the salvation of the country, once more against the people of France to force shortly state what is now the situation back on them the Bourbons, and to of the country, and show how strongly crush those who were endeavouring to this situation resembles that of France just previous to the Revolution..

obtain a reform of parliament in England. It is the Debt here as it was the Debt in France! The French Revolution was a financial affair.. I remember, that the late Mr. Garlike, who was then at the court at the Hague, wrote to me, in 1791, in somewhat these words: "The revolution was a thing of The government could

The fact is not denied by any one, that taxation, be its amount what it may, lessens, in proportion to that amount, the enjoyments of a people. This, and almost in these very words, is acknowledged in the Report of the Agricultural Committee. This nation" necessity. is now taxed to a degree almost beyond" not have gone on another month. It endurance; for, as I said in 1814, and" was like a spider, twisted up in his had said in "Paper against Gold," to "own web." I, who had then been a pay in cash was to double or triple the taxes. The tax on a pound of candles, for instance, is now, when the labourer's wages are reduced to 8s. a week, just as much in nominal amount as it was when

soldier for about seven years, thought it very strange, that a government that had an army could not go on! I have since discovered how this is; and the practical proof is now, or very shortly

his wages were 12s. a week. But three-will be, before me.

pence taken out of.8s. is more than The old French government did not threepence taken out of 12s. In short, possess the power to lighten the burdens it is clear that Peel's Bill has, by re- of the people. It was compelled to call ducing prices one half in general, and, for the assistance of the people themin some cases, a great deal more, selves. I beg your Lordship to rememdoubled or tripled the taxes; so that ber this; for the same call must, in these are now become absolutely into- some shape or other, take place here. Jerable. "Nous demandons à grands The old French government called cris," said the French people, in their upon the people too late, in the first eloquent Cahirs; "We ask, we cry place; then, in the next place, it did not aloud" and, for what? Why, for a act in a fair and frank manner with the reduction of those taxes, those heavy people; thirdly, it endeavoured to mainand galling imposts that were produc-tain all the greatest abuses in full ing amongst them famine and distrac

tion.

vigour; and, fourthly, it was in want of what we have, the forms of freedom and of representation. There was, when they came to act, nothing short of a new government that would do in France; while we, with similar, precisely similar, difficulties, stand in need of nothing but such a change as shall make the House of Commons the real representatives of the people at large; but to be that, they must be chosen by the people at large.

It is the Debt which is the cause of this dreadful scourge. It demands thirty millions of hard money a year to pay the bare interest, and it is made the excuse for raising about ten or twelve millions more for "sinking fund" and other like purposes. Then, to collect these sums amidst the sufferings that the collection of them occasions, demands a standing army in time of peace. This army is made the ground for a staff quite enormous, and for barracks and other establishments equally enorThese again add to the weight of taxation. So that, it is the Debt, swelled up by an endeavour to compel the Americans to submit to taxation unsatisfied of the truth, that there must without representation, and brought to be a complete revolution in property, as present hideous size by the war unless the operations of the Debt be

mous.

Without a reduction, and a large reduction too, of the interest of the Debt, it is in vain to talk of a remedy. The follies of Webb Hall are now become subjects of ridicule amongst all classes of men. There are few that remain

General. I lived to see that profligate politician descend to a disgraceful grave; and I shall live to see fully verified the opinion for the stating of which he would have had me sacrificed; for who is there, my Lord, that does not now see that the ancient nobility and the church must fall, unless the Debt be, by some means or other, nearly, if not quite, put an end to!

stopped. We already see four, if not writings a subject of criticism with that five, noblemen's estates in the hands of great master of style, the Attorneyone single family of "loyal" loan-jobders, whose father would have brushed, and, perhaps, did brush, Lord Shelburne's coat! And, good God! the nobility of this country, while they haughtily and scornfully cast from them a supplicating people, who cannot be their rivals, take to their bosoms, hug, cherish and pamper, a race of reptile loan-jobbers, stock-jobbers and Jews, who are actually at this moment pocketing their rents, by the means of which they will purchase from them the land and the parchments!

The nobility, by which I mean the ancient families of the kingdom, whether peers or not, suffered Pitt to create a new ruce of statesmen. The Roses, My Lord ASHBURNHAM, who presided the Longs, the Addingtons the Ryders, the other day at a meeting at Battle, in the Castlereaghs, the Cannings, the Sussex, very feelingly observed, that, Scotts, the Percevals, the Jenkinsons, in whatever degree the farmers were the Laws, the Dundasses, and many suffering, he could assure them that others. These have had the active they did not suffer more than he did. powers in their hands. Out of their Why, my Lord, what a thing is this to system have arisen the Barings, the hear from a nobleman of large landed Smiths, the Peels, the Curtises, the estate, prudent in the management of Luke Whites, the Alexanders, the Rihis affairs, and squandering in nothing! cardoes, and thousands of that descripWhat a thing to hear from such a per- tion. The ancient families, in all times son; and when we know, too, that this, lethargic, have been content with the is only a specimen of what exists in every part of the kingdom! Several years ago (in 1816) I wrote, in sport, some lines now literally true:

Of paper-coin how vast the power!
It breaks or makes us in an hour.
And, thus, perhaps, a beggar's shirt,
When finely ground and cleared of dirt;
Then re-compressed by hand or hopper,
And printed on by sheet of copper,
May raise ten beggars to renown,
And tumble fifty nobles down.

protection, the ease and safety, which the new race of statesmen promised them. But, at last, they begin to find (and I would fain hope that they will not have made the discovery too late), that it is not ease and safety that have been the result of their confiding the nation's affairs to the new race of statesmen. These have been pretty "vigorous" gentlemen. They have been very able in keeping down reformers. They have discovered great In 1803, when the vapouring Adding-ingenuity in prescribing the price and ton was putting forth his schemes of bulk of pamphlets, and in taking means "solid finance," I said, that, if the Debt to prevent the crime of making "breakwere not arrested in its progress, the fast powder" out of wheat and rye. nobility and the church must finally fall; for that their long existence was wholly incompatible with the existence of that Debt. The unprincipled SHERIDAN, who, for some vile purpose or other, was at that time giving his support to Addington, denounced me, in the House of Commons, as a man aiming at the destruction of public credit, and did his best to mark me out for public resentment, and to render my

They have never been backward te make provision for preventing the landowners from losing their hares and pheasants; but, for the soul of them, they cannot find out the means of preventing them from losing their estates! They have talked very fluently about property being the basis of legislative power; about the "designing demagogues" who, "bankrupt in character and fortune," wanted to get at the pro

perty of the rich; about the "sacred-insults, and scoffs, heaped upon them by ness" of property they have spoken the upstarts who have been supported by... · volumes; how to prevent the hedge- those ancient families! stakes, the nuts, and the haws, from being stolen, they have well understood; but, as to the estate itself, to preserve that to the owner, makes, it seems, no part of their province ! And, my Lord, if this be done at all, be you assured, that it will be a work in which the “designing demagogues" will have a great deal to do.

As to the sort of reform, I have already troubled your Lordship with more than enough. But if I go too far, why not stop short of me? If it were true, that some of us asked for too much, would that be a reason for giving us nothing? If time press (and I confess it does) why, my Lord, not break up a hundred of the boroughs, and give their Let no landowner flatter himself that Members to the great towns, on the the thing admits of mitigation, Mr. universal suffrage plan This, which GIPPS Said, at the Canterbury Meeting, would be giving onlyꞌa' third of the the other day, that the landlords as well Commons' House to the people at large, as farmers, must make sacrifices;- from might satisfy then until time were which it would appear that he supposed found to consider the matter more that the thing would not go beyond a maturely. Why not have a reformed certain point. With the farmer it House sitting in April next ? And why would not; for the farmer is only a not have the Debt reduced, and the higher sort of labourer; but, with the devil set at defiance by June? As to landlord; no matter how large his pos- what I am told some lords say about a sessions, there can be no stop, no pause, House chosen by the people packing as long as the debt exists in any-thing the other House about their business; like its present amount. He must lose and, when it passed tax-laws, would all in a very few years. The whole make none but the rich pay taxes, and will be absorbed by the labourers, thewould thus take away their estates: as paupers (whose allowances are, in fact, to these, my Lord, they are merely now, so much of wages), by the army, feigned fears; they are manifestly exby pensioners, placemen, and fund-euses hatched for the purpose of jusholders. The landlord is now living tifying flagrant wrong upon the plea of out of the losses of the farmer; but the necessity. These Lords know well, present race of farmers will soon be that the Legislatures in America do gone; and the next race will have no-not rob the rich by partial taxation; thing to lose! There will be, for there they know that it was never done even can be, no rents. The tax-gatherer will by the sans-culottes of France; they take the whole of that which ought to know, in short, that it is monstrous to be rent; and this is, and long has been, suppose such a thing. But these peras clear to my sight as is the paper that sons also know, that it is their intention I am now writing on. not to yield an inch; but to hold on, to hang on to the last to the principles of Canning and Davies Giddy.

There is, then, no means of saving the landlords but getting rid of a great part, and a very great part, of the Debt. And is this to be done without admitting the people to a due share in the choosing of Members of their own House? Is this to be done with nine-tenths of the people forbidden to meet to petition their "representatives? Is this to be done without harmony and cordiality between the great mass of the people and the ancient families? Is this to be done, while the people are smarting under the endless wrongs, indignities,

"

However, pray, my Lord, I beseech you to look at the absurdity of feigning fears like these under circumstances like the present! Grant, though it is contrary to all reason and to all experience, that a House of Commons chosen by the people would lay the taxes on the great proprietors exclusively. What then? Their estates, or, rather, their incomes, would be reduced to a certain fixed amount. But, if the present thing go on, they must lose the whole of their

incomes in a very short time; so that workings of upstarts, we have now a even that which they pretend to fear band of paper-formed gentry, who would, if it were really to take place in snatch away the lands with a "presto! consequence of a reform of the Parlia-change!" ment, be an improvement in their cir- We have now not to wait long to see cumstances: they would then have the event. If some efficient measure something; nay, they would still be the be not adopted during the ensuing sesrichest of the community; whereas sion of Parliament, it is, in my opinion, they will now be the poorest; they will more than probable that a later period now be left with nothing; for I mean will be too late; not only too late to to say, distinctly, that if the present save the estates of the ancient families thing go on unchecked for only a very from the transfer; but too late also to few years, every landed estate, the prevent that very convulsion, which has owner of which receives nothing out of all along been the bugbear held up to the taxes, will pass into new hands, and frighten those whose utter ruin seems that the present owners (unless they now to be inevitable, if the present till the land and live on it) will become course be persevered in for any length literally beggars or paupers; and, with perfect seriousness, I declare that I should not be at all surprised to see many a man with a title go into the poor-house; for, let it be observed, that they get feebler and feebler every day from the same cause which daily and hourly adds strength to their devourers. I once employed a French COUNT to bind volumes of the Register for me, and a very good bookbinder he was. This Register has seen strange changes in the world; but, unless the ancient families speedily call the people to their aid, my sincere opinion is, that the Register has yet to see and record changes still stranger, and, both in themselves and in their consequences, far more important than any that it has hitherto seen.

of time. Once more, therefore, at the end of precisely (for it is this very day) twenty years of unavailing calling on the nobility; once more I call on them to conciliate the people, and to appeal to them for protection against the "alldevouring monster." This is the sure and easy way of putting an end to all the turmoil and peril that now exist. In this way all would be justly, quietly, and happily settled. The people, full of satisfaction and good-humour, would cheerfully make sacrifices beyond what any generous mind could expect. Always attached to things long established, they would once more be proud of wha, a long series of harsh and scornful treatment has made them at once hate and despise. The fabric of falsehood and fraud, and all the extortions of its inIf the persons most interested in the ventors, would instantly disappear, and correctness or incorrectness of these England would be again the seat of inforebodings, had not for so many years dustry, of freedom, of that confidence shut their eyes to the truth, they couid between man and man, and of that not have been in their present situation. abundance in good things, that frankHowever, "there is nothing new under ness, that unostentatious hospitality, for the sun" the old nobility of all which she was in former days justly countries have, at different periods, famed, but of all which she has been been led along in this way by active bereft by a band of lawyers converted and greedy upstarts, who have uni- into statesmen, and bringing in their formly taught them, that their security train a band of loan-jobbers, stockwas to be found only in distrust and jobbers, Jews, and makers of paperrigorous treatment of the people; the money, that root of all evil, that depeople, who can never be their rivals, baser, that corrupter of mankind, that who are necessary to their subsistence, and who, if only decently treated, are always against changes of every sort. But, in addition to the ordinary

scourge and curse of a people from generation to generation. The proposition of the saucy and viperous PERCEVAL, to establish a fortress in Hyde

4

I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient
and most humble Servant,
WM. COBBETT

FRANCE.

To the E of the Register. LETTER FROM MR. W. COBBett, AT PARIS.

SIR,

'Park, to cover thirty acres of ground, part of those who are most deeply into contain quarters for ten thousand terested in the matter, is a great deal foot, five thousand horse, and a train of more than past experience will permit artillery, for the openly avowed purpose me to hope, but, at any rate, when the of keeping the metropolis in awe; this tremendous catastrophe shall come, here is only a specimen of what we have had will be this one additional proof of my to put up with for the whole of the anxious desire to prevent it. thirty years last past. Little did those, who so readily gave their assent to such things, imagine that the consequences were finally to fall on themselves! On them they have now, however, fallén, and are falling, with weight insupportable. May they be admonished by what they have already felt, and seek READ paragraph 7 of the following in the revited friendship of the people letter. That will show you the real that security for themselves which I am state of the government of Louissatisfied they will find in no other PHILAPPE! In short, it cannot last. source!! 2 50 100 il There will be a real republic; and we If a contrary line of conduct were to ought to be prepared for that; and to be pursued; if a refusal of reform were be prepared for it, we must have a to be still persisted in if to their deadly cheap government; a really cheap one. and natural foes, the loan-jobbing race, the ancient families were to persist in adding a mass of foes of their own creating, a true picture of all the consequences I forbear to draw. But let it be observed, that if the thing could go Paris, 24th Jan., 1831. on to the close of the transfer of estates, 1. In attempting to give you hints the turmoil would not there end. The in a few words upon the immediate same work of transfer must still be going prospects of this country, I shall neceson; the same agitation, the same dis- sarily divide the body politic into phytress, the same pauperism, the same sical and moral, as those prospects unevils of every description, until the na-doubtedly depend upon two things, tion, debauched and brutalised, insensi- which, though they are very much conble alike to honour and to shame, would nected, act independently of each other. be the sport of its hostile neighbours The funding system being the life or body, and the scorn of the world. To this the principles which the government length, however, the thing could not, profess with regard to its constitution and cannot go. The native vigour of are the moral part, and accidents which the nation, the mass of intelligence and are now well understood may destroy of talent it possesses, that love of that system, without the name of the country which is a passion in the constitution being blackened ; but, bosom of Englishmen, the recollection, supposing such accidents to be averted, become so galling, of the deeds of their a sort of moral death might arise by forefathers, would, long before the thing the abandonment of the principles which arrived at this point, rouse them to have hitherto been all-powerful. Now, action, and in some fit of convulsive in this view of the matter, the prosenergy, all the degrading shackles would pects are black in every way; it is imbe snapped in sunder and scattered to possible to say, in short, on what side the winds. the hopes of those who have, since the That any-thing which I have said, Revolution, been flattering themselves even with the present experience and with the prospect of liberty, and conthe manifest appalling prospect to back gratulating themselves on the mode me, will have any effect on the main which had been taken to secure it: on

I