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reared and educated together; never one day or night apart for eighteen years. The thought of him banished every other idea from my mind; I set off to him that very night; arrived in London in four days, as quickly as I could travel. I wrote to the Duke of Portland for permission to be admitted to my brother; I received his answer, at five o'clock next morning, by four king's messengers with a warrant to arrest me; and from my bed was I taken to the house of Mr. Sylvester, and that evening was I taken off for Ireland. We landed about ten miles from Dublin, at night; I saved Mr. Sylvester and the Bow Street Constable, my companion, from a watery grave, and conducted them safe to Dublin, where we arrived at three o'clock in the morning. I now, for the first time since I left London, lay down, and had not been in my bed more than three hours, when Mr. Sylvester awaked me, to tell me, that another king's messenger had, that moment, arrived from the Duke of Portland to take me back instantly to London. This was about seven o'clock in the morning; about twelve, Mr. Sylvester informed me, that MR. COOKE desired to see me at the castle. Mark the instability of fortune. Behold O'CONNOR, brought by a constable to have the liberty of being admitted to the presence of Mr. Edward Cooke! I did see him; the interview was not of long duration; the conversation was not of many words; but it is important. I asked him the meaning of these proceedings; what post-haste treason I had committed in the four days that I travelled from Cork to London, above 400 miles. Hear his answer, "We do not pretend to "have any charge against you; but we "know your power, and suspect your in"clination; had my advice been taken, "you should not have been brought to "trial in Cork. My opinion was, that you should have been kept in con"finement under the suspension of the "Habeas Corpus Act, and it now appears "I was right." Well, that afternoon, about two o'clock, I was obliged to set off back again towards London, where we arrived on the fourth morning, having been forced to perform journies of nearly 1,200 miles, and cross the Irish sea three times, in thirteen days and nights, during the whole of which time I never was permitted to take off my clothes, nor to lay down for more than seven hours! I was kept in custody at the house of Mr. Sylvester till my brother's acquittal at Maidstone, when we were both taken to Dublin, where we

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were lodged in the same prison room, on the 2nd of June, 1798. In July a special commission was opened in Dublin, for the trial of all those against whom any charges had been exhibited; amongst whom neither my brother nor I were. Three had been executed. MR. BYRNE, a relation of the Marchioness of Buckingham, was condemned, and was to be executed on the 24th of July. On Sunday, the 22nd, some negociation was set on foot, in a way never yet ascertained, between the government and some of the state prisoners in Dublin, of which it appears that neither my brother nor I had any intimation till Tuesday, when Mr. Dobbs and the Sheriff of Dublin entered our apartment, and shewed us a paper, purporting to be an acquiescence, on the part of seventy-three of the prisoners, to give information of any arms, ammunition, and plans of warfare; and to emigrate, on condition of a general amnesty, and of pardon for Mr. Byrne, who was to die that day, and for Mr. Oliver Bond, who was, at that moment, on his trial, if he SHOULD be condemned. My brother and I declined entering into any agreement. Mr. Byrne was ordered for instant execution, which instantly took place; Mr. Bond was to die on the Friday. We heard no more of the paper, till Thursday evening late; when the same Mr. Dobbs, accompanied by Mr. Samuel Nelson, one of the prisoners from another of the prisons, came to that where my brother and I lay. All the prisoners were called together; Mr. Dobbs produced a letter he had just received from Mr. Cooke, stating, "that if my brother " and I would enter into a treaty with the government, by which we should engage "to give every information in our power "of all matters relating to the Rebellion, "and particularly our relations with fo

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reign states, there should be a general "amnesty, Mr. Bond should be pardoned, "and we should be permitted to emigrate "to any country not at war with England; "but that, if we persisted in our refusal, "military.commissions should be issued in "the north for the trial of the prisoners "there, the courts should proceed in Dublin,

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follow close upon our declaration. It appears, that my brother was influenced by these considerations, and to save an unarmed people, he consented to sacrifice himself; but I heard these such proposals and threats with a very different ear. My answer was, that I set at defiance all their machinations; that I was ready to meet any charge that could be brought against me; but that I never would enter into any agreement with the Castle of Dublin during my life. Nothing now was left unattempted to induce me, by very fair promises, or to intimidate me by the most alarming threats, to sign this agreement. All were unavailing. At length MR. MARSDEN came, as if secretly and as a friend, to let me know what, by chance, he had heard at the Castle. That it was determined to seize my estate, if I did not comply.-My answer was, that I was prepared against every thing; That I was absolute never to comply. In consequence of which, orders were dispatched to the officer commanding at Bandon, to send detachments of horse and foot to take possession of my house, which they did, to the amount of between 2 and 300 men; They expelled four of my infant children, and my servants; the officers broke open my cellars, drank all my wine; they ordered the men to kill my sheep and oxen, on which the whole party subsisted; they converted my iron gates into shoes for their horses; They made firing of windows, doors, and frames of the house and offices; burned all my farming utensils; destroyed my gardens, and the wall trees, the hot-house, green-house, and all the plants; turned all their horses out into young plantations, which were all ruined; stole every thing moveable; and committed every species of devastation for eight or nine weeks that they remained there; For which I never received one penny as remuneration, from that day to this. After this visitation, it was again demanded of me to sign the paper. My answer was always the same. Still was I kept a prisoner; and when those who had entered into the agreement were sent to Scotland, I was forced by Justice Atkinson and a company of Buckinghamshire Militia, at the very point of the bayonet, into a coach, conveyed on board a tender, and conducted to Fort George, in which military garrison I was kept for a year and ten months, where by the lenient treatment I received, I lost the use of my limbs, and was reduced to the very verge of life; at the end of which time I was brought to London, and LET

Go on the 24th January 1801, upon a dreadful recognizance to some immense amount, not to return to Ireland, and to reside in such part of England as the king of England should, from time to time, appoint (and Middlesex was named) during the then war. I took a house at Southgate in Middlesex, where I resided for half a year; but having no land there, I looked out for a place with land, to occupy my time. I found one to suit me at Elstree. As I was a stranger and as the rent amounted to £.500 a year, I applied to my old friend and companion Sir Francis Burdett, who immediately became my seCurity. There I lived for one year, when, the treaty of Amiens taking place, I was desirous of returning to my own country, and applied to Sir Richard Ford, the magistrate, before whom I acknowledged the recognizance, to get it up. In vain. After many fruitless efforts, he, at length, informed me, that it was determined never to give it up, as long as I retained the power of living in the South of Ireland. I judged it better to part with CONNOR VILLE than be shut out from my country. I got A LICENSE to go to Ireland, and, on the 1st of May, 1803, I let a lease for ever of the place of my earliest days. Whereupon, I got up my recognizance immediately. I purchased, for forty thousand pounds, from Lord Wellesley, the Castle and Estate of DUNGAN, within a few miles of Dublin, where I have resided with my family ever since, coming over occasionally to visit Sir Francis Burdett and a few other friends in England, where, though I have estates; I have never been known, directly or indirectly, to interfere in any concerns of the country. I never attended à public meeting or a public dinner; though I have many friends, I seldom associate with any one but Sir Francis Burdett and his family.-My fortune is ample; and, neither I nor any one of my family, ever eat one morsel that was not produced from our own estates. never received any of the people's money, in the shape of pensions and places, nor was any man's meal or comforts ever diminished by one of us. Surely, then, I must be a most disloyal Traitor! In fine, many, very many, of the people of Ireland love me; the Militia was attached to me. I surrendered on the solemn faith of a proclamation, which faith, towards me, was broken; I protected Capt. Roche; I defended the Judge; I saved Mr. Sylvester and the Bow Street Constable. There is no kind of place that

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has not been my prison; my own house, camps, guard-houses, taverns and hotels; castles, wherries, packet-boats, messenger's houses, court houses, brideweils, state prisons (as they are called,) tenders, garrisons, palaces; and, as a prisoner, have I been travelled about from my own house in the south to Carrickfergus in the north of Ireland; from the western extremity of Wales, to Maidstone, nearly the eastern extremity of England; from Dublin to Fort George in Scotland; within forty miles of John O'Grot's house, to London. In mail coaches, hackney coaches, post carriages, and carts; on foot and on horseback. And all because (for I know of no other cause) that, ten years before the French Revolution, I saw the absolute necessity of a Reform in the Commons in Ireland, which was acknowledged afterwards by the factions of England and Ireland; and because I would not consent to a legislative Union. which I regarded as equally ruincus to both parts of the kingdom.On the whole, then, let the people of England, now that they are in possession of their sober senses, decide between my accusers and me: whether the laws were infringed by ME, who have gone through every ordeal, who have always courted investigation and enquiry; who for years NEVER CEASED TO DEMAND TRIAL; or by THEM, who sought the protection of a BILL OF INDEMNITY, passed by an assembly of which they themselves made a part."Such, reader, is the political history, such are the crimes of Mr. O' CON- | NOR: Such is the person, to have had whom in his house, at the time when the army stormed it, was, if the public had been still fools enough, to be set down to the account of Sir Francis, and as proof presumptive, at least, that he had wicked designs, designs against the peace and safety of the country! Reader, if you be an Englishman, and have neither job nor contract nor place nor unmerited-pension nor defalcation in your accounts with the public; in short, if you profit from no species of public robbery, say, how should you like to be treated as Mr. O'Connor was? How should you like this sort of treatment? How should you like to have your house, your gardens, your fields, your plantations, laid waste and destroyed, as his were! How should you like to be hurried from prison to prison to be

thrown into dungeon after dungeon; and when you demanded trial, refused that trial? But, surely, I need not ask these questions. Well, then, is there to be no feeling for him, because he is an Irishman? Are we ready to avow this to the irish people? I trust not; I trust that we shall prove to that unfortunate people, that we feel for them as for ourselves; that we are as ready to resent their wrongs as we are our own; that, in a word, we regard them as our countrymen, and that we are resolved to consider their enemies as our enemies. This is the way to produce an union with Ireland; a real union; an union of the hearts of the people of the whole kingdom; and this sort of union it is that the Boroughmongers and their hirelings would wish to prevent. Hitherto, indeed, they have prevented it. They have never missed an opportunity of misrepresenting the people of Ireland. They have caused the people of England to believe, that those of Ireland were bent upon a surrender of their country to France, and that all their demands relating to political and civil liberty, were mere pretences. What evils have not sprung from this accursed source !I beseech the reader to consider, that it is not in nature, that the people of Ireland should not hate us, if we persist in our credence to these calumnies. It is, on all hands, agreed, that Ireland is our vulnerable part. Does it not, then, become us to strengthen that part; to use all the means in our power of regaining the good-will of the Irish people, and to induce them to make common-cause with us against the common enemy? And, what can be more opposite to this than reviving the memory of those cruel times, to which Mr. O'Connor's Narrative refers; than tearing the skin from the hardly-healed and hardly-hidden wound! What he has said, he has been compelled to say. He has been calumniated in the most foul and infamous manner. To remain silent might have been construed into a consciousness of guilt. His calumniators, therefore, are answerable for the revival of the metnory of that, which he was willing should be forgotten, and which nothing but boroughmongering malignity could have induced any one to attempt to revive. WM. COBBETT.

Botley, May 9, 1810.

Published by R. BAGSHAW, Brydges-Street, Covent Garden :-Sold also by J. BUDD, Pall-Mall, LONDON:-Printed by T. C. Hansard, Peterborough-Court, Fleet-Street,

VOL. XVII. No. 20.] LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1810.

[Price 1s.

"Petition me no Petitions."

TOM THUMB THE GREAT.

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Tower, and especially when I came to that part, where a description is given of the manner, in which the Livery drew up, on the Esplanade, to be received by Sir Francis; when I figured to myself this scene of the audience and the speeches, it came afresh and all of a sudden, across my mind, how wise the men must have been, how fit to rule a nation the men must have been, who were the first cause of all this!There can be no doubt, that the proceedings against Sir Francis were intended to lower him; to humble him; to pull him doren; and, indeed, this object was openly avowed, even by those who voted against the commitment to the Tower and for the reprimand. The scheme has succeeded to admiration!

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. SIR FRANCIS BURDETT AND THE LIVERY. -The Meeting of the Livery of London was (at page 716) mentioned, in my last Number. The Resolutions and Petition, agreed to at that meeting, will be found in a subsequent page of this present Number, followed by an account of the procession of the Livery, and by the Speech of Sir Francis to thein, when they, with Mr. SHERIFF WOOD at their head, presented their Rezolution of Thanks to him in person, on the Esplanade, in the Tower. Their petition to the Honourable House was rejected; it was not suffered to lie on the table of the Honourable House; and, a late petition of theirs, relative to the calamitous expedition to Walcheren, was The public will not have forgotten net received by the king; the Livery were refused the honour of presenting it to the king, either on the throne, or at the levee; they were refused the honour of coming into the presence of the king. Well! They have not been refused the honour of coming into the presence of Sir Francis! They have met with no refusal there. At the Tower they were welcome.

the celebrated debate of Tuesday, the 10th of April; nor will they have forgotten the effect, which, for a few days, that debate produced. Where is its effect now? Where was the effect of that debate, when the Livery of London were presenting their address to Sir Francis, in the Tower? Mr. Curwen and Sir John Anstruther rally round" His Majesty's The manner in which this matter was government ;" and the Livery of London conducted is so interesting in itself, and rally round Sir Francis. This is all very may be of so much consequence in the natural; and it is just as it should be. way of example, that I have inserted the There is great difference in the way of whole account of it, as published in the thinking of different men: much depends "ALFRED, OR WESTMINSTER GAZETTE," upon taste, in politics as well as in other where I find it given in the fullest man- things; but, I dare say, that, if Sir ner, and where the Speech of Sir Francis Francis had to choose, he would as soon appears to have been inserted the most have the Livery of London rally round correctly.To this Speech I need not him, as he would have Mr. Curwen and call the attention of any one, it having Sir John Anstruther.When the Livery been already read by every creature in and Sir Francis were upon the Esplanade, England, capable of reading. Neither in the Tower, a reflecting looker-on need I point out any particular parts of would have been apt to exclaim: “and it as worthy of remark, the whole being "all this is the work of Mr. LETHBRIDGE! too plain to be misunderstood, and every "Mr. Lethbridge (who would ever have word being of importance to the cause of" thought it!) has produced, in the world, public liberty. It is calculated to have a " events like this! Mr. Lethbridge; aye great and lasting effect; and, for this," Mr. Lethbridge, is the father of an era in amongst many other things, we have to "our history!"Not at all. Mr. Leththank the present ministers and those who bridge is as innocent of the whole thing, or "rally round them." As I was reading of any part of it, as Mr. Dudley Ward or the account of the procession to the Mr. Robert Ward or Mr. Lyttleton of

Mr. Lamb or Mr. Barham or Mr. Ponsonby or Mr. Wilberforce or Mr. Windham or Mr. Adam or Sir John Anstruther, late. Judge in India. The event has arisen out of the system of government, now in practice, of which system it is one of the natural fruits.The ministers plan and execute the calamitous, the deathdealing, the unspeakably disgraceful expedition to Walcheren. The Honourable House resolve to have an inquiry into the planning and prosecuting of that expedition, which inquiry the ministry oppose, but which is finally carried. The inquiry being about to begin, Mr. Yorke avails himself and the ministry of the standing order for the shutting of people out of the gallery, by which means the evidence is retarded in its way to the people, and the knowledge of the speeches and questions of the several members is wholly kept from them. Mr. Gale Jones says, in print, that this conduct of Mr. Yorke is an outrage on public feeling. Mr. Yorke complains of this to the House. The House put Mr. Gale Jones in Newgate for having used the words. In a day or two after this, Mr. Yorke receives, from the minister, a sinecure place, for life, of 2,7001. a year, to be paid out of taxes raised upon the people. Sir Francis Burdett publishes an argument to show that the House has wrongfully imprisoned Mr. Gale Jones. The House order Sir Francis to be imprisoned in the Tower of London. Troops, an army, are sent to aid in the execution of the order. The Citizens of London go in form to the Tower, and thank Sir Francis Burdett for his conduct. Thus, we trace back the cause to the Walcheren Expedition. But, we must not stop there. The cause is further back. It lies in that system, without the existence of which the ministers never would have so planned and so executed that or any other expedition.

LORD COCHRANE'S SPEECH. — The speech of his lordship, made on the subject of the Navy Estimates, on the 11th instant, is worthy of particular attention, and, as such, I shall give it a place here, in the same manner as I did the speech of the Speaker about a year ago. Ilis lordship deals in facts; and, certainly, more striking facts than those here exhibited to the public, it would be difficult to collect together.The nation grudges nothing to those who really serve it, in whatever department it may be. But it does, at a time like the present, grudge

its resources to sinecure placemen and pensioners, who have never performed any services at all; and who do not, because they cannot, pretend to have performed any. -Without further preface, I insert the Speech, which will not fail to speak for itself.

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"Sir; Indisposition has prevented me from submitting to the consideration of this House, those matters respecting which I had given notice, and the same cause has disabled me from paying that attention to the Navy Estimate, which I should have done, and which I might have done, had this Estimate, completed in Feb. 7, been printed and delivered to us in proper time, instead of a few days ago, for which, however, I suppose, there was some weighty reason. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, enough will probably ap pear, to shew the nature of the thing, and first, as to the manifest injustice of the Pension List.-An Admiral, worn out in the Service, is superannuated at 410 year, a Captain of the Navy at 2191; while the Clerk of the Ticket Office retires on 700 7.-The Widow of Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell has one third of the allowance to the widow of a Commissioner of the Navy.-Martha, Widow of Admiral Bourmaster, 75.; Mary Hammond, a Commissioner's widow, 300% Elizabeth, Widow of Captain Blake, 601.; Elizabeth, Widow of Commissioner Lane, 3001.-Four Daughters of the gallant Captain Courtenay, 12. 10s. each; Daughter of Admiral Sir Andrew Mitchell, 251.; Two Daughters of Admiral Epworth, 251. each; Daughter of Admiral Keppel, 251.; Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Mann, who was killed in action, 251.; four Children of Admiral Moriarty, 25 l. each.—Thus 13 daughters of Admirals or Captains, several of whose Fathers fell in the Service of the Country, receive from the gratitude of the Nation a sum less than Dame Mary Saxton, the Widow of a Commissioner.This Pension List is not formed on comparative Rank or Merit, length of services, or any rational principle, but appears to be dependant on Parliamentary influence alone; for Lieutenant Ellison, who lost his arm, is allowed 91 1. 58.; and Captain Johnson, who lost his arm, has only 45 l. 12s. 6d.―Lieutenant Arden, who lost his arm, has 911. 5s.; Lieutenant Campbell, lost his leg, has 40 L.; and poor Lieutenant Chambers, who lost both his legs, has only 30l. while Sir A.

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