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Recollections of the life of John Binns ...
Recollections of the life of John Binns Author:John Binns Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the House of Peers, show his extreme alarm, and his estimate of the dangers from which he had just been rescued; the words were : ' My Lord, I have been shot atx... more »' These words he addressed to the Lord Qtewcellor. CHAPTER III Declaration of War against France by Great Britain, not favored by William Pitt — Obstinacy of George the Third — Correspondence of the King with Charles James Fox relative to the American War — Condemnation of Kyd Wake — Scene at Covent Garden Theatre — Laws against seditious practices enacted — Action of the London Corresponding Society thereon — I am sent on a mission to Portsmouth ; visit the prison at this place — My return to London — My arrest at Birmingham and confinement in " the dungeon" — The riot which occurred here in 1790-91 — I visit the public house at which the riot was believed to have been planned — Scene at this house. In 1791, and for many years after, it was the general opinion that -the then Prime Minister, William Pitt, was mainly instrumental in causing war to be declared by Great Britain against France; and that such was his rabid hostility to the Republic, his fear of the spread of its political principles, and of their triumph over monarchy, that he united with Edmund Burke, not only in waging the war, but in the determination that it should be a war of extermination, if not of the people, at least of those professing the principles of republicanism. Subsequent authentic information shows that these widespread and long-entertained opinions, respecting Mr. Pitt, had but little or no foundation in truth. This has been demonstrated by a statesman who was personally intimate, and in the confidence of Mr. Pitt — I mean, Lord Malmesbury. In his "Life and Times," written and published by himself, he informs us, that William Pitt wa...« less