"Business, Mr. Secretary--the last minutes."
The minutes were read, and an adjourned debate was then renewed on a
motion to organise public meetings to petition in favour of
Parliamentary Reform. The reader must understand that politics in
those days were somewhat different from the politics of fifty or
sixty years later. Bread was thirteenpence a quartern loaf; the
national debt, with a much smaller population, was what it is now;
everything was taxed, and wages were very low. But what was most
galling was the fact that the misery, the taxes, and the debt had
been accumulated, not by the will of the people, but by a corrupt
House of Commons, the property of borough-mongers, for the sake of
supporting the Bourbons directly, but indirectly and chiefly the
House of Hanover and the hated aristocracy. There was also a
scandalous list of jobs and pensions. Years afterwards, when the
Government was forced to look into abuses, the Reverend Thomas
Thurlow, to take one example amongst others, was awarded, as
compensation for the loss of his two offices, Patentee of Bankrupts
and Keeper of Hanaper, the modest allowance annually until his death
of 11,380 pounds 14s.
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