A Political Episode. 171 



others were fighting for political liberty. In 1794 the 

 Boroughreeve, Thomas Walker, was prosecuted by the 

 Government. He had been appointed two years before 

 president of the Constitutional Society, certainly not a 

 very formidable title, and one savouring little of opposition 

 to law. 



A Political Episode. 



In contrast to the work of the Society we give here a few 

 extracts from * Old Political Tracts,' sent by Dr. Bottomley, 

 and more explicit than the allusions already made. 



* Thomas Walker and Samuel Jackson were respec- 

 tively president and secretary of the Manchester Constitu- 

 tional Society. Two of the members of the Society being 

 in Paris upon private business, they were desired by the 

 Society to communicate with the Patriotic Societies of 

 France, for the purpose of establishing a correspondence 

 upon any occasion in which the rights, interests, and hap- 

 piness of mankind were concerned. Such a correspondence 

 was proposed on the part of the Manchester Society, and 

 was acceded to by the Society of Friends of the Constitu- 

 tion in Paris, commonly known by the appellation of the 

 Club of the Jacobins. The deputies of the Constitutional 

 Society of Manchester were Thomas Cooper and James 

 Watt, junior. They presented their address to the Society 

 of the Friends of the Constitution, sitting at the Jacobins 

 in Paris, on April 13, 1792. In the absence of the Presi- 

 dent this address was replied to by the Vice-President, M. 

 Carra. In this address he says, " Already several civic 

 feasts have been celebrated in almost every department of 

 the empire, consecrating the alliance which we have sworn 

 anew to observe with all the patriots of England in the 



