and candour believe, for a moment, that this would have ever been done to this hour, if it had not been for the prayers, petitions, and remonstrances of the people? Here, then, is another saving of upwards of thirty thousand pounds a year.--Therefore, I say, that the great public meetings _have_ done a great deal of good; and those who promoted them have rendered very considerable service to the country, although they have themselves been the victims of that system of tyranny and oppression, which, in these two instances alone, has had its plunder curtailed in more than _sixty thousand pounds a year_. Add to all this, that the Prince Regent surrendered fifty thousand pounds per annum to the public exigencies. Will any man say that the Regent would have done this, had it not been for the great public meetings held in Spafields and other places? and was this nothing? Again, Mr. Ponsonby resigned his Chancellor's pension of _four thousand pounds a year_. Is this nothing? Here I have shown that, within _three months_ of the great meeting first held in Spafields, and between the second and third meeting which was advertised, no less a sum than NINETY THOUSAND POUNDS A YEAR was surrendered for the public exigencies; and was this doing nothing? To be sure, five persons had been found guilty of rioting on the day of the second Spafields meeting, and Cashman was sentenced to death; but this had nothing to do with the meeting itself, which met only for the purpose of petitioning Parliament, and peaceably separated, after agreeing to a petition, which was signed by _twenty-four thousand persons_, praying for Reform, and the abolition of all sinecures, and a reduction of the public expenditure; which petition had been presented, and received by the House of Commons, before these _surrenders_ and resignations of these large sums were made. To be sure, Lord Sidmouth had delivered in the House of Lords a message from the Prince Regent, laying before Parliament the famous green bag, full of precious documents, got up to prove that sedition, conspiracy, and rebellion were close at hand; and that treasonable practices existed in London, and in various parts of the kingdom: upon which a committee was appointed by the Ministers, in both Houses of Parliament, to examine and report upon the contents of the said bag. The result of this was, that Mr. Evans, of Newcastle-street, the Spencean, and his son, were arrested on a charge of high treason!