Recorder of the City.

After this petition had been passed unanimously, it was left for
signatures in several places in the city, but the rendezvous was at Mr.
Young's, who occupied my house and premises in Walcot-street, so that
he was totally independent of the corporation. The meeting was held and
conducted in the most peaceable and orderly manner, and as soon as it
was concluded the people retired to their homes in the same regular and
satisfactory way, each individual being conscious of having done his
duty to himself, his family, and his country. It is necessary to
observe, that Mr. John Allen, a builder, of Bath, who had offered
himself as the popular representative for that city in 1812, altogether
abstained from taking any part in any of the proceedings of this
meeting. He being a mushroom reformer, raised his head for a short
season, and was cut off and disappeared from the political world almost
as quick as a mushroom disappears after a nipping frost. The effect
produced by this meeting did indeed rouse him again for a moment; but it
was only that he might fall still lower, and be totally buried in the
lap of corruption, mingling with its basest tools and dependants. The
petition was signed by upwards of twenty thousand persons, in a few
days.

There had, in the meanwhile been meetings held, for the purpose of
petitioning for Reform, all over the kingdom, particularly in the
North of England and Scotland; which meetings emanated from the first
Spafields meeting; and at almost all of these Meetings resolutions
and petitions of a similar tendency were passed; Annual Parliaments,
Universal Suffrage, and Vote by Ballot, being very generally prayed
for. Hampden Clubs had been formed all over the North of England, by
Major Cartwright, who had sent an agent round the country for that