ABSTRACT
The affairs of this country have now evidently reached that important crisis, the approach of which has long been anticipated by reflecting men, and no very long period must determine our fate. We shall obtain Reform, completer effectual Reform, in spite of that boroughmongering oligarchy which has so long lorded it over the purses and persons of the people; or we shall sink into a slavery, the most debasing and hopeless that ever nation was cursed withal; a slavery made tenfold more galling by the remembrance of past times of freedom and glory, when England towered in proud pre-eminence above the countries around; by the base and pitiful character of the agents in this loathsome work of degradation; and by the contrast with other countries once the objects of contempt, or subjects of our dominion, who rise as we are sinking, and go on gaining fresh privileges as we are loaded with additional fetters. At such a period, it becomes no man to be silent or inactive, who thinks that he can serve his country. The hosts of Corruption are busy enough; they see very well, that they must bestir themselves to retain their supremacy and guard their spoils. They have shewn us what they can do, and what they dare do; they have gone from oppression to insult, and from insult to violence and bloodshed. It is time for the friends of their country, of liberty, and of man, to be firmly banded against them, to atchieve the triumph of reason and justice over chicanery and brute force. There should be no temporizing now with any who prefer equal rights and laws to military despotism. In them, neutrality is treason. The voice of the country, as that of one man, should cry aloud for Radical Reform. To promote that cry is the object of this publication. It is added to the many already in circulation, with the hope of aiding in the same good cause; to increase the stimulus of a friendly and generous rivalry to do most for the public good; and to discharge the sacred duty of contributing something, (whether effectually or not, time must shew,) towards the salvation of the country.
