Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
While this farce was performing by the Rev. Baronet and his band, and
while the people of Somerset, who were assembled to the amount of six
or eight thousand persons, were gaping and swallowing all the stuff and
trash dealt out to them by these worthies, a Mr. Trip, a gentleman of
the lower part of the county, a barrister, addressed himself to me,
requesting to know if I meant to propose any amendment. I told him I had
some resolutions of a very different nature, which I certainly meant to
move as an amendment. He then shewed me some resolutions which he had
drawn up, and which he had intended to propose as an amendment, if no
others were offered. Upon reading them over, I found that they embraced
all the material points contained in those which I had framed; and as
they went most decidedly to object to the whole that was proposed by
Sir Abraham, it was settled between us that he should move, and that I
should second them. He accordingly moved them, after a very able and
violent speech, which certainly contained a great deal of good matter,
though it was evidently clouded every now and then by ebullitions of
party spirit, which at county meetings generally shews itself. He was,
nevertheless, heard with attention, and received considerable applause.
The moment that I came forward to second the resolutions, a murmur ran
through the crowd to know who I was; and, on my name being announced,
I was instantly honoured with three cheers. In seconding Mr. Trip's
resolutions, I certainly took rather different ground upon which to
found my arguments. I ridiculed, in indignant language, the idea of
granting sixty thousand a-year to a young German adventurer, merely for
marrying our Princess, and of giving them _fifty thousand_ pounds as
an outfit. But the most monstrous and most infamous proposition of the
whole, I considered that of settling _fifty thousand_ a-year upon him
for life, in case of the decease of his wife. It was, I said, a premium
upon her death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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