special mention of many able and excellent individuals. Though it may contain errors of fact and opinion, yet, as it is confined to those phases of events, and incidents in the lives of persons, which history too seldom dwells upon, it may be found not wholly valueless to those who would examine the most interesting and instructive period in the recent annals of England. The chronological plan of the work is, generally, to notice prominent popular movements in their order of time, and, in connection with each, to give sketches, more or less full, of persons who bore a leading part in it. But such slight regard has been paid to chronological arrangement, that each subject stands by itself, having only a general connection with what precedes or follows it As to my statistics, I have occasionally been compelled to reach conclusions much in the same manner as juries agree upon verdicts-consult a dozen authorities, each one differing with all the others get the sum total of the whole, divide it by twelve, and adopt the result. This Book is submitted to the reader as an humble attempt to make some of the Reformers of America better acquainted with some of the Reformers of the Old World-to show that the Anglo-Saxon love of liberty, which inspires so many hearts on both sides of the Atlantic, flows from the same kindred fountain-to prove that, though when measured by her own vaunted standards, Great Britain is one of the most oppressive and despicable Governments on earth, her radical reformers constitute as noble a band of democratic philanthropists as the world has ever seen—to induce candid Americans to make just discriminations in their estimate of "England and the English," and to draw distinctions between the privileged orders of that country and a small, but increasing, and even now powerful body of its people, who admire the free institutions of the United States, and are laboring with heroic constancy, and a zeal tempered with discretion, to secure for themselves and their fellow-subjects the rights and privileges enjoyed by transAtlantic republicans, and, finally, to record my admiration of those rare and true men, who, during the past half century, and while struggling against difficulties and enduring persecutions, of which we have but the faintest conceptions, have achieved so much for the cause of Humanity and Freedom. SENECA FALLS, N. Y., October, 1849. H. B. S. 1 CONTENTS. British Cabinets from 1770 to 1830-Summary of the Efforts of The French Revolution-The Continental Policy of Mr. Pitt- Law Reform-Jeremy Bentham-His Opinion of the Common Law Law Reform-The Penal Code of England-Its Barbarity-The Law Reform-The Penal Code-Restriction of the Penalty of Death in 1823-4-Appointment of Commissioners to Reform the Religious Toleration-Eminent Nonconformists-The Puritans- Oliver Cromwell-The Pilgrims-The Corporation and Test Acts-Their Origin-Their Effects upon Dissenters and others Ireland-The Causes of its Debasement-Dublin-Mementoes of the Captivity of the Country-Movements toward Catholic Catholic Emancipation-Antiquity and Power of the Papal Church -Treaty of Limerick-Catholic Penal Code of Ireland-Opi- nions of Penn, Montesquieu, Burke, and Blackstone, concern- ing it-Its Amelioration-Catholic Association of 1823-The Hour and the Man-Daniel O'Connell elected for Clare- Alarm in Downing Street-Duke of Wellington's Decision- Movements toward Parliamentary Reform-John Cartwright- The Father of Parliamentary Reform-His Account of the Trials of Hardy and Tooke-Lord Byron's Eulogium of him- His Opinions of the Slave Trade The First English Advocate of the Ballot-His Conviction for Conspiracy-His Labors for |