"of habits which must be altered, "the hearts which must sink, and "the hands which may rebel under "trials such as these."

"laid desolate, the second nature | Manchester on the 16th of August, and which actuated those who could find no means of getting Bills of Indictment upon that occasion; and who could approve We see, here, your accustom- and applaud to the skies, thanks ed originality. You talk of the which were given to those yeoland-owner being the hated stew-manry cavalry. Away, then, with ard of the annuitant, just as if Sir your flummery stuff, about " puThomas Beevor had not, in his rest feelings of the heart;" and address to the public of January about the "ties which must be last, made use of the very same broken" by the transfer of estates. words. You are the most scan- You say nothing about the ties dalous plagiarist, perhaps, that that are broken, when militia-men ever put pen to paper; but, your are forced from their homes; and robbery or intended robbery of when even local-militia-men have the lessees and the annuitants, is their skins broken; or, at least, a crime of a more serious descrip- had them broken, at the town of tion. So, then, you can feel for Ely, under a guard of Hanovethis land-owner, can you? You rian troops. can feel for men of this descrip- But, now, leaving this soft nontion, who are sent wandering over sense to amuse fools, let us come the earth; you can talk of the to the assertions made at the close destruction of the "dearest local of the above paragraph. You attachments" in their case; and say, that there must be villages do you not think that poor people deserted and gardens laid waste, have attachments as well as these by this transfer of property. Why insolent Land-owners? Are not should these take place? In page their attachments, their friend- 86, you extend this notice still ships, their feelings to be attend- further. Your words are these: ed to? And are they attended to" But the ancient landlord's posiby those laws which these land-"tion is still more hopeless in owners have got to be passed "addition to the public burthens, within the last twenty years only, "he is required to meet with a and of which laws I spoke to you "reduced rental an increased in the close of my last letter? " charge ruin must be his fate: Those must be pretty "purest` "his tenants and his labourers feelings of the heart" that could “will sink with him; the former dictate Sturges Bourne's Vestry "from the weight of their fixed Bill; that could give a rich man engagements; the latter from six votes to the shopkeeper's or "want of employment, and a fall farmer's one vote; that could" of wages greater than the realter the law; that could make duction of taxation. In such a this alteration even in the poor- "state of affairs we must come laws of three hundred years" to a tenantry without capital or standing; those must be "purest "leases, and to a population feelings of the heart," indeed," eking out existence by potatoes." that could give rise to the passing How anxious you are to make of a Bill like this! Almost as us believe, that if this old Arispure as those feelings which ac-tocracy be not supported in all its tuated the yeomanry cavalry at present power and dominion;

with all its present boroughs and "be depreciated, the tenant adits present sinecures; with all its heres to his bargain, and de present pensions, grants, and emo-"rives the entire profit; if the luments; you would fain have us" value of the currency be rebelieve that, unless this Aristo-" stored, then, as we have lately cracy be supported in this same" seen in 1821 and 1822, the way, we shall all of us somehow" strict letter of the lease is of no or other, fall into decay, become" avail to the landlord: the tepoor and miserable, if not perish" nant becomes insolvent, and the outright. Now, Sir James Gra-" contract is abrogated; or the ham of Netherby, what sense is" force of public opinion, in this there in this notion? Why should" country more powerful than such a thing be? The land will" law, compels the landlord to renot go away, nor any thing ap-"duce the rent to the full amount pertaining to the land. The land" of the altered value of money; will be just as productive as it" and every such alteration, there was before. If all the Lords" fore, is certain loss to him." were to die to-morrow morning, Hence, then, it is clear that the and the parsons too, the sun would tenant suffers nothing by the fall rise, and the earth would teen of the landlord; and, as to the with vegetables just as before. labourers, what is it to them who Why, therefore, should the vil- is the owner of the land; or, at lages be deserted, and the gar- least, how is it possible for the dens desolated? It is a monstrous labourers to be worse off than mistake of yours, too, that the they now are? The labourers now tenants and labourers must sink are impoverished to such an exwith the landlord. The tenant tent, that they can be hardly said need not sink because the land- to live. Their misery is so great, lord sinks. It is curious enough, that there is no man, who has any that having asserted that the te- care for his character, who will pant must sink with the landlord, say that he believes it possible in page 86, you take care, in for a poorer and more miserable page 87, to prove that, as far as people to exist. The poor-rates, the tenant is concerned, what you intended for their relief, are made have said in page 86 is false. It use of for the purpose of asceris very clear, that if the tenant be taining how small a quantity of a tenant at will, the fall of the food they can be made to exist landlord cannot hurt him; and upon; that quantity of food is you yourself have acknowledged, allowed them, and no more. This in the following words, that the is their state, under the present tenant cannot be injured by the land-owners; and, if you can find fall of the landlord, in case the out nothing worse than this state, former have a lease. The words how are the labourers to "sink to which I allude, are these: "A with the landlord"! Why, Sir, "lease is now a gambling policy it is the poverty and necessities "of insurance on the value of the of the old landlord, or rather, percurrency for a given period, haps, ninety-nine times out of " and, in fact, the loss eventually a hundred, his extravagance or "and invariably falls on the greediness, that causes the pre"landlord; for if, during the sent poverty of the labourers.

66

currency of the lease, the coin What a monstrous thing, then, to

suppose, that you can make this "who value genuine piety, the labourer look upon it as a misfor-"pure offspring of our Esta tune that there should be a change "blished Church, and who, unof land-owners. Yet, as we shall" prejudiced by the abuse of the by-and-by see, you call upon the poor-laws, still veterate their common people, and particularly" humane origin, and appreciate the labourers, to come and assist their utility, when cautiously the land-owners to strip the fund-" administered; all these, (and holders and the mortgagees of" they form the best part of our their property. "community,) will strenuously

There is one passage of your "resist any change of the secubook, more insolent, perhaps, than "rity, any transfer of the charge all the rest; and here again I" from land to funds. The clergy have to repeat the remark, that and the land-owners, the poor none but a man who belonged to" and the proprietors, are coa class, accustomed to domineer" parceners in the soil; they must over persons of superior under- stand or fall together on their standing; accustomed to regard" existing tenure: they may fall the "earls of Monteith" and "indeed; but religion, and merJohn with the bright sword" as" cy, and justice, will fall with giving their descendants a right "them; and they who are buried to be insolent and vain and stupid" in these ruins are happier and impudent beyond measure; "than they who survive them.'” that none but a man, habituated to Let arrogance itself match that, a way of thinking like this, could if it can. Yes, we know that the have put these pages upon paper; poor, the aged and infirm, have a and of opinion with me, upon this" legal claim upon the land." We point, must every one be who know that they have this claim; reads the following passage in and we know, also, that those who page 16 of your pamphlet: "It are neither aged nor infirm, but is the boast and pride of the merely poor from want of employ"land-owners, that the most im-ment, have a legal claim upon portant establishments of our the land; and we know but too "polity have been founded on well, in what manner that claim "their estates, as on a rock from is satisfied. We know very well, "which they cannot be moved. that the allowance given to these "The ministers of our Established poor, by order of the Land-owners "Church derive their revenues themselves and the parsons, is, in "from land-the poor, the aged, Norfolk, three-pence a-day, to a "and the infirm, in aid of their grown man; in Berkshire, less "necessities, have a legal claim food than is given to the felons in on land-the injured and the the gaol; and, the Manchester oppressed, who cannot obtain newspapers, now lying before me, justice for themselves, or pu- say, that the poor in the parish of "nish the wrong-doer at their Colne are allowed one shilling for "own expense, cast the burthen a grown person, for a week; that "also on land thus religion, is to say, a little less than SEVEN "charity, and justice have the FARTHINGS a-day each, which "guarantee of landed property is not enough to buy three-quar"in this country, and are its ters of a pound of bread per day, "safeguards in return. All those with nothing for drink, for lodging,

clothing, fuel! So that, the poor coolly prosecute men for stragare a pretty sort of " co-parceners gling across a field or being in in the soil," they have a pretty pursuit of a hare. One would specimen of that "religion, mercy never imagine that you were talkand justice," which you say willing about people like those, who, all fall with the landlords; this but a little while ago, sent a is a pretty specimen of that cha-woman, more than seventy years rity, which you say is guaranteed of age, to gaol, for taking up a by the landed property of this hare that had been caught in her country; a pretty effect of that garden, where it came to eat her "genuine piety, the pure off- cabbages. You think all this spring of our Established Church": right, do you? You think it right, yes, these seven farthings a-day, that the people should be harassed the trend-mill, the game-laws and and punished in this manner, for the new trespass-laws, these show your sports? Retain that opinion, that the oppressed in England, if you like; but, be not, then, "who cannot obtain justice for such an egregious dupe to your "themselves, cast the burthen own vanity and presumption as to 66 upon the land": these are pretty believe, that the people will not things for you to say, and a pretty wish you at the devil! Or, at deal of impudence you must have the very least, will not rejoice to say them, when the returns be- with exceeding great joy at any fore Parliament have proved, that cause, no matter what, that shall a single gaol has sometimes con- bundle you out of your estates. tained fifty men, confined there For these twenty years I have for offences against the SPORTS been exhorting the Land-owners of these merciful and gentle Land- to soften their hand towards the owners; aye, and when it is common people; not to rule them equally notorious, from facts with a rod of iron, as they have founded on official returns laid done; to live in harmony with before the Parliament, that one-them; to let them be at peace; to third part of the prisoners in all let them enjoy something like lithe gaols in England were only a berty. On the contrary, during little while ago, persons impri- that twenty years, they have grown soned, and many of them for long harder and harder towards the periods, because they had com- working people; and yet you have mitted acts tending to disturb the the presumption to believe, that SPORTS of these Land-owners; these ill-used working-people, and these gentle creatures, "the these despised, these troddenagony of whose minds" on part-down people, will now join these ing with their estates, you so feel- very Land-owners; and that, too, ingly describe; of whose "dearest in order to perpetrate an act, local attachments," whose "earliest which would be outrageously unfriendships," and of whose "purest just, in the first place, and, in the feelings of the heart," you speak in a style so enchanting, that one would almost think you were writing the adventures of John with the bright sword. At any rate, one would never imagine that you were writing about the fellows that

next place, which must do infinite mischief to the common people themselves, by ruining three hundred thousand families in the middle rank of life, and thereby making a dreadful addition to the present mass of poor and needy.

ble as it may seem, you suppose, and you have the audacity to assert it, that the Landlords and the Clergy have the people with them. What you say upon this part of the subject is truly astonishing. It is an instance of to what an extent arrogance is capable of producing infatuation.

The way in which you speak of in all the counties, at a general the Fundholders shows pretty election. There are, then, 280,000 clearly, that you and those whom PROPRIETORS. They are, you converse with in general, then, the heads of 280,000 famithink that you shall have little lies, and, we must suppose, in a difficulty in committing the rob- case where all are proprietors, bery which you so coolly contem- about seven to a family, upon an plate. It is quite evident, that it average. You will, therefore, is a matter about which you have find them, pretty nearly two millong been conversing in a very fa- lions of people, none of whom, obmiliar manner. You seem to have serve, can now be paupers! Now, every thing ready cut and dry for I know very well, that these peoit; and, without seeming to think ple are of themselves, if the thing the least in the world about con- were to come to a fight, nothing at sequences; about any blowings- all in comparison to the Landlords. up or any thing of that kind, you and the Clergy, PROVIDED seem anxious only about the time THESE LATTER HAVE of doing the thing, which time THE PEOPLE HEARTILY you seem to desire to come as WITH THEM. And, incrediquickly as possible. "The number of creditors is," say you, "known to be small, the whole body of Fundholders not ex"ceeding 280,000 persons; and "the number of debtors is the en"tire community, composed of all "who contribute a portion of a "single tax to the interest of the "debt."-Bravo! What a clever man you are! So, you have been looking into this matter, have you? You have been calculating your relative strength! Now, I believe there to be more than three hundred thousand Fundholders. There were more than three hundred and fifty thousand, in 1811; that I know. However, for argument's sake, be it as you say. 280,000 is a number greater than that of the farmers; I mean, the farmers of 100 acres and upwards, in England and Wales. This is my belief; besides, here are two hundred and eighty thousand proprietors, you will please to observe; and, perhaps, you may be surprised to be told that this number exceeds the number of freeholders that vote in the whole kingdom of England and Wales,

You seem to admit, that, at present, the people have no very great affection for the Landfords and the Parsons; but you seem confident, that the people are to be gained by them in a moment! If this were so, it would be a valuable secret to the makers of the Game Laws. You say, that the Landlords "must win back the kindly feelings of the people;" and, what is more, you point out the way for them to do it. This way, this mode of winning back the people's affections; this mode of putting all to rights again, of making the poacher's father forget that his own was transported for endeavouring to catch a hare; this mode of making the people at Manchester forget the Yeomanry cavalry; this mode of making the small occupant of house or land