whose eyes were open to the man knows whether he is safe in going true situation of the country, who said he along the streets, if people are to be was astonished that any set of gentlemen placed in ambuscade, and allowed to fire in England could with patience endure the through doors and windows. [Cries of 'No, proposition of such a peace establishment; no']. I go by the inquest of the coroner, that if they pressed this establishment, it from which it appears that there was could not be disguised that their intention no justification whatever for their firing was to subvert the once free constitution of through the windows-that there was no this country, and to establish a military tumult whatever at the time the unfortudespotism in its stead; and that in such a nate man was killed. But even if there case he should no longer think it worth were, ought they not rather to display his while to attend mock debates on any their force than to conceal it, to prevent subject in parliament. I appeal to every the necessity of shedding blood? No man member in the House, if any discussion on would think of placing steel traps or spring any subject proposed by the ministry, can guns in his grounds to protect his probe viewed in any other light than a mock perty against thieves, without first putting debate; and if any man who sits in the up some notice of it. There never was seat which the noble lord opposite (lord such a thing heard of before in this counCastlereagh) occupies, cannot carry any try, as putting men in houses with arms to measure he pleases, by a great majority? fire with on the people; to invite the Whatever falls from him is received as if people as it were to attack, by shewing he were clothed with the mantle of the no preparation for defence, and then to prophet-there he sits as an oracle, and destroy them in this manner. What could all the people bow obedience to him. be a stronger proof that the measures re[Laugh.] I have been represented, Sir, sorted to were not necessary, than the inas a friend to the Corn Bill; if I were so, stance which my own case affords? I have I would not deny it; for my own opinion been supposed by the people to be a friend of the electors of Westminster is, that they to the Corn Bill, and have been reprewould despise me if I were to give an sented as such in most of the public papers; opinion in this House, different from the and yet my house and person have not opinion really entertained by me, by way been attacked, though protected by no of paying court to them. But, to cut the guard or military force; for I should have matter very short, I will never avail my-preferred seeing my house razed to the self of the scandalous Septennial Act; and shall at all times be ready to resign my seat in this House, to whatever person they may think more worthy of it. With respect to the system now adopted of calling out the military and firing out of

ground to the recurring to any such un-
constitutional means, or the having it be-
lieved that I could entertain any appre-
hensions for my safety.
The reports
stated with such confidence in the news-
papers were, however, very generally cre-

to throw off from his own shoulders to those of his neighbour, a burthen which all are unable to bear. I would wish to see an end put to this miserable system, and to see an equal protection extended to all classes of the community. I shall only make this farther observation, that I am sorry that the country gentlemen should allow themselves to be made the cat's-paw of any ministry, as they have done on this occasion. For this and numerous other evils, I defy them to point out any remedy but one-the renovation of the constitution.

Mr. Robinson rose under great agitation, and spoke nearly as follows:-The House,

dited. The people must therefore have believed that in supporting the Bill, I acted from an honest motive. Is it very extraordinary that no respect should be paid by the public to majorities of hundreds of the House of Commons? In my opinion, it is not this or that measure which the people should take on themselves to determine against the voice of the Commons; they ought at once to strike at the root of the evil-the cause of this difference between the sentiments of the people and the determinations of parliament. If the representation were once restored to its purity, the House would not have its table so often loaded with petitions. With respect to the present Bill, II hope, will easily believe me, when I say think that there is a great mistake as to the benefits which some persons think they will derive from its being thrown out, and especially as to the advantage which will be derived from this by the labouring classes. The only persons who can be supposed to derive any profit in such a case, are the great master manufacturers, who, by the cheapness of labour, would be enabled to export their manufactures cheaper; but the labourer can gain nothing by it. The master manufacturers complain of the high price of corn, as it raises the wages of their labourers, and prevents them from selling their goods cheap abroad. But it would be quite the same in either case with the labouring classes, whose reward would continue unaltered. It is, therefore, a mistake to suppose that they are at all interested in the question. I think the land proprietors have, in this case, been very unfairly dealt with, and that they have been held up in a very false light. What! are people to tell me what rents I am to have for my estate, and what I am to do with my property? If we wish to have the country wealthy and prosperous, every man must be left to enjoy his property unmolested and no man or set of men, no government, have a right to interfere with the concerns of any individual. I wish to have every thing free, and to have no protections of any kind. I would have no protection to trade, no protection to agriculture, no protection to any sort of people. We bear every day of the agricultural interest being hostile to the manufacturing interest, and then we hear of the monied interest, and other interests; every class of the community is thus represented as having a distinct interest from the others; we see every man trying

that I never rose to address them with the same feelings before. I should be destitute of every feeling of a gentleman and an honest man, if I were not deeply affected with the unfortunate accident which the hon. baronet has just alluded to. I can assure the hon. baronet that in some of the points alluded to by him, he is extremely mistaken. If the hon. baronet thinks that soldiers were placed in ambush in my house, for the purpose which he has stated, he is very much mistaken indeed. These soldiers were not placed in ambush; they were in the inside of my house, because they would otherwise have had no protection from without-the windows were all destroyed-the door had been driven in-the house had been entered three different times by the mob, and nothing but the sudden appearance of the soldiers could have prevented them from sacrificing myself, if the mob.could have found me, and all my family. I do believe, in my conscience, that the lives of the people protecting my property would have been sacrificed, if they had not been protected by the soldiers. The soldiers remained in the House the first night, but they were not there when it was first attacked. I knew the artifices and misrepresentations which had been used to inflame the people against me; and I felt that I owed to those persons whom it was my duty to protect, to withdraw them from the house to a place of security. The house was broken into on the first attack; and the mob threatened to murder the servants if they did not say where I was to be found. Notwithstanding the protection of which the hon, baronet complained, the House will be so good as to recollect that my house was attacked two or three times after it was first assailed. The

Government, I should have been prepared on the present occasion to have passed them over in silence. This evening, however, his address has been of a far different kind; and I think he has travelled most widely out of the course that I should have been disposed to allow to go unnoticed, when he made reflections upon the steps that either the Government or individuals had adopted for the defence of their persons and property against the disgraceful outrages of a lawless rabble. If the hon. baronet had been in his place on a former night (and I am satisfied that if he were not in his heart a sincere friend to the Corn Bill, and fully convinced of its expediency, he would have been in his place), he would have heard, as we all did, that no charge was directed against Government, against those whom he contends have broken the law, for unnecessary severity in the mode in which they af forded protection to those who had solicited it. But such an accusation, I think, is a little too much from the hon. baronet, from whose mouth (on a former occasion, which the House well remembers, when lives were endangered by his improvident

soldiers had withdrawn at day-light, the populace returned, broke into the house, and pursued the servants to the upper stories, who had little hope of preserving their lives. Under these circumstances I did make application to the Secretary of State to protect the house; which I beg to inform the hon. baronet is not mine, but one which I only temporarily occupy, and which it was therefore the more my duty to protect. The protection I sought was afforded, but it is not true that the troops were placed in ambush; for before a single shot was fired, the soldiers and servants had shewn themselves at the windows. They warned the people against making any attempt upon the house, which would be repelled, and. that the consequences must rest with those who commenced the attack. It will be observed also, I hope, that before the Coroner the evidence of any of my servants was not taken; and although no verdict has yet been passed, yet, whatever it be, the occasion of it will ever give me the acutest pain. [From extreme feeling the hon. member was unable to proceed]. I do conjure the hon. baronet, if he values the peace of society, if he values the lives of his fellow-resistance to legal authority) we heard creatures, as he states, that he will abstain from making remarks of such a nature. They can produce no effect but to put to hazard the existence of the peaceable and well-disposed inhabitants. In my own particular situation I must necessarily be more exposed to the vengeance of the deluded populace; I know, when the anxiety which has been expressed and shewn to discover and to trace me, that that vengeance might be satisfied. If I bring a measure forward that is obnoxious, I know that I must expose myself to such hazards; but when the hon. baronet speaks of his own disinterestedness upon this question, I can, on my part, assure him that I, and those nearly and dearly connected with me, are equally disinterested; for by the success of the measure neither they nor I will gain a single sixpence. I think it is the duty of the hon. baronet to abstain from using such expressions and language, as those which he has this night employed, of the impropriety of which, in the existing state of affairs, he must be sensible, after one moment's reflection on the consequences by which they may be attended. [Hear, hear!]

Lord Castlereagh said:-If, Sir, the hon. baronet had confined himself to his usual topics and to his usual invectives against

repeated with such vehemence, the established adage, that every man's house is his castle.' [Loud cheers] What! is it the hon. baronet that now maintains the illegality of self-preservation? Is it the hon. baronet that now insists that an Englishman has not a right to defend himself in his castle, to protect his life and his property against an infuriated multitude-a resistance too, not in violation and defiance of the laws of his country, as was the case with the hon. baronet? Now the hon. baronet changes his tone: he who defends his family and his property, against a lawless mob, if any accident occurs, is guilty of murder; and he who defies the Constitution and refuses obedience to the laws, if lives be lost, is a true patriot, and a loyal subject. I trust that my temper is able to carry me through the ordinary difficulties belonging to the situation I hold, and to the part I am under the necessity of taking in the discussions of this House; but when I hear every dictate of common sense, and every feeling of a loyal nature so grossly outraged, I confess I am unable to speak without being in danger of doing violence even to the widest limits of the freedom of debate. I am sure that the hon. baronet cannot be sincere in his declaration

ing the government and subverting the constitution. If they are not disposed to unite their forces to his for the attainment of his loyal and patriotic purposes, I wish to know whether they are disposed practically to give countenance to sentiments like those this night avowed-calculated only to inflame the diaffected and disturb the peaceable? If such be not their intention, let them assert it and vindicate themselves. Let them, before they take the desperate plunge, survey, if they can, without trembling, the abyss on whose brink they stand, and in which they will be swallowed if they follow the hon. baronet in the most equivocal opinions he has this night delivered-opinions which, if put in practice, would shake to ruins the whole fabric of our constitution, and compel us to abandon the protection of all interests, landed as well as commercial.

respecting his opinion upon this Bill, and in the arguments he employed to his constituents. I say he cannot be sincere, or why did he not make his appearance in parliament to oppose it? Why did he not come down before this night, if he so thought, and say that he was not a supporter of the Bill? Is he an opposer of it? Is there any man who has heard the speech he has made, that does not perceive that he has touched all the arguments on which the support of this Bill is rested? Has he not declared that he is an enemy to affording protection to our manufactures, one of which was the manufacture of corn? Who has founded this measure upon any other principle than that you cannot protect one system of capital without affording protection to all, unless indeed it is meant to destroy that species of manufacture, or system of capital, that is not protected? Thus, while the principles and practice of the hon. Mr. M. A. Taylor said, that though he baronet are so diametrically opposite, the had at different times wished to offer his whole comes to nothing more than an opinion on the subject of the Bill, he had anxiety to subvert the constitution of the abstained from doing so, because he saw country. [Repeated cheers]. It is not the that the minds of the people were indestruction of any particular government flamed. There was no man more atthat he desires (for this testimony I have tached to the constitution of the country from the hon. baronet upon more than than himself; nor could any one be more one occasion, that if the present system is ready to deprecate any departure from it: to exist, it cannot be administered by but so far from thinking that the milibetter hands than those who are now en-tary had been improperly employed, he trusted with it), but he aims with a sweeping hand at the complete destruction of our constitution. He comes tardily from his retreat to attend his duty, not to oppose the Corn Bill, not to destroy the Government, but to subvert the Constitution. He comes from seclusion and retirement upon this favourable opportunity, to invite the opponents of this measure (who are among the steadiest and most distinguished friends of the constitution), to assist him, not in resisting the Corn Bill, but the work he has in view-far different in its means and object. I do trust that those who have resisted the progress of this measure, to such an extent as to ascertain the true sense of Parliament upon the subject, will pause before they range themselves under the banners of the hon. baronet. I do call upon them to reflect seriously before they embark in a common cause of destruction of every thing admirable and respectable with the hon. baronet [No, no!' and cheers from all sides]. Let them hesitate before, with their eyes opened to the designs of the hon. baronet, they join with him in shak

thought the Government highly praiseworthy for calling them out with a view to put down a mob, which threatened destruction both to the favourers and opposers of it. Every man had a right to defend his castle, and those who attacked it must take the consequences of their temerity. Without such resistance on such occasions, no man could safely live in this country. If the worthy baronet had a fancy to have his house razed to the ground, let him indulge his propensity. The gentlemen over the way had done only what was just. Had they succeeded or had they not? Would not more blood have been shed if these measures had not been resorted to? The worthy baronet seemed to like the company of the hustings in Palace-yard better than he liked that House, or the company in it; but he could not agree with any part of the speech of the hon. baronet, because he conceived that he had a right to the protection of the Government; and without affording it as they had done, he should have conceived they had not done their duty. Those who did not like to

live under such a system, had better, per- | story I have heard regarding one of the haps, abandon the country altogether.