QUESTION. WHAT is your name?
A. Thomas Spence.
Q. What Business?
A. A Bookseller.
Q. Where do you live?
A. No. 8, Little Turnstile.
Q. Do you know the person that just went out (meaning Mr. Francklow?)
A. I have frequently seen him in my shop as a customer as I have many others,
as well as that gentleman AT THE HEAD OF THE TABLE there, (meaning Mr.
Reeves).
MR. REEVES. I have seen you too.
Q. Have you heard anything of the Lambeth Association?
A. Yes, I have heard something of it, but not anything that made me conceive
it illegal.
Q. Did they ever exercise in — ?
A. I never saw them.
Q. Nay, but did you not know of their exercising there?
A. I see your drift, you mean to pick up a little from everyone you examine
with a view to make up something like a plot, for the purpose of alarming the
nation.
Dundas. You are exactly right.
( 3 )
A. Then as I do not belong to Administration, I do not think myself bound to
give them intelligence, they have too many employed already for that purpose;
besides, it is not every administration that I would act with. However, you
may sufficiently gather from the intelligence you have already received, that
the nation is very much discontented, and you would do well to pay attention
to its wish. Is not the voice of the generality of the nation similar to that
of the people of Israel, when they said to Solomon's son* Make the yoke
which thy father set upon us lighter, and we will serve thee? Take
warning therefore by his fate, and listen to the people before it be too late.
As to plots, I know of but what MR. PITT, the DUKE OF RICHMOND, and other
eminent gentlemen set on foot more than twelve years ago, shewing the
necessity and legality of universal suffrage and annual parliaments, and that
plot WILL undoubtedly go on while taxes and the national debt increase.
Council. Do you say so?
A. Yes, I say so. And it looks very ill, that after such eminent persons
had deluded the nation into the pleasing hopes of such ample and satisfactory
enjoyment of their rights, they should, as it were, turn KING'S EVIDENCE
against those they should have been so active in leading into the business.
Therefore it would much better become ministry to hearken to the voice of the
nation, and to redress their grievances, than proceed in their present methods
of harassment and oppression. And this is my advice if you want it.
Council. But what answer do you mean shall be put down to the last question.
A. None at all. I will answer no more questions: I have nothing of importance
to inform you of; but whether or no I do not chuse to set up a bad
( 4 )
precedent by answering, or by giving you any information at all. As to learning
the Manual Exercise, if I were personally qualified, I would not hesitate about
learning it, nor think it wrong.
Council. But you would not be suffered.
The council would nevertheless persist in asking many frivolous questions,
to which no answer was desired to be put.
Moreover, Mr. Spence lamented that people should be surprised into a
discovery of every innocent connection and transaction, and all secrets laid
open; that it was a new mode of procedure in England; and was what he would
never countenance, by turning Informer; and he was fully determined to call
BLACK black and WHITE white, to the end of his life, as he
had always done, in spite of all opposition, and in spite of Mr. Reeves's
administration.
FINIS
*Kings, Chap. 12
PIG'S MEAT, that best political instructor, is now completed in two Volumes,
Price sewed four Shillings; and may be had either bound or in loose Numbers,
at a Penny each, as before. Sold by T. Spence, No. 8 Little Turnstile, High
Holborn.