Now, then, is their time to silence me, if they have it in their power to establish one of the crimes with which they have charged me; but if they remain silent, and cannot establish any one of their charges against me, what a race of cowardly, profligate beings they must feel themselves to be! But the fact is, that all
these vermin _know_ that they were propagating the most barefaced and wanton falsehoods against me. And who are these men that have been the foremost to accuse me? Some of the most degraded, swinish, and abandoned of the human race. And what has been the cause of all their hostility to me? Why, merely because I have been the undisguised and uncompromising advocate of the people's rights and liberties; because I have publicly and unequivocally, upon all occasions, maintained the right of annual parliaments, universal suffrage, and vote by ballot: in this I have been joined by the great mass of the people of England. and Scotland. For my public exertions in 1816 and 1817, to promote this great cause, I received the most cordial testimony of the regard and esteem of my fellow-countrymen--I received repeated votes of thanks from almost every town and city of consequence in the kingdom, and particularly from the North, and from Scotland. I believe I had the approbation of _nine tenths_ of the industrious and most valuable classes of the community, because I fearlessly advocated the right--the constitutional right of all these useful and industrious classes to partake--practically to partake, of that constitution which compelled them to risk their lives and property, if called upon by the government, in its defence. This I did, regardless of all, of every faction, whether _Whig, Tory_, or _Burdettite_; for at this period there was a considerable faction, composed principally of _petty shop-keepers_, and _little tradesmen_, who, under the denomination of _tax-paying housekeepers_, enlisted themselves under the banners of Sir Francis Burdett, in order to set themselves up as a sort of privileged class, above the _operative_ manufacturer, the artizan, the mechanic, and the labourer. Thus, at the very time that all these classes of operative manufacturers, artizans, mechanics, and labourers, consisting of three-fourths of the population of the kingdom; at the very time, in 1816, when almost the whole of these persons had become united in one object, and had held meetings all over the kingdom, and upwards of a million and a half of them had signed petitions to be presented to Parliament, demanding universal suffrage; at this very juncture, which was immediately after the first meeting held in Spa-fields, lo and behold, Sir Francis Burdett, _hitherto our great leader_ in the cause of public liberty, DECLARED OFF and deserted us, by avowing himself the enemy of universal suffrage, and declaring that he would not support any reform that had for its object to extend the suffrage beyond _house__ holders_; thus, at one sweeping blow, blasting the hopes, and driving out of the pale of the constitution, at least two-thirds of the population; and that part, too, the most useful and most industrious, and therefore the most beneficial to the nation! The Baronet declared that he would support the _householder suffrage_ --that those who occupied a house, and paid King's and Parish taxes directly to the tax-gatherer, should have a vote for members of the Commons' or People's House of Parliament; but that all the junior branches of families, all lodgers, every person who was not the master of a house, should be excluded altogether from any share in electing those who make the laws, by which EVERY ONE'S liberty, life, and property is to be disposed of.