360 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1810. 



redress and relief, if the bare state- 

 ment of the wrongs and griev- 

 ances of which we complain be re- 

 jected ? We also beg your honour- 

 able House to believe, that, in the 

 language we may have occasion, 

 and are indeed, compelled to em- 

 ploy, no offence is intended to 

 your honourable House. 



" The circumstance which most 

 deeply afflicts us, and which most 

 stron«Iy impels us at this time to 

 approach your honourable House, 

 is, what appears to us to have 

 been, on your part, a violation of 

 the personal security of the peo- 

 ple of the land. We humbly con- 

 ceive, that without law,andagainst 

 Jaw, you have imprisoned two of 

 your fellow subjects ; and that, 

 without a trial, without a hearing, 

 you have condemned them. Law 

 requires legal process and trial by 

 jury of our equals; justice de- 

 mands that no person shall be pro- 

 secutor, juror, judge, and execu- 

 tioner, in his own cause. W^e beg 

 leave to express our conviction 

 that this eternal principle of im- 

 mutable justice cannot beannulled 

 by any House of Commons — by 

 any king — by any parliament — by 

 any legislature upon earth. But 

 it appears to us that your honour- 

 able House lias, in the instances of 

 Mr. John Gale Jones, and sir 

 Francis Burdett, assumed, accu- 

 mulated, and exercised ail these 

 offices. 



" We feel it a duty which we 

 owe to you, to ourselves, to our 

 posterity, to state that, in our 

 conception, this jurisdiction is un- 

 founded ; and we humbly but 

 firmly declare our opinion against 

 the existence of this power in any 

 hands — a jurisdiction unknown— 

 a power above the law, and which 

 could be enforced only by military 



violence — a violence made mani- 

 fest by the breaking open of an 

 Eglishraan's castle, and by the 

 preceding andj subsequent mur- 

 der of peaceable and unoffending 

 citizens. 



" Permit us humbly to observe, 

 that the construction of your ho- 

 nourable House prevents our sur- 

 prise at this conduct of your ho- 

 nourable House. We will not 

 enter into the details, so often and 

 so ably stated to your honourable 

 House, by which it appears, that 

 upwards of three hundred mem- 

 bers of your honourable House, in 

 England and Wales only, are not 

 elected by the people, in any 

 honest sense of the word people, 

 but are sent to your honourable 

 House by the absolute nomination 

 or powerful influence of about one 

 hundred and fifty peers and others, 

 as averred in a petition to your 

 honourable House in the year 

 1793, and which remains on your 

 journals uncontroverted. This is 

 the great constitutional disease of 

 our country. This is the true 

 root of all the evils, corruptions 

 and oppressions, under which we 

 labour. If it be not eradicated, 

 the nation must perish. 



" In support of this our sincere 

 conviction, we need only refer to 

 the never-to-be-forgotten vote of 

 your honourable House, refusing 

 to examine evidence on a charge 

 against lord Castlereagh and Mr. 

 S. Perceval, then two of the king's 

 ministers, for trafficking in seats 

 in your honourable House. 



" We remember well, thatwhen 

 it was gravely averred, and proof 

 offered, in a petition which stands 

 on your journals, and the com- 

 plaints whereof are now unredress- 

 ed for more than twenty years, 

 * That seats for legislation in the 



