mind of your Right Honourable House, your petitioner
begs leave to proceed to state: that he, who was then at
his house in the country, received, a short time before the
16th of November last, a letter from Thomas Preston,
Secretary of a Committee, requesting your petitioner to
attend a public meeting of the distressed inhabitants of
the metropolis, intended to be held in Spafields on the
day just mentioned; that your petitioner thereupon wrote
to Thomas Preston to know what was the object of the
intended meeting; that he received, in the way of answer,
a newspaper called the Independent Whig, of November
10th, 1816, containing an advertisement in these
words; to wit: 'At a meeting held at the Carlisle,
Shoreditch, on Thursday evening, it was determined to
call a meeting of the distressed Manufacturers, Mariners,
Artizans, and others of the Cities of London and Westminster,
the Borough of Southwark, and parts adjacent, in
Spafields, on Friday, the 15th instant, precisely at 12
o'clock, to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning
the Prince Regent and Legislature, to adopt immediately
such measures as will relieve the sufferers from
the misery which now overwhelms them. (_Signed_)
JOHN DYALL, Chairman, THOMAS PRESTON, Secretary.'
That your petitioner, upon seeing this advertisement, hesitated
not to accept of the invitation; that he attended
at the said meeting; that he there found, ready prepared,
a paper, called, to the best of his recollection, a _memorial_,
which some persons, then utter strangers to him, proposed
to move for the adoption of the meeting; that
your petitioner, perceiving in this paper, propositions of