Wesley Corpus

But this is quite the reverse of what is commonly objected,--inflexible stubbornness. “Nay, what else could occasion the settled disregard of so many petitions and remonstrances, signed by so many thousand hands, and declaring the sense of the nation?” The sense of the nation / Who can imagine this that knows the manner wherein nine in ten, I might say ninety-nine in an hundred, of those petitions are procured ? A Lord or Squire (sometimes two or more) goes, or sends his steward, round the town where his seat is, with a paper, which he tells the homest men is for the good of their King and country. He desires each to set his name or mark to this. And who has the hardiness to gainsay; especially if my Lord keeps open house? Mean time, the contents of it they know nothing about. I was not long since at a town in Kent, when one of these petitions was carrying about. I asked one and another, “Have you signed the petition?” and found none that had refused it. And yet not one single person to whom I spoke had either read it, or heard it read. Now, I would ask any man of common sense, what stress is to be laid on these petitions; and how they do declare “the sense of the nation;” nay, of the very persons that have signed them? What a shocking insult is it then on the whole kingdom, to palm these petitions upon us, of which the very subscribers have not read three lines, as the general “sense of the nation l” But suppose they had read all that they have subscribed, what judges are they of these matters? To put this beyond dispute, let us only propose one case out of a thousand. Step back a few years, and suppose Mr. Pitt at the head of the administration. Here comes up a petition from New castle-upon-Tyne, signed by five hundred hands, begging His Majesty to dismiss that corrupt Minister, who was taking such measures as tended to the utter ruin of the nation. What would Mr. Pitt say to this? Would he not ask, “How came these colliers and keelmen to be so well acquainted with affairs of State? How long have they been judges of public administration ? of naval and military operations?