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        <title type="main">William Hone to Charles Mott, 14 October, 1831</title>
        <title type="sub">An Electronic Edition</title>
        <author>
          <name key="Hone, William, 1780-1842">William Hone</name>
        </author>
        <editor>
          <name xml:id="KG" key="Grimes, Kyle">Kyle Grimes</name>
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        <p>For publication in the Hone Correspondence section of the William Hone BioText,
          http://honearchive.org. The letter is published under a Creative Commons license, details
          of which are accessible from the BioText homepage.</p>

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        <p>Transcribed from the original in British Library, Add. MS 40120, f. 365.</p>
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      <change when="2021-01-15" who="#KG">Encoded in TEI</change>
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      <div type="letter" n="1831-10-14">
        <head>William Hone to <ref type="person" target="whoswho.html#MottCharles">Charles
            Mott</ref>, <date when="1831-10-14">14 October, 1831</date>.<anchor xml:id="citation"
            /><note resp="#KG" place="foot">British Library, Add. MS 40120, f. 365. This letter is
            addressed from Birmingham in the immediate aftermath of the House of Lords' rejection of
            the First Reform Bill in early October of 1831. The result was widespread civil
            unrest&#8212;the burning of Nottingham Castle, for example, or the riots in Derby
            referred to in Hone's letter. It also caused a number of "Political Unions" to form in
            order to push for Parliamentary Reform, such as the infuential Birmingham Political
              Union.<ref target="#citation">[return]</ref></note> &#8212; <ref type="tei-link"
            target="1831-10-14-toMott.xml"> -TEI- </ref>
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        <div type="letterbox">
          <opener>
            <address>
              <addrLine><ref type="place">56 New Hall Street</ref></addrLine>
              <addrLine><ref type="place">Birmingham</ref></addrLine>
            </address>
            <date when="1825-04-04">14 October 1831</date><lb/>
            <salute>Friend Mott</salute>
          </opener>
          <div type="lettertext">
            <p>Your letter dated Tuesday arrived with my letters &amp; trowsers yesterday afternoon.
              I am, I assure you, deeply concerned to hear of your indisposition, which, I think,
              with you, may be mainly occasioned by the close weather. Today it blows fresh here
              &amp; is cooler, and I hope before now you have experienced an advantageous
              change.</p>
            <p>Thanks for your opinion concerning public matters. Lord Brougham's exhoration to
              peaceable demeanor, coupled with his assurance that a bill equally efficient with the
              former will be brought in, is tranquillising to the best spirits here&#8212;but the
              wilder sort are displeased by Lard Wharncliffe's concurrence, and acknowledgment of
              the necessity for Reform&#8212;they apprehend a "cross," and will not relax of their
              hold, yet know not what to do&#8212;A requisition is signing for a <emph>Town's</emph>
              Meeting at the Royal Hotel, at which I imagine the Political Unionists will attend,
              and more amendments which they will be sure to carry. This will be connived at by the
              intelligent of the "reputable" inhabitants, as opening a safety valve for the escape
              of much heat, which if carried to another New Hall Hill Meeting might explode
                mischievously.<anchor xml:id="a"/><note place="bottom" resp="#KG">The New Hall
                Meeting took place near Birmingham in July 1819. In a precursor to Peterloo one
                month later, the New Hall Meeting drew tens of thousands together to advocate for
                Parliamentary reform.<ref target="#a">[return]</ref></note> I seriously think that
              another Meeting there would jeopardize the town, and the Union leaders will not resort
              to it, until they fail of expectation from the ministers. The votes of the Bishops
              have reduced their term of voting in the Lords to a few years&#8212;and then, out they
              go. I am satisfied they have irrecoverably lost themselves&#8212;I have not met with a
              churchman that will put forth a finger to keep them on the cross-bench.</p>
            <p>The burning of Nottingham Castle occasioned much dismay, but now, when it is known
              that the military acted thus, and at Derby, a salutary quiet prevails. My own opinion
              is, that a measure of Reform considerably short of the late Bill will pass under a
              compromise, but that pacification will not be final till the whole measure be
              conceded&#8212;yet, <emph>if</emph> the monetary question be disposed of so as to
              raise prices, and give the agricultural laborer sufficiency of maintenance, things may
              jog on steadily for a while. At the next outbreak the privileged orders will be shaken
              to the centre. The Lords are blind&#8212;they see only through their feelings, as Miss
              McEvory saw with the ends of her fingers. They will be made to feel by the rage of the
              people, and then they will <emph>see</emph>&#8212;</p>
            <p>In my own affair I am anxious, and uncertain. <ref type="person"
                target="whoswho.html#ParkesJoseph">Mr Parkes</ref> flies off to Coventry, and
              elsewhere, without notice, and I expect may be in London before me. We saw Mr. Redfern
              together on Wednesday, but not satisfactorily. Mr. P appointed me to meet him
              afterwards in an hour, but I had only the mortification of seeing him dragged away by
              anxious clients without his being able to say a word to me. I could not catch him
              again till last night, and then sat with him till he finished letters for the London
              post, before which two gentlemen broke in, and all ended by his say that this morning
              he must be off to Warwick by the first coach &amp; return by the last to-day&#8212;My
              time is slaughtered and my heart sickened. I have determined, if I cannot
                <emph>fix</emph> him tomorrow, to write him an earnest letter, and urge him to a
              conclusion at once.</p>
            <p>Meantime, I will be glad if Matilda will send me <emph> by the first Coach</emph>, a
              thin quarto Volume "Guest's History of Spinning," and an octavo volume by the same
              author, both in boards, they are both, I think, on the small shelves (at the top)
              between the closet &amp; the fireplace, <emph>also</emph>, <emph>Clare's Poems</emph>.
              I shall attend forthwith to the <emph>gratis</emph> &amp; lamps, &amp; send up a
              parcel for Haddon by the Coach tomorrow&#8212;Love to all&#8212;I address this to
              Matilda, lest you should be in Sussex&#8212;Yours ever </p>
          </div>

          <closer>
            <signed>W Hone</signed>
          </closer>

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