CITIZENS!
IT is with equal surprise and indignation that this Society have beheld the late rapid encroachments made by some of the constituted powers in this country upon the freedom of Britons—the attacks (hitherto unparalleled, since the disastrous days of CHARLES the First, and JAMES the Second) that have been successively made upon the constitutional and natural rights of the subject; the flagrant attempts on the personal security of individuals by an infamous inquisitorial system of SPIES and INFORMERS, and formal processes of PERSECUTION FOR OPINION, and the unqualified attempt to annihilate the intellectual progress of man by the suppression of what has hitherto been held as our birthright and peculiar prerogative—the free and peaceable enquiry into the PRINCIPLES OF LEGISLATION, and the practices of the EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT
CITIZENS!
We are well assured of your sympathy in the feelings which these alarming, and (since the REVOLUTION THAT PLACED THE PRESENT FAMILY UPON THE THRONE) unprecedented stretches of Prerogative have excited in our bosoms; and more especially in the horror and execration with which we cannot cease to contemplate the conduct of certain MAGISTRATES, particularly in the TOWN and COUNTY of EDINBURGH; where, in direct VIOLATION, not only of the GENERAL PRINCIPLES, but of the EXPLICIT and AVOWED MAXIMS both of the COMMON and STATUTE LAW of the Country, unprecedented affronts and even PERSONAL VIOLENCE (to the scandal of FREEDOM and JUSTICE) have been exerted to interrupt and disperse a legal, peacable, and enlightened assembly of PATRIOTS whose constitutional exertions for reforming the abuses of our PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION, and redressing thereby, the GRIEVANCES under which we labour, demand instead of prosecutions, fines, imprisonment, and TRANSPORTATION, 2 Civic Crowns from their Country, and the Applauses and Admiration of Mankind.
CITIZENS!
Though we are of no party, and behold with perfect indifference, the struggles and contentions of interested factions, we believe there can be, at this time, but one opinion (among placemen, pensioners and expectants alone excepted) concerning the conduct and principles of the PRESENT ADMINISTRATION — An Administration which has not only advanced with unparalleled boldness in its repeated attacks upon our CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY; but has plunged also, in hitherto unheards of INFAMY, the once awful name of Britain—an Administration which, not content with overwhelming in WANT and MISERY the PEOPLE for whose prosperity it was their duty to provide, and endangering the CONSTITUTION which they pretended so servilely to adore, by precipitating the nation into an UNJUST and RUINOUS WAR, has conducted that war, not upon the open and magnanimous principles upon which this country had formerly used to pride itself, but upon a new fangled and extravagant system of CORRUPTION and TREACHERY, and by the peculiar absurdity, as well as the meanness of its measures has brought a STAIN upon the NATIONAL CHARACTER of BRITAIN, which nothing but the attested disapprobation of the people can obliterate from the memory of Europe—An administration which, not content with thse external stains with which it has blotched the once fair character of the country, has introduced, also ACCUMULATED DISEASES and CORRUPTIONS into its very vitals—under the deceitful title of Associations for the protection of liberty and property, has publickly patronised a new species of STAR CHAMBER INQUISITION (an institution so justly execrated in the TYRANNICAL REIGNS of the Stewarts);—and has either flagitiously authorised or supinely suffered the inferior magistracy to trample on the sacred boundaries meant to secure the liberties of the people, to exceed the constitutional limits of their authority, and to make the civil arm an engine of violence and depredation.
CITIZENS,
We wish to be candid in the midst of all the censures 3 injustice forces from our lips; and it is therefore that we make it a matter of doubt (it not having yet been proved) whether the illegal insult we have received, and the deep wound that has been given to the yet remaining liberties of Britain, in the treatment of the several Delegates of the British Convention, whose persons and papers have so unlawfully been seized and made the subjects of unprecedented prosecutions, were committed or not by the express orders of his Majesty's Ministers. To us, however, it appears that a violation so open and flagitious of every natural and constitutional right, would not have been ventured upon by these inferior engines of authority, without the encouragement and assured protection of higher powers.
CITIZENS! it is necessary that these circumstances should be boldly and severely investigated—it is necessary for the promotion of this investigation, that the Friends of Liberty should act with unanimity and concert; and it is therefore that we thus, in a body, address your respective Societies.
By what means can this concert be affected? Though in Scotland all law and liberty have been violated to crush association and enquiry, remember that, if we have the will, we have yet the power, in this or any other part of England to assemble, by a still more general delegation (and we recommend it to you to hold yourselves in preparation for such a measure, should it be found necessary) to co-operate in the constitutional measures of our Committe of Convention yet assembled. Exigencies may arise in which we ought not to trust to the slow, the precarious, and imperfect intercourse of epistolary correspondence; and the friends of liberty ought to be, and we trust they are rather animated than intimidated by the opposition they have met with and the treatment of their glorious and enlightened champions.
But independent of the specific mode of co-operation (upon which we anxiously expect your sentiments) there is a particular measure, which, with your approbation and concurrence, we wish to adopt, namely a Remonstrance to each of the three branches of the Legislature against the dangerous innovations which prerogative and ministerial artifice are making upon the valuable parts of our Laws and Constitution—the usurpations of inferior magistrates—and particularly the alarming transactions of the police and 4 courts of law in Scotland, where all shadow of Liberty seems annihilated by the rod of power—that invincible spirit alone excepted that reigns in the hearts of a brave and enlightened people.
CITIZENS, we wish, in this remonstrance, to demand an immediate enquiry into the nature of our constitutional rights; the instructions (if any) which the Judges and Magistrates have received, relative to their alarming conduct; the authority by which such instructions (if real) have been given, and just and constitutional vengeance upon the heads of those who shall be found to have been the real violators of such laws as were meant for the protection of liberty, and the happiness and prosperity of the people.
Such, Fellow Citizens, is the measure relative to which we call upon you for your immediate opinion. If in such a measure you will co-operate with us, let us know, without delay, the proposed means of your co-operation. Should any other appear more advisable, we shall be happy to have your sentiments without delay.
In the mean time we remain
in all the zeal and ardour of the love of liberty,
Yours,
THE LONDON CORRESPONDING SOCIETY