Such a meeting was held at Taunton
on the 9th of March, and the Rector of Combe Florey attended and spoke.
"This," he said, "is the greatest measure which has ever been before
Parliament in my time, and the most pregnant with good or evil to the
country; and, though I seldom meddle with political meetings, I could
not reconcile it to my conscience to be absent from this. Every year
for this half century the question of Reform has been pressing upon
us, till it has swelled up at last into this great and awful
combination; so that almost every City and every Borough in England
are at this moment assembled for the same purpose and are doing the
same thing we are doing."
A great part of the controversy turned on the disfranchisement of the
"Pocket Boroughs," and this was a subject which immediately suggested a
happy apologue--
"These very same politicians are now looking in an agony of terror at
the disfranchisement of Corporations containing twenty or thirty
persons, sold to their representatives, who are themselves perhaps
sold to the Government: and to put an end to these enormous abuses is
called _Corporation robbery_, and there are some persons wild enough
to talk of compensation. This principle of compensation you will
consider perhaps, in the following instance, to have been carried as
far as sound discretion permits.
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