Page 9 - Hampdens Monument Unveiled

people who chose them should be taxed against their will
(cheers).

What a contrast, said he, does that parliament present to our
present parliaments! The people of this country are compelled
by their legislators to pay L52,000,000 a year in taxes, and an
equal sum for other purposes (oh. oh!). He then endeavoured to
impress upon his audience the injustice of parliament by
maintaining Kings many and Lords many! (cheers). He begged the
people to remember that the three last Sovereigns spent more of
the public wealth than the thirty-one who preceded them: and
that in three-fourths of the last century more public money was
lavished than in the nine centuries before! (cries of oh, oh!)

Talk not of a happy country after this - we want a happier
people (cheers and cries of 'we want to be happier'). He (Mr.
F.) proposed to read a petition which he had prepared, not for
the Commons House, not for the Lords, but for the Queen
(immense cheering and laughter)."To Her Most Gracious Majesty,
Victoria, &c. "May it please your Majesty - We your Majesty's
loyal affectionate, and dutiful subjects, feeling deeply
impressed with the dangers that now threaten and harass our
once happy country, beg to approach your Majesty with due
homage and courtesy, and to implore your Majesty to exert your
royal influence to avert the dangers which now threaten to
overwhelm us in one common ruin.

"Assembled as we are this day upon Chalgrove Field, in the
county of Oxford to do homage to the virtues, and raise a
lasting monument to the memory of that most illustrious patriot
John Hampden, who gloriously fell in defending the
constitutional rights and liberties of this country two
centuries ago ;-we cannot but revert to our present deplorable
condition as a nation, and humbly beseech your Majesty to lend
a gracious ear to the cries of millions of your unhappy
subjects long, destitute of necessary food and raiment, only
asking for leave to toil and eat their daily bread! But owing
to both Houses of Parliament turning a deaf ear to the relation
of their bitter sufferings, we humbly but earnestly address
Majesty itself to search into the MIS-GOVERNMENT, MONOPOLIES,
and OVERWHELMING TAXATION that have reduced the nation to the
verge of riot, rebellion, and ruin. Praying, &c.

As Mr. Faulkner was engaged in reading his petition, Lord
Nugent returned, not in his carriage, but on horseback, which
led to his not being recognised at once by the majority. He
enquired what was going forward, and on being told, he took off
his hat and commenced an address thus:

Lord Nugent’s Address to the Crowd

-" My friends," -but no sooner were these words uttered than
the people appeared to be much taken with the zeal of the
"people's man" to give them some instruction, and to animate
their patriotism, after that nobility had left them to
conjecture who and what Hampden was, and wherefore they had