been safe from the hostility of the friends of the parties apprehended.

I have not thought it necessary to mention the numerous applications which have been, and continue to be made, for military assistance in aid of the civil power, by magistrates and others. I never recommend the commander of the forces to accede to those applications, without the strongest evidence of their necessity; and in almost every case, the military officer in command of the district from which the requisition proceeds, is directed to inquire personally into the grounds on which it is made. I ought not, however, to omit to mention, that a very considerable military force is employed in giving assistance to the officers of revenue in the suppression of illicit distillation, which prevails to a great extent in several of the northern and western counties of this kingdom. In consequence of an order of the House of Commons, made in the month of February in the present year, a return has been made of the troops at that time employed on this service, which I have annexed to this dispatch, and which will give full information with respect to the number of men employed, the detachments into which they are divided, and the stations at which they are placed.

I am with great truth and regard, my lord, your lordship's most obedient humble servant,

(Signed)

WHITWORTH.

The Viscount Sidinouth, &c. VOL. LVIII.

Address of the Corporation of London to the Prince Regent, delivered December 9, 1816; with the Answer of his Royal Highness. To His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The humble Address and Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled.

May it please your Royal
Highness,

We, his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the city of London in Common Council assembled, humbly approach your Royal Highness to represent our national sufferings and grievances, and respectfully to suggest the adoption of measures which we conceive to be indispensably necessary for the safety, the quiet, and prosperity of the realm.

We forbear to enter into details of the afflicting scenes of privations and sufferings that everywhere exist: the distress and misery which for so many years has been progressively accumulating has at length become insupportable-it is no longer partially felt nor limited to one portion of the empire: the commercial, the manufacturing, and the agricultural interests are equally sinking under its irresistible pressure, and it has become impossible to find employment for a large mass of the population, much less to bear up against our present enormous burdens.

We beg to impress upon your Royal Highness, that our present 2 E complicated

complicated evils have not arisen from a mere transition from war to peace, nor from any sudden or accidental causes; neither can they be removed by any partial or temporary expedients.

Our grievances are the natural effect of rash and ruinous wars, unjustly commenced, and pertinaciously persisted in, when no rational object was to be obtainedof immense subsidies to foreign Powers to defend their own territories, or to commit aggressions on those of their neighbours-of a delusive paper currency-of an unconstitutional and unprecedented military force in time of peace -of the unexampled and increasing magnitude of the civil-listof the enormous sums paid for unnierited pensions and sinecures, and of a long course of the most lavish and improvident expenditure of the public money throughout every branch of the Government, all arising from the corrupt and inadequate state of the representation of the people in Parliament, whereby all constitutional control over the servants of the Crown has been lost, and Parliaments have become subservient to the will of Ministers.

We cannot forbear expressing our grief and disappointment, that, notwithstanding your Royal Highness's gracious recommendation of economy at the opening of the last sessions of Parliament, your ministers should have been found opposing every proposition for lessening the national expenditure, and that they should have been able to obtain majorities to support and sanction their conduct in defiance of your Royal Highness's recommenda

tion and the declared sense of the nation, affording another melancholy proof of the corrupt state of the representation, in addition to those facts so often stated, and offered to be proved at the bar of the House of Commons, in a petition presented in 1793 by the Hon. Charles, now Lord Grey, whereby it appeared that the great body of the people were excluded from all share in the election of members, and that the majority of that Hon. House were returned by the proprietors of rotten boroughs, the influence of the Treasury, and a few powerful families.

We can, Sir, no longer support out of our dilapidated resources an overwhelming load of taxation, and we humbly submit to your Royal Highness, that nothing but a reformation of these abuses, and restoring to the people their just and constitutional right in the election of Members of Parliament, can afford a security against their recurrence— calm the apprehensions of the people-allay their irritated feelings-and prevent those misfortunes in which the nation must inevitably be involved by an obstinate and infatuated adherence to the present system of corruption and extravagance.

We therefore humbly pray your Royal Highness to assemble Parliament as early as possible, and that you will be graciously pleased to recommend to their immediate consideration these important matters, and the adoption of measures for abolishing all useless places, pensions, and sinecures for the reduction of our present enormous military establishment

lishment for making every practicable reduction in the public expenditure, and restoring to the people their just share and weight in the Legislature.

By order of Court,
(Signed)

HENRY WOODTHORPE.

To which Address and Petition his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to return the following

answer :

It is with strong feelings of surprise and regret that I receive this address and petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the city of London, in Common Council assembled.

Deeply as I deplore the prevailing distress and difficulties of the country, I derive consolation from the persuasion that the great body of his Majesty's subjects, notwithstanding the various attempts which have been made to irritate and mislead them, are well convinced that the severe trials

which they sustain with such exemplary patience and fortitude are chiefly to be attributed to unavoidable causes, and I contemplate with the most cordial satisfaction the efforts of that enlightened benevolence which is so usefully and laudably exerting itself throughout the kingdom.

I shall resort with the utmost confidence to the tried wisdom of Parliament at the time which upon the fullest consideration I have thought most advisable under the present circumstances of the country; and I entertain a perfect conviction that a firm and temperate administration of the government, assisted and supported by the good sense, public spirit, and loyalty of the nation, will effectually counteract those proceedings which, from whatever motives they may originate, are calculated to render temporary difficulties the means of producing permanent and irreparable calamity.

PUBLIC INCOME OF GREAT BRITAIN,

For the Year ending Fifth January, 1816.

An Accoure of the ORDINARY REVENUES and EXTRAORDINARY RESOURCES constituting the PUBLIC INCOME of GREAT BRITAIN.

....

£

S.

d.

£

S.

d.

11,807,322 12 12 2,727,767 18 61 23,370,055 8 342,831,026 13 4 6,492,804 14 10 7,911.938 4 94 0 1011 2,349,519 20,280 19 11,776 6 6 29,283 14 10

S.

d.

9,079,554 13 7 20,539,028 14 11 6,139,585 8 9 7,609,016 10 11

353,219 6 0

302,921 13 10 593,620 18

1,755,898 2 9

味

372 3 11 638 6 3

4,562 5

21,591 10 24

3,075 0 51