Broadside entitled 'Twelve Queries to the Citizens of Glasgow'

Transcription

TWELVE QUERIES
to the
CITIZENS of GLASGOW.

Query 1.
IF the Speaker on the 23d of February, 1784, lives in the
neighbouring city, and pays no stent to the town, and no
tax to the poor, and does not own the authority of the
Provost, nor even the power of a town-officer to seize a de-
linquent in the neighboring city, what right had he to speak
in that meeting ?

Query 2.
Being allowed however to speak, did he inform you in
a very intelligible manner that you were stupid, contempti-
ble, interested, and the smugglers of an address to the K.?
If so, What right had he to break through an established
rule in speaking; which is, " To set out with courting the
" good will of the audience", Unless it was to shew the good-
ness of his cause, and the power of his eloquence, by telling
you that you were not only stupid and contemptible, but a
parcel of s-?

Query 3.
Stupid and Contemptible as you were represented, did
he find that you instantly resented his behaviour, by hissing
at him, by rattling with your sticks, and by forming a plan,
if he had spoken again, to send him down stairs much fas-
ter than he came up ?

Quiry 4.
Was there any man in that meeting who Could be so
Much as supposed to be personally interested in the successs
of that address, excepting the speaker himself, to whom the
last Ministry attempted to give the office of L. A. and af-
terwards that of K. S. ? Was not this modesty ?

Query 5.
Did three facts prove that your address was smuggled ?
The meeting was called for the avowed purpose of making
an address, and not for a different one, like his famous meet-
ing which was held in the neighbouring city. The business
of addressing was not communicated to a few, as was the
case of the famous address, but to the whole world. Your
address was not carried like the famous one by the minority,
but by a prodigious majority of the whole meeting. Was
there not good reason then to charge you with stupidity,
since you published in the newspapers what you had a mind
to conceal, and since there is no making you believe that
four is the majority of nine, which is the majority of six-
teen, the addressing members in the neighbouring city ?

Query 6.
Were you not unjust in not allowing another person,
Master Cocky Bung, to speak to you against the address ;
for he certainly had a perfect right, not only to make a
noise, but a noise as a citizen ; because, it is well known,
that he made a noise for many years upon old barrels, and
in your city ; and because he showed his gratitude for that
privilege, and for the bursaries to which he had been pre-
sented by the town, by insulting your Provost, when he
made a visit in the neighbouring city ; in which hospitable
business he was assisted with much humanity by Penna
Pennae, Esquire.

Query 7.
Were you not both unjust and foolish in hindering Mr.
Bung to make a speech ; for his arguments, like those of
the Speaker, would have served your cause; they being,
on all occasions, like the sound of his old trade, without
clearness, force, or elegance; while they are overlaid with
the dunting of hard words, he being as remarkable in the
north for such stuff, as Samuel Johnson is in the south; so
that when he wrote a pamphlet like him, it was no imitation,
but true nature, having only brought himself down from
the superlative to the comparative degree, which made it
impossible for the reviewers to tell, which was the counter-
feit, and which was the man.

Query 8.
Was it not unjust in you to allow one of your number,
and when standing upon one foot, to ask Mr. Bung, whe-
ther the speaker meant by a smuggled address the famous
one in the neighbouring city; and to allow another to give
Mr. Bung the lie, dividing his words into syllables, that a
grammarian, might be at no loss to understand them?   Will
it not be good for Mr. Bung to soap his nose, till he learns
something like the manners of a gentleman ?

Query 9.
Was it foolish in you not to encourage the speaker and
Mr. Bung, who, in the course of their reasoning, would
have told you many fine things about religion, and repu-
blics; and the great good which the Fox will produce by
his reformations; such as the taking away of finecures, and
at the same time granting pensions; such as the giving
100,000 l. instead of 50,000 l. to the P. W. such as the
taking away of charters without an equivalent, destroying
a mercantile company by an act of power, and destroying
the mode of trying individuals as established by King,
Lords, and Commons ; so that there will be no longer any
trials with open doors, with aid of council, and extracts,
which glorious system of republican liberty they actually
brought into practice about nine months ago, till they were stopt
by the Judges of the King? You will remember too how
they acted in expelling a student for a supposed incivility to
One of themselves, for no proof could be brought of what
was in private, even by their own tale. You may judge of
the Fox and his party from his underlings in this country.
And will it not be delightful to get a rival commercial
company destroyed by applying to him and his faction;
and to get any person tried to whom you have a dislike,
with shut doors, without counsel, without extracts, and
without the check of the King's judges, who are guided
by no ideas of republican liberty, but only by law, and
by justice?

Query 10.
Have you not been imposed upon by the merit which
the Fox takes to himself from his India bill ? There are only
three things in it that deserve your attention. The sove-
reignty, the commerce, and the patronage. As to the
first you will observe, that it is not the sovereignty of a king,
but of a republic ; and of a republic which has far excelled
even Nero in every art that can fix disgrace on human na-
ture.   All are now agreed, that the sovereignty of this re-
public should be destroyed, because it is an usurpation, and
the most oppressive of all governments. Nor is this wonder-
full, for it is well known to the historian, that the greatest
of all tyrannies have been exercised in republics, both an-
cient and modern. The only question then is about the
best method of destroying the sovereignty of this tyrannical
usurpation, so as to do justice to the poor Indians. The
Fox therefore and his trumpeter have no merit on this
head, because it is the cry of every man, woman, and child.
But consider the other two branches of his bill, and there
you will see political prostigacy in the highest perfection,
First, he attempted to break a chartered right, without so
much as pretending to give an equivalent ; so that by the
same rule he may seize every charter in the kingdom, upon
finding that the persons to whom it is given, have exceeded
their power, which he and his friends will always find with
the greatest expedition. Secondly, he declared a company
of merchants bankrupt, and seized their property, not by
the operations of a court of law, which every merchant,
and every British subject is entitled to, but by the long
arm of legislative power. And, thirdly, he vested the ma-
nagement of this mercantile company, not in the proprie-
tors, nor in persons named by the Crown, as the executive
part of our constitution, in which case it would have been
under three checks, that of the King, Lords, and Commons ;
but in the uncontroulable junto of the majority of the House
of Commons, so that the Earl of ----- in England,
and

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