In the progress of this work I shall give a brief delineation of the
political movements of the last twelve or fourteen years, or at least of
those events that came within my knowledge, which I believe will include
almost every thing relating to reform and the public characters who have
taken any part in promoting or retarding that desirable object. These
public characters consist of George the Third down to Arthur Thistlewood
inclusive, who are dead and gone; of those who are yet living from George
the Fourth down to Mr. Cobler Preston and Mr. Billsticker Waddington. The
public events will more particularly include the History of the great
Public Meetings held within the last twelve years in Wiltshire, Hampshire,
Somersetshire, Middlesex, London, Westminster, Bristol, Bath, Spa-fields,
Smithfield and Manchester, as well as those held at the Crown & Anchor and
the Freemason's and London Taverns; and likewise of the contested
elections of Bristol, Westminster, London, Bridport, Ludgershal and
Preston, at all of which I took an active part, and therefore am enabled
to detail many curious and interesting anecdotes, facts, intrigues, plots,
under-plots, cabals, &c. which were never before presented to the public,
and which circumstances, together with the secret springs and actions of
those who worked in the back ground, which have hitherto been very
imperfectly understood, shall be brought to light and faithfully recorded;
taking due care not to betray any confidential communications. I shall,
also, as is usual, or at least as is very common, give a short sketch of
my ancestors, not because I can show a long line of them up to the
Conquest, (nor because I esteem this a circumstance to boast of), but I
shall state facts as they have been handed down from father to son by old
family documents, regardless of the sneers of those who, at the same time
and in the very same breath in which they affect to ridicule and despise
all distinctions of this sort, fall themselves into a much greater error
and indulge in a much less excusable folly; that of holding up to public