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    may all lore our country , and seek to promote its happiness and prosperity , thongb in different ways ; the spirit of party is not in those who declare their opinions , but in those who are offended and irritated by that declaration . I have the pleasure of a personal

    acquaintance with , and respect for , many persons in this town , whose opinions are diametrically opposite to mine , on many important points of religion and policy , but my feelings of friendship and respect for them , are not the weaker on this account : and I

    thus publicly declare , that if any bitterness of party spirit be the consequence of what we are now doing , it will be in than towards me and not in me towards them * <( Mr . Chairman , I have thought it right to mention these objections , which I had heard , and I have

    endeavoured to reply to them . If we are yet a free nation , we ought to think freely and to speak freely , And , Gentlemen , it is my entire persuasion , that if we , if our country be restrained by these , or any other considerations , from declaring their sentiments and wishes to the legislature ; and if these

    opinions and wishes are not seriously considered , then are we , indeed , a LOST NATION , —and the rulers of eur country and of the world will only be awakened , and roused from their infatuation , by some general and awful explosion of the popular feeling—by some extensive calamity , in which all parties and distinctions will be involved in one

    common ruin ! ! ! To use a plain , but appropriate simile—if the waters be permitted to flow in their natural and appointed channel , they will adorn and fertilize the fields ; but if they be obstructed and stopped , they will accumulate , break down their borders , and ravage and desolate the land .

    ** Gentlemen , I thank you for the patience with which you have listened to me . 1 have only to add , that if our present endeavours should excite the same throughout the country ; aud if these should contribute to the attainment of the object we seek , we may

    number this among the happie&t and proudest days of ouv- lives : but if we should fail , we cannot be deprived of the pleasure of having done our duty . If we cannot give peace to our country 9 we shall give it to our amsdences ; we ahaH have delivered ourselves front all

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    Peace . — Proceedings at Leicester . 71

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    Resolutions and Petition . Resolved 1 st . That it is the opinion of this Meeting that Peace is a blessing most earnestly to be desired for our native country and for the world at large .

    2 . That the continuance of the war in which we are at present engaged , threatens \ m with an alarming increase of those burdens and calamities which it baa already produced , a « d seems in no way likely to conduce to the solid glory or true interests of our country .

    3 . That the extraordinary success which has recently attcudeu the British arms , renders the present a time peculiarly favourable for endeavouring to negociate a peace , because such offers of peace could not be attributed to pusillanimity or despair * 4 « That it is the especial duty of a

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    criminal participation in the future crimes and distresses of our country 5 and this is the purest satisfaction we are capable of receiving on this side the grave . " ^ Mr . Ryley introduced the petition with a few observations to the follow .

    ing purport .: — " That war , famine , and pestilence , were the three severest scourges of an-offended God ; but that war was the direst of the three , for it led the others in its train . It gives to the mincis of men a savage and sanguinary cast ; it has actually done this , it has marred the moral beauty of the

    British character aud degraded the brave and high-minded Englishman into a dark and dastardly assassin * With respect to America , it may be that the intentional injuries of France and England have been the same ; but the actual injuries of England have been unquestionably the greater , and

    though I will not vindicate the conduct of the United States in waging war against us exclusively , yet I will contend , that we have forfeited even the privilege of complaint . Mr Canning , in his election speeches , has been pleased to triumph in the failure of . our conciliatory overtures , and to ask what

    we had gained by concession ? Why , we have gained much ; we have acquired a larger party in America , and , even if we have derived no positive benefit from concession , we have at least gained this——that we are something less in the wrong than we were before . "

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1813, page 71, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2424/page/71/