THREE:A Bill for Parliamentary Reform was introduced by Mr. Brand, and debated with unusual interest, owing to the events connected with Sir Francis Burdett, but was, of course, rejected by a large majority. The day for such a measure was yet far off. There was a motion made by Mr. Parnell regarding tithes in Ireland; another by Grattan and Lord Donoughmore for Catholic emancipation; and a third by Sir Samuel Romilly for reform of our criminal codeall necessary, but yet long-to-be-deferred measures. Lord Melville also introduced a plan of great importance into the House of Peers, namely, to substitute Government war vessels for the conveyance of troops to their destinations abroad. He showed that not only was there immense and flagrant jobbing going on between the Government Transport Board and the merchants from whom they hired ships on such occasions, but that these all tended to the misery and mortality of the soldiers; that the transport vessels hired were often not only inconveniently small, necessitating very uncomfortable and unhealthy crowding, but they were also frequently crazy, unseaworthy craft, badly manned, and ignorantly commanded by very ordinary skippers. He showed that a great amount of the mortality attending the transport of our troops to distant shores was owing to this cause, and that all might be avoided, and a considerable pecuniary saving effected, by employing none but Government vessels, roomy and clean, and commanded by officers duly qualified. But no such necessary and humane scheme was likely to be cordially supported by an unreformed Parliament. Mr. George Rose also obtained leave to bring in a Bill for a more questionable object. It was to augment our navy by bringing up the children of such people as became chargeable to parishes at Government naval schools, and thus regularly appropriating them as sailors. He estimated these children at ninety thousand, and calculated that these schools would furnish seven thousand sailor-boys per annum. It was a scheme for a press-gang system commencing with the cradle.The next day all seemed quiet; but at evening, the men having got their Saturday's wages and their usual beer, there were some disturbances in Moorfields, and the mob abused some of the Catholics there. The next day, Sunday, the 4th, fresh crowds assembled in the same quarter, and attacked the houses and chapels of the Catholics, and this continued for the next three days. Troops were sent to quell them; but, having orders not to fire, the mob cared nothing for them. Some of the rioters took their way to Wapping and East Smithfield to destroy the Catholic chapels in that neighbourhood; and others burst into and plundered the shops and houses of Messrs. Rainsforth and Maberly, tradesmen, who had been bold enough to give evidence against the rioters taken on Friday. Another detachment took their way to Leicester Fields to ransack the house of Sir George Savile, the author of the Bill for the relaxation of the penal code against the Catholics. This they stripped and set fire to, and some of the pictures and furniture, as well as some of the effects taken from the Catholic chapels and houses in Moor fields, were paraded before the house of Lord George Gordon, in Welbeck Street, in triumph. The mob had now acquired a more desperate character. The fanatic members of the Protestant Association had retired in consternation from the work of destruction, seeing fresh elements introduced into itelements not of simple religious frenzy, but of plunder and revolutionary fury. They had begun the disturbance, and the thieves, pickpockets, burglars, and all the vilest and most demoniacal tribes of the metropolis had most heartily taken it up.
Volunteer, Porshee Foundation
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