was a stop put to the laudable intentions of Mr. Hinxman. There was,
indeed, no possibility of giving any satisfactory answer to such a
reason, and the project was in consequence altogether abandoned. By this
time upwards of SIX HUNDRED PETITIONS had been presented to the House of
Commons, praying for retrenchment, a reduction of the army, and for a
RADICAL REFORM IN PARLIAMENT. These petitions were signed by nearly a
million and a half of people. The only answer that was given to them
was, as the reader has already seen, passing the Seditious Meetings
Bill, and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. These petitions were
suffered silently to be laid upon the table of the House; nothing that
they prayed for was ever granted, and so far from the Honourable House,
or any of its members, ever answering the allegations contained in them,
they never even condescended to discuss any of the matters contained in
them.

Although Mr. Cobbett, the great literary champion of the Radical
Reformers, had deserted and fled to America, yet others sprung up. About
this period Mr. Wooler began to publish his Black Dwarf, and Mr.
Sherwin published his Weekly Register. These were two bold and powerful
advocates of Reform, and Mr. Wooler, as well as Mr. White, of the
Independent Whig, lasbed Mr. Cobbett most unmercifully for his cowardice
in flying his country, and abandoning the Reformers at such a critical
moment. Mr. Wooler was excessively severe, and he laid it on with an
unsparing hand. I lost no opportunity to vindicate the character of my
absent friend, and in doing this I attacked Mr. Wooler as violently as
he attacked Mr. Cobbett, for which Mr. Wooler denounced me as a spy of
the Government!

Some time in May, 1817, a Count Maubrueil was tried at Paris for robbing
the Queen of Westphalia, when it came out that he had been hired by an