Though the splendid and decisive victory of Waterloo raised, to
the highest pitch of elevation, the military glory of Great Britain and her allies; and
though its immediate result, in putting an end for ever to the mad career of the mightiest
warrior, and the most daring oppressor, of modern times, was the subject of unfeigned joy
to all the friends of social order and happiness; yet too soon was that joy changed, by the
events that followed, into deep and mournful disappointment. It was by no means from the
mere impulse of splenetic humour or mortified ambition that Bonaparte spoke—nor was his assertion unsupported by the truth of
facts—when he declared that “the battle of Waterloo was as fatal to the liberties
of Europe, as that of Philippi was to Rome; and, like that, too, pre-
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Of this increased tendency to arbitrary rule, the first effect soon appeared, in the successful attempt of the ministry to keep up a large standing army, to the extreme distress of an impoverished nation, as well as in direct contradiction to the principles of the English constitution, and in utter defiance of all those ancient and well-founded jealousies, which, in better times, it was thought wise to respect and to cherish. This attempt was followed by another, happily not so successful; which was, to convert into a permanent source of revenue the tax on property, or rather on income; an odious and oppressive tax, originally introduced with a solemn pledge that, as by the necessities of war it was demanded, so with the return of peace it should cease.
This last attempt, so grossly outraging the public feelings, roused every where a spirit of determined resistance: public meetings were convened
1 Las Casas, vol. iii. part iii. p. 67. Dr. Parr thought the “conversations” of Bonaparte, lately published by this and other writers, valuable lessons of most wise and sagacious policy. |
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“I wrote about the requisition for calling a county-meeting to Mr. Taylor of Birmingham; and, in a very polite letter, he tells me he shall not be in Warwickshire, at the time of the meeting. I am glad to hear that Sir C. Mordaunt1 is disposed to favour our petition. I depend upon early information of the day, fixed by the sheriff. I am confident that Mr. Canning2 will do all that is right, in arranging the topics of the petition, and in selecting the speakers in the county-hall, &c.—S. P.”
The meeting referred to was held at Warwick, Feb. 18, 1815, when the petition for the repeal of the obnoxious tax proposed by Francis Canning, Esq. and supported by Sir C. Mordaunt, Sir R. Lawley, and others, was unanimously approved. The petitioners were not then successful; but, in the following year, their petitions were renewed, and the voice of the nation finally prevailed. On these occasions, it was remarkable, that the aristocracy, generally the friends, were found amongst the opponents, of the ministry; who did not scruple openly and reproachfully to ascribe their opposition to views of private, more than public interest; and Dr. Parr, too, thought that there were other objects, which might, with at least equal reason, have called forth their patriotic zeal.
1 Then member for the county. 2 Of Foxcote. |
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“Dear Sir—I send you the papers, which came to me yesterday from Mr. Horner. If I were concerned in preparing the county resolutions, I should avail myself of the important suggestions, which he has communicated; and I should certainly insist, far more copiously and more energetically, on the dangers of our large military establishments, than on the mischiefs of the property-tax. I am your sincere well-wisher,—S. P.”
It is pleasing to relate that even in the metropolis, where it might be
supposed that court-favour and ministerial patronage would necessarily obtain a powerful
influence, a large portion of patriotic spirit, faithfully cherished and nobly exerted, has
always appeared; diffused more or less amongst its various classes of bankers, merchants,
traders, and never wholly excluded from its body corporate. Many who have attained to civic
honours, have aspired also to the more resplendent honours, which irradiate the
patriot’s name: Sawbridge, Townsend, Combe, in
days that are past, have been worthily succeeded, in our time, by Wood, Waithman,
Goodbehere, and Favell. So deservedly high stood the first of these in the estimation of
his fellow-citizens, that, at the close of his mayoralty in 1815, he was raised a second
time to the dignity of chief magistrate; and thus the name of Wood
becomes proudly associated with those of Barnard and
Beckford, on whom the same high distinction was
conferred, the one in the reign of George II. and the
other in the early part of that
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“My Lord,—Suffer me to thank your Lordship for inviting
me to your dinner on the 9th of this month; and to assure you that, with
pleasure and with pride, I should obey your polite and friendly summons, if I
were not detained in Warwickshire by numerous and important avocations. I have
not been an inattentive observer of the events, which occurred during your
mayoralty; and most heartily do I rejoice that your peculiar merit has procured
for you peculiar honours among your fellow-citizens, and is not only applauded
by your zealous supporters, but acknowledged by your most determined opponents.
Amidst the general and well-deserved praise of the public, you, perhaps, will
allow me, as a man of letters, as an Englishman, and as a teacher of
Christianity, to bear my testimony to such firmness, mingled with moderation,
as you have manifested in your political principles, to such activity guided by
good sense, in your official measures, to indignation so just against the
profligate and obdurate, and to compassion so unfeigned towards the desolate
and oppressed.—To vigilance, integrity, and benevolence in all the arduous
duties of your station, you add other ornamental and other useful qualities;
such, I believe, as are not very often found collectively in the chief
magistrate of our metropolis.
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Among other arbitrary measures, adopted by the ruling powers in England,
about this time, the nation was roused to a sense of its wrongs and its dangers, by the
repeated suspension, on the slightest pretences, of the Habeas
Corpus Act; always proudly and justly regarded as the grand security for the
personal liberty of the subject. Public meetings were, in consequence, convened, and
conducted with a spirit worthy of Englishmen, in almost every part of the kingdom; and of
these, one, very numerously attended, was held in the Shire-hall of Warwick, June 21, 1817,
at which the Hon. Henry Verney, now Lord
Willoughby-de-Broke, presided. The business of the day was opened, in a long and admirable
speech, by Francis Canning, Esq.—who then proposed
the form of a petition to both Houses of Parliament, praying them “to adopt such
measures as might prevent the liberties of Englishmen from being sacrificed to the
real, or pretended, but groundless, fears of his Majesty’s ministers; and
especially to resist every attempt that might be made to continue any longer the
suspension of the act of Habeas Corpus.” He was followed by Dr. Parr; who observed that, “after the able and
eloquent address, distinguished equally by its luminous method, its powerful argument,
and patriotic spirit, just delivered by his excellent friend, little remained to be
added by him.” He wished it to be understood, he said, that though his
signature, in consequence of absence from home, had not been affixed to the re-
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But the nation had still other causes of serious complaint against the
Liverpool-administration, especially in the new and alarming doctrine set forth by
Lord Sidmouth, in a well-known circular,
“that justices of the peace are empowered to arrest, and hold to bail, persons
charged with libels, even though not previously declared such, by the verdict of a
jury.” It was a bold attempt to crush, or at least to check, the liberty of
the press; and the credit which Lord Sidmouth had acquired for
mildness of spirit and goodness of intention was greatly diminished by this and other
obnoxious measures; and, most of all, by the unadvised act of writing an official letter of
thanks to the perpetrators of the horrible massacre, which took place at Manchester, on the
dreadful 16th of August, 1819. Certainly, an instance is hardly to be found in the annals
of a civilised nation, of a
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The low and misguided policy of the same administration appeared in another
affair of a different kind, which happened some time before, and which drew upon them no
small degree of public contempt and reprobation. This was the prosecution of Mr. Hone, a bookseller in London; who was put upon his
trial for three successive days, on three several indictments, charging him with libellous
publications, consisting of political parodies on the Church catechism, and other parts of
the Common Prayer Book. The practice itself, to say the least, is highly indecorous; and
yet it was proved, on the trial, to be by no means unprecedented or uncommon; and instances
were adduced, as in the case of the late Mr.
Canning’s poetry in the “Anti-jacobin,” in which it was impossible to impute any profane intention
to the writer or publisher. Mr. Hone conducted his own defence, with a
presence of mind, with a research of literature, with a force of reasoning, and a fervour
of eloquence, which called forth universal astonishment and admiration. On the first day,
the charge was fairly left to the consideration of the jury, by Mr. Justice Abbott; but, on the second and third days, it was vehemently
pressed against the defendant by Lord Chief-justice
Ellenborough;
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In the spring of 1820, Mr. Hone was summoned to give evidence, on a trial at Warwick, in which the late venerable Major Cartwright was one of the defendants. On that occasion, Mr. Hone received many kind and flattering attentions from Dr. Parr; who always loved to contemplate talent, wherever it is to be found; and who conversed much with him, and invited him to partake of the hospitalities of Hatton-parsonage. In a note to a friend, he writes thus:—“Dear Sir,—Hone is a prodigy of genius and heroism. He dines with me next Sunday. Pray, come and meet him. You will be pleased with him. Yours, &c. S. Parr.—Hatton, April 2, 1820.”
At the trial just referred to, it will probably be within the
reader’s recollection, that Major Cart-
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Dr. Parr entertained great esteem and veneration for “the good old major,” as he was often styled; and though as far as Mr. Fox himself from approving all his theoretical principles of government, yet he concurred entirely in the encomium which that eminent statesman pronounced in his place in parliament. “Major Cartwright,” said Mr. Fox, “is a man whose enlightened mind, whose profound constitutional knowledge, whose purity of principle and consistency of conduct through life, place him in the highest rank of public characters.”
During the short period of his attendance at Warwick assizes, Major Cartwright paid a visit to Dr. Parr at Hatton, where he was received with all that
respect for his character, and that sympathy with his sufferings, to which he was so fully
entitled. The strong feelings of his mind on the subject of the prosecution, Dr.
Parr afterwards
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Among the numerous witnesses summoned to appear on the trial of Major Cartwright, were Sir
Francis Burdett, and Samuel Favell,
Esq., one of the common-council of London; and the writer cannot deny
himself the pleasure of recollecting a delightful day, passed in the company of these
gentlemen, who did him the honour of accepting an invitation to dinner at Leam, where they
were met by Dr. Parr, and a party of common friends.
The number being small and select, the conversation freed from all restraint, soon became
highly interesting and animated, especially on the part of the learned divine, and the
illustrious senator. As might have been expected, at that turbulent season, politics were,
with them, a leading topic of discussion; and the rashness and violence of the
Liverpool-administration drew from both of them expressions of high indignation and
abhorrence. Even the dreadful slaughter of unarmed and unresisting men and women at
Manchester, they thought not so revolting to the feelings of justice and humanity, as the
cool and deliberate
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The memorable letter of Sir Francis Burdett to one of his constituents, on the subject just referred to, was not the less admired and applauded by Dr. Parr and all present, because it was so vehemently censured by the lovers of brute force and martial law; nor did the author of it express the least sense of shame or sorrow for having written it, though it had just been pronounced by a learned judge and a Leicestershire jury—grossly libellous.
Connected with the outrages at Manchester, was the trial of Mr. Hunt and others at York, which at that moment was
drawing to its close: and on which the two illustrious guests of Leam thought they hazarded
nothing in delivering the following opinion—that, from a view of the whole evidence, which
had been published, it would be hardly possible to find a verdict of guilty; that, in case
such a verdict should be found, the defendants could never, with any show of decency, be
called up for judgment; but if so called up, that none but the mildest sentence could be
passed, without offering a ruder shock to all the feelings of fairness
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Amidst the gloomy prospects, which at that time gathered round the
country, as a source of relief and hope, Sir Francis
Burdett expatiated, with the noble enthusiasm of a benevolent mind, on the
vast and wonderful diffusion of knowledge, of late years, penetrating through the mass of
society down to its lowest orders; and he threw out the following observation, which
obtained, in a particular manner, the notice and assent of Dr.
Parr and of all present—that, if hitherto the course of human improvement
has been in a direction from the higher to the lower ranks, now the process seems to be
exactly reversed; that men in the inferior classes, by means of good education and cheap
publications, are rapidly rising in the scale of intellect; and that from them intelligence
is “working its way upward,” and forcing upon those of higher station
the necessity of reading, inquiring, and reflecting. For, under such circumstances, it was
contended, that, by the mere sense of shame, or the sheer love of superiority, in the
absence of better motives, even the lazy and the stationary beings, with whom the
privileged orders abound, will be impelled to mental exertion in discarding the ignorance,
the errors, and the prejudices which degrade and disgrace them; and will find it impossible
to keep their eyes closed against that increased and increasing light of knowledge, which
shines and blazes all around
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Among other topics, the invaluable writings of that extraordinary man,
Jeremy Bentham, being mentioned, Sir Francis Burdett declared himself his profound admirer
and attentive reader; and when the strange singularity, the puzzling perplexity, and
sometimes the almost impenetrable obscurity of his style were objected, Sir
Francis avowed that he liked it the better for that very reason; because it
imposed a severe exercise upon his understanding, and obliged him to pause and reflect. At
all events, he insisted, that if, in exploring the sense of the author, the labour was
great, it was always amply rewarded by the value of the discovery. To this latter reason,
at least, if not to the former, all who have studied the important writings in question
will cordially assent. Dr. Parr did not lose the
opportunity of declaring the high veneration which he had always felt for one, whom he
considered as the “wisest man” of his time; whose powerful and
penetrating mind has anticipated, he said, the improvement of coming ages; and who, on the
all-important subject of jurisprudence, has discovered and collected knowledge which will
scarcely find its way to the great mass of human intellect, perhaps,
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