The livery in the meanwhile had insisted upon a special Common Hall being summoned for the purpose of taking into consideration "the alarming assumption of privilege by the honourable the House of Commons, of arresting and imprisoning during pleasure the people of England, for offences cognisable in the usual courts of law," and on the 4th May, they passed a cordial vote of thanks to Burdett for having resisted the Speaker's warrant, and for having upheld the right of freedom of speech. They also thanked the lord mayor for his "constitutional endeavours to preserve the peace of the city without the aid of the military." Furthermore, they resolved that the only means left to save the constitution and the country was parliamentary reform, which must be both speedy and radical, and they called upon the people of the United Kingdom to join them in endeavouring to bring this reform about. A petition to the House was then read and adopted, the language of which was so strong that even the petitioners themselves felt constrained to offer some kind of apology, and to declare that by it they intended no disrespect to the House. After commenting upon what they deemed an illegal and totally unjustifiable act of the House, in committing Jones and Burdett to prison without legal process, they proceeded to remind the Commons that so far from representing the people, they were known to have been sent to Parliament "by the absolute nomination or powerful influence of about 150 peers and others;" that they had refused to examine the charge brought against Lord Castlereagh and Spencer Perceval, two ministers of the Crown, of trafficking in seats; that when, on a former occasion, it was averred before the House "that seats for legislation in the House of Commons were as notoriously rented and bought as the standings for cattle at a fair," the House had treated the assertion with affected indignation, and ministers had threatened to punish the petitioners for presenting a scandalous and libellous petition. The petitioners, nevertheless, had lived "to see a House of Commons avow the traffick and screen those accused of this breach of law and right, because it had been equally committed by all parties, and was a practice as notorious as the sun at noon-day." Where, they asked, was the justice of the House? Where its dignity? Jones was confined to prison for an alleged offence which if committed against any subject of the realm, or even the king himself, would have been made the subject of legal investigation; Lord Castlereagh continued to be a principal minister of the Crown, and was at that very time a free member of Parliament; Sir Francis Burdett had been dragged from the bosom of his family and committed to the Tower, for exercising the right of constitutional discussion, common and undeniable to all, whilst Spencer Perceval continued a member of the House, taking a lead in its deliberations, the first minister of