JB/137/053/002

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of you with your Pikes yet who could riotously and wantonly
plunge their sabres into the Bosoms of the Women because
they knew the men had no weapons to protect them. The subject
of this address to you is to point out the necessity of your
holding another public Meeting to pass those resolutions and to
make that Appeal to the Nation on the necessity of Uniting
to obtain a fair and equal representation which was intended
on the last meeting And when I recommend this I would also
earnestly recommend that you be prepared to act on the defensive
in case a similar attack as was made on the last
meeting should again be attempted I pledge myself again to make
one with you should I be at liberty at the time the meeting
shall take place We must not be alarmed at a Grand Jury
echoing the idle and frivolous charge of the Magistrates of Manchester
that to meet to discuss a question relative to our future
Interest and welfare is a conspiracy to subvert the Laws and Government
of the Country We have a duty to perform to ourselves
our families and our Country therefore neither the fear of pains or
penalties arrests or imprisonments nay even death itself should
not deter us from performing that duty If the House of Commons
(meaning the said Commons House of Parliament of this Realm)
in its present degraded constitution be the Government of the Country
or part of the Law of the Land then let us boast of the epithet
of Conspirators and boldly declare that our object is to subvert such
a House of Commons and so alter it into a house of the Representatives
of the whole people of Great Britain and Ireland
We have no secret intentions. To make conspiracy a crime it is necessary
that some secret and malicious motive should actuate the
conspirators. There is no such thing existing amongst us Men of
Lancashire and Cheshire but I will tell you where a criminal
conspiracy does exist and where its baneful influence has been
most deeply felt. In the first place there is a holy alliance or in
other words a Criminal Conspiracy with the Despots of Europe
to abridge and destroy the liberties of their subjects and to make
their own authority absolute. On a smaller scale and next in
rotation there is a conspiracy in the Cabinet or the administration
of affairs in this Country to destroy the middle
class of Society and to bring this country into the same condition
as Spain at present and France before its Revolution. These
are Conspiracies which that inflict the most deadly evils on Society.
The great mass of the People of this Country are not only deprived
of even the least shadow of liberty but are deprived of the necessaries
of life and their only means of obtaining them a fair requital
for their hard labour. Is it not in the course of nature that you
should conspire together to get rid of such evils as those? Yet you
do not conspire secretly — your conspiracy is open — you openly
state your grievances to the existing authorities those authorities
treat both you and your complaints with contempt and does
it not follow as an imperative necessity that you should
threaten to effect by force what you find unattainable by milder
means. The necessity is not only a justification of your
threatening but of your putting that threat into execution. The
law of nature pronounces that resolution just and commands
you to act on it. This is the case at issue between the people
and

Identifier: | JB/137/053/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 137.
Date_1	1820-04-16	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	137	Main Headings	radicalism not dangerous
Folio number	053	Info in main headings field	collectanea remarks on trade
Image	002	Titles
Category	collectanea	Number of Pages	2
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d1 e1 / d2 e2
Penner	john flowerdew colls	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[prince of wales feathers] i&m 1818]]
Marginals		Paper Producer	arthur wellesley, duke of wellington
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1818
Notes public		ID Number	46770
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