CHAPTER VIII.

More petitions and remonstrances to the king--Petition of the Livery of London--The king’s advisers denounced by the citizens--An arraignment of ministerial crimes and misdemeanours--Undue prerogative and its abuses--The alienation of our colonies, and the consequent loss of America--The king’s contemptuous reception of the city petition--Disrespect shown to the corporation at the Court of St. James’s--Threatening attitude of the military--An unscrupulous and tyrannical ministry--A poetical petition--The king visits the city petition with “severe censure”--A more stringent remonstrance prepared--The violated “right of election”--An unrepresentative parliament--“The true spirit of parliaments”--“The constitution depraved”--The Coronation Oath violated--The king’s answer, condemning the former petition, and the city remonstrance--“Nero fiddled while Rome was burning”--Further popular agitations--Horne Tooke’s “Address to the Freeholders of the county of Middlesex”--“The Middlesex Address, Remonstrance and Petition”--“Constitutional liberties attacked in the most vital part”--“A self-elected and irresponsible Parliament”--The petitions from Middlesex and Kent received at St. James’s in silence--The Westminster remonstrance--Corrupt administration of the House of Commons--The king prayed to dissolve a parliament no longer representing the people--The right of petitioning impeached by the Commons--The king replies that “he will lay the remonstrance before parliament”--“Making a man judge in his own trial”--The undignified reception of the Westminster remonstrance--Parliamentary counter-petitions at the bidding of corrupt ministers--The city vote of thanks to Lord Chatham, for his patriotic “zeal for the rights of the people”--The king’s answer considered at a general assembly of the citizens--Alderman Wilkes on the violation of the rights of election and of the constitution--The recorder characterises the remonstrance as a libel--The conduct of ministers in the case of Colonel Luttrell’s election--A fuller remonstrance from the city--The results of the Revolution of 1788 contravened--The king’s answer--Beckford requests leave to reply--His dignified speech to the king--The king remains silent--“Nero did _not_ fiddle while Rome was burning”--The courtiers abashed--The king prorogues parliament with an address approving of the conduct of both Houses--The citizens eventually triumph in “the cause of Liberty and of the Constitution”--Lord Chatham’s eulogium pronounced upon the “patriotic spirit of the metropolis”--Beckford and Chatham, the champions of popular rights--The national importance of their conduct at this crisis of our history--Civic honours paid to Beckford--His speech to the king inscribed on the monument erected to his memory in the Guildhall--The corrupt ministers cowed--An uncontested election for Westminster, 1770--Sir Robert Bernard’s nomination--His election, without expense or disorder--Speeches of Sir J. Hussey Delaval and Earl Mountmorres on the late conduct of the Government--The advantages of leaving the people to the legitimate exercise of their liberties, uninfluenced by the administrative interest, corruption, and undue influence, the usual features at an election. 207