TO THE PEERS OF THE REALM.
My Lords,
Since the day of Runimede, your name has made the tyrant tremble, wherever the British flag was unfurled. Since the day on which the bishops walked to the Tower, at the command of a minion of the court of Rome—because they refused to pioneer the re-establishment of Popery, by proclaiming an act of toleration which they knew to be the forerunner of intolerance, tyranny, and persecution—the British constitution, under the shield of your protection, has been the watchword and the, retreat of the oppressed throughout the world.
Does a sense of whatever is noble, independent, honorable, and humane, still form the distinguishing characteristic of your order? Ye have sanctioned the expenditure of millions to rescue Africa from slavery. Will ye allow Australia to perish? Will ye suffer the British flag to be indelibly stained by the extermination of one of the most interesting races of the human family?
In trying to interest you in their salvation, I am pleading the cause of the Redeemer of Men. Can an appeal be made to you in vain, on behalf of Him who bled upon the cross, whom angels worship, and to whom ye owe your coronets? Impossible.
TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Gentlemen,
When I find you wrangling with unprincipled demagogues, neglecting the affairs of the empire, and insulting the Supreme, by contending for the desecration of the Sabbath—that prolific source of every evil that constitutes a nation's shame—I doubt whether I ought to add to the indignities heaped upon Australia by appealing on her behalf to such an assembly. The constitution, in your hands, so far from being the palladium of virtue and freedom, has become the shield of vice and licentiousness. Ye have fallen from your dignity, and lost the estimation of the wise and the good. Instead of guarding the morals and the wealth of the realm, ye spend your time in catering to the vulgar and the vicious. Ye neglected the timely remedying of the evils incident to an increasing population, accumulating riches, and an advancing age, till a flood set in upon you, the waves of which, sporting with your puny efforts to still them, threaten to ingulf the kingdom in revolution. Ye have placed yourselves and the sacred deposit intrusted to your care by preceding generations at the mercy of a licentious mob, who, while they command your obedience, treat you with scorn and contempt.
