(No. II.) Royal-Cottage-Gate, Windsor-Park, To His Most Gracious Majesty, The Petition of His Ma-- My Lord, Mr. Dowsett has just informed me that your Lordship, upon receiving the note, which I had the honour this day at noon to address to your Lordship, directed him to tell me, from your Lordship, that you had my note, and that you were ready to receive any paper that I wished to have 1. That, though your Petitioner delivered to His Majesty; and has, in common with the rest of the that you would, upon being in- people of this kingdom, an unformed of my address in town, doubted right to petition your Ma cause to be sent to me an answer Most humbly shows, to any paper that I might leave. jesty, his profound veneration for I lament exceedingly, my Lord, your Majesty's person and office, his that there should be any obstruc-great fear of being deemed presumption to the presenting of my pe-tuous, together with that diffidence tition to His Majesty. The law, which conscious inability bids him my Lord, the rights of English men, know of no obstruction to feel, would, under circumstances less petitioning the King. However, imperious, have effectually restrainI have done all that I am able to ed him from entertaining the thought do towards the due discharge of of thus approaching your Majesty: my duty, as a faithful subject of His Majesty. I would fain do but that, having recently witnessed more-but I cannot, without an the cruel sufferings, and heard the abandonment of my own rights, bitter complaints of your Majesty's consent to deliver my petition into ingenious, industrious, enterprising, the hands of any person, however respectable, who is the bearer public-spirited, loyal, and every-way of a mere verbal message from your Lordship. I am, WM. COBBETT. The Most Noble the Marquis excellent, subjects in the Northern manufacturing counties; having had ample opportunities of ascertaining the causes of those sufferings; having contemplated the imminent public dangers that may arise from the want of relief from sufferings, so acute and irritating in their nature, and pervading such immense numbers of people; having maturely considered of the means of alleviat ing, the sufferings, and of, at least, | people, it may be truly said, that all lessening the danger; having, for many months, anxiously waited in the vain expectation, that your Majesty's Ministers would adopt some measure of real relief; and, having, at last, reluctantly come, in common with his fellow subjects in general, to the firm persuasion, that those Ministers, either from want of sufficient knowledge in such matters, or from another more easily divined than safely defined cause, have not duly informed your Majesty of the above-mentioned sufferings and dan those who do not share, directly or indirectly, in the taxes, are, in a greater or a less degree either suffering, or on the point of suffering; that a great part of the merchants and traders have already been ruin- ́ ed, and that a similar fate is reasonably anticipated by the rest; that, as undeniable proofs of the deplora- · ble state of trade, commerce, and manufactures, there have been, in' the last six months, 1641 Bankrupts, being more than in any one former whole year; that the last six gers, and that they have not in con-months have seen 3392 Insolvent templation any remedy commensurate with the magnitude of the evil: knowing these facts, and entertaining these opinions, your humble petitioner could not, without a cowardly abandonment of his duty, refrain from making, though at the risk of incurring the displeasure of your Ministers, this appeal to the wisdom, the justice, the patient attention, the humane and paternal feelings of your Majesty. Debtors enter the prison doors, a number more than double that of any former whole year; and that the month of June alone saw 1153 Insolvent Debtors sent to prison, being, in one month a number exceeding that of any whole year until within the four years now last past. That property has long had, and now has, nothing like a fixed and permanent value: that, for a long while past, no man has been able to say whether he had property or not; that mer chandise to an immense amount, imported before last January, has fallen in value one half, after having paid a heavy duty; that a large part 2. That, thus urged on by a sense of duty towards your Majesty and his country, your petitioner will now, with all deference and humility, proceed, FIRST, to endeavour to describe the situation of your unhappy people, of these imported articles have been and especially of those in manufac-sold to foreigners at half the import turing counties; NEXT, to state the causes of their sufferings, and, LASTLY, to point out the means of an immediate mitigation, at least, of these sufferings. prices; that, having first paid one foreign nation for the raw material, our merchants were compelled to sell the raw material for half the cost, to another foreign nation, thus enabling 5. That, as to the situation of the the latter to manufacture, at our ex pense, cheaper than ourselves. That | hunger, or to obtain food at the risk all establishments and all imple of the scaffold; and that, when the ments and all materials and stock, mind is once brought coolly to enin trade, commerce and manufac-tertain this question, the law loses tures have, in the course of the last all its terrors, and even the sword eight months, fallen in nominal value gleams and the cannon roars in more than one half; that the ship-vain. owner, the merchant, the manufac- 4. That, with regard to the causes turer, the shop-keeper, have, there- of this deplorable state of things, fore, been unable to pay their debts, your humble petitioner begs leave to and have, accordingly, become bank-state to your Majesty, that it has rupts or insolvents. That while the not arisen from natural causes, but whole of the middle class have been wholly from Acts, proposed by your thus sinking in the scale of property, Majesty's Ministers, and passed by and while a large part of that class the parliament; that these causes have been sinking into the class be-are, first, enormous taxation, second, low them, that lower class have been repeated and arbitrary changes in gradually sinking from a bare suffi- the value of money, and, third, the ciency of food and raiment down to monopoly of the supply of corn, absolute hunger and nakedness. which monopoly is now pressing on That the system of taxing, of fund-the manufacturing class with pecuing and of monopolies has, for many liar force and severity. That, while years, been pressing down the work- it is notorious, that a considerable ing class; that now, however, that part of the people are in danger of class is reduced to a state of misery starving; while your Majesty's Miand degradation that would almost nisters are urgently recommending seem to deny them the right of life charitable subscriptions, and are acand limb; that, with the exception tually subscribing themselves, in of the unfortunate Irish, the English order to prevent the people from working class have long been the dying with hunger; while these facts poorest, the worst fed, the worst are notorious, it is not less notorious, clad people in that whole world, of that these same Ministers are enwhich their forefathers were the forcing a law, which imposes an best fed, the best clad, and most enormous tax upon bread, and happy; that, of this mass of miser- which, in fact, prevents an abunable beings the working class in the dance of food from being brought manufacturing counties are now the into the country; so that, while the most miserable; that, at this mo- poor manufacturer receives a farthing ment, the question with thousands in the shape of alms, a shilling, perupon thousands probably is, whe-haps, is taken from him by the Cornther it be better to die quietly with Bill. That, at this time, wheat sells for about 20s. a quarter on the Con- justice to the industrious classes, by a due regard for the peace of the country, and by those feelings of humanity which the late gracious acts of your Majesty will, your humble petitioner would fain hope, tend, at last, to awaken in the breasts of the 6. That, at this moment, this tinent of Europe, and flour for about 16s, a barrel at New York; that these prices, including all the charges of bringing the articles to England, are much less than half the 'present prices of our wheat and flour; that, therefore, when the working man great owners of the land. pays a shilling for a loaf, he, as things now stand, pays, in fact, sixpence for bread and sixpence for coru-tax, kingdom, once so great and so happy, which corn-tax goes into the pockets exhibits to the world scenes such as of the landlords and the beneficed your humble Petitioner verily believes that that world never saw clergy. That, besides this, the corntax leaves the people in general less before; that, with feelings of the money to expend on wearing appamost profound respect, he beseeches rel; that, thus, the manufacturers your Majesty to behold our immense are injured by want of sale for their quantity of goods, made and making; then to be pleased to look at goods; and that on them, who are thus doubly and cruelly oppressed the foreign wheat and flour; then to be pleased to consider, that the by this unnatural monopoly, a further owners of the wheat and the flour and still greater injury and wrong is want the goods, and that the owners inflicted by the want of that export and makers of the goods want the of manufactures, which would take wheat and flour; then to be pleased place in exchange for the corn and flour imported. to hear the law say, that the wheat and the flour shall not come; that, of 5. That, such being the causes of course, the goods shall not go, and that the present distress and of the daily the makers of them shall die with increasing danger to the state, a ge- hunger, or be degraded into paupers, neral remedy must, to be efficacious, while abundance of food is tendered apply to the taxes and also to the them in fair exchange for their lavalue of money, and must embrace bour: and, when your Majesty's extensive and equitable reforms and gracious condescension shall have inarrangements; that, however, as a duced you further to observe, that special remedy, applicable to the your people are afflicted with evils, particular and urgent case of the the co-existence of which is wholly now - suffering manufacturing dis- at variance, not only with all orditricts, a speedy repeal and utter abo-nary moral rules, but even with the lition of the Corn-Bill are loudly laws of nature; when your Majesty called for by sound policy, by bare shall be pleased to observe, that, ac cording to reports laid before, and to | known indulgent disposition, preacts passed by, the parliament, your sumes humbly to represent, that, unhappy people are suffering, at one and the same moment, from hunger, and from surplus produce; from nakedness, and from a glut of clothing; from over-trading and over-working, and from want of trade and want of work; from panics occasioned by too much wealth, and by too much debt; from bankruptcy and insolvency, the fruit of unexampled prosperity; when your Majesty shall have observed these things, and shall, moreover, have been graciously pleased to reflect on the quantity of food and raiment consumed by the well-fed, well-clad, well-mounted, troops, now stationed amongst the people, who and whose helpless children are half-naked and crying for bread, partly, at least, in consequence of that Corn-Bill, which was originally passed with soldiers drawn up round the Houses of Parliament; when your Majesty shall have been graciously pleased thus to behold, thus to observe, and thus to reflect, your humble petitioner will not doubt of a conviction in the mind of your Majesty, that there is some great and radical error pervading the whole system of management of the affairs of your Majesty's now impoverished and sinking kingdom; and still less will he doubt of your Majesty's most anxious desire to apply to these evils a speedy and radical remedy. 7. That, therefore, your petitioner, emboldened by your Majesty's well leaving, for the present, other mat ters aside, the heavy tax upon bread, so injurious to your Majesty's subjects in general, and so cruelly op pressive to the working, and especially to the manufacturing, classes, operates exclusively to the benefit of the Aristocracy, including the Loan - makers and the beneficed Clergy; that, for the sake of this class, so small in number, the millions of the community are, by the present system, doomed not only to incessant and uncompensated toil, but, in large part, to be placed in danger of perishing with hunger; that, in all sorts of ways, in places, in offices, in pensions, in sinecures, in grants, in emoluments of every species, in advantages, direct and indirect, of every description and of every degree, has this class been favoured and enriched at the expense of the rest of the nation, who, for more than thirty years last past, has seen this one class engross a large part of the enormous taxes and of the not less enormous loans, collected and raised within that period; that a very great portion of the land. of this kingdom is owned by this class; that the ownership generally rests on grants from the Crown, or has been acquired by means derived directly from the public taxes; and, that, now, in order to uphold the rents of this land, while all other property is falling in value, foreign, food is excluded from the country, |