fell to the ground without a division. Lord Cochrane continued night
after night to present these petitions, brought up by the delegates; and
the most remarkable event of these times was, that the very night that
Lord Cochrane presented the petition from Bath, which especially pointed
out the enormous sums annually received by their Recorder, Lord Camden,
and which prayed for the abolition of his enormous sinecures; that very
night a message was brought down to the House, and it was announced
by one of the Ministers _that Lord Camden had actually resigned his
enormous sinecure of Teller of the Exchequer_, which did not amount to
less than thirty-five thousand pounds a year. No one will doubt that
this act of his Lordship was occasioned solely by the resolutions and
the petition passed at the Bath meeting. He well knew that Lord Cochrane
had presented the Bristol petition, and had stated in the House that he
had several other petitions to present; and amongst the number that
from Bath, signed by upwards of twenty thousand persons. To prevent,
therefore, the discussion which was likely to arise from the
presentation of this petition, he anticipated the prayer of it, by
resigning his sinecure of Teller of the Exchequer. How often have we
been asked by the tools of corruption, what good was there in holding
public meetings! We have been everlastingly told that these great public
meetings, and the violent petitions passed at them, did a great deal of
harm, but that they never produced any good. What these knaves mean by
this is, that the House of Commons never attended to the prayers
and petitions of the people, and that therefore it was of no use to
persevere in petitioning. This, as far as it goes, is very true; the
House of Commons never did attend to the petitions of the people for
Reform; but yet I boldly answer, that petitioning _has_ done some good;
that the petition of the first Spafields meeting obtained _four thousand
pounds_ from the droits of the Admiralty, for the suffering poor of
Spital-fields and the metropolis. This was some good. Again, I say, that