"That, as to the FIRST of these assertions, as your petitioner possesses no means of ascertaining the secret thoughts of men, he cannot pretend to assert, that none of the persons, with whom the calling of the first Spafields meeting originated, had no views of a riotous or revolutionary kind; but he humbly conceives, that a simple narrative of facts will be more than sufficient to satisfy your Right Honourable House, that no such dangerous projects ever entered the minds of those who constituted almost the entire mass of that most numerous meeting. Therefore, in the hope of producing this conviction in the mind of your Right Honourable House, your petitioner begs leave to proceed to state: that he, who was then at his house in the country, received, a short time before the 16th of November last, a letter from Thomas Preston, Secretary of a Committee, requesting your petitioner to attend a public meeting of the distressed inhabitants of the metropolis, intended to be held in Spafields on the day just mentioned; that your petitioner thereupon wrote to Thomas Preston to know what was the object of the intended meeting; that he received, in the way of answer, a newspaper called the Independent Whig, of November 10th, 1816, containing an advertisement in these words; to wit: 'At a meeting held at the Carlisle, Shoreditch, on Thursday evening, it was determined to call a meeting of the distressed Manufacturers, Mariners, Artizans, and others of the Cities of London and Westminster, the Borough of Southwark, and parts adjacent, in Spafields, on Friday, the 15th instant, precisely at 12 o'clock, to take into consideration the propriety of petitioning the Prince Regent and Legislature, to adopt immediately such measures as will relieve the sufferers from the misery which now overwhelms them. (_Signed_) JOHN DYALL, Chairman, THOMAS PRESTON, Secretary.' That your petitioner, upon seeing this advertisement, hesitated not to accept of the invitation; that he attended at the said meeting; that he there found, ready prepared, a paper, called, to the best of his recollection, a _memorial_, which some persons, then utter strangers to him, proposed to move for the adoption of the meeting; that your petitioner, perceiving in this paper, propositions of a nature which he did not approve of, and especially a proposition for the meeting going in a body to Carlton House, declared that he would have nothing to do with the said memorial; that your petitioner then brought forward an humble petition to the Prince Regent, which petition was passed by the meeting unanimously, and which petition, having been by your petitioner delivered to Lord Sidmouth, that Noble Lord has, by letter, informed your petitioner was immediately laid before his Royal Highness the Prince Regent. And your petitioner here begs leave further to state, upon the subject of the aforementioned