imAf'f '>>"■■ •-■:r.'^->-'
THE T. R G.
HARRISON
COLLECTION DF lilNETEENTH IrITISH SOCIALHIpfQR^'
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I
COBBETT'S
TWO-PENNY TRASH;
OR,
POLITICS f5r the poor. iV.1
VOLUME I-
fbUim jrvxt-r, 1830, TO Jlrxarxsy idsi, x«rox>irszvs.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY THE AUTHOR, AND SOLD AT No. xi, BOLT-COURT, FLEET. STREET J AND MAY BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS.
1831.
c^.
V
aaoo
CONTENTS.
ho,
1. Introduction. To tKe Weaver
Boys of Lancashire. Privy Councillors and Consuls. Equal Laws. King's Death. Emigration.
2. To the Working Classes
throughout the Kingdom. State of Things in France. History of England.
3. To the Working People of
England and Scotland. His- tory of England.
4. To the Industrious Classes at
Botley, in Hampshire. Pe- tion to the King.
5. Fires in Kent and Sussex.
To the Working People of England.
6. To the Farmers of the County
of Kent, on the Measures which they ought at this Time to- adopt and pursue, in order to preserve their Property, and restore their Country to a state of Peace and Harmony.
7. To the Labourers of Eng-
lanfl,on the Measures which ought to be adopted with regard to the Tithes, and with regard to other Pro- perty, commonly called Church-property.
8. A Letter to the King's Minis*
ters on the Way to put a stop to the Fires. To the La- bourers, on their Duties and their Rights. To the Folks of Botley on the Fire at Fle- ming's House at Stoneham Park.
9. To the Labourers of Eng-
land, particularly those of Kent, Sussex, HantSjWilts, Dorset, Berks, and Suffolk ; on the Scheme now on foot for getting part of them away out of their Native Country. Preston Cock.
10. To the Labourers of Eng-
land, on the subject of Par* liamentary Reform. In- structions to Labourers for raising Cobbett's Corn. About Truck-System, and about Preston Cock.
11. To the Working People of
the whole Kingdom, on the Effects which a Parliamen- tary Reform will have with regard to them. " Libe- ral''Whig Prosecution. To the Conductors of the Paris Journals.
12. SoRPLUs Population ; a Co-
medy, in Three Acts.
No. I.
COBBETT'S
TWO-PENNY TRASH
For the Month of Juhj, 1830.
INTRODUCTION.
Bristol, 25th June, 1830. 1. The object of this publication is, to explain to the people of this kingdom what it is that, in spite of all the industry and frugality that they can practise, keeps them poor. The causes of the poverty of the sluggard, the glut- ton, the drunkard, and the squanderer, need no explanation; poverty is the natural effect of ^ese vic4si^rife is Ihe punish- ment which God himself has said shall be the reward of these offences against his laws. But this nation is now in such a state^ that no industry, no care, no ingenuity, no prudence, no foresight, no frugality, can give a man security against poverty. This was the happiest country in the world ; it was the country of roast beef; it was distinguished above all other nations for the good food, good raiment, and good morals, of its people; and it is now as much distinguished for the contrary of all of them. ' 2. It is, therefore, to explain to the suffering people at
London : Published by the Author, 11, Bolt-court, Fleet-street ; and sold by ail Booksellers.
B
2 Two-penny Trash;
large, the causes of this lamentable change, that this little cheap work is intended ; and the reasons why it has the title of Two-pe7iny Trash, and why it is to be published only monthly, are as follows: from 1801 to 1817, I pub- lished the Weekly Political Register, at the price, first of ten- pence, then of a shilling ; but just before the com- mencemeiit of the last-mentioned year, I, in order to give my writings a wide spread, laid aside the stainp, and sold the Register for two-pence ; and instead of selling about two or three thousand a week, the sale rose to sixty or seventy thousand. The effect was prodigious ; the people •were every-where upon the stir in the cause of parliament-' ary reform; petitions came to the Parliament early in 1817, from a million and a half of men.
3. The answers to these petitions were, laws to enable the ministers to take, at theif pleasure, any man that they might suspect of treasonable intentions ; to put him into any jail and any dungeon that they might choose ; to keep him there for any time that they might choose; to deprive him of the use of pen, ink, and paper ; to keep him from the sight of parents, wife, children, and friends ; and all this on their own mere will, and at their sole pleasure, without regu- lar commitment, without confronting him with his accuser, without letting him know who was his accuser, and without stating even to himself, what was his offence!
4. The principal ministers at this time were. Liver pooi, (Jenkinson), First Lord of the Treasury; Eldon (John
X Scott), Lord Chancellor; Sidmouth (Addington), Secre- tary of State for the Home Department; Castlereagh (Stewart), for the Foreign Department; Ellenborgugii (Law), Chief Justice of the Kings Bench. Sidmouth, when he brought in this horrible bill, rested the necessity of it on the fact, that the cheap publications were exciting the people to sedition;, that they were read, not only in every
1
1st July, 1830. d
town and house, but in every hamlet, every cottage, ancj ^yery hovel ; and that therefore this power-of-imprison^ ment law was necessary to the safety of the state. Wheu ^.ORD Holland observed, that if the authors of the cheap 'publications put forth any- thing of a treasojiable or sedi^ ^iOM5 nature, or any-thing hostile to good morals, there were cklready laivs to punish them, that it was the business of the law-officers to enforce these laws, and tha}: there was no- i^eed for this new and violent outrage on the constitution of our fathers for putting into the hands of the ministers this absolute and terrible power oyer the bodies of all the people : when Lord Holland made these observations, Sidmouth answered, that all the cheap publications hsid been laid be^ fore the law -officer Sy but that, so crafty were the writers become, that the law-officers had been able to find nothing to prosecute with any chance of success !
5. Upon this ground this tremendous law w^as passed, the great defenders of it in the House of Commons being, Cas- tlereagh. Canning, William Lamb, William Elliott, and some others, whose names I do not now recollect. The Whigs, as they were called, made a feeble, and, indeed, a mere sham opposition to it, while Burdett, who had by ^ circular letter, signed with his own 7iame, urged the people, all over the country, to come resolutely forward in the cause of reform, sat in the House, and said not one single word in their defence !
6 I, whose cheap publications had produced the terrific effect, must have been blind indeed, not to see that a dun- g eon or silence, w^as my doom. I chose neither; and, therefore, I took my body, and the bodies of my family^ across the Atlantic ; and thence, to the cruel disappoint- ment and mortification of Addi^^gton, Scot-t^ Law, and C^.j I sept to London a Two-penny Register, to be p^biished once ^ week^ and it was published once ^ week, as
B 2
4 Two-penny Trash;
punctually as if I had been in London. The fate of numerous other of the poor petitioning reformers proved the wisdom of my precaution, in taking myself and family out of Sid- mouth's reach. Some lost their health, others their senses, one destroyed himself in his dungeon ; and those who came out alive and in health and sane, were totally ruined, and the married men found their families starving, or dead ; and when they^; humbly petitioned for redress for those wrongs, and for a knowledge of their crime and their accusers, they were referred to an act that had just been passed, bearing harmless all those who had had a hand in imprisoning and punishing them, eve'A beyond the limits of the]horrible law itself !
7. It is useless to burst out into execrations. .We must lceep]ourselves cool, and endeavour so to act ourselves, as to prevent the like of this from happening in future. This liorrible law having ceased in 1819, I came back to Eng» land, late in the month of November of that year; and I found the Parliament preparing an act to meet me. The cheap publication w^as still going on : it had out-lived Sid- mouth's law : it w^as now found to be useless to pass power- of-imprisonment laws to put it down ; for the only effect would be another trip for me across the Atlantic. Now, then, a new invention was resorted to : an act w^as passed to punish with great severity any one who should publish, without a stamp, any-thing, periodically, that should not contain Twore than two sheets of paper, each sheet being, at least, twenty^one inches long and seventeen inches wide^ containing no advertisements , and no blank pages ; and iesides this, the publication was not to be sold for less than sixpence I
8. This act, generally called Cobbett's Act, so loaded me and my readers with expense, that it reduced the circulation to a tenth part, perhaps, oi what it was before. Still it kept
1st July, 1831. 5
on well ; but, at last, in 1829, I determined to give it the wings aflPorded by the post ; and there it is now, sold by me for SIXPENCE to the news-men, out of which the Parliament takes only a farthing for tax on the paper, and four pence for tax on the stamp ; leaving me a penny three farthings, to pay for paper, print,and publishing, to compen- sate me for my labour as author, and to fill my breast with grateful feelings towards '' the envy of surrounding nations, and admiration of the world," and particularly towards that branch of it which Sm James Graham, some time ago, denominated, the noblest assembly of free men upon the face of the earth ; not knowing, I presume, that there might be a still nobler assembly beneath the surface of that same earth !
9. Well, then, but how can I now publish this work ^of one sheet, and sell it for two-pence ? Why, the " noblest assembly '' made an exception with regard to monthly pub- lications. That was very good of the '' noblest assembly." To let people read cheap publications oftener than once a month was dangerous. Well, then, they can have them only once a month : only at every change of the moon. Dear, good, kind, and careful, " noblest assembly ! " Therefore it is that I shall publish this little work once a month, and on the first day pf every month, at my shop. No. 11, Bolt Court, Fleet Street.
10. The name of Two-penny Trash is chosen in the way of triumph over my cowardly and malignant foes. When my two-penny publication was producing such great eflfect, in the year 1817, Gifford, Walter, Stuart, and the other hack-supporters of the system, called it " Two-penny Trash.*' Nick-names have been fre- quently given to things which have finally become famed under those very nick^names. When the Americans began their noble stand against taxation without representation^
6 Two-penny Trash ;
our stupid and insolent commanders gave them the nick- Bame of Yankees, and, in derision, used to cause their bands of music to play an air which they called ^* Yankee- doodle/' The Americans adopted the name, applied it to themselves, and made the air the national tune ; and while their drums beat and their fifes were playing that tune ; aye, to the beating and the playing of that very tune^ the noble and haughty Counwallis and his insulting army laid down their arms, and the noble general gave up his sword, and acknowledged themselves in captivity to these same *' Yankees ! " When the people of France resolved to shake off that slavery, for enduring which we had satirized them and despised them for so many ages, those who were for the change were insultingly called sans-culottes ; ihat is to say, men without breeches, or people without the means of covering their nakedness. They adopted the uame ; and, in a short time, every one was ambitious to be thought a ''good sans-culotte,'* The Order of the Garter arose from contempt and ridicule bestowed on that insignificant article of dress, in consequence of a trifling occurrence at a ball at which Edward III. was present; Arid do we not know that the Cross itself, which has been for one thousand eight hundred and thirty years held in veneration throughout the Christian world, was once syno- Dymous with the gibbet ; that it was the sign and badge of ignominy and infamy ; and that now it hangs as an orna- ment even on the bosom of beauty !
*' On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore. Which Jews niight kiss, and infidels adore.'*
11. Upon the same principle I adopted the name of " Two-penny Trash." Under that name I took my leave of it when the two-sheet-and-more law was passed ia 1819, in the following words : *' And now, ' Two-penny-
• 1st July, 1830. ;7
Tra&b/ dear little two-penny trash, go thy ways. Thou itast acted thy part in this grand drama. Ten thousand wagon-loads of the volumes that fill the libraries and booksellers' shops have never caused a thousandth part of ^.^ the thinking, nor a millionth part of the stir, that thou hast caused. Thou hast frightened more and greater villains than ever were frightened by the jail and the gibbet ; and thou hast created more pleasure and more hope in the breasts of honest men, than ever were before created by tongue or pen since England was England. When thy stupid, corrupt, malignant, and cow^ardly enemies shall be rotten and forgotten, thou wilt live, be beloved, admired, and renowned.'*
12. Two-penny Trash is now again come to life. What will be the object of its contents I have before idescribed, These contents must, however^ be pithy ; they rinust consist of opinions shortly stated, of striking and use- iul facts, and of narrations at once brief, clear, and interest- ipg. The Register must be devoted to essays of considerable length: to subjects for discussion, I shall, following the ^manner that I have adopted in my other books, number
THE PARAGRAPHS, to make them of easy reference. The twelve Numbers w^ill make a volume of two hundred and eighty -eight pages, costing two shillings and sixpence^ and another sixpence, for binding, makes a neat little book of it, to be kept and read, I hope, for a century to come. The last number of the twelve will contain an Index for the volume,
13. Booksellers, or hawkers, in the country, will please, .to apply to their agents, or correspondents, in London, as I
do not supply any country booksellers from my shop. Beino^ published punctually on the last day of every month, the Trash will very conveniently travel in company with the monthly family of Reviews, Magazines, tracts, and the like.
8 Two-penny Trash;
which observe, however, I by no means insinuate to be Trash ; God forbid that I^ or any one else, should call them by that name.
TO THE
" WEAVER-BOYS OF LANCASHIRE."
Bristol^ 26th June, 1830. My Friends,
14. Now look at the state of the country, and call to your recollection the scorn with which this name was given you, in 1817, by those whom Mr. Fitton, of Royton, most aptly denominated, '' the Order of the Pigtail," Look at the order of the pig -tail now ! They have found, at last, that, in spite of the lies of " the Liar of the North," Baines of Leeds, trade does not revive ! They have found that that which you prayed for in 1817, would, if it had been granted, have saved them ; they have found, at last, that if the array had been disbanded, the interest of the debt justly reduced, the pensions, sinecures, and uselesi? salaries, lopped off, and the Dead Weight reduced to a just amount; they have now found, that if these things had been done, they would not at this moment be compelled to resort to a miserable and degrading system of Truck, in order to get the profits of the shop-keeper, the house-owner, the butcher, the baker, and, as in some parts of Stafford and Warwick-shires, even the profits of the barber! W^hen the *^ Order of the Pig-tail" were calling for laws to prevent you from overturning *' our happy constitution in Church and State," they little dreamed that the day was so near at hand when they would be compelled, by this happy thing, to have their workmen shaved by the dozen, upon tick, for w^ant of money to pay to the m.en to get themselves shaved ! They get the shaving done at tenpence, or, perhaps, six- pence a dozen", and, if the men want the money, and be left to shave themselves, they cannot get the money, be- cause that would deduct from the profits of the employer : he would have a penny to pay to each in ready money ; and they pay the shaver in truckl
• IstJuly, 1830. 9
15. Little did they dream of the approach of a state of things like this, when they were calling upon the govern* ment to suppress your petitions, and were representing you as bent (under pretence of seeking for parliamentary reform) upon the overthrow of all law and the destruction of all property. Those whom they then called upon for laws to shut you up in dungeons, have now given them laws to their hearts' content ; and as to property, they have left them nothing but the name ; not a man of them having one single shilling, on the permanent possession of which he can rely, as a resource for his family.
16. Since I left London^ on the 8th of March last, I have been from London to the mouth of the Thames ; from the mouth of the Thames I have been to the mouth of the Hum^ her ', from the mouth of the Humber I am come to the mouth of the Severn ; I have ridden more than a thousand miles ; I have walked about three hundred and fifty miles ; I have made fifty-four speeches ; I have been in commercial towns, manufacturing towns, agricultural towns; I have conversed with merchants, manufacturers, trades- men, operatives,, artisans, and labourers ; and, every ^where in every county, town, and village, I find the same tale of deep distress amongst all those who do not live on the taxes. Those of the sufferers who besought the government to put you and me into dungeons, have, however, Dne great consolation ; namely, that it is not Jacobins and Radicals that have brought these calamities upon them ; that, if they be made beggars, as the greater part of them will be, they have, at any rate, the happiness to know, for a certainty, that the beggary has not been occasioned by those *^ evil-« disposed,*' "designing" men, whom the Prince Regent expressed his noble determination to put down.
17. Yes, my friends, when these base villains, these greedy and cowardly and barbarous and stupid slaves, were exult- ing over our sufferings ; when they were joining Canning, the insolent and empty Canning, in laughing at the ex- cruciating tortures of poor Ogden ; when they were making sport of the bowels being forced out of his aged body ; when they were making a jest of the groans of so many innocent victims of their malice ; when they were applauding the works of Sidmouth; Castlereagh, Canning, Parson Hay,
b5
10 Two*PENNY Trash;
Oliver, Castles, and Edwards ; when they were shouting at the fall of every head that came tumbling from the block; ^^hen they were praising Burdett for his abandonment of us ^nd our cause; when they were singing triumph at my flight across the seas : then, my friends, they little thought of beholding times like these, times which we foresaw, times for which our minds were duly prepared, and times in act- ing our part with regard to the consequences of which we shall, I trust, not be found wanting.
18. I will, now, first endeavour to describe to you the state of the country, and then speak of the causes of that state. ^\\Q final consequetices will then appear to you clear enough ; and you will be duly prepared for those consequences. The state* of the country is this: That all the industrious and useful classes, from the attorney and the surgeon and physician, down to the mechanic and the labourer, are "suffering loss, privation, embarrassment, and distress; while the idlers, and all who live on the taxes, are living in luxury ; that merchants, manufacturers, and tradesmen, all lind the profits of their callings diminish daily, and, gene- ' rally speaking, themselves on the eve of insolvency; that shopkeepers do not sell half the quantity of goods that they -used to sell, and that even those they sell to little profit; "that the farmers are, if possible, still worse oif, as their pro- ' duce sells for, on an average, not more than the half of what 'it ought to sell for to enable them to pay their rents, and to pay wa,ges sufficient for the due sustenance of their work- people ; that the working classes, those whose labours
• create all useful things, are, therefore, in a state of half-
* starvation, and are covered with miserable rags, instead of •that good and decent clothing with which their forefathers
"were covered.
19. Such is a general description of the state of the coun- •ti*y, the parliament of which, Sir James Graham tells ug, 'is '^ the noblest assembly^' on the face of the earth. And now for an instance or two of the wretchedness of this state. \ have lately passed through the cloth-making part of Gloucestershire, and a part of Wiltshire, where the same business has, until lately, been carried on. Of all the coun- tries that God, in his goodness, ever made for the enjoyment of man, even in this the most favoured land, this seems to
1st July, 1830,, II
be the most delightful, and, for its extent, the most valu- able. Rich land, beautiful woods, water bubbling from the hills in iall directions, coal in abundance at a short distance, stone and slate the substratum of the soil, and a fine corn and dairy country ^ in every direction, as you look from the hills that bound these winding and ever- varying valleys, where the climate is so mild, and the gardens so early and so blessed with products. Yet this spot, under the management of the famous 65^, has become the abode of gaunt hunger and raving despair, saying to the beholder, *' These are the effects ** of that system of sway, the upholders of which call it, the *^ * envy of surrounding nations, and the admiration of the " world!'"
20. The innumerable cloth-mills in these valleys seem to be generally deserted ; the drying -grounds on these pretty slopes, which, a few years ago, I saw so many closely^ shaven and beautiful lawns ^ have now the long grass standing to be cut for hay; and the railings, ot frames, for hanging the cloth on, have no marks of footsteps near them, and seem to be gradually rotting down ; while the farmers in the neigh- bourhood are, from the want of employment for the manu- facturers, so loaded with poor-rates, that many of the farms are let /or no rent at all, the only condition being that the farmer pay the rates', and even this he is unable to do •without loss. At Malmsbury, in Wiltshire, where there were two cloth-mills, one is turned into a grist-mill, and the other appears to be nearly at a stand. At Calne, in that county where there were two mills, both (and very fine mills) are shut up, and the grass growing in the walks and paths, before kept bare by busy footsteps. This, for many miles round, is a country alike famous for corn and for cheese; it is literally ** a land flowing with milk and honeys " and here human anxiety and misery reign supreme ! Here, where God has been so bountiful, the 658 step in, and say th^t enjoyment and innocence shall be supplanted by want and by crime !
21. The farmers sell that cheese for 405. a ton (2,240lbs), which they used to sell for 80s. Their wheat, notwithstand- ing two successive half-crops, is at less than half the price that it used to be some years back. They have no stock on hand ; their stocks of all kinds are becoming smaller and
12 Two-penny Trash;
smaller; their laud is daily becoming worse cultivated; their teams of horses worth less and less ; their harness and implements of all sorts more and more shabby, and of lesa and less value ; their clothing, and that of their families, more and more mean ; and as to the labourers, their bodies are clad in disgraceful rags^ and their bellies, when filled at all, with miserable potatoes, and this amidst all this corn, and meat, and milk, and butter, and cheese ! Amidst this misery, crime stalks abroad in open day; the jails have been augmented four-fold in the space of a few years ! At the Assizes the criminals are so numerous that barristers are appointed to assist judges ; no moveable pro- perty is safe out of the security of locks and bars ; and the immoveable is incessantly in danger from the hand of vin- dictive hunger; which, in many cases, has produced the destruction of horses, oxen, and other animals, hy poison!
22. Such, such taxation and paper-money and game- laws, are your desolating works ! Such are the effects of a Parliament that *' works so well,'' and that stands in need
" of no reform ! Such are the hitherto results of that system, for having prayed for a change in which we were driven across the Atlantic, crammed into dungeons, and otherwise punished and ruined. Such, my friends, are the natural and unavoidable consequences of a system that gives the people at large no share in the making of the laws which impose taxes upon them, and which dispose of those taxes.
23. But, now, as the chief object of this work is to ex- t'plain to the people at large How it is that they are
MADE POOR, I must bsgiTi to show the manner in which the system works to produce the above-described effects; in other words, to show what are the immediate causes of a state of things so unnatural, so contrary to what reason and nature seem to prescribe with voice irresistible. This immediate cause is, ENORMOUS TAXATION co-ope- rating with laws making CHANGES IN THE VALUE OF MONEY. Let me first speak of the taxation itself; and afterwards show how the effects of that have been aggravated *"by the changes in the value of money. If, with regard to these matters, I succeed in laying down the principles well and clearly, it will then be easy for me to show you why the taxation is imposed, who it is that profits from it, and how
1st July, 1830. 13
we ought to go to work to cause it to be reduced so as to put an end to the present evils, and effectually to guard against the like in future ; for, unless these objects be effected, is there a man in his sober senses who does not fear that the end must be here similar to that which took place in France? An end which it is the duty of us all, low as well as high, to endeavour to prevent.
24. But, to lay down those principles in the manner that I could wish, and in a way to make all reference to them easy and of great and constant avail, would require more room than is afforded me in this present Number. I shall, therefore, leave the subject to be concluded in my next, when I shall again address myself to you^ your public spirit and honest perseverance meriting that mark of respect at the hands of your faithful friend and most obedient servant,
WM. COBBETT.
PRIVY-COUNCILLORS AND CONSULS.
25. These are called " right honourable ;^^ Lord Coke describes them as ** a noble and reverend assembly ;'* and the new treason-law makes it high- treason to compass, that is to say, to imagine, their death ; and under this law Mr. Thistlewood, Ings, Brunt, and Tidd, were exe- cuted as traitors, in the year 1820, soon after George IV. became king. To this reverend assembly belong Hus- kisso:n^, Herries, Goulbourn, -Calcraft, Sid- mouth, and others, to the amount of one hundred and thirteen in number, leaving out the members of the Royal Family. Now, on the 14th of May last. Sir James Gra- ham made, in the House of Commons, which he called ** the noblest assembly in the world," a motion *' For an " humble Address to his Majesty, for an account of all '^ salaries, profits, pay, fees, and emoluments, whether civil *' or military, from the 5th of January 1829 to the 5th of *' January 1830, held and enjoyed by each of his Majesty's " most hon. Privy Council, specifying, with each name,
14 Two-penny Trash;
^^ the total amount received by each individual, and dis- ^' tinguishing the various sources from which the same is filf derived."
26. In support of this motion Sir James made a speech, and, in the course of that speech, the following statement, founded on documents already in his possession; and no part of which statement was contradicted.
27. He had divided the Privy-Councillors into classes. It wasf here the place to say, that in all his calculations upon these sub- jects, he had always omitted the royal family, because they having a certain income under the assignment of Acts of Parliament, there was nothing" mysterious about them, and in many cases these assignments had been made under the sanction of Bills, which had themselves undergone long and anxious discussion in the House. He therefore excluded them altogether from his calculations upo» this occasion. The total number of Privy-Councillors was 1 69 ; of whom 113 received public money. The whale sum distributed an- nually amongst these 113 was 650, 164/., and the average proportion of that sum paid to each yearly was 5,7521. — (hear.) Of this total of 650,164/,, 86,103/. were for sinecures — (loud cries of hear) ; 442,411/. for active services, and 121,650/. for pensions, making" together the total which he had stated. Of the 113 Privy Coun- cillors, who were thus receivers of the public money, 30 werejo/w- ralistSy or persons holding more offices than one, whether, as sine- curists, or civil and military officers. The amount received by the pluralists was 221,133/. annually amongst them all, or 7,321/. upon an average to each annually. The number of Privy Councillors who enjoyed full or half-pay, or were pensioned as diplomatists, was 29, and the gross amount of their income from the public purse was 126,175/., or upon an average a yearly income to each indivi- dual of 4,347/. a year. The whole number of Privy Councillors who were members oi both Houses of Parliament was 69, and of those 17 were Peers, whose gross income from the public purse wa^ 378,846/. — (hear, hear) , or, upon an average to each, 8,065/. a year.
(loud cries of ** hear.") The remaining 22 were of the House of
Commons, and the gross amount of their receipts was 90,849/., or upon an average to each individual, 4,130/. a year — (hear.) It ap- peared then that there were 113 Privy Councillors receiving the public money, of whom 69 were members of either house of Par- liament. He had already stated that 29 were in the receipt of pub- lic money by way of salary ; the total number of Privy Councillors in the House of Commons was 31, and of these 22 were charged upon the public purse. ^ ,
28. The whole of the revenue, including expense oi collect- ing, amounts to about 60 millions a year; the collection to about 5 millions; so that these 113 men take out of the public money an eighty-eighth part of the amount of the whole of the net revenue 1 Well, was the motion agreed to
1st July, 1830. 15
^by the " noblest assembly?" Oh, no ! It was rejected by a ^large majority. And, as you see, Sir James stated, that 69 members' of the two houses received amongst them 378,846Z. out of the public money, 69 of them being mem- bers of the House of Commons, and 17 of them peers !
29. I shall, in the next Number, have to show you, that 37 ^'years ago, the taxes amounted to J 5 millions a year instead
of 60 millions; but, let me now proceed to another motion of Sir James Graham, relative to the expenditure of our money on Consuls in South America. He made a motion, on the 11th June, to reduce the sums paid to these people; and, in the course of his speech, made the following state- ment, every word of which I beseech you to re.ad with great attention.
30. He would bepa with the case of Mr. Ricketts, the Consul to Peru. He went to his post in 1825, and passed that year in prepa- rations, and in his voyage out, and he received for outfit and salary 'that year the sum of 3,855/. In 1826, bein^ at his post, he re- ceived for salary 2,500L ; for house rent, 510/. ; for a clerk, 250/,; •for extras, 503/. Making in the year 1826, the sum of 3,7631. In '1827 he was on his voyao^e home, having: left his post early in /April,' and that year he received 2,812/. His Honourable Friend
was very testy about any charges being adverted to, previously to
the year 1828 ; but his Honourable Friend should recollect that
.most of the Members now on the Treasury Benches are all his
"'Majesty's Ministers. Though they might disclaim the expenses of
1 that period, all formed a part of Mr. Canning's administration.
<But passing from the year previous to 1828, he came to that year
and 1829, and these two years Mr. Ricketts was in England, and
^received 1,600/. a year. This gentleman, therefore, had been, un-
'ider Lord Aberdeen's government, allowed to spend two years in
f England doing nothing, at this large salary ; he had passed one year
in his voyage out and home, he had been the rest of his time at
his post, and for that period, not quite two years, he had received
the sum of 13,600/. (hear, hear!) What he charged as the most
'flagrant part of the case was, the two years he had been in England
•at 1,600/. a year, and for these two years the present Foreign
V Minister was wholly responsible. He then came to the case of Mr.
^'Nugent, who was or\e of those whose services were not accurately
^ stated in the return, as he might possibly make a mistake. This
t^entleman went in 1825 to Chili, and received the first year 3,050/.
-In 1826 he was at his post, and received 2,500/. In 1827, as early
^as June, or he believed he must now say, as the return was not
correct, in June 1828, he returned to England, and received his
-2,500/. His Honourable Friend described the two years, 1828 and
^1829, as years of economy. These two years constituted the golden
^iFCign of the Earl of Aberdeen — they were the economical age not
16 Two-penny Trash ;
deserving of those sarcasms which his Honourable Friend charged him with usin^, and entreated liim to abandon in bringing forward his motion. His Honourable Friend had stated, that henceforth the Consuls, when away from their posts, were to have only half their salaries, but had that not yet been the case, as he had already stated with regard to the Consul of Peru, who had received his salary of 1,600/. during the two years he had been in England; and it had not been the case with the Consul of Chili, who had re- ceived his salary under similar circumstances, one of whom had received in four years, the sum of 13,600/., and the other had received 13,050/. The next case he would mention was that of Mr. Mackenzie, who in 1826 was appointed Consul to Hayti. He received 500/. for his outfit, 1,500/. for his salary, and 215/. for his voyage out, in all 2,215/. In 1826 he was at his pose, and received 2,710/. ; but he begged to call the particular attention of the House to the year 1827. He received in that year, his salary, 1,5001. ; for a journey into the interior of the island he charged 1,290/.; his house rent and extras amounted to 1,070/. The Honourable Ba- ronet mentioned another sum of 147/. and for his voyage to Eng- land, 192/., making a total of 4,179/. In 1828 he was in England, and in 1828, when England was under the economic administration of Lord Aberdeen, he received his salary of 1,125/. He was little more than one year at his post, and for that he received a sum of upwards of 8,000/. He then came to the case of Mr. Shenley, who "was one of those whose services were mis-stated in the Return. He begged to call the attention of the House to Mr. Shenley ia particular. This gentleman had been sent as Vice-Consul to Gua- temala. In 1825 he received for his outfit 300/., and for his salary 700/.; but he did not go, if he understood the return correctly, that year. He went out in 1826. He was at Guatemala that year and in 1827, and received his salary of 700/., but before the end of 3827 he left Guatemala : and in 1823 he came to England on his full salary. In 1829, under Lord Aberdeen's Foreign administra- tion, when the public expense had been so much reduced, this gentleman was appointed Consul at Hayti, and received 500/. fop his outfit. Unless the returns were erroneous, this was in January ; and between January 1829 and January 1830, he received 1,200/. as his salary. The House would be surprised to learn, that he was in England yet ; that he had not attempted to go out to Hayti. He remained in England up to that time, and the reason for which he remained, the members of that House would be well able to ap- preciate. The reason on which he remained in England was urgent private business (a laugh). This was a species of reason which would be very intelligible to the Members of that House. In 1829, then, this gentleman received 1,700/. and never left England ; ia all, this gentleman had received 4,859/. The pressure of business - at Hayti, the House would imagine, could not be very great ; but he found in the year 1829, that there was a charge for two Vice Con- suls at Hayti. As the Consul was not present, the House would naturally suppose that the Vice Consuls were there attending to his duty. But he found by the return, that Mr. Fisher, the Vice
1st July, 1830. 17
Consul, was detained in England on urgent private business. He was in England the whole of 1628, receiving a salary of 550/. ; and was in England the greater part of 1829. The Consul was then in England ; the Vice Coi»sul also, Mr. Fisher, was in England ; and the second Vice Consul, the one who was on the spot, and did all the business, Mr. Thompson, received 500/. a year (hear, hear!). He was at a loss to know what to say, to carry conviction to the minds of Members, if this failed.
31. In order to enforce his arguments in favour of eco- nomy, he cited the example of the government of the United States ; and made the following true and most interesting statement, the Hke of which I have made, and in print too, over and over again !
32. He knew that any allusion to the United States of America was not generally very palatable to the House, and he for one did not like to institute comparisons between that country and this; but he held in his hand (showing a small slip of paper), on that simple piece of paper, the account of all the expenses of the Civil Government of the United States, including its diplomatic expenses, obtained from an authentic source, and with the permission of the House he would read it: The whole charge then for the Civil Government of the United States was —
For the President, a salary of 25,000 dollars per year.
A Vice President ' 5,000
Secretary of State 6,000
Secretary of the Treasury .... 6,000
Secretary of War 6,000
Secretary to the Navy 6,000
Post Master 3,500
A Chief Justice 6,000
Six Judges , 5,000 each.
Making, in the whole, 92,500 dollars, for the entire charge of the Civil Government of the United States, or, in English money, 20,812/. There were, besides, three Commissioners of the Navy with 3000 dollars, with a sum, which we did not catch, for the Major-General, making the whole charge for the Civil and Military Government of the United States^ 24,299/.
33. There ! And this, too, the government of a nation now become our rival on the seas ; whose maritime power now braves ours ; who has, in 40 years, under this cheap government, risen from a population of 3 millions to a popu- lation of 12 millions ; a nation whose government does not cost more than two-thirds as much in a year as has recently- been expended on the carvework on one gateway of one of our King's palaces ! Well, surely, after all this, the
18 Two-penny Trash;
*' noblest assembly " agreed to this motion ! No ; but set it aside by one of its usual majoritiesl No commentary is necessary. As Sir James said, *' If this do not carry conviction, nothing will."
'' EQUAL LAWS."
34. The French, in their Revolution, havingtaken the word EQUALITY as a sort of watch- word, our rulers and guides inveighed against it, as meaning that all men ought to be equal in point oi property, and that the idler and drunkard should share in the property of the industrious and the sober. " Equality in laws" they said, was good. The other day, Lord John Russell was reported to have said, that the late Mr. Fox, in opposing universal suffrage ^ used to say, that he did not like equality of rights, ap- plied to unequal things', that is to say, that a man, who had no house or land, should not have as much right to vote as a man who had house or land. Now, then, let us see how Fox*s rule has been observed in the laying of taxes Tipon us. The tradesman or farmer pays upon the windows in his house more than 25. a window, if he have only 8 ; but any one, w^ho has more than 180 windows, pays for that more only Ls. 6g?. a window. A receipt in full o^ all demands, has a stamp of 10s. if the sum received be only forty-one shillings ; and, if it be a hundred thousand pounds, the stamp is the same. The turnpike toll for the poor man's ass is the same as for the hunter or the racer ^ or carriage horse of the lord. If a tradesman, merchant, or manufacturer, sell his goods by auction, though the pro- duce of his own hands, he has to pay an auction duty; but, if the lord sell his timber, his underwood, or the stock ou his tenant for rent, he pays no auction duty. The postage of letters amounts to about two millions a year; the lord and members in t* other place pay none of this ; even the soldiers are excused ; but all the rest, from the merchant down to the half-starved labouring man, pay an
1st July, 1830. 19
enormous postage on letters. Commission- queers* widows have pensi07is allowed them ; those of non-commissioned and privates have not. There have, of late years, beeu academies established for the purpose of rearing and edu" eating young gentlemen for the army, navy, and ordnance, a part of which establishment consists of '^ NURSES." These academies are maintained out of the taxes : and thus the working people, in the tax on their beer, tea, soap, candles, sugar, and other things, are compelled to help pay for rearing and educating the sons of the rich. By the militia laws, the man who has no property at all, is com- pelled to come forth, to quit his home and family, to submit to military discipline, and, if necessary, to risk his life in defence of the country or the laws ; and the man of a hun- dred thousand a year is compelled, at the most, to do no more ! These are difew, and only a few, of the things which Lord John Russell might be called upon to reconcile to the pretty phrase of the famous senator Fox ; and he might be asked to explain, too, upon what principle the Whigs settled pensions for life on the wife and daughters of that same Fox : and how they came to settle pensions cn foreigners, in the teeth direct of the Act of Settlement. We wait a little for his answer ; but in the mean while, we may ask, whether these things could ever have been, if the Commons' House had been chosen by the common people.
"KING'S DEATH."
35. Iisr this ancient and opulent and respectable city of 'Bristol, of the most beautiful and interesting environs that my eyes ever beheld, and inhabited by a people of whom, though I shall perhaps never see them again, it is but bare justice to say, are surpassed in good manners and good sense by none whom in all my travels I have ever seen ; in this fine old English city with 22 parishes, and with all the marks of having been, centuries ago, even more opulent
20 Two-PEXNY Trash;
and populous than it is now ; in this city, to a most respect- able audience in which I concluded my third and last Lec- ture last night, the bells are, to-day (27th June), tolling for the death of the king, while Jlags are flying from the Exchange and the Council house, aye, from the churches too, or at least, I see one flying on the Cathedral church, or as it ought to be called, the church of the Abbey, part of the cloisters of which are still remaining. This tolling and flag-flying at one and the same time, and from one and the same tower, is, I suppose in accordance with those coaflicting feelings of loyalty so neatly expressed by Pope : —
'* And when our SovVeig-n died, could scarce be vext, •* Knowiug that such a gracious Prince was next.'*
36. A future day will come for giving a history of the reiga of George the Fourth, including that of his Regency^ not by any means forgetting the events and the acts of 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820. The statute-book records the ma- terials for a true history of his reign and regency ; the pub- lic accounts record particulars that none but a sham histo- rian will overlook ; and as to the state of the people, we "who yet remain alive, and are not quite blinded by our tears, have only to open our eyes. As J am going to Bath this evening, and there, with apprehensions of their effect, I shall, I suppose, meet the London newspapers, all in dismal black, and all the unaffected Editors pouring out their ten- der and loyal souls in filial wailings in verse as well as in prose, this time, at any rate, Til not be behindhand with them; and here is my loyal and lachrymose contribution: —
Old England weep, and let thy g^rief be true ; For Sov'reigjn dearer nation never knew.
EMIGRATION.
37. From this port alone one thousand and forty-two have gone to New York, this spring and summer! The far greater part English people; and not a few with good sums
1st July, 1831. 21
of money * I have not room to say much upon this subject here ; but I cannot help putting my readers upon their guard tigainst those who are endeavouring to inveigle them to English colonies, where their ruin is certain, and their death, in a very short time, probable. Let them look at the iorrible accounts from Botany Bay and other parts of that country; let them see what they are going to ; let them look at the thousands of poor creatures who have been beggared by going to the rocks and sands and swamps and snows of Prince Edward's Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada; and let them look at my ^' Emigrant's Guide;" and, after this, if they choose destruction, let them have it. To another new edition of this little work (price 2s. 6d.) I shall add a second postscript, containing a list of things that a man ought to provide himself with before his departure. When this is added, the book will be perfect. Thousands of men of property, and especially young fai^mers, are wisely preparing to start : letters come tumbling home from those already there, pressing the rela- tions and friends to follow them. So that the Borough- mongers and the halt and the lame and the blind and the insane, together with the pickpockets and the tax-eaters, will, in time, be left to form a jovial society, basking under the sun of the " envy of surrounding nations and admiration of the world.'' Of one thing let every soul be satisfied ; and that is, that the misery must here c#ntinue to be greater and greater, until, by some means or other, there shall be effected a Radical Reform of the Commons', or people's. House of Parliament.
22 Mr. Cobhett's List of Books,
'ii,h. All the Books under mentionedy are puhlishcd at No,\\y BolU court. Fleet-street y London ; and are to he had of all tJie Booh* sellei^s in the Kingdom,
THE COBBETT-XiZBItARY.
When I am asked what books a young man or young woman ought to read, 1 always answer. Let him or her read all the books that I have written. This does, it will doubtless be said, smeU of the shop. No matter. It is what I recommended ; and experience has taught me that it is my duty to give the recommendation. 1 am speaking here of books other than THE REGISTER; and even these, that I call my LIBRARY, consist of twenty -six distinct books ; two of them being translations -y six of them being writ- ten BY MY sons ; one (Tull's Husbandry) revised and edited, anti one published by me, and written by the Rev. Mr. O'Callaghan, a most virtuous Catholic Priest. I divide these books into classes, as follows : 1. Books for Teaching Language; 2. On Domestic Management and Duties; 3. On Rural Affairs; 4. Ou the Management of National Affairs; 5. History ; 6. Travels ; 7. Laws; 8. AIiscellaneous Politics. Here is a great variety of subjects; and all of them very f/?'^; nevertheless the manner of treating them is, in general, such as to induce the reader to go through the booky when he has once begun it. I will now speak of each book separately under the several heads above-mentioned, — N. B. All the books are hound in boards, which will be borne in mind when the price is looked at.
1. BOOKS FOR TEACHING LANGUAGE.
COBBETT'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR. {Price S^.)— This is a book oi principles y clearly laid down ', and when once these are got into the mind they never quit it.
COBBETT'S FRENCH GRAMMAR {Price bs,) ; or. Plain Instructions for the Lrarning of French. — More youn^ men have, I* dare say, learned French from it, than from all the other books that have been published in English for the last fifty years.
MR. J AMES COBBETT'S ITALIAN GRAMMAR (Price 6**.) ; or a Plain and Compendious Introduction to the Study of Italian. — 1 would pledge myself to take this book and to learn Italian from it in three months.
2. DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT AND DUTIES.
COBBETT'S COTTAGE ECONOMY {Price 2s. 6d.) ; con- taining information relative to the brewing of Beer, making of Bread, keeping of Cows, Pigs, Bees, Ewes, Goats, Poultry, and Rabbits, and relative to other matters.
COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, and (incidentally) to Young' Women, in the middle and higher Ranks of Life {Price bs.) It was published in 14 numbers, and is now in one vol. complete.
Mr, Cobbetfs List of Books. 23
COBBETT'S SERMONS (Price 35.6^.)— More of these Sermons have been sold than of the Sermons of all the Church-parsons put together since mine were published.
COBBETT'S EDITION OF TULL'S HUSBANDRY (Price 15s0 : THE HORSE-HOEING HUSBANDRY; or, A Treatise on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation, wherein is taught a Method of introducing a sort of Vineyard Culture into the Corn- Fields, in order to increase their Product and diminish the com- mon Expense.
3. BOOKS ON RURAL AFFAIRS.
COBBETT'S YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA, WITH A
MAP (Price 5s.) A book very necessary to all men of property who emigrate to the Uuited States.
COBBETT'S ENGLISH GARDENER (Price 6s.) A complete book of the kind.
COBBETT'S WOODLANDS (Price 14s.) ; or, A Treatise on Forest Trees and Underwoods^ and the Manner of Collecting, Pre«v serving, and Sowing of the Seed.
COBBETT'S CORN-BOOK (Piice 2s. 6d.) ; or, A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn : containing Instructions for Propagating and Cultivating the Plant, and for Harvesting and Preserving the Crop; and also an Account of the several Uses to which the Produce is applied, with Minute Directions relative to each mode of Appli- cation.— This edition I sell at 2a\ 6d., that it may get into jiumei^ous hands.
4. MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS.
COBBETT'S PAPER AGAINST GOLD (Price bs.) ; or, the History and Mystery of the Bank of England, of the Debt, of the Stocks, of the Sinking Fund, and of all the other tricks and con- trivances carried on by the means of Paper Money.
COBBETT'S RURAL RIDES. (Price 5s.) If the members of the Government had read these Rides, only just read them, last year, when they were collected and printed in a volume, they could not have helped foreseeing all the violences that have nov/ taken place, and especially in these very counties ; and foreseeing* them, they must have been devils in reality if they had not done something to prevent them,
COBBETT'S POOR MAN'S FRIEND (Price M.)-, or, a De- fence of the Rights of those who do the Work and fight the Battles. — ^This is vay favourite work. 1 bestowed more labour upon it than upon any large volume that I ever wrote.
COBBETT'S EMIGRANT'S GUIDE (2^. Sd.) ; in Ten Letters, addressed to the Taxpayers of England.
USURY LAWS (Price 2s. 6d.) j or, Lending at Interest; also, the Exaction and Payment of certain Church-fees, such as Pew-rents, Burial-fees, and the like, together with forestalling Traffic; all proved to be repugnant to the Divine and Ecclesiasti- cal Law, and destructive to Civil Society.
24 Mr. Cohbetfs List of Books.
5, HISTORY.
COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFOR- MATION in England and Ireland (Price 4s. 6d.) ; showing how that Event has impoverished and degraded the main Body of the People in those Countries : PART II. [Price Zs. 6d.) ; contain- ing a List of the Abbeys, Priories, Nunneries, Hospitals, and other Religious Foundations, in England and Wales, and in Ireland, confiscated, seized on, or alienated, by the Protestant '* Reforma- tion" Sovereigns and Parliaments.
COBBETT'S ROxMAN HISTORY, English and French, {Price C)S.) ; Vol. I. from the Foundation of Rome to the Battle of Actium. Vol.11. An Abridged History of the Emperors, in French and English : being a continuation of the History of THE Roman Republic. — This work is intended as an Exercise-book to be used with my French Grammar ; and it is sold at a very low price f to place it within the reach of young men in general.
COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE REGENCY AND REIGN OF GEORGE IV. — This work is published in Nos. at 6d. each, and shall do justice to the late *' 7nild and merciful" King.
LAFAYETTE'S LIFE {Price Is.) A brief Account of the Life of that brave and honest man, translated from the French, by Mr. James Cobbett.
6. TRAVELS.
MR. JOHN COBBETT'S LETTERS FROxM FRANCE (Price As. 6^0
MR. JAMES COBBETT'S RIDE OF EIGHT HUNDRED MILES IN FRANCE (the Third Edition, Price 2s. 6d.)
MR. JAMES COBBETT'S TOUR IN ITALY, and also in Part of FRANCE and SWITZERLAND (Price 4s. 6d.)
7. LAW.
COBBETT'S TRANSLATION OF MARTENS'S LAW OF NATIONS (Price \7s.) ; being the Science of National Law, Covenafits, Power, &;c. Founded upon the Treaties and Customs of Modern Nations in Europe.
MR. WM. COBBETT'S LAW OF TURNPIKES (Price 35. 6rf.)
8. MISCELLANEOUS POLITICS. THE REGISTER, published 'Weekly , Price Is. 2d, Sixty-four
pages.
TWO-PENNY TRASH, published monthly, Price 2d., \2s, M. for a hundred, and Us. a hundred if 300 or upwards.
This is the Library that I have created. It really makes a tole- rable shelf of hooks ; a man who understands the contents of which may be deemed a man of great information. In about every one of these works I have pleaded the cause of the working people^ and I shall now see that cause triumph, in spite of all that can be done to prevent it.
N. B. A whole set of these books at the above prices, amounts to 71, Os. 2d. ; but, if a whole set be taken together, the price is 61. And here is a stock of knowledge sufficient for any young man in the world. ^ ^
[Printed by Wm. Cobbett, Johnson's-court, Fleet-street.]
No. 11.
COBBETT'S TWO-PENNY TRASH
For the Month of August, 1830.
TO THE
WORKING CLASSES THROUGHOUT THE
KINGDOM.
* Barn-Elm Farm, 27th July, 1830.
My Friends,
38. I have to talk to you on several subjects, all, however, CQnnected with the things which are the causes of your being miserably poor, which millions of you are, and which ought to be the state of nobody that is industrious, sober, frugal^ and honest. Such, however, is now the state of England ; such the burdens that the people have to bear ; so large the portion of every man's wages that is taken away by the Government ; that no industry, no sobriety, no fru- gality, and no honesty, can prevent the working class from being miserably poor, from being wretched to a degree in- consistent with the support of life and health. How such
London : Published by the Author, 11, Bolt-court, Fleet-street, and sold by all Booksellers.
C
26 Two-PEKNY Trash;
enormous burdens came to be laid on the people I shall hereafter explain ; but, first of all, it is necessary that I make you clearly understand that it is the taxes that make you poor; and that your poverty is great you all but too well know. The state of England is more degrading to the people, exhibits more human suffering, than ever ws even heard of before in any country on earth, Ireland only excepted ; and there nakedness and famine are so common as to excite neither surprise nor compassion.
, 39. That it is the taxes v^'hich. produce all this misery is, first, my business to show ; and, next, to show you what is the cause of the taxes. As to the first, there are some so impudent as to assert, and others so ignorant as to believe, that working people pay no taxes, because the tax-gatherer does not come and take money out of their hands. But let us see how this matter stands. The whole of the taxes amount to sixty millions a year, and, now, let us see whether you pay none of these taxes ; or whether you pay the greater part of them all. The whole of the money collected in taxes in one year is now 60,000,000 of pounds sterling. Of these 4,000,000/. are got from Ireland, 2| from Scotland, and the other 53^ from England. These taxes consist of duties collected at the Custom-houses by the Excise, by Stamp-Commissioners, by Assess Taxes, by the Post- Office, and of some other little things which, in reality, amount to Tiardly any thing. The Customs yield 13,000,000/. the Excise 31 ,000,000/. the Stamps 6,000,000/. the Assess taxes 6,000,000/. the Post-Office 2,500,000/. So that we
1st August, 1830. 27
have here 57,500,000Z. out of the 60,000,000/. ' The Cus- toms and Excise, alone, amount to 44,000,000/. out of the 60,000,000/. and of the greater jSart of the articles, the people of the middle and working classes pay five times as much as the higher classes in proportion to their means; because many of the articles are become necessaries, and the poor man, unless lie be too poor to have any enjoyment at all, wants as much as the richest man in the kingdom* Beer, malt, cotton goods, soap, candles, tea, tobacco and snuff, sugar, pepper ; and, in short, of all the articles coming under these heads, the people in the middle and working classes pay infinitely more than their share. Of the stamps, too, they pay three times their share. All the stamped things which are in most common use are stamped higher tiian those that are in less common use. For instance, if a tradesman give a receipt in full of all demands, in an af- fair of only forty shillings, he must pay ten shillings for the fitaipp. If the lord, or the squire, or the bishop, or the rich mei^chant, give a receipt in full for fifty thousand pounds, or any greater sum, still he has to pay only the ten shillings I All the stamps relating to the land are very trifling, but all those relating to trade, and to be paid by men in business, are heavy. Advertisements, almost the whole of which are paid for by servants and tradesmen, amount to a very large sum. The stage-coaches, which carry the people in the middle and lower ranks of life, pay nearly 300,000/. a year, while all the post-horses pay less than 200,000/. Fire- insurances, ninety-nine hundredths of which fall upon the farmers, pay about 600,000/. a year. Newspapers
c 2
28 ^Two-penny Trash ; ' - r
pay about 400,000Z. a year. The tradesman, or farmer^ pays, therefore, as much on his newspaper as the lord pays on his. Receipts pay about 150,000/. a year, almost the whole of which comes from the middle and working classes. Legacies pay about 1,000,000Z, a year, almost the whole of which comes from the trading, and farming, and middle class. The stamps on probates amount to about 700,000/. '^a year, and from this tax land and houses are totally ex- empt. So much for the stamps. Then comes the assess taxes. On all the land of the kingdom the whole tax is only 1,000,000/. or thereabouts ; but the house tax, which falls almost wholly upon the middle class, amounts to about 1,250,000/.; and the window-tax to little less thaa 2,500,000/. . So that of the assess taxes, the middle class pay infinitely beyond their proportion ; for, if a man keep a horse, he is taxed for a servant, whether he keep him or not, and his gig, worth ten pounds, is taxed as high as the lord's curricle, which is worth a hundred pounds; his horse, worth ten pounds, is taxed at the same rate with regard to the lords ; so with his dog, which is necessary to the protec- tion of his house. With regard to the postage of letters, the .middle and lower class pay the whole of the money ; for the aristocracy, each of whom can send ten letters a day, and leceive fifteen, and send and receive, if they please, several letters under one cover, are exempted from all payments on this account,
40. Thus, then, you see how false those men are, who pretend that the taxes fallupon the rich, and uot upon the
I
1st August, 1830. 29
poor. The beer tax is indeed to be taken off; but to be taken off in a manner to do very little good to the consumers of the beer, while the malt tax is kept on, and the hop tax also : and these taxes it is which will still make the beer dear ; because there wdll be the monopoly in the making of the malt, and also in the selling of the beer ; because no man is to sell without a license, and that license is not to be granted to a poor man, who does not already pay direct taxes. If the tax were taken off the malt and the hops, very good ale might be made for a penny ci quart, Winchester measure ; because the malt would not be above three shil- lings a bushel, and perhaps less, and the hops not, on an average, more than sixpence a pound, at the most : twelve gallons to the bushel is ale a great deal better than that which is n^w bought at the public-houses ; at a penny a pot, there would be forty -eight quarts of beer come from a bushel of malt and a pound of hops ; so that, because the malt and the hops are taxed, you now pay sixpence for that which you ought to have for a penny. Let me stop here to give you a piece of information, more useful than all the information that Mr. Brougham and his set ever did, and ever will, com- municate to the people of this country; that* is to say, the certain fact that people may have good beer, if they will, without the use of any malt at all, or of any article, except the hops, on which the aristocracy have yet laid their grasp.
41. When I was in Suffolk, at the town of Eye, on the 17th and 18th of March last, a very worthy gentleman of that town, Mr. Clouting, introduced me to a gentleman
N
30 Two-PENNY Trash;
who had made some beer from the mangel-wurzel root This gentleman, who lives at Eye, and who is a banker, or the agent of a bank, I forget which, in that very nice town, gave me, along with Mr. Clouting, some of the beer to taste 1 and I declare now, as I did then, that it was most excellent table beer, and that I defy any human being to tell whether such beer be made from malt or not. I myself could not distinguish any difference at all between that beer^ and beer of similar strength made of malt ; and I can have no question that strong beer, a beer of all degrees of strength, can be made from mangel-wurzel, as well as from malt. The exact proportions I do not recollect ; but, after being informed of the quantity of mangel-wurzel used, and of the process, I remember that my calculation was, that very good table beer can be made for a penny a pot.
42. I will write, or, rather, I now hereby write to Mr. Clouting, requesting him to have the goodness to furnish me with the particulars with regard to this brewing. I know myself how much mangel-wurzel can be grown upon any given quantity of land ; I know, also, and well know, how to cultivate the plant ; how to gather in the crop, and how to preserve the plants, either in-doors or out-of-doors, so that they shall be in a state of perfect preservation from the month of November even until the month of July, if not until Sep- tember. Late in September, early-planted mangel-wurzel brings a fresh crop. X)f all these matters I Will speak when I get the particulars from Mr. Clouting, from whom I wish to know these particulars: 1. The quantity of mangel-
1st August, 1830. « 31
wurzel made use of in making the beer which I tasted ;
2. The quantity of hops made use of (I remembering that the quantity was twice as great as it ought to have been) ;
3. The quantity of beer made, meaning that beer which I tasted ; 4. The mode of preparing the roots for the process, whether by slicing, chopping, or otherwise ; the process of boiling, mashing, and so forth ; the length of the time of boiling, and so forth ; 5. The state of heat in which the yeast was put in the wort ; 6. Whether there was yeast which rose upon the head of the wort, as in the case of malt; 7. Whether the yeast (if any) which rose upon the head of the wort, were, in its appearance and qualities, like that which proceeds from malt ; 8. What length of time the beer kept good ; 9. Whether it turned sour or flat more speedily than beer made of malt. When I have all these particulars, which, I am sure, my worthy friend, Mr, Clouting, will give me in the most accurate manner, I will publish them, my friends, for your information, being per-» fectly conviQced that this is a discovery of ten thousand times the value of the steam-engine and the power-loom.
43. I am quite satisfied, as I told the gentlemen of Eye, that if those who ffll the seats would let us use our barley without making us pay nearly twice the original cost of .barley before we turn it into beer, nothing, all things taken into view, would be so cheap as the barley in the making of beer ; but, I am also quite satisfied, that, loaded with tax and monopoly as the barley now is, a gallon of beer^
7»-
32 Two-penny Trash ;
made from mangel-wurzel, will not cost half so much as a g^on of beer, of the strength, made from the barley.
44. This, therefore, is a very important matter. Mangel- wurzel will grow in every part of the kingdom, and in all sorts of land. With good cultivation it will yield Jifty tons to the acre ; and it must be a bad crop to be less than twenty tons ^ it is a root easily cultivated, whether on the spot where it is sowed, or by transplantation (I am raising some in both ways this year) ; a single rpod of ground might be made to produce half a ton weight of the roots; the seed is very cheap proportioned to the extent of land which it will sow or plant ; it is a root easily taken from the ground, easily preserved, and that too without the cover of a house ; I having preserved hundreds of tons out in the fields all the winter. I think I saw more than a hundred tons, in one immense heap, in Norfolk, on the 15th of March' last, merely covered over with straw thrown upon it, the far greater part of it as sound as w^hen it came from the field, and a score of oxen fatting upon it. In Norfolk and Suffolk, those famous counties for tillage, where this plant is now grown in such prodigious quantities, and where the farmers are so clever, so intelligent, so enterprising, so neat and so judicious in the management of all their affairs, I have no doubt, that a few years would, were this system of taxing to continue, see the malt- tax, in effect, very quietly repealed, as far, at any rate, as the country people are con- cerned. Such a thing cannot be confined to a corner ; and
1st August, 1830. • 33
{torn Suffolk, that pattern county, the discovery would spread all over the kingdom.
45. It is pretty generally known that it was from this root that the French made, and some of them still make, sugar, I have tasted the sugar many times, and could not have distinguished it by any means from the moist sugar ivhich we get from the West Indies. It is well known, also, that beer can be made from Wast India sugar, and that the offal of the sugar which we call treacle, and the Yankees call molasses; and that it is so made; and that the great brewers really put this offal sometimes into their porter, which is, perhaps one cause _of the blackness of that horrible stuffy but, to make beer from West India sugar, even supposing there to be no tax at all upon that sugar, would not be economy so good as to make it from barley, if the barley were untaxed. The increased demand for the sugar would cause its price to rise ; but, by no possibility could it bo brought into England under sixteen or seven- teen shillings the hundred weight for moist sugar. Now, a bushel of good malt will make twelve gallons of better beer than thirty pounds of sugar will. The thirty pounds of sugar at seventeen shillings the hundred weight would cost about five shillings ; and the bushel of malt will not, on an average of years, in the present money, cost more than two and sixpence, if untaxed ; because the increase upon the malting pays for the process ; and because J, who
have some beautiful fields of barley this year; shall think
c 5
34 Two-penny Trash ;
myself a lucky fellow, if able to sell the whole of it for half* a-crowD a bushel,
46. It may be asked, why, if mangel-wurzel will yield sugar, we do not make sugar from it in England ? That is a very different matter. The expense of this process must be great in proportion to the value of the result ; otherwise, there would long ago have been an end to importing sugar from the hot climates. The extracting of the saccharine matter from so bulky a substance, must necessarily be very expensive ; but, if beer can be made from the root itself, and if the average crop of the root would weigh SE- VENTY TIMES as much as the average crop of barley on an acre of land, the difference in the weight is so great as to render it utterly impossible that the mangel-wurzel should not be the cheapest article while there is any tax upon the barley : and I should not be afraid to lay a wager, that, by this time twelvemonth, a quarter part of the malt tax, that most cruel of all taxes, will have been repealed in this quiet manner in the counties of Norfolk and Suf- folk; and my readers may be well assured, that nothing in my power shall be left undone to aid the people of those counties in this excellent undertaking.
47. Returning, now, to my proposition, that it is the weight of the taxes that makes the people poor ; that is sinHing tradesmen and farmers into hopeless insolvency, and that has brought the working classes do<vn to the verge of
•1st August, 1830. 35
starvalion', let me ask the impudent tax- eaters, who deny that the taxes are the cause of the ruin and misery, whether the labouring man would not be better off than he now is, if he could make his ale for a penny a pot ; if he could have his soap, and candles, and tobacco^ and sugar, and tea, for one half of their present price, and if the four-pound, loaf cost him fourpence instead of tenpence ; and if his em- ployer (which would be the case) were able to pay him wages as high as those he now receives ; because the em- ployer. relieved from the burden of the rateSy relieved from the stamp and assessed taxes ; relieved, also, from the cus- toms and excise, and the monstrous tax upon letters ; re- lieved from four-fifths of all these, would be able to pay the same wages, and have twice the clear profits that he now has.
48 ♦ And why is not this the case P This is the question for you to answer. The reason is, that the money is taken from us without our assent. It is taken from us by Acts^ of the Parliament 5 and that Parliament have now before them a petition which was presented by Earl Grey (then Mr. Grey) in the year 1793, in which that very lord himself asserted, that he was ready to prove at the bar, that a decided majority of the vjhole house was returned by a hundred and fifty-four persons, some of them peers and some of them great commoners, including about a dozen members returned by the Treasury itself. It is very clear that those who return a decided majority of an assembly whose decisions are taken by vote, do, in fact, return the
36 V Two-penny Trash;
whole assembly, and cause every-thing to be decided according to their own pleasure. Sir James Graham has lately showed us, that 113 of the aristocracy, who* are privy councillors, receive, exclusive of their families, 650fi00L a year, that is to say, about a ninetieth part of the whole of the taxes ; a sum equal in amount to four days' taxes for the whole country ; a sum equal to the amount of a year's wages of thirty thousand married! labouring men in Wiltshire; and, reckoning five persons to every labouring man's family, including the husband and wife, these hundred and thirteen men receive, every year, as much as goes to the maintenance of one] hundred and fifty thousand of the working class of the people of England. Now, it is useless to express one's indignation at this ; to cry, to repine, to whine, are totally useless. But to know the fact, is not totally useless.
49. Ten such sheets of paper as this would not contain a bare list of the sums which the aristocracy, their relations- and dependents, receive out of the taxes. Indeed, a very little would be necessary to carry on the afifairs of this country, if it were not for the sums which they have re- ceived, and which they do now receive. We have a debt, which takes, annually, about half of the whole of the taxes. Almost the whole of the debt has been contracted within the. last sixty years ; and if I had the power to call for the docu- ments that I could name, and had a couple of expert clerks to assist me to make out the account, I should not be at all afraid to pledge myself to prove that a sum, equal in amount
1st August, 1830. 37
to the whole of the debt, has, in the course of that sixty years, been paid, out of the taxes, to the aristocracy, their relations and dependents. The total amount of the debt is 800,000,000/. ; that is to say, 14,000,000/. a year for tl^ 60 years ; and my opinion is, that taking one year with the other, this amount has been received by this body of per- sons ; for, only look at the amount of the cost of the army and the navy in this time of perfect peace, look at the in- numerable places and pensions and sinecures ; think of the immense sums expended during the war, in one year nearly 100,000,000/. exclusive of the interest of the debt; look at the numerous instances in which men notoriously not worth a i^hilling, have suddenly risen up into fortunes equal to principalities. It is impossible that, in such a state of things, the-people should be otherwise than miserable^
50. Mr. HusKissoN, in a speech which he has recently made and published, tells us that " the present generation must be contented to submit to this state of things!'^ which is, I think, the most impudent thing ever uttered, even by an English tax-eater. There is, indeed, the DEBT, commonly called national; and to deprive the fund-holders of their interest would certainly be a very unjust thing ; but if a hundred and fifty-four mei^ have always been re- turning a majority of the members to the Commons' house, it is, in fact, that hundred and fifty -four men who have iorrowed the money. Would there, therefore, be any very great ground for astonishment, if, at last, they were^called ^pon to pay the money } At any rate^ if this were to be tho
38 Two-penny TitASH:
case, they would find, that the returning of majorities was BO such profitable afifair, after all ! Let us take, for instance, the case of one of Lord Grey's hundred and fifty- four men. The number of seats is 658 ; the amount of the debt, or sum to be paid, 800,000,000/. Now, suppose one of Lord Grey's men to have always put in two; then it would be a mere rule-of -three question; thus, if 658 give 800,000,000?. what will two give ? The answer would be, 2, 400, 000 Z, or thereabouts : so that, if this Lord Grey's man had an estate worth eighty thousand a year, that estate, at thirty-Jive years purchase, would pay off his share of the debt, and still leave him 400^000Z. clear of all incumbrances ! Now, I am not recommending a mode of settling like this ; but, a t\iQ parties thought well of it, no modest or reasonable person would surely attempt to interfere, to prevent an ar- rangement so easily made, and so manifestly clear of all grounds for cavil and dispute.
5L I do not say, nor pretend to believe, that if I were a borrowing party, or the heir of a borrowing party, that I should like such a mode of settlement ; but, under certain circumstances, and, indeed, under many circumstances, during a man's life, men submit to that which they by no means like; and are not unfrequently very sorry for not having submitted sooner. How gladly, in the year 1794, would the French aristocracy have submitted to that, or rather to an arrangement like that, which I have here men- tioned ; but the thing is not to be viewed in this light neither ; for, eight hundred millions of the present money
• Ut August, 1830. 39
are not due to the fundholders : the value of the money has been changed : it has been doubled in the amount of one half; and, therefore, if the debt were paid off, the creditors would be entitled, in fact, to no more than four hundred millions of money. However, if the parties choose to take the matter to themselves, it would be very impertinent on the part of us, the people, to attempt to interfere in order to prevent the settlement ; and, I really do believe, that a re* formed parliament would never attempt to interfere in the matter unless called upon by one or the other of the parties to do it, A reformed parliament will be an entirely new body, having nothing at all to do with old scores, unless called upon by one of the fiarties, or by both, to form regu- lations for the adjustment, and for compelling the parties to submit to the decision of competent judges, of the matter. The worst of it is, that in cases of this sort, the settlement is generally put off so long, that, at last, the parties are unable to come to any settlement at all. This was the case in France. Those who had pocketed the amount of the loans, which formed the debts of the state, reduced the country to a condition in which it was unable to pay those debts. Endless schemes of funding were resorted to ; but never any scheme for refunding. The people were too poor to pay; the nobility and loan-mongers and farmers of taxes, who were able to pay, would not pay; at last, the people, no longer able to endure the load of taxation, rose against the imposers of that load; the nobles lost their estates and their titles, the clergy lost their tithes and their lunds ; the fundholders, their stock and its
40 Two-penny Trash;
interest ; and the royal family, the throne ; all of which arose, not for want, at last, of a disposition to make a just settlement ; but for want of having made that settlement i7i time. The states-general were called together ; and if they had been called together teji years earlier, France might have remained a monarchy for ages yet to come. In many instances, " Better late than never" is a true saying; but, with regard to the concessions of riders to their people, the true maxim is, ^* Better never than late,^* That this maxim may not have its truth verified in -the conduct and history of our rulers, is the anxious prayer of your faithful f:iend,
^ Wm. COBBETT.
STATE OF THINGS IN FRANCE.
52. Nothing can, at this time, be so useful to you as a clear understanding with regard to that which is now passing in. France, and that which has recently passed. Mr. Brougham, in his ** books of useful knowledge,^* will tell you not one single word about this matter. You re- member that, in the year 1814, the family of Bourbon, which had been, for more than twenty years, expelled from France, returned thither, by the force of English armies and fleets, and armies subsidized by England. Such of you as are now young, should be told, that the Bourbons took back with them, chiefly from this country, the old nobility of Fiance who had been driven out^ and had their titles
1st August, 1830. 41
taken from them ; that they restored th^se nobility to their former rank and titles ; that the foreign armies, which had replaced the Bourbons, stripped Paris of the ornaments and trophies won during the war by the French ; that they stripped France of her frontier towns, and imposed a heavy tribute on her people ; that the Bourbons, in returning to the throne, agreed to a constitution, or charter, according to which there was to be a house of peers, and a house of deputies elected by the people, or, rather, a select portion of the people in every district, who were to vote by ballot.
53. Such was the settlement, or compact, made between the Bourbons and the people of France. You should be further informed, that, about six or seven months ago, the Prench King made a change in his ministry, and put at the head of it a Prince Polignac, who had long been in this country y who was very much disliked by the French people, and whose promotion they, whether falsely or truly, ascribed to the influence of the English government ; and particularly of the Duke of Waterloo, whom they appear to hate ; that his colleagues of the cabinet were men some- what of the same description ; that these men appear to have been hated throughout the whole of France ; that, about six months ago, the King called together the two houses of the parliament, and delivered to them a speech; that, in an- swer to this speech, the house, or Chamber of Deputies, elected by the people, as good as told him, that they would vote him no money as long as he listened to the councils of these niinisterSfthditilieKin^ytheTeu^onf dissolved the parlia7nentf
42 Two-penny Thash ;
and ordered a new election, thinking thereby to get a chamber of depirties more subservient to his will ; that the King and his Ministers appear to have done every-thing possible in order to secure a majority in the new Chamber of Deputies ; that, though France contains about thirty-two millions ofpeO" pie, and, of course, about eight millions of m^n oifull age, only, eighty thousand, out of the eight millions, have been permitted to vote ; the right of voting being confined to per- sons of considerable property in house and land ; that, not- withstanding these circumstances, the elections, which? -are just now over, have returned a Chamber of Deputies, having in it a greater majority against the Ministers than the last Chamber had ; that the King, aware of this fact, has broken his compact with the people; has broken the con- stitution, or charter ; has drawn the sword, and, according to the old saying, ^* thrown away the scabbard.^*
54. He has now issued, by his own authority, these edicts, or ordinances, by the first of which he has ordered all liberty of the press to be totally suspended, so that no man can write or publish any-thing which has not first been read and approved of by some officer appointed by him ; by the second, he h^&dissolved the new Chamber ofDepvrtieSy even before they be called together ; by the third, he has so altered the law of election, as to make the choosing of Deputies to be solely the work of himself or his Ministers ; and thus he stands, surrounded by these Ministers, and by their and his dependents, and having the almost unani^ mous voice of his people against him and his measures.
1st August, 1830. 43
What has happened since this was done, I shall hardly be able to learn before this paper go to the press ; but, without knowing any- thing about that, every one must see that this is downright despotism. Here is a House of Representa«» tives dissolved Jven before they meet. To talk of law^ and jto talk of r^t^fntative government^ in France, is, there- fore, a mon^r^iw mockery and insult, even to imbecility.
»
55. One eajQ|ft€^^ tell exactly when, or how, this matter will end ; but of same cpnsequences we may be sure ; and, Amongst these are, 1. That the Bourbons will now be de- tested and abhorred by every Frenchman not in their pay : 2. That, if the King remain in France, he must remain by sheer military force ; that if that force fail him, he must flee for his life ; that, at least, all will be agitation and
confusion throughout that immense kingdom ; that the
I French Funds will become of as little value as Spanish or
Colombian Bonds ; and, at the very least, taxes, if col**
iected at all, must be collected stvord in hand.
56. People blame the King for his rashness ; but such people do not consider what his real situation was. It would be, at the first brush, rash to do many things, which lose the character of rashness when we take all the cir* €umstances into view. If some one were to tell me, that a friend of nune had jumped from his chamber-window into the street, " Oh, how rash ! He must be mad ! " I should exclaim ; but if, in addition, I were told that my friend's house was on Jire, and that the flames were just rushing
44 Two-penny Trash ;
into his chamber, so far from calling his jump rash, I should think it wise. This was much about the case with the King of France. He was sure of being burnt if he did not take the jump, and therefore he took it. *' Yield ; " people say, particularly stupid fund-people, that he should have yielded ; that is to say, remain to be burnt. For the truth is this ; the French people detest the Bourbons, whom they regard as the cause of their degradation in 1814 and 1815; whom they regard as the allies of their enemies ; whom they regard as the cause of the tribute and of the national debt ; whom they regard as the cause of all the heavy taxes which they have to pay, and of which they w^ould have hardly any to pay, were it not for the Bourbons^ and for those who are paid to uphold the Royal Government. The French people want, and openly say they want, to get rid of the Royal Government, and to have a Republic. This is now so clear, that no one can dispute it. They have proved this so plainly, that, for the king to have attempted to save himself by concessions would have been madness indeed ! He had simply this choice: 1. To become ** Citizen Charles Capet,*' and work for his bread ; 2. To get off out of ^he kingdom ; or, 3. To try to save himself by open war with the people. He has chosen the latter, which, even if he fail, may afford him the chance of getting off, after all. He may, to be sure, not be able to get off; but, the very worst that can befall him is hardly so bad as either ** Citizen Charles/' or another trip to England !
57. Besides, it is not so certain that England (or any other
1st August, 1830. 45
• country) would dare receive him, unless prepared for war with France! Will Spain, Portugal, the Dutchman, or England, relish a war with the people of France ? Will America be neutral this time, if we attack the French people ? The French know our situation as well as we do ; the Americans know it : all the world, except the Bourbons, know it. Oh, no ! A Government contracts a debt of 800,000,000/. but once. -Paul Methuen will not a^am brag that *' England has the honour to be the restorer of legitimacy ihioughovit Europe;" Bankes will not again call for taking the pictures and statues from '^ the twicc^ conquered France;" the base Courier will not again say, " The play is over, ive may go to supper ; " the baser Old Times will not again say, " Let us depart in peace, for ' our eyes have seen the salvation," Oh, no ! the THING, let what may happen, the THING must be quiet, or blow up the Funding System ; for who is there that is beast Ci^ough^ under circumstances pointing to war, that will fail to see, that NOTHING WILL BE SAFE BUT GOLD !
5S. No ; our THING cannot stir, and the French people know that well. They know that it was the THING, and that alone, that made them submit to the Bourbons ; and they now know that they cannot make even an attempt to do this again. It may, and perhaps will, by an alien act, or by some other means, endeavour to do some little matter ; but, if th^ king be defeated (and he will be m the end)y our THING will be civil; it will not again drive the French Ambassador out of England I In short, Charles must
46 Two-penny Trash;
be king by the French sword alone ; or, he must be '* Citizen Capet/' There will not again be a Duke of Brunswick and his army to enter France. In short, our THING can give 720 subsidies, and Charles must do all for himself.
59. But what ought our Government to do, tobepre- pared for a Republic in France ? Why, without losing an hour make a Radical Reform of the House of Com^ mons. We are come back exactly to the old point. The people here, when the French Revolution broke out, would have been content with reform; so they would now: the wise course, then, is, to give them the reform, and leave the French to settle their oiun affairs in their own manner. The struggle in France may be long and bloody: it must end in a Republic, or in a savage despotism : the latter, for any length of duration, is impossible : and, therefore, again and again, I say reform, reform, as the sure, and, perhaps, the only, means of preserving the institutions and the tranquillity, and restoring the happiness of England.
HISTORY OF ExNGLAND. ^*
On the 1st of September I shall publish No. I. of The History of the Life and Reign of George IV. When that is done, I shall go back to the earliest times, and pub- lish, in similar Numbers, on the 1st of every month, a Complete History of England. A true one^ not a
1st August, 1830.
47
romance. The History of George IV. will be the end^ of course, unless I should outlive another King. I begin with this last reign, because we want it, and particularly the history of our poor, unfortunate and excellent friend, Queen Caroline, who, by her known hatred of corrup- tion, gave the borough villains a better blow than they had had for many, many years. They have, in fact, never been '' their own men '' since. These incomparable villains (for what is equal to their villany) shall have their due, their full due, in my history, which shall show how they got their possessions ; and enable the nation to judge of the right that they have to keep them. Our histories are romances, writ- ten by pensioned and bribed slaves. It is high time that the people knew the truth ; high time that they saw the degradation into which they have fallen, and the causes of it. This task was reserved for me ; and, God giving me life and health, I will perform it. The Numbers will come out monthly y price Gg?., as low as I can sell it, with any thing like compensation to myself ; and I do this, because I wish people in even low circumstances to read iU
48
List of Mr. Cobbett's Books.
JEnglisK Grammar, Price 3s. French Grammar, Price 5s. Cottage Economy. Price 2s. 6<f .
Mr. Cobbetfs Rural Rides. One thick vol. 12mo. Price 5s.
The Woodlands. Price 14s.
The English Gardener. Price 6s.
Year*s Residence in America. Price 5s»
Mr, Cobhetfs Sermons. Price 3s. 6d.
The Poor Mans Friend. Price 8c?.
Paper Against Gold. . Price 5s.
History of the Protestant Reformation, Two vols. Royal 8vo. fine paper. Price 10s.
Roman History, in French and English, Price 13s.
American Slave Trade. Price 2s.
Tulles Husbandry. One vol. 8vo. Price 15s.
Emigrant's Guide. One vol. 12mo. Price 2s. 6d.
A Treatise on CobbetVs Corn, One vol. 12mo. Price 5s. Old.
Advice to Young Men, One vol. 12mo. Price 5s. An Italian Grammar. By James P. Cobbett. 12mo. Price 6s.
A Sketch of the Life of General Lafayette, Price Is. Usury Laws, or Lending on Interest, Price 2s. 6cZ.
History of the Regency and Reign of George IV., in
"Numbers, at 6d. eavh, l^mo. Three Numbers published.
Mr, John Cobbetfs Letters from France, Price 4s. 6c?.
Mr. James Cobbett' s Ride of Eight Hundred Miles in France. Third Edition. Price 4s. 6d, '
Cobbetfs Translation of Martens s Law of Nations, Fourth Edition. " Price 17s.
Mr. Wm, Cobbetfs Law of Turnpikes. Price 3s. Qd,,
Wills, Jowett, and Mills, Bolt Court, Fleet SUeet.
No. III.
COBBETT'S
TWO-PENNY TRASH
For the Month of September, 1830.
TO THE
WORKING PEOPLE OF ENGLAND AND
SCOTLAND.
Kensington^ j^ugust 26, 1830. My Friends,
60. Never since the world existed was there, to man in civil life, a time more important and critical than this ; and never was it so manifest, that the condition of mankind de- pends wholly on their own conduct, and especially on that of the working people. It is, therefore, of the greatest im- portance that you be perfectly well informed of the causes which have produced the recent glorious event at Paris. The great deed was there performed by the working people ; and by the working people here, must finally be produced those salutary effects which every good man wishes to see produced. There are some men who happen to be so fortu- nate as to be able to keep their bones from labour, who consider the working people merely as being made to toil for others. Others, again, w^ho have their motives, doubtless, choose to assert that the working people of England are
London : Published by the Author, 11, Bolt-court, Fleet-street ; and sold by all Booksellers,
50 Two-penny Trash;
poor things compared with those in France. My friends^ your conduct, when you have had a fair opportunity, has always given the lie to this assertion ; and, I am sure, it will always give it the lie,
61.1 undertook this little work, solely for the purpose of giving you useful knowledge. This was my duty. You are employed in creating food and raiment and lodging for me, as well as for all others who do not labour with their bodies ; and it is my duty to supply you with that knowledge which I have been able to acquire, in consequence of my being supplied with the necessaries of life by your labour. At this moment, I can communicate no knowledge to you so useful as that which relates to the recent events in France ; be- cause, as I shall clearly show you, those events are closely connected, and almost identified, with our own public affairs^ and with the interests of every man of us.
62. Pray observe, that all possible efforts are making ta induce us to believe, that we are not at all in the situation in which the French would have been, if their abominable tyrants had succeeded. You may guess at the motive of these efforts : and you will judge of the falseness of the opinions which they are intended to inculcate, before I have concluded the observations that I am about to make. I am not going to give you a history or narrative of the re- cent transactions in France. You will find that done in a little work, published in weekly numbers in London, at Strange's Publication Warehouse, in Paternoster- row, These numbers are published weekly, price two-pence, and are very well worthy of your attention. It is not a his- tory of this great event that I am about to give you ; but I am going to prove to you, that the Bourbon family have lost their crown by attempting to force upon France a govern- ment like that which exists in England now. What I am
1st September, 1830. 51
about to prove, I will state to you first shortly the substance, in five distinct propositions, as follows :
1. That it was the English Borough mongers who insti- gated the ex- King of France to attempt to take away the right of the people to choose their representatives.
2. That our Boroughmongers intended to make the two legislative Chambers in France totally independent of the voice of the people.
3. That the people of France well understood what the government of England was, and saw clearly, that the English Boroughmongers were about to do this for their own sake.
4. That to preVent their doing this, the people of Paris shed their blood.
5. And that, therefore, the family of Bourbon owe the loss of their crown to the resolution of the people of France to die rather than to submit to a government like that of England.
63. Before I enter upon these propositions, I have some remarks to make upon the conduct of the Whigs, and half Whigs, who are full as much mortified at this event as the Bourbons themselves. Upon all occasions, they have endea- voured, whenever they have opened their lips upon the sub* ject, to cause the people to believe, that we have nothing at all to do in this affair, except merely to express our admira- tion of the people of Paris^ who have now got for themselves just such a government as ours ; and that we ought to admire them, and praise them, because they have "paid us the compliment of fighting, even unto death, in order to obtain the high prize of a?i English government. This has been the language of the whole crew, wherever they have met. But it w^as particularly the language of the
D 2
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Scotch Whig place-hunters, who met at Edinburgh not many days ago. The great talkers were one Jeffrey, an Edin- burgh reviewer, one Cockburne, a lawyer, a Doctor Mackintosh, who is, I suppose, a parson, one Simpson, who appears to be a lawyer, too, and several others, amongst whom was our Middlesex and Greek-bond gentlemen. Another time, I mean to expose the folly, as well as the insincerity of this crew, who manifestly got up this meeting, at which they resolved not to subscribe for the widows and orphans of Paris : they manifestly got up this meeting to prevent a meeting of the sincere, middle and working classes, who are found in Edinburgh, as w^ell as every-where else. This grand meeting w^as to be a damper^ to keep the honest and sincere cool and quiet ; and even if it should finally fail, 1 should not fail to take the will for the deed.
.' 64. The crafty and hypocritical crew, being thus assem- bled, praised the valour of the Parisians to the skies; commended them for their promptitude and valour ; but above all things, for their having spared their bloody- minded enemies, who, be it observed, never spared them; v/ho were coolly playing at cards while the sanguinary Swiss, who had so long been clothed and fed by the industrious people of Paris, were butchering those very people. But, what delighted these Scotch tax-eaters most, was, the dis- covering that this revolution in France had given the French a Government so very much like ours ; had given them a state of freedom and of happiness almost equal to our own; and that, of course, we could want no changes here^ being already in possession of what the brave Parisians had been fighting for ! Filthy hypocrites ! Base, but baffled deceivers. Some of the good fellows of Edinburgh, Paisley, and Glas- gow, wdll read this paper ; but, even without reading it, they would have detected this scandalous cheat.
1st September, 1830. 53
65. Now, turning off these hypocrites with the back of our hand, let us come to my five propositions, as stated above : let us take them one at a time and go patiently through them ; and, when we have done that, we may defy the devil to de- ceive us. The first proposition is, —
1. That it was the English boroughmongers that insti- ' gated the ex-King of France to take away the right of the people to choose their representatives.
66. Some one will say, ^* Why should our borough- mongers do this V^ The reasons, my friends, are abundant. The distress into which the nation has been plunged by the enormous taxation, has made the people, every- where, wish for and petition for a reform in the House of Commons. This feeling has been gaining ground very fast, for more thau three years : and the divers exposures which have takea place, together with our own acute sufferings, have made even the farmers cry aloud for parliamentary reform. Thafc measure necessarily implies the destruction of boroughmon- gering and all its profits. One of our great arguments in favour of reform was, the prosperous and easy situation of the people of France. '* Look," we said, ** there are the '^ people of France ; they experience no distress; they want " no corn bills; they do not live on cold potatoes ; they have " no tithes ; they have no hordes of pension and sinecure ** people ; they have no bishops rolling in wealth ; no rectors ** with two or three livings each ; no poor curates starving *^ upon a miserable pittance ; and why is it thus so well ia " France? Because, and only because, there are no rotten " boroughs and no boroughmongers in France ; only because ** the people choose their representatives theynselveSy and " choose them by ballot,*^
67. The argument was so powerful, the facts so noto- rious, the premises so true, and the conclusion so natural
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and so close, that it terrified our boroughmongers. They saw clearly that they must give way, oi put down this example of happiness arising out of free elections. They saw that if that thing- continued there, their traffic could not continue; indeed the object of the twenty-two years* war was lost. It is notorious that the object of that war was to prevent par- liamentary reform ; and that the object would be totally de- feated if they could not now conjure up something to prevent France from being an example to England. If they could so contrive it that the people of France should be deprived of the right of election, and that the crown and the peers should, in fact, return all, or a majority of, the members to the lower house, then they had an answer ready for the re- formers. " There,'' they would have said, " you wild and " visionary men, you see that the French have tried free " election and ballot; they have found that it will not do ; *' they have given it up, you see, and therefore, let us hear *^ no more of your foolish noise about reform."
68. Thus then, the VVHY is clear : the boroughmongers bad reasons more than sufficiently powerful for instigating the Bourbons to do what they did ; and, now, let us look at tTie facts in support of the charge that they did thus instigate them. In the first place, Polignac, who was to be the instrument in the work, was an old emigrant who had long resided in England, had married an English woman, had been a good while the French ambassador in London, when, in August, 1829 (pay attention to dates), he went from England to France, to be invested with the office of Prime Minister. Now, take these facts ; that he had lived and bad been in some sort bred up amongst our boroughmongers ; that, the moment he was appointed Prime Minister, all our boroughmonger publications, daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, began to praise the appointment; and that, as soon as the discontent of the French began to appear, these publications fell foul of the people of France and upon the honest part of the press, and began to insist that some great change was necessary in France ; and that, for the peace of Europe (that is to say the upholding of borough- njongering), the Governmentof France ought to be rendered more monarchical. Things were going on thus in England,
1st September, 1830. 55
when the legislative Chambers met in France, in March or April last : the Chamber of Deputies, that is to say, the Commons House, voted an address to the king, which as good as told him that he should have no money to be laid out by this ministry whose tyrannical intentions were well known.
69. But, before I say more of this, I must go back «ome months. The Polignac ministiy was, as we have seen before, installed in the month of August 1829, and very early in that month, the French press, faithful to its duty, warned the people of the danger, told them that Polignac intended to make them submit to a Government like that of England, and called upon them to resist. The press was prosecuted with all the rigours of the law, which, however, by no means checked that press, which persevered in a manner that will reflect everlasting honour on it. The na- tion became fully sensible of the danger, and the people themselves began to prepare for resistance so early as the month of February in the present year. What they dreaded was, that they should be deprived of the right of freely choosing, and by ballot, their own representatives] they saw that, if they had taxes imposed upon them by men chosen by the king or the peers, or both together, they should be slaves. They began to form associations for legal resist- ance, in the first place. A part of Francecalled Brittany had the great honour to set the example 5 and, after some consultation on the subject, the leaders there met, and agreed to form an association on the following grounds, and for the following purposes, as expressed in their declaration and pro- positions, every word of which I do beseech you to read with attention !
*' We, the undersio^ned inhabitants of the five departments of the ancient province of Brittany, under the cogiiizance and protection of the Royal Court of Rennes, bound hy our own oaths, aud by those of the chiefs of our families, to the duty of fidelity to the king, and of attachment to the Charter; considering that a hamilful of politi- cal intriguers have threatened to attempt the audacious project of overturning the constitutional guarantees established by the Char- ter; considering that it is due to their character and their honour to imitate the generous resistance of their ancestors against the en- croachments, the caprices, and the abuse of Ministerial power ; considering that resistance by physical force would be a dreadful calamity, and that it would be without motive while the means of
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legal resistance remain open to us; that in recurring to the judicial power, the best prospect of success is to assure the oppressors of a fraternal and substantial union ; under the ties of honour and of right we therefore resolve —
** 1st. To subscribe individually the sura of 10 francs, besides a tenth part subsidiarily of the contributions subscribed by the under- signed in the electorial lists of 1830, and we oblige ourselves lo pay to the order of the General Collectors, should it become necessary to name them, in conformity with ihe third of these resolutions.
** 2d. This subscription is to form a common fund for Brittany, destined to indemnify the subscribers for the expenses they may incur in consequence of the refusal to pay any public contributions ilte^ully imposed, either without the free, regular, and consti- tutional concurrence of the King and the two Chambers, as con- stituted by the Charter, or with the concurrence of Chambers, formed by an electoral systemy which should exclude our right of voting iri the choice of representatives,
<* 3d. In case of the official proposition, either of an unconstitu- tional change in the electoral system, or of the legal establishment of taxes, two mandatories from each arondissement are to meet at Poutivy, and as soon as they are met to the number of twenty, they are to name, from among the subscribers, three General Collectors, and one Sub-Collector, in each of the five departments.
** 4th. The duties of the Sub-Collectors are — 1st, To receive subscriptions ; 2d, To satisfy indemnities, conformably to article 2d ; 3d, On the requisition of a subscriber, disturbed by an illegal contribution, to conduct in his name, under the care of the Sub- Collector of his department, or of a delegate named in his arron- dissement, the defence and its consequences, by all legal means. 4th, To bring a civil action against the authors, supporters, and accomplices, in the assessment and exaction of such illegal impositions.
*' 5th. The subscriber's name, M. , and M. , as
mandatories for this arrondissement, to meet the mandatories.from the other arrondissements, in conformity with article 3d, and to transmit their present subscriptions to the General Collectors when named."
70. This, which very nearly resembles the American de^ clarations, at the time when this government of ours was preparing to compel that brave people to submit to be taxed without being represented, alarmed the tyrants exceedingly ; and well it might; for it brought the question, at once, to issue, without rushing into civil war, and without provoking, or aflfording any excuse for, military execution. Indirect taxes could not be resisted in this way ; but, direct taxes
1st September, 1830. 57
could ; I mean all such taxes as are collected by the tax- gatherer coming to your house and demanding the money ^ You refuse to pay, you are prosecuted ; you go into court, and plead that you owe no taxes, because you are not re- presented ; the cause is given against you, and your goods are seized', but who will buy your goods, who will dare to buy they ? You are put into jail, suppose ; but then this fund provides an indemnity for you. However, the thing could never go thus far : the government must resolve on open war ; or it must give way. Nothing was ever more admirable than this, nothing more safe, nothing more effeC" tual. And thus stood the people, resolved to face Polignac and his masters, when the Chambers gave their answer to the King, as mentioned a little way back.
71. Having received this answer, the King dissolved the Chambers, hoping to get more pliant men by anew election. He was deceived ; for he got all the same stout men again, and many others in addition. But, when he had dissolved, the Chambers, our boroughmonger press broke forth wdth fresh fury against the press and the people of France, and urged Polignac to put them down by force, saying that the French were 7iot fit for liberty, such as we enjoyed, which was, indeed, very true ; and, at any rate, they were resolved not to have it. But, that part of our press, most notoriously belonging to the Boroughmongers, I mean the QuARTER^LY Review, threw off the mask completely, and told Polignac that he must put down the press, and take aiuay the right of representation ! This review was pub^ lished in the month of May ; and the following passage from it will leave no doubt in your minds, that the writer (a mere hireling) knew, in May, precisely what Polfgn AG would do in July, I pray you to read it with atten- tion ; and you will clearly see, that the people of France were to be enslaved, lest the continuance of their freedom should give countenance to our demand for Parliamentary Reform.
*^ We, therefore, hope and trust, that the King of France and his " present ministers may succeed, if such be their object, in estab- *' lishing- a censorship on the press, and likewise in acquiring' sa *' decided a preponderance in the Chamber of Deputies, that its *' existence as an independent body capable of bearding the monarchy y
d5
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*^.as it has recently done, shall be no longer recognised. This, we ** owD, will be a virtual abolition of the charter, but the question is *^ obviously reduced to this : Shall the monarchy, which is suitable to the country, he overthrown, or shall the charter, which, in every possible view, is unsuitable to it, be afyrogated? It will be *^ asked, Why. 7ieed we care what France does ? Why not let her do *' what she pleases? What have we to do with her institutions, as ** a nation, more than we have with the domestic arrangements of *' our next-door neighbour in the street? The answer to this, un- *' fortunately, is but too ready. If our neighbour merely beats his *' wife and children, and regulates his personal concerns in the •* worst way possible, we have no right to complain; but if he gets *^ intoxicated, and flings about firebrands, so as not only to set his ** own house on fire, but to threaten the destruction of the whole ^^ parish, we are compelled, in spite of our love of quiet, to take ** a lively interest in the proceedings. If the French could be ciV" '' cuinscribed by a great Chinese wall, within which they might cut *' one another's throats, an experiment to their hearts' content on *' irieligioo and democracy, it would signify less to the neighbour- *' ing countries. But when the amplest experience proves, that no ** commotion of any extent in France ever fails to embroil the rest ** of the world, and when we know that there are innumerable ob- ** jects of ambition, of aggrandisement, and of national revenge, all ** at this hour conspiring to stimulate a large portion of the French *' population to fresh wars, we cannot possibly view their present ** unsettled state without the deepest ajixiety. We trust vve have " said enough to show that there is only one course of measures by ** which good ordei' can be preservttd ; and however repugnant it *^ may be to our English tastes, the necessity of the case requires ** that we should not shrink from the trial, but be prepared to wit- *' ness, as the less grievous of the two evils, the temporary re* ** establishment of a tolerably absolute authority on the part of the ** crown of France, if this be impossible, or if the attempt be *« BUNGLED IN THE JSXECUTION, we may bid adieu to re- ** pose, and buckle on our armour for another quarter of a century of *' wars. VN'e think it is hardly possible to doubt that, unless the ** existing Government adopts, and succeeds in carrying into ^^ eS^ct, some very decisive measure IN THE COURSE OF THE '* PRESENT YEAR, there will ensue another burst of convulsion : *' and Napoleon has left no saying of more iudiiputable truth *^ behind him, than that a revolution in France is a revolution in ** Europe.**
72. I need add no comment. The proof is complete; thousands of men have been hanged upon evidence less clear than this. I have clearly shown the powerful motive that the Boroughmongers had for instigating Polignac; here is the act of instigation ; and that this writer is hired by the Boroughmonyers, is as notorious as that my name is Wil- liam COBBETT.
1st September, 1830. 59
2. That the Boroughmongers intended to make the two legislative Chambers of France like the two Houses of Parliament in England.
3. That the people of France well understood what the government of England was, and clearly saw that the Boroughmongers were about to do this for their own sake.
73. The first of these propositions is proved by the above extract from the Quarterly Review, and from Polignac's ordinances. The Review, in another part of it says, that the power of choosing a majority of the Deputies ought to he in the Crown, and in an hereditary aristocracy, as it is in England; and Polignac's ordinances of the 25th July provide for the securing of this. The third propo- sition is established by a fact that all the world is now ac- quainted with ; namely, that in the month of November last, there was circulated throughout all France, the fol- lowing description of the English government. It first ap- peared in a paper called the Constitutionnel, which is published at Paris ; and I beg you to read every word of it with attention. You will find in it nothing that I have not said a hundred times over ; but, you are here to look at it as something that the people of France saw, probably, for the first time. Do, pray, read it with attention. This, and other such publications, produced the glorious event at Paris. Read this description, and then you will cease to wonder at what has taken place. After speaking of systems of oppres- sion, which cannot in these days be put in force, the writer proceeds thus :
'* There is a third system, which it would be much more practi- cable to put into execution than any orthese. It is what England is offering us the model of, and M. de Polignac has just been trying to set in operation, namely, the system of making slaves and tools of all the working classes in a body, by the higher orders, under ctmstitutional forms and names. In this system, which the English Government understands prodigiously well, the power of making the laws belong exclusively to the members of the aristocracy ; public situations, which are the road to honours and to fortune, fall to the share of nobody but those who are vested with the power of making the laws, their children, or relations ; and the people, who do the work, are the property in fee of those who have the management of public affairs. The English aristocracy displays great intelligence
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iu the way in which it accomplishes its ends with the working classes. It leaves them all the means for the production of wealth; and everyone of the individuals under its influence may choose the business by which he thinks he can get the most. All attempts on the security of individual property, which would only cause capital to disappear and hinder production, are completely put down. The •people that work are neither hampered nor disturbed in their la- bours, but are as free in their industry and their commerce as bees in a hive. The workingclasses, however, derive no more advantage, in the end, from this freedom in their operations, than the bees do from the honey they take so much pains to make. The higher or- ders, through the medium of the taxes which they alone have the privilege of laying, soak up the greatest part of the produce, and divide it under different names among the members of their body. To describe the thing properly, the English Parliament performs the office of a pump; it sucks up the wealth produced by the working classes, and turns it over into the hands of the families of the aris- tocracy. But as it is a machine that has a head, and can think, it leaves the working people as much as is necessary for them to go on working. The English aristocracy allow a certain number of men from the ranks of the people to find their way into the two houses of Parliament : and it is for the interest of its supremacy that it should be so. If the body that makes the laws consisted en- tirely of the persons for whose advantage the industrious portion of the community is set to work, they might bring their power into peril by demanding of the people more than it was able to pay. The men from among the people who find their way into Parliament^ take care to let them know when they are running into danger. THE OPPOSITION, in the machine of Government, does the duty of the safety-valve in a steam-engine. It does not stop the fnotion ; but it preserves the machine, by letting off m smoke the power that otherwise might blow it up. The exercise of aristocratical power being attached to the possession of great landed property, it is eas^ to see that younger brothers can have no share in the real estates ■which may be left by their relatives at their decease. The descend- ants of an aristocratic family would, in fact, all sink into the ranks of the common people, if they were to divide what is left by their relations in equal shares. The eldest son therefore keeps to him- self all the landed property, to which is attached the exercise of aristocratical power; and then he makes use of this power to get money for his younger brothers, at the expense of the working classes. It is a mistake to imagine, that in England all the pro- perty of a family in the higher orders goes exclusively to the eldest son. It is true, he takes the landed property, which is exclusively the family estate. But the younger brothers have for their share rich livings in tlie church, sinecures or places of some kind, which the public is obliged to pay for; and all these are considered as part of the family property, as much as the other. For there never can be too much pains taken to impress the fact, that the higher orders consider themselves as having a property, not only in the landed estates which they possess by direct title, but in the work-
1st September, 1830. 61
ing classes besides, on whom they lay taxes as they please, and share the proceeds among thems<flves. The hisrher orders in Great Britain (who must not be confounded with the English people, a people who are at their mercy to take what toll they please) will never allow the working classes in any country to be their own masters, as long as they can do any-thing to hinder it. They know very well that their own power over the working classes in the countries under their control, will never be out of danger of being disputed, till the working classes of all other countries^ too, are made the jyroperty of a family or of a caste. And hence it is that they are found on all occasions making common cause with barbarism against civilization. They take the part of Austria against Italy, Don Miguel against Don Pedro, and theTurks against the Greeks, If they ever make a show of declaring for the defenders of freedom, it is only to get hold of the direction of their affairs, and hand them over to their enemies. Any-where, and every-where, in short, where they espy the seeds of any-thing like liberty, they hurry off to spoil or smother them. If we judge of the plans of the Polignac ministry by the past proceedings of the individuals that compose it, and by what is let out by the papers in the service of the English Ministry, it is easy to tell what kind of transformation the Charter is intended to undergo in their hands. All Frenchmen will be equal in point of law, whatever in other respects their title or their rank; but the great mass of the population will be stricken with political incapacity, and all public power will belong to the aristocracy. They will all contribute indiscriminately, in proportion to their property, to the expenses of the state ; but the members of the aristocracy will take back again, under the name of pensions or of salaries, the portion that they have paid, and divide the rest among themselves besides. They will be equally admissible by law to both civil and military offices ; but there will be nobody really ad- mitted, except at the good pleasure of the aristocracy, and to serve its purposes. Personal liberty will be guaranteed to every-body : and nobody will be seized or prosecuted, but in the ways and terms the aristocracy has fixed upon. Every man will have equal liberty to profess his religion, and receive the same protection for his forms of worship ; only nobody must utter any opinion that may be con- trary to the tenets of the church. Every-body in France will have a right to publish and print his thoughts ; at his own risk, if he says any-thing that is against the interests of the church and the aristocracy. To wind up all, property of all kinds will be quite secure ; only the aristocracy will have the power of laying it under any contributions they think proper, and so applying it to their own use.— THIS IS THE SORT OF CHARTER the Polignac ministry would bestow on France, if it succeeded in getting a majority in the Chambers, and the King's consent. It is for the electors to consider whether they choose to put up with SUCH an order of things. Their fate IS IN THEIR OWN HANDS.
74. There, my lads of the working classes, that is the picture that roused the French. That is the picture that
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made the working people of Paris fly to arms. Whether the picture be true or false, I will leave you to decide ; but, at any rate, you must now be satisfied, that this is what our boroughmongers intended to cause to be introduced into France; and,
4. That, to prevent their doing this, the people of Paris shed their blood ; and,
5. That, therefore, the Bourbons owe the loss of their crown to the resolution of the people of France, 7iot to submit to a government like that of England.
75. I will attempt no commentary. You now, my friends, see the true cause of the glorious achievement in France. It was not " seditious writings;" it was not love of change ; it was not want of religion ; it was nothing but a conviction, that the Polignac Ministry intended to bend their necks to a boroughmonger system', rather than submit to which, they resolved to shed their blood ; and, as it is clear that Polignac and his master were instigated to the base at- tempt by our boroughmongers, to them Charles and his family owe the loss of their crown ! Let them now, then, condole with one another : they are all got together here r let them howl, while the sensible and brave people of France dance and sing.
76. But there is one part of the above picture to which I must call your particular attention. It is that which ex- hibits our " OPPOSITION," which " in the machine of *^ government, does the duty of a safety-valve in a steam- ^' engine. It does not stop the motion; but it preserves ** the machine, by letting ofiF, in smoke, the power, which, *' otherwise might blow it upj^ How true this is ! How I should like to take the man by the hand that wrote this ! ^^ Aye," say the boroughmongers, ** and we know where he got ity Yes, you base wretches, you do know where he got it, and I know too ; and it glads my heart to think how I have reached you, in spite of all your power and all your cunning and all your hypocrisy and all your malice. This is really like *' bread thrown upon the waters ;* it is come back again after many days. France owes her deliverance to the good sense and to the valour of the people ; but that €easc and that valour would not have been exercised had
1st September, 1830. 63
not the press pointed out the danger; and the press of France could not have pointed out the danger, notwith- standing the great ability of the writers, if those writers had not been in possession of the facts ; and those facts were furnished by me, and never by any -body else. Our great curse has been, the deceiving of the people by sham patriots, who have passed under the name of political parties. When I was a child, it was the court-party and the country -party. This was a fraud upon the people; but after this came Tories and Whigs (taking up names that had been in use more than a century before) ; and, each choosing a leader, the Tories were called Pittites, and the Whigs Foxites ; and thus, for about thirty years, they were drawn out in battle array, the two parties taking care not to injure one another, each laying hold of the public wealth, and pulling and tearing like two savage wolves striving for the exclusive possession of a sheep. In the year 1806, when the Foxites had put out the Pittites, and got into their place, or, rather, had made a compromise and coalition with a part of the Pittites, and had agreed to an indemnity for all the atrocious deeds of the Pitt faction ; then it w^as that I set myself to work to break up all parties ; lay- ing it down as a maxim that the one was just as bad as the other, and that the opposition was a mere sham, intended to keep the people quiet while each party plundered them alternately.
77. From this time, w^hich is now four-and-twenty years ago, I have been abhorred by these factions, and have most severely suffered in consequence of that abhorrence ; but I have demolished the factions, and the words Tory and Whig now excite ridicule and contempt at the bare sound of them. The words " opposition' and *^ gentlemen oppo* site/* are become equally contemptible. The people have long looked upon the whole as one mass of fellows fighting and scrambling for public money ; some fighting to keep it, and others scrambling to get at it; some dogs in possession of the carcase, and some growling and barking because they cannot get at a share. Seeing the people despising both these factions, a third has started, to whom I have always given the name of SIIOY-HOYS ; and now I will tell you
64 TwO'PENNY Trash;
why. A shoy-hoy is a sham man or woman, made of straw or other stuff, twisted round a stake, stuck into the ground, and dressed in clothes of man or woman, with arms, legs, head, and every- thing, and with a stick or gun put into its hand. These shoy-hoys are set up for the purpose of driving birds from injuring the corn or the seeds, and some- times to frighten them from cherries, or other fruit. The people w^ant a reform of the parliament, and there has for a long time (about fifteen or sixteen years) been a little band, who have professed a desire to get parliamentary re- form. They have made motions and speeches and divisions, with a view of keeping the hopes of the people alive, and have thereby been able to keep them quiet from time to time. They have never desired to succeed; because success would put an end to their own hopes of emolument : but they have amused the people. The great body of the factions, knowing the reality of their views, have been highly diverted by their sham efforts, which have never interrupted them in the smallest degree in their enjoyment of the general plun- der. Just as happens with the birds and the shoy-hoys in the fields or gardens. At first, the birds take the shoy-hoy for a real man or woman ; and, so long as they do this, they abstain from their work of plunder ; but after having for some little while watched the shoy-hoy with their quick and piercing eyes, and perceived that it never moves hand or foot, they totally disregard it, and are no more obstructed by it than if it were a post. Just so is it with these political shoy-hoys ; but their demerits are not, like the field shoy- hoys^ confined to the doing of no good ; they do mischief ; they really, like my friend the Frenchman's safety-valve, assist the factions in the work of plunder ; which I remember an instance of, indeed, in the curious case of a horticultural shoy-hoy, which case very aptly illustrates the functions of these political deceivers. The birds were committing great ravages upon some turnip-seed that I had at Botley. " Stick up a shoy-hoy,'* said I to my bailiff. *' That will do no goodj sir;" ** It can do no harm, and therefore stick one up." He replied, by telling me, that he had, that morning, in the garden of his neighbour Morell, who had stuck up a shoy-hoy to keep the sparrows from his peas, actually seen a sparrow settled, with a pod, upon shoy-hoy s hat, and
1st September, 1830. 65
there, as upon a dining-table, actually pecking out the peas and eating them, which he could do with greater security there where he could look about him and see the approach of an enemy, than he could have done upon the ground, where he might have been taken by surprise. Just exactly such are the functions of our political shoy-hoys. The agricultural and horticultural shoy-hoys deceive the depredating birds but a very short time; but they continue to deceive those who stick them up and rely upon them, who, instead of rousing in the morning, and sallying upon the depredators with powder and shot, trust to the miserable shoy-hoys, and thus lose their corn and their seeds. Just thus it is with the people, who are the dupes of the political shoy-hoys. In Suffolk, and the other eastern counties, they call then^ mawkeses, Mawkes seems to be the female, and shoy-hoy the male, of this race of mock-human beings ; and I suppose that the farmers in the east, from some cause or other, look upon the female as the most formidable of the two. At any rate, our political shams are of the masculine gender, and therefore shoy-hoy is the proper name for them.
78. Now then, who are our shoy-hoys ? There is Bur- DETT, who seems to be the patriarch of the race, his Man, Alderman Shawl, Russell, Nugent, Wilson, and several others, besides Brougham and Hume. As to Burdett and Hobhouse, after the severe pelting at West- minster, after Shawl and Wilson's keeping away from the meetings in honour of the French; as to Russell, wuth his four great towns and his Bloomsbury vestry bill (and which bill I shall give a history of, one of these days) ; as to Nu- gent, who wrote a letter in praise of the deeds of the people of Paris, and who (as the newspapers tell us) slipped down afterwards to visit the ex-King at Cowes; as to these, I will say no more now, nor as to Monck (one of Burdetl's purity- dinner companions); for he has retired to vralk arm in ana about Reading with the immaculate Rhadamanthus of the consistory court: as to these I will say no more now, but, with regard to Brougham and Hume, I must beg you to be upon your guard. Watch them well, and you will soon dis- cover that they anwer all the purposes of the shoy-hoy ia
66 Two-penny Trash;
Morell's garden. Brougham has been roaring away in the north against him whom he used to call the *' greatest cap- tain of the age/' and luhose eloquence he compared to that of Cicero, at the time when the Master of the Rolls was expected to die. You will find him change his tone ; and particularly, you will find him shuftle out of parliamentary reform. You will find Joseph Hume to do the same ; and indeed he has already begun to do it 3 for, at Edinburgh, the other day, he observed that there Tvas ** still further reform wanted in this country,^ Still! What does he mean by still ? Further reform ! What does he mean by further ? Why, I will tell you what he means ; he means, as he said in the pure House, that no reform is wanted , ex- cept such as HE can produce by the totting»up of figures. That is what he means ; and I dare say he has set all the Presbyterian parsons in Scotland to pray that there never may be a parliamentary reform as long as breath shall warm his body.
79. The Parliament is said to be summoned to meet on the 26th of October, for the dispatch of business. What business ? Of regency, when we have got a king upon the throne likely to live for twenty years ? About the revolutions in Europe ? What could the Parliament do about those re* Tolutions ? But, I will tell you what it may meet for: and that is to legalize an order in council for restraining the bank and making paper a legal tender ; and this I think by no means impossible, but, on the contrary, very probable, if what the newspapers tell us be true, relative to the quantities of bullion continually going out of the country ; and, if this should be the case, you will see what a figure the shoy- hoys will make. Two babies, nice little round-faced fat babies, taken out of any two cradles, or out of any two sets of swaddling-clothes in any two Scotch burghs, know just as much what to do or what to recommend in such a state of things, as Brougham and Hume. They would stand aghast : they would cling hold of the first folly that presented itself; they would shift their hold every moment ; and the great counties of York and of Middlesex, would blush to hear them called their members. Be it a question of foreign policy, what do these men know any-thing more about it
1st September, 1830. 67
than any real and genuine shoy-hoy, who has now the guar- dianship of the fields ? Oh, how I should like to see them engaged in discussing the question, whether it were right or wrong to make a hank restriction, in order to prevent the French from going to the Rhine. However, there will be plenty of time hereafter for all these things, when the Par- liament shall meet.
80. In conclusion, I beg leave to recommend to you to meet in your several trades, to subscribe your pennies a piece for the relief of the widows and the orphans of Paris. By paying the money to the Editor of the Morning Chronicle, (who has acted a sincere and most excellent part in this business,) or by leaving it at my office, seeing it entered in the book, and taking a receipt, in the name of Sir Thomas Beevor, the Treasurer ; by either of these means, you may be sure of the sending of the money to Paris, and as many of your names along with it as you choose. Always bear in mind that it was the working people of Paris who per- formed this great benefit for all the industrious people in the world. The slain have been slain for you as well as for their wives and children ; and recollect how grateful it must be to those widows and children to receive consolation, and particularly from you, the brethren of their husbands and fathers. There is scarcely any man, who is in work, who cannot give a penny or twopence. Three pounds have just been received at my office, from thirty working men, in the neighbourhood of Maidstone, in Kent. You remember the voluntary contributions of the aristocracy for carrying on the dreadful war against the liberties of France. The liber- ties of France have at last prevailed, and have been secured by the devotion and the valour of the working people. The aristocracy and the clergy do not subscribe now ; now that the object is for the relief of sufferers, and not for the procur- ing of destruction. The Quakers, too, where are they ? They could subscribe for German sufferers, and Russian suf- ferers, and Hanoverian sufferers ; aye, and though their religion forbade them to subscribe for powder and ball, they could subscribe to buy flannel shirtfe for the soldiers that were engaged in firing powder and ball at the French*
68 Two-penny Trash;
Then, let me hope that they will subscribe a little now, for here are the wounded, here are the widows, here are the orphans, demanding their help.
I am your faithful friend
And obedient servant,
Wm. COBBETT.
COBBEirS HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
Tii E first number of this work was published on the first of September. Each number will contain thirty pages, at least, and will be sold for Qd, The history will be from the earliest times, and will come down to the day when I pub- lish the last Number; but, I have begun with the Reign OF George IV. ; because, while the facts are all fresh in our minds is the time for putting them on lasting record. These, too, justice demanded to the memory of his wife. They are both dead now ; she can suffer no more, and he can enjoy nothing more : all that ever can be known about tlieir characters and conduct can now be collected together; and now therefore, is the time to lay that collection before the world. This part of our history is demanded also by the necessity that there is of showing to the rising generation howyh/se are the assertions, that this reign (including the Regency) was prosperous for the people. Those who are now from 17 to 21 years of age can have very little know- ledge of the many striking transactions of this calamitous reign, during which so many and such daring assaults were made on our rights and liberties, and during which such suf- ferings were endured by the great body of the people. Peel says, " that we are too near to the advantages which we have derived from the mild and beneficent reign of his Ma-
1st September^ 1830* 69
jesty to be able fully to appreciate them,*' Indeed ! What ! tQO near to the select- vestry law, the new trespass law, the transporting-poaching law, the Irish transport! ng-with-jury law, too near to the dungeon law, and the famous six acts ; too near to the Italian witnesses, to Castles, Oliver, Ed- wards; too near to Sid mouth, and Castlereagh, and Can- ning; too near to all those and a thousand other things and persons, ** to be able fully to appreciate the advantages we derived from their mildness and beneficence r Better to stop, I suppose, till we are ^ot farther off ; till names and dates are beyond the reach of all but a few ; and till facts become matter of dispute y instead of being capable of proof, such as to satisfy a judge and jury ! Better stop, certainly, till the palace-building, the Irish starvation ; till the IQth of August, till the 500 killed and wounded persons, and till the letter of thanks to the Yeomanry Cavalry, be all for- gotten! Oh, no ! Mister Peel, we will, if you please, not stop so long as this. We will, while the story is fresh in our memory, have it down in black and white ; in order that those who are coming up to be men, may learn how to appre- ciate these acts of ** mildness and beneficence,'' and may know how they ought to act their part on the stage, which is now, according to all appearance, going to be a very bustling one. Wm. COBBETT.
70 Mr. Cobhett's List of Books,
N. B. All the Books undermentioned, are published at No. 11, Bolt* court f Fleet-street y London ; and are to be had of all the Book^ sellers in the Kingdom,
TZX3E: COBBETT-I-IBIlAItir.
When I am asked what books a young man or young woman ought to read, 1 always answer, Let him or her read all the books that I have written. This does, it will doubtless be said, smell of the shop. No matter. It is what I recommended ; and experience has taught me that it is my dutif to give the recommendation. I am speaking here of books other than THE REGISTER; and even these, that I call my LIBRARY, consist of twenty-six distinct books ; two of them being translations ; six of them being writ- ten BY MY SONS ; one (Tull's Husbandry) revised and edited, and one published by me, and written by the Rev. Mr. O'Callaghan, a most virtuous tatholic Priest. I divide these books into classes, as follows : 1. Books for Teaching Language; 2. On Domestic Management and Duties; 3. On Rural Affairs; 4. On the Management of National Affairs; 5. History; 6. Travels ; 7. Laws; 8. Miscellaneous Politics. Here is a great variety of subjects; and all of them very r/ri/ ; nevertheless the manner of treating them is, in general, such as to induce the reader to go through the bookf when he has once begun it. 1 will now speak of each book separately under the several heads above-mentioned. — N. B. All the books are bound in boards, which will be borne in mind when the price is looked at.
1. BOOKS FOR TEACHING LANGUAGE.
COBBETT'S ENGLISH GRAMMAR. {Price 3^.)— This is a book oi principles, clearly laid down ; and when once these are got into the mind they never quit it.
COBBETT'S iFRENCH GRAMMAR (Price bs.) ; or, Plain Instructions for the Learning of French. — Alore young men have, I dare say, learned French from it, than from all the other books that have been published in English for the last fifty years.
MR. JAMES COBBETT'S 1 1 ALIAN GRAMMAR (Price 6s.) ; or a Plain and Compendious Introduction to the Study of Italian. — I would pledge myself to take this book and to learn Italian from it in three months.
2. DOMESTIC MANAGEMENT AND DUTIES.
COBBETT'S COTTAGE ECONOxMY (Price 2s. 6d.) ; con- taining information relative to the brewiog of Beer, making of Bread, keeping- of Cows, Pigs, Bees, Ewes, Goats, Poultry, and Rabbits, and relative to other matters.
COBBETI 'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, and (incidentally) to Young fFomeny in the middle and higher Ranks of Life (Price 5*.) It was published in 14 numbers, and is now in one vol. complete.
Mr. CohbetCs List of Books. 71
COBBETT'S SERMONS {Price 3s. 6d.)— More of these Sermons have been sold than of the Sermons of all the Church* parsons put together since mine were published.
COBBETT'S EDITION OF TULL*S HUSBANDRY (Price lbs,): THE HORSE-HOEING HUSBANDRY; or, A Theatisb on the Principles of Tillage and Vegetation, wherein is taught a Method of introducing a sort of Vineyard Culture into the Corn* Fields, in order to increase their Product and diminish the com* mon Expense.
3. BOOKS ON RURAL AFFAIRS.
COBBETT'S YEAR'S RESIDENCE IN AMERICA, WITH A MAP {Price 5s,) A book very necessary to all men of property who emigrate to the United States.
COBBETT'S ENGLISH GARDENER {Price 6s,) A complete book of the kind.
COBBETPS WOODLANDS {Price Us,) ; or, A Treatise on Forest Trees and Underwoodsj and the Manner of Collecting, Pre- serving, and Sowing of the Seed.
COBBETT'S CORN-BOOK {Piice 2s. 6d,) ; or, A Treatise on Cobbett's Corn : containing Instructions for Propagating and Cultivating the Plant, and for Harvesting and Preserving the Crop; and also an Account of the several Uses to which the Produce is applied, with Minute Directions relative to each mode of Appli- cation,— This edition 1 sell at 25. 6d,, that it may get into numerous hands,
4. MANAGEMENT OF NATIONAL AFFAIRS.
COBBETT'S PAPER AGAINST GOLD {Price bs,) ; or, the History and Mystery of the Bank of England, of the Debt, of the Stocks, of the Sinking Fund, and of all the other tricks and con- trivances carried on bv the means of Paper Money.
COBBETPS RURAL RIDES. {Price bs.) If the members of the Government had read these Rides, only just 7^ead them, last year, when they were collected and printed in a volume, they could not have helped foreseeing all the violences that have now taken place, and especially in these very counties ; and foreseeing them, they must have been devils in reality if they had not done something to prevent them.
COBBETT'S POOR MAN'S FRIEND {Price M,)-, or, a De- fence of the Rights of those who do the Work and fight the Battles. — ^l^his is my favourite work. 1 bestowed more labour upon it than upon any large volume that I ever wrote.
COBBETT'S EMIGRANT'S GUIDE (2^. 6d.) ; in Ten Letters, addressed to the Taxpayers of England.
USURY LAWS {Price 2s. 6d.) ; or, Lending at Interest; also, the Exaction and Payment of certain Church-fees, such as Pew-rents, Burial-fees, and the like, together with forestalling Traffic; all proved to be repugnant to the Divine and Ecclesiasti- cal Law^ and destructive to Civil Society,
72 Mr, Cobbetfs List of Books.
5. HISTORY.
COBBETT*S HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT REFOR- MATION in England and Ireland (Price 4s. 6d.) ; showing how that Event has impoverished and degraded the main Body of the People in those Countries: PART II. [PHce 3s. 6d.) ; contain- ing a List of the Abbeys, Priories, Nunneries, Hospitals, and other Reh'gious Foundations, in England and Wales, and in Ireland, confiscated, seized on, or alienated, by the Protestant ** Reforma- tion,** Sovereigns, and Parliaments.
COBBETT'S ROMAN HISIORY, English and French, (Price 6s.) ; Vol. I. from the Foundation of Rome to the Battle of Actium. Vol.11. An Abridged History of the Emperors, in French and English: being a continuation of the History of THE RoiMAN Republic. — This work is intended as an Exercise-book to be used with my French Grammar ; and it is sold at a very low price^ to place it within tlie reach of young men in general.
COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE REGENCY AND REIGN OF GEORGE IV. — This work is published in Nos. at 6rf. each, and shall do justice to the late ** 9nild and merciful** King.
LAFAYETTE'S LIFE {Price Is.) A brief Account of the Life of that brave and honest man, translated from the French, by Mr. James Cobbett.
6. TRAVELS.
MR. JOHN COBBETT'S LETTERS FROM FRANCE (Price As. 6d.)
MR. JAMES COBBETT'S RIDE OF EIGHT HUNDRED MILES IN FRANCE (the Third Edition, Price 2s. 6d.)
MR. JAMES COBBETT'S TOUR IN ITALY, and also in Part of FRANCE and SWITZERLAND (Price 4s. 6d.)
7. LAW.
COBBETT'S TRANSLATION OF MARTENS'S LAW OF NATIONS (Price I7s.) ; being the Science of National Law, Covenants, Power, &c. Founded upon the Treaties and Customs of Modern Nations in Europe.
MR. WM. COBBETT'S LAW OF TURNPIKES (Price 3s. 6d.)
8. MISCELLANEOUS POLITICS.
THE REGISTER, published Weekly, Price Is. 2d, Sixty-four pages.
TWO-PENNY TRASH, published monthly, Price 2d., I2s. 3d. for a hundred, and \\s. a hundred if 300 or upwards.
This is the Library that I have created. It really makes a tole- rable shelf of hooks ; a man who understands the contents of which may be deemed a man of great information. In about every one of these works I have pleaded the cause of the working people, and I shall now see that cause triumph, in spite of all that can be done to prevent it.
N. B. A whole set of these books at the above prices, amounts to 71. Os. 2d. ; but, if a whole set be taken together, the price is 67. And here is a stock of knowledge sufficient for any young mau in
the world.
^Printed by Wm. Cobbett, Jobnson*3-cottit, rieet-strect.^J 1
^
No. IV.
COBBETT'S
TWO-PENNY TRASH
For the Month of October, 1830.
TO
THE INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES AT BOTLEY IN
HAMPSHIRE.
On the conduct of their rich neighbours, and in particU" lar of that owe Willis (who is now' called Fleming), and who is one of the Members of that unfortunate County.
' Kensington, Septemhei^ 30, 1830.
My Friends,
81. What I have to say upon the above subject, though
addressed to you, is of equal interest to the working people
in every part of the country ; for, every- where there are to
be found men of the same description as that of those on
whose conduct I am about to remark, though, perhaps, in
proportion to the population of the place, there are more of
them to be found at and near Botley than in any other part
London : Published by the Author, 11, Bolt-court, Fleet-street, and sold hy all Booksellerst
£
74 Two-penny Trash;
of the kingdom. The great and constant object of these men is, to get riches, to rake together wealth, by any and every means in their power; and, one of the means that they have constantly in use is, to pinch the working people, and to delude them at the same time. They do not attack you in the manner of highwaymen and housebreakers ; but by craftiness, by cunning to surpass that of the devil himself. These men have always found in me a great enemy. I have been at work exposing them for thirty years; I have thwarted many of their schemes; I have taught the working people their rights; I have done all in my power to prevent them from being oppressed ; and for this their oppressors hate me most mortally. They have lost no opportunity of showing this hatred; and, upon a recent occasion they, in the village of Botley itself, held a sort of Jubilee, or day of rejoicing, that I was not still upon the spot to take your parts, and to give them trouble.
82. This Jubilee was called a dinner, which it was pretended that the people of Botley gave to Willis (now called Fleming), who is one of the two who are called mem- bers for Hampshire, An account of this dinner has been published ia a Southampton newspaper^ which has been sent to me by friends from several parts of the county. As to the particular men who figured upon this occasion, they would be wholly unworthy of this public notice ; but, they are only a sample of the whole sack of fellows of the same ' description, who are, as I said before, to be found in all parts of the country. But, what induces me, at this time, to bestow this notice upon them is this: that they took this occasion to put forth their infamous principles relative to several matters in which you are deeply interested, par- ticularly wdth regard to the Corn Laws, and to the means oi providing for the poor. These are two very important subjects, and what these greedy fellows said relative to them
1st October, 1830. , 75
is worthy of your best attention. These worthless and greedy fellows abused and belied me ; but, it is what they fcaid upon these subjects that is particularly worthy of your attention ; and I am about to show you how you are inte- rested in these matters. You have suffered hunger and cold long enough ; it is time that you cease to suffer them ; you do the work ; you raise the food and the clothing and the fuel ; and it is time that you had your share of them ; or, at least, more of them than you now have ; but this these greedy fellows mean that you shall not have, if they can keep it from you, either by open force or by deceiv- ing you.,^
83. They begin to be alarmed : they begin to fear that they must let go their grasp ; they have seen what the work' ing people in France have done ; and they fear, that the example may be catching. Hence their incessant endea- vours to deceive you, being well aware, that, if it come to open force, you will beat them. One of their means is, to make you believe, that those who defend your rights are your enemies; and that they are disloyal and seditious men, and that you ought to hate them instead of respecting them. You know that, once upon a time, the Wolves, when they wanted to devour the Sheep, could not do it, be- cause the fold was defended by a strong and watchful Dog. The wolves, being as cowardly as they were greedy, and as cunning as they were cowardly, told the sheep, that they might live in harmony together, if it were not for that surly, ill-tempered, aifid barking dog; and that, if the sheep would but tell the dog to go about his business, and let them take care of themselves, they would never again have any cause ^r fear or uneasiness. The silly sheep (and ungrateful as well as silly) began to abuse the dog, and told him that they did not want him ; and he, justly offended at their baseness, walked off and left them to the
e2
76 Two-penny Tra&h;
mercy of their new friends. The moment he was safely out of sight and out of hearing, in jumped the wolves, and tore the sheep to pieces, killed and devoured the whole, Iambs and all !
84. The fellows at this dinner are the wolves; you are the sheep ; and their object is to prevail on you to act aa ungrateful part towards me, that they may devour you, flesh, skin, bones, blood and all, and even your hair into the bargain. But, now let us hear what they said upon this oc- casion. I have great reluctance to fill my paper with their rubbish ; but it is but fair that you have to read what they said ; and besides, it will be useful to you and to me also to be able to look back now and then, in time to come, at this proof of their incomparable baseness. One Jar vis was, it appears, their chairman^ and he seems to be a captain of some sort ; that is to say, a fellow that lives on the taxes that are drawn out of your sweat. No wonder that he hates dhe sheep-dog. Willis (now called Fleming) was the ' chief orator. There were others, who, though they do not seem to have howled out loud, were equally base with the "wolves that howled ; and, indeed, rather more base, if that -"be possible ; for, while they kept in the drove,^ and backed the others on, they thought that, by their silence, they ^should escape the punishment to which the howling wolves would be exposed ; and that, thus, they w^ould be able to go on devouring unchecked.
S5, But, now, pray read the whole of what they said. There can be no doubt, that they sent the account of it to the newspapers themselves ; for all such fellows, cunning as they are in other respects, are eager to see their names in print ; and, though they would hardly spend a penny to pay for bringing their wives a bed, they will squeeze out a few shillings to hire a dirty newspaper fellow to stick up their names in his beggarly paragraphs, and to abuse those
1st October, 1830. 77
whom they look upon as the friends of the working people. The poor wretch, who publishes this newspaper, does not know me ; perhaps, on public grounds, he respects me and abhors them^ but they gave him money, and I did not; money he wanted to buy him shoes, and shirts, and victuals ; and, therefore, he abused me and praised them. If I would have given him a pair of shoes, a pound of bacon, or a loaf of bread, more than they gave him, the poor lazy sooty wretch would have praised me and abused them. However, I must reserve further remarks, lintil you have heard what the stupid and base creatures said at the dinner. Pray read it all through with attention ; and look particularly at the words that are printed in the sort of letter that these words are printed in. The following is the account, taken from the Southampton beggarman's newspaper.
Botley, Sept, 11. DINNER TO MR. FLEMING.
Several of the towns of this county have expressed their attach- ment to our worthy and long- established Member, Mr. Fleming-, by giving him public dinners. We are led to point to the circum- stance by what will appear to those who are acquainted with Mr. Fleming's political principles an astonishing fact — his being last vreek invited to dine in CobhetCs radical nest, Botley. It has been asked, if the honourable Member is about to become a convert ? but his speech, which will be seen below, fully answers the ques- tion. We regret we have not room to give the whole of the speeches of the many respectable gentlemen who delivered their sentiments. They, however, fully show that Cobhett and radicalism are out of fashion at Botley ; and Fleming, rational liberty, and constitutional independence, the objects of their present attachment.
On Thursday last, the freeholders and friends of Mr. Fleming, resident in Botley and its neighbourhood, including several from Southampton and Bishop's Waltham, partook of a most sumptuous dinner, at the Dolphin Inn, Botley, to celebrate the recent re-elec- tion of that gentleman as a Member for the County, upon which occasion Samuel Raymond Jarvis, Esq, presided. There were about forty gentlemen present; and, after dinner, which consisted of venison, game, fish, and every delicacy that could he procured, the worthy chairman gave, in succession, ** The King,'* " The Queen and Royal Family," and ** The Duke of Wellington and his Majesty's Ministers," which were severally drunk with much ap- plause. Captain Jarvis next rose to propose the health of Mr.
78 Two-penny Trash;
Fleming, and in doing: so, remarked that it was with a feeling of great gratificatiou he hailed such a meeting; and that iu offering to the world their feelings in support of the worthy Member, they should retrieve from Botley that imputation which it hud long e»-» duredy of disloyalty and radicalism. He then adverted to the late election, the circumstances attending which he said must be fresh in the recollection of all present, and remarked, that it must be felt that the County was insulted by the ungenerous conduct there displayed. Every man, he observed, in this country had a right to enjoy his own political feeling, but let no one attack a man like the worthy gentleman, Mr. Fleming, whose private character was unblemished, and whose public conduct would bear the strictest investigation. The gallant chairman, after many other observa- tions, concluded a speech, which was much applauded, by proposing the health of Mr. Fleming, which was drunk with the most rap- turous approbation f amid deafening cheers,— Mr. Fleming returned thanks as follows: —
*^ Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen :— The honourable and distin- guished reception I have experienced here to-day, and the \evy warm and gratifying manner in which you have honoured the? toast, proposed with so much ability, and in terms so flattering, by our excellent chairman, call for acknowledgments and gratitude far beyond my power of expression ; I trust, however, you will not think I am the less sensible of your kindness, or regardless of the value of testimony such as yours, in approval of my public prin- ciples and conduct. It is my highest honour to have been thought worthy of your support upon the late occasion, and 1 shall ever remember with feelings of grateful satisfaction, the unprecedented expressions of good-will which greeted me from all parts of the county, and which, had ray opponents dared to have risked a poll, would speedily have exposed their weakness, and shown how utterly they are despised by the enlightened and respectable free*' holders of this county. Gentlemen, I will not waste your time by noticing the unjust and unfounded aspersions of my opponents; my public conduct is known to you as well as to them, and 1 fear- lessly call upon you to declare, if it has been not uniformly straight* forward, consistent, and independent ? It is unnecessary to reiTiind you of my first appeal for your favour upon the retirement of the late Sir Thomas Heathcote, when, without any previous comihu- nication of my intentions, without the promise of support from any of the principal interests in our county, I boldly canvassed the freeholders as an independent gentleman, and asked them to place me in that high and honourable station which was held by my ancestor as far back as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, relying for success solely upon the reputation of my private character, and those constitutional principles supported by my family for centuries in this county. Did this show a want of independent feelings 7 Or bas my conduct since, as your representative, upon the numerous occasions in which I have opposed the Government, shown a sub- serviency to the will of a Minister, or a disposition to support measures which I considered injurious to the interests of my coun-
4
1st October, 1830, 79
try? I need not instance my votes upon the great constitutional measures enacted by the last Parliament, which I firmly opposed, in conformity with the pledges I had here given to my constituents. It is unnecessary to notice my determined resistance to those measures of Free Trade and CornLawSy which, by the introduction of the untaxed pi^oduce of foreigners ^ have injured the landed interests^ impoverished the British farmer, depressed the wages of the labouring poor y and spread misery, discontent, and ruin, from one end of the kingdom to the other. Gentlenaen, I have ever opposed those measures, and will continue to do so, by whatsoever government they may be proposed ; and 1 lament that the present Government, in other particulars so deserving your confidence, should have been induced in any degree to sanction and adopt, them. But, Gentlemen, it is not any supposed want of indepen* dence which has excited the enmity of my opponents, but my k no wa constitutional principles, and zealous support to our beloved insti- tutions, in opposition to the dangerous and destructive innovations they would introduce. The loyal and constitutional principles of the respectable friends I see around me, are sufficiently well known, and duly appreciated, in this neighbourhood ; but 1 confess it is especially gratifying to me, that the more distant parts of your county will learn from our proceedings to-day, that my public principles are approved by the inhabitants of this town and neigh- bourhood, where the wild doctrines of my opponents have been so widely disseminated, and were formerly recommended with a degree of talent and ability well worthy a better cause. The residence of these characters amongst you, has enabled you, better than others, to ascertain that those who write and talk fluently of freedom^ liberality y and justice, can be the most overbearing , illiberaly and oppressive to their miserable dependents. What benefits, let me ask, have the poor of this parish and neighbourhood derived from the residence of these pretended patriots and philanthropists ? Has not their system been, here and every-where else, to keep them ia a state of abject poverty and dependence, that they may more readily excite their discontent, and render them the deluded instruments of their wicked and destructive machinations ? For what other purpose was the cry for cheap bread so artfully excited? which has been followed by want of employment, low wages, and increased poor's rates. For what other purpose have prejudices been so industriously created in opposition to the savings banks, and that imiproved system of friendly societies, which, above all others, is calculated to arrest the progress of pauperism, render our popula- tion respectable and independent, bless their old age with comfort; and competence, and save their declining years from the misery and degradation of a poor-house ! To effect this has been the wish, nearest my heart, and the object of my unceasing endeavours; and^ should I be the humble instrument of promoting it in any degree, I shall best prove myself worthy of your support, and best testify Hiy gratitude for your favours. In other particulars, Gentlemen, I shall continue to pursue that line of public conduct which has bitherto been sanctioned with your gratifying approval j and, ia
80 Two-PE^KY Trash;
defiance of the taunts of my opponents, will continue to support the present Government as long as they continue to deserve your con- idence by preserving their present liberal policy — by practising every possible economy in the expenditure, and by effecting every possible reduction of taxation. J^ut, for the sake o( par fp purposes, or to obtain a portion -of undeserved popularity, 1 will not "require them to pursue that system further than is consistent with the safety and service of the state, and the maintenance of the national honour and good faith. Gentlemen, 1 will not detain you longer r these are my public principles, and such as, I trust, become the re- presentative of a free and enlightened people."
Mr Fleming was much cheered during his address, and loudly applauded at its termination.
In the course of the evening the following toasts were given, which elicited much approbation, and called forth several neat speeches from some of the gentlemen present — ** R. Pollen, Esq.'* *' Walter Long, Esq." **The Professional Gentlemen of the county ■who so handsomely tendered their gratuitous services to Mr. fleming." *^ Sir VV.*Heathcote, Bart." *« Mr. Fleming, jun.** who "was present, and returned thanks in a very feelinp and energetia manner, considering his youthful age — *^ Mrs. Fleming and fa- mily.'* *' Captains Adams andCollard." ^^ Happiness and Prosperity to the inhabitants of Botley.'* " The Freeholders and Visitors from* Southampton and Bishop's Waltham." " Sir J. W. Pollen, Bart, and the South Hants Militia," &c. &c. The dinner was uncom- monly well served by Mr. Gale, the dessert was most splendid, and' the wines gave the highest satisfaction. The exertions of the wor- thy chairman, as well as of the VICE-PRESIDENT, Mr. J. War- :ner, jun., added much to the hilarity of the meetiui^, which may- be justly said to have been of the most joyous description, and to Lave given umnixed delight to all present*
^^. To begin with the beggar news-man of Southampton, he calls Botley." CobbetVs Radical nest" Now what is radical^ There is no harm in the word; and what is the thing ? Radical means a thing going to the root. When we talk of going to the root of an evil, we mean, going to the bottom of it, and, if we talk of a thorough cure, we call it a radical one. We all know, that the country is in great misery, compared to what it used to be : even this very Willis* says it is. I am one of those who say, that the misery arises from the want of a reform of the parliament; and such a reform as shall give a vote to every man, poor as well as rich; because every man is compelled to serve in the militia^ every man is compelled to pay taxes^ and.
1st October, 1830. 81
therefore, every man has a right to vote at elections to choose those who. are to lay on the taxes. This we call going to the root of the misery ; for, assuredly, if every man had a vote, the men whom they would choose would not make the labourer pay ten times as much tax on beer as the lord pays on his wine. This is going to the root ; this is being a radical; and, if Botley be not still a radical nesty you must be out of your senses ; you must think it right that the Gras PALLS should get away, one by one, all your gar- dens and cottages, leave you not a blade of grass even for a goose to eat, sweat the last drop of blood out of you, cram you, at last, to die in the poor-house, and then put you into the ground like a dog, calling the devil to come, and, with his prayers, insult your dead body. You do not think that this is right, and therefore, in spite of Willis, Jarvis, and the Graspalls, you are still radicals. The winter before last, the House of Commons, of which this Willis Fleming was owe, passed' a law to enable the overseers TO SELL THE DEAD BODIES OF THE POOR. I petitioned against that bill in the House of Lords ; the Bishop of Lon- don (who, by-the-bye, once drank tea at my house at Botley) presented my petition, and the bill was thrown out by the Lords ; and, if it had not been for that, your overseers would DOW, I dare say, have been selling some of the dead bodies of your wives, parents, or children ; that is to say, if you would have let them do it^ which I am very sure you would not. If the poor had votes as well as the rich, members of parliament would not pass laws to sell the dead bodies of the poor. Now, I want the poor to have votes as well as the rich ; I want to go to the root of the evil ; I want your dead bodies not to be sold by the overseers ; and it is for this that Willis and his friends the Graspalls call on you to hate me. The next time Willis comes to Botley, call out to him, *^ Who voted for the law to enable the overseers to
£ 5
^2 Two-penny Trash;
" sell the dead bodies df the poor V See how he will look ; hear what answer he will give to that. Aye, and the Graspalls are very little better ; for they know all about that law ; they know that he voted for it : and they support him, praise him, and stand like bullies at his back, while he calumniates me, who petitioned against that law, and who, in fact, prevented it from being passed in the House of Lords. In short, a radical is a man that is against a law for selling the dead bodies of the poor to be cut up by surgeons; that is a ra(i^ca/, and Willis and Jarvis and the Graspalls hate radicals. The whole crew that were assembled along with Jarvis and the Graspalls knew, mind you, about this dead-body bill, which I will insert in the next Number of this little book. They knew, that Willis was a member of the House that passed the bill ; they knew that he voted for it, either expressly or tacitly; and yet the base crew at the dinner ^^ drank his health "with rapturous applause /" And so they would the health of the king of hell, if he would come up and help them to oppress the poor.
87. We now come to the speech of Willis (called Fleming) : and here I beg you to pay particular attention to what this, at once, stupid and conceited fellow said about the Corn Bill, and about Savings Banks, and Friendly Societies. It is curious to observe, how noisy this fellow was at a village tavern, when he never yet, that I have heard of, opened his jaws in the Parliament, except just to say AYE, or no ; just to give his vote, which he has al- ways done on the side of those who have the collecting and the expending of the taxes. But, to come back to his Botley- speech ; I will, before I notice what he said about the Corn Bill, the Savings Banks; and the Friendly Societies, notice what he said in allusion TO ME, and what the Grasp- alls, young as well as old, had the incomparable base-
1st October, 1830. 83
ness, not merely to sit and hear in silence, but to " cheer and loudly applaud.'* I have seen, and have heard, and read of much baseness in my life-time; but, all things considered, baseness equal to that of these Graspalls I never before saw, or heard of, or read of. Look again, my friends, at the part of the speech where he alludes to me ; where he calls me an oppressor of the poor ; where he says, that my re'* sidence amongst you tended to keep you in a state of ab-* ject dependence. Read that passage over once more, and if you can, stifle your indignation at the base lies; but, ta stifle your indignation against the Graspalls, who cheered and applauded him, is, I am sure, impossible.
88. It is not agreeable to put forth one's own good deeds^ and, if this were to be read only by the people of Botley and the neighbourhood, I need not contradict this Willis Flem- ing, this man, silent in the senate and loud in the tavern ; but, what I address to you is to be read all over the country, and in many parts where the people have never known any- thing of my conduct towards the persons that were in my employ, and towards the labouring people of the neighbour* hood ; and this being the case, it is necessary that I state a few facts, which will enable the world to judge of this my conduct. Some of you too who are young may not have heard of that conduct; and, therefore, this statement is ne- cessary. For these reasons I state the following facts ;
1. That I made it a rule, that no man that worked regu- larly for me, should, during his being employed by me, be a pauper y that is, receive parish relief I paid my men, how- ever large their families, enough to maintain them well. Most of them lived in my own cottages, and rent free, with plenty of fuel carried to their doors, each having an ovefi to bake in, I paid them, besides this, on an average, two shillings a week more than other farmers paid their men. There was one exception as to parish relief, that of Reuben*
84 Two-penny Trash ;
Pink, who belonged to Titchfield parish, and whom I al* lowed to get from the parish what they chose to give him, and that parish behaved very w^ell in this case. He had a very large family of small children, and, in spite of high, wages, free house, fuel, and a really humane parish, he was still poor, ragged, and, in the winter of 1815, fell ill. I sent Dr. Blundell to him, and when he came back, and I asked what ailed him, '^ Why," said the sensible Doctor, *' he wants good victuals and warm clothes, and a good deal of both, for he is a big man^ I made him, as soott as a little better, come with his plough and horses (which, he used better than any man that I ever saw in my life), and go to plough near my own house, where he came in every day at dinner-time and took the physic prescribed by the doctor, I giving him, at the same time, some of my clothes, and particularly a great-coat, which I had worn very little. The doctor's prescription was completely suc- cessful ; and he remembers how soon his patient recovered. But this was my, I should say our, constant practice with all of them, or their wives and families, when they were ilL With this one exception, no man was a pauper that worked for me, though in the three parishes of Botley, Waltham, and Doxford, I paid, in the years that I lived there, not less than about tivo thousand pounds in rates. While other farmers were paying wages out of my rates, my people were receiving none. I saw how unjust this was towards me; but, at any rate, I was resolved, that the man who laboured for me should not be degraded by the name of pauper^ These facts are notorious; you all know them ; and yet the Graspalls had the baseness to cheer and applaud the empty-headed Willis Fleming, while he was representing me as an *' oppressor of my miserable dependents /'' These wretches, these greedy, grinding, all-grasping vaga- bonds, ought to have been stricken dead upon the spot; and;
1st October, 1830. 85
safe as they tbink themselves now, heavy as are their bags, fast as is their hold on the property of unfortunate people, they ai"e not beyond the reach of God's judgments on the robbers of the poor ; and I, even I, shall yet see them pu- nished for their monstrous extortions, which are really in- credible.
2. I found, living in two cottages, on the farm of Fair- thorn, a widow and her daughters, and an old man and his wife. I let the widow remain rent free, and gave her wood to burn, as long as I had the farm . The old man paid me no rent ; when he died I had a head-stone put to his grave to record, that he had been an honest, skilful, and industrious labouring man ; and I gave his widow a shilling a week as long as I was at Botley. And yet the vile extortioners cheered and applauded Willis while he was representing me as illiberal and oppressive to dependents !
3. My people, though never hired but by the week^ lived ''with me for years; and, indeed, no man that I recollect,
ever quitted me by choice. Robinson, you know, was my gardener for years; Bob Hammond, who worked for me occasionally, has come up, three summers, to work for me at Kensington ; Mr. Dean, who became my bailiflf, lived in one of my cottages as long as the cottage was mine, has since kept my shop in London, is now a neWsman in Lon- don, was with me through my tour in the counties last spring, is, this very day^ managing my affairs at Barn- Elm in Surrey, and is become, as you know, a man of consider- able property, which, as I know, is the just reward of his industry and fidelity. These facts are undeniable and no- I torious ; and yet the all-grasping , the extortioning vaga-^ ionds, sat and cheered and applauded the stupid and malignant fellow, while he was calling me an ^'oppressor ^f '^y rniserable dependents,*^
4. And, as to the people in the neighbourhood of Botley,
86 Two-PENxy Trash;
what have I not done and attempted to do, in order to pre- sent them from being robbed of the blades of grass for their pigs and their geese ? In 1805, the moment I went to Botley, I wrote a memorial to Mr. Windham, on the state of Hortqk Heath, and showed how injurious it would be to enclose that common. He showed my memorial ; but, at last, the greedy graspers have prevailed, and that common, the out- let to so many cottages, is enclosed^ to the ruin and degra- dation of the cottagers. In 1827 a more ruinous measure was attempted; I mean the enclosure of Waltham Chase, studded rovmd with cottages, and covered with the cows, pigs, and geese of the cottagers, who also get fuel from the heath, the turf and the dead wood. The graspers fixed their eyes on this spot: the labourers were too well off; they had pigs and geese, and some of them cows, and evea asses or little forest horses ! This was too much for the graspers to endure. They made a bargain with the Bishop, who was lord of the manor ; their attorney was set to work; an enclosure-bill was prepared ; and the rights of the pocr of the See of Winchester, and of the Crown, were all to be sa- crificed to the greediness of the graspers. Their attorney came up with the bill to get passed ; and, in spite of the laudable and able efforts of Mr. Richard Hinxman, the bill actually passed that precious House of which Willis Flem^ ing is a member. But, before the bill got to the House of Lords, I, who had heard of this cruel grasping scheme, wrote a memorial on the subject, showing how injurious the measure would be to numerous families of labouring people; this memorial I sent to a ministerial member of parliament, whom I knew to be a humane man ; he communicated the information to the Committee of the Lords*; the bill was thrown out; the poor people were saved, and the greedy fellows and their attorney had to dink home like sheep-biting, dogs that have been met
1st October, 1830. 87
by a shepherd with a gun in his hand. Now, your ever-* lasting gratitude is due tp Mr. Overington and Mr. Richard Hinxman for their exertions on this occasion ; and, indeed, my memorial might possibly have no efifect; the whole of the merit might be due to those two spirited and worthy gentlemen ; but, I did my best, at any rate ; and this the graspers hiow ; and for this, amongst other tlnngs, they hate me, and, as this was my last offence against them, it had, perhaps, the greatest weight. This was a cruel dis- appointment to them and their attorney; they had sub- scribed money to pay him, and to carry the job through ; they were calculating how much more land they should have than they had before ; they were counting their gains over and over again. You have heard or read of the man who sold the lion's skin before he had caught the lion ; and sortie of those greedy fellows had actually sold their share of the chase before they came to London to get the law to enclose it ! Judge you of their mortification ! You have, sometimes, seen a dog when about to seize hold of a piece of meat, or to run his mouth into a luncheon-bag, and, just at that moment, getting a blow across the nose with a broom- stick. You have seen the greedy robber shake his ears, and go jogging off with his tail between his legs. You have seen an egg -sucking cur, when an egg-shell filled with hot coals has been crammed into his mouth ; and you have seen him twist his jaws about, and stare like mad. Like these curs were the GRASPERS, when the House of Lords refused to give them the power of robbing the poor of Waltham Chase of the last blade of grass. As Christians you are to forgive them for this attempt, whe7i they have repented, and made atonement ; but not before ; and, even then, you are not to forget the attempt; you are to be on your guard against them in future ; and, you ought to get all their names, and send them to me, and I will put them i?i prints which will.
I
1
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I
88
Two-penny Trash;
doubtless, delight them ; for, as I said before, the fellows, stingy as they are, will squeeze out some few shillings now- and-then to pay dirty printers in the country to print their Dames. To be sure, this is when they are speechmakers, or presidents, or vice-presidents ; and they may not like it, when they appear as robbers of the poor ; as extortioners ; or graspers, surpassing in greediness the very wolves them- selves. But. yet, as enemies of radicals, they cannot object to have their names put into print. At any rate, in print they shall be, if I can do it, and you shall have them to stick up over your fire-places ; and t?ie name of their at- torney too.
5. In the year 1816, I think it w^as, when the labouring people of our neighbourhood were suflfering very much from want of employment. I proposed to the parish of Bishop's Waltham, that we should petition the Bishop, who was lord of the manor, to grant an acre of waste land to any mar- ried labourer who would enclose, and cultivate, and live on it. I called a vestry of the parish, and to the farmers and land-owners made this proposition. We put the matter to the vote, and every man voted against me, with the single exception of Mr, Jennings, the schoolmaster ! The three orators against me were, Budd, of Stakes ; Chiddle, then with three farms in his hands ; and Steel, of Ash- ton. Budd said, that to give the labourers a bit of land would make them " sacy ; " Chiddle said, that it would only make them " breed more children;*' and SxEEt* said, that it would make them demand *^ higher wages J' "What is the present state of Budd I do not know ; Chiddle has not now so much land, I hear, as one of the labourers would have had ; and, as to Steel, he, who used so to sw^ag- ger, has since blown his brains out with a pistol ! When I heard of the awful end of this man^ and of the great change in the afifairs of Chiddle, I could not help calling to
«
I
Kr#«^«k-. #»#-»• ^i^ji ■*»•* - a-.i
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f
1st October, 1830.
89
mind their conduct on the above occasion, and to call to mind also the denunciations of God against the oppressors of the poor : " Hear this/' said I, when I heard of the death of Steel. " Hear this^ O ye that swallow up the ^* needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail I I will ** turn your feasting into mourning , saith the Lord God, •' and your songs into lamentations,'^ These words of the prophet Amos, let the Graspalls, young and old, bear in mind ; and, as they are remarkably pious people, let them turn to Isaiah, chapter v. and verse 8, and there read, " WOE unto them who join house to house, that ** lay Jield to field, till there be no place, that they may *' be placed alone in the midst of the earths Let them think of these words ; let them bear in mind the curses Tvhich God has laid on the guilty head of the extortioner ; and let them remember, that, of all extortions, the most detestably wicked is that by which the labourer is defrauded of his hire, whether by cunning or by force, w'hether in the field or in the chandler's shop.
89. Now, my friends, I must close for the present; and. In the next Number, which will be published on the first cf November, I will finish the subject, I will then expose Willis Fleming's rubbish about the Corn Bill, and about his Savings Banks and Friendly Societies ; I will show you, that these arc schemes for making the poor keep the rich ; I will explain all the trick to you ; I will bring out the Graspalls more into the light ; I will pull out the Bot- XEY Parson (who, I hear, was one of the crew at the dinner) ; and, in short, I will supply you with this and ano- ther little book for you to read all the winter. The remain- ing part of this present little book will be filled with the copy of a petition to the king, drawn up by me, and now signing in London. This is a radical petition. Read it, my friends, keep it, read it over and over again, and the»to
88 Two-penny Trash;
doubtless, delight them ; for, as I said before, the fellows, stingy as they are, will squeeze out some few shillings now- and-then to pay dirty printers in the country to print their Dames. To be sure, this is when they are speechmakers, or presidents, or vice-presidents ; and they may not like it, when they appear as robbers of the poor ; as extortioners ; or graspers, surpassing in greediness the very wolves them- selves. But. yet, as enemies of radicals, they cannot object to have their names put into print. At any rate, in print they shall be, if I can do it, and you shall have them to stick up over your fire-places ; and t?ie name of their at- torney too.
5. In the year 1816, I think it was, when the labouring people of our neighbourhood were suffering very much from want of employment. I proposed to the parish of Bishop's Waltham, that we should petition the Bishop, who was lord of the manor, to grant an acre of waste land to any mar- ried labourer who would enclose, and cultivate, and live on it. I called a vestry of the parish, and to the farmers and land-owners made this proposition. We put the matter to the vote, and every man voted against me, with the single exception of Mr, Jennings, the schoolmaster ! The three orators against me were, Budd, of Stakes ; Chiddle, then with three farms in his hands ; and Steel, of Ash- ton. Budd said, that to give the labourers a bit of land would make them " sacy ; " Chiddle said, that it would only make them " breed more children;*' and Steel said, that it would make them demand **^ higher wages. ^^ "What is the present state of Budd I do not know ; Chiddle has not now so much land, I hear, as one of the labourers would have had ; and, as to Steel, he, who used so to swag- ger, has since blown his brains out with a pistol ! When I heard of the 'awful end of this man, and of the great change in the affairs of Chiddle, I could not help calling to
1st October, 1830. 89
mind their conduct on the above occasion, and to call to mind also the denunciations of God against the oppressors of the poor : *' Hear this/' said I, when I heard of the death of Steel. " Hear this, O ye that swallow up the ^* needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail ! I will ** turn your feasting into mourning ^ saith the Lord God, •* and your songs into lamentations.*' These words of the prophet Amos, let the Graspalls, young and old, bear in mind ; and, as they are remarkably pious people, let them turn to Isaiah, chapter v. and verse 8, and there read, *' WOE unto them who join house to housey that •^ lay jfield to field, till there be no place, that they may *' be placed alone in the midst of the earthJ' Let them think of these words ; let them bear in mind the curses which God has laid on the guilty head of the extortioner ; and let them remember, that, of all extortions, the most detestably wicked is that by which the labourer is defrauded of his hire, whether by cunning or by force, whether in the field or in the chandler's shop.
89. Now, my friends, I must close for the present; and, an the next Number, which will be published on the first of November y I will finish the subject, I will then expose Willis Fleming's rubbish about the Corn Billy and about his Savings Banks and Friendly Societies; I will show you, that these arc schemes for making the poor keep the rich ; I will explain all the trick to you ; I will bring out the Graspalls more into the light ; I will pull out the Bot- XEY Parson (who, I hear, was one of the crew at the dinner) ; and, in short, I wdll supply you with this and ano- ther little book for you to read all the winter. The remain- ing part of this present little book will be filled with the copy of a petition to the king, drawn up by me, and now signing in London. This is a radical petition. Read it, my friends, keep it, read it over and over again, and then
90 Two-penny Trash ;
you will know what a radical is. The price of this little book is twopence ; but, as I want it to be read on Hortoa Heath, Botley Common, Curdrige Common, Sherril Heath, Waltham Chase, and at Botley and all the villages round about, I will sell a hundred copies of this, and also of the next Number, at a penny a copy to any one that I know within ten miles of Botley, or^ indeed, to any one that / know in any part of Ha?npshire. I have printed a good parcel for this purpose. — Read the Petition, and God keep you from being pinched to death by the Grasp alls.
Wm. COBBETT.
TO THE
KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY,
THE PETITION
Of persons belonging to the Industrious Classes of London and its vicinity y dated this \bth day of September, 1830,
Most humbly showeth ,
That we approach your Majesty, not as blind adorers of royalty, but as faithful and dutiful subjects, whose fidelity and duty are founded in our conviction, that, in highly honouring and cheer- fully obeying your Majesty, in upholding with all our might youp just prerogatives, and evincing our most profound respect for your person, we best consult our own welfare, knowing that you are en- dowed with those prerogatives for the common good of us all, and Dot for your own exclusive advantage. *
That feelingi ourselves thus bound to your Majesty, not by harsh constraint, but by a willing obedience arising from a due estimate of our own interest and honour, regarding your person as sacred, not from servility of mind, but because you are the fountain of jus- tice and of mercy, taught by the laws of our country that kings "were made for the people and not the people for kings, regarding your kingly powers as given to you for the purpose of preserving the peace, the rights, and the happiness of the people, and more especially for the defence and protection of the weak against the
1st October, 18.30. 91
strong, of th6 poor against the unjust encroachments of the rich, of the fruits of industry against the wiles and the violence of aristo<« cratical amhition, arrogance, and rapacity ; animated by all these considerations, and beholding in your Majesty's most gracious con- duct and demeanour an indubitable proof of your anxious desire to promote our good by a redress of oi^r grievances, we, with the confidence with which suffering children appeal to a tender father, lay those grievances before your Majesty.
That we complain, may it please your Majesty, not of the form of that Government which has endured for so many ages, and under which our fathers were so free, lived in such ease and abundance, and saw their country so great and so much honoured throughout the world; we complain not of the nature of the in- stitutions of our country, which have stood the test of centuries ; we complain not of any-thing, an attack on which would argue a hankering after innovation, but, on the contrary, it is of iqnova*^ tious, innovations endless in number, cruelly oppressive, and stu- diously insulting, that we have now to make complaint to your Majesty.
That we complain, generally, that the whole of the laws passed within the last forty years, and especially within the last twenty years, present one unbroken series of endeavours to enrich and to augment the power of the aristocracy, and to impoverish and de-* press the middle and labouring part of the people ; and that to give your Majesty a specimen of the wrongs and indignities heaped upon us, we specifically complain that the. trial by jui^, held so sacred by our fathers, and provided for by Magna Charta, as so necessary to the protection of the people, has, in a great measure, been taken from us, leaving us to be fined, imprisoned, corporally punished, and, in some cases, transported, without trial by jury, and at the sole discretion of magistrates, appointed by and dismiss- able at the pleasure of your Majesty's Ministers ; we complain that within the last forty years the most grievous taxes have been laid upon us for the benefit of the aristocracy, to heap riches on them in the shape of pensions, sinecures, and places, and that, as a specimen, 113 of them are, in one case, now receiving out of the taxes 650,000/, a year : we complain that the two families of Gren- ville and Dundas have, during the last forty years, received more money in sinecures alone, than it has cost, during the same time, to maintain the whole of the civil government of the United States of America, which, under that cheap government, have arrived at population and power to rival those of England herself : we com- plain, that while the laws and usages of our country hold standing armies in abhorrence, and while they are wholly unnecessary to our country, especially in time of peace, we are now taxed, at the end of sixteen years of peace, to maintain a standing army that ■costs more yearly than the army that was maintained during the American war, when we had war also with France, Spain, and Hol- land, and this too while we have, besides the yeomanry, a militia of sixty thousand men, always ready to be called out: we com* plain, that at the end of sixteen years of peace we are taxed to
92 Two-penny Trash ;
maintain a navy which cos;s five millions a year, while the navy cost only seven millions a year when we were carrying on war against America, France, Spain, and Holland : we complain that ill this peace, which was to give us indfemnity for the past and se- curity for the future, we are loaded with taxes twice as heavy as those which were required during the war against all those powers ; ■yve complain that the emolument arising from these establish- ments are engrossed, for the far greater part, by the aristocracy and their dependents, for whose sole benefit they appear to exist to this enormous extent, a conclusion fully warranted when we see that we have three generils for every regiment of soldiers, two ad- mirals for every ship of the line, that we have, taking both services together, one commissioned officer to every five private men, and especially when we look at the families and connexions from which all the officers come ; we complain that, in the navy, the bulwark of our country, promotion and power are so bestowed, that sons of the aristocracy, who were children at the end of the war, have the command of ships, and have under them masters and lieutenants "who were fighting at sea before these commanders were born : we complain that, in pursuance of this system of aggrandising the aris- tocracy at the expense and to the depressing of the middle and "Working classes, military and naval and ordnance academies have been established, for the rearing of officers for the army and navy, and that in these the children of the aristocracy and of their depen- dents are nursed, fed, clad, and taught at the public expense, so that the middle and working class are compelled to pay for the nursing, and feeding, and teaching of the children of the aristo- cracy, and that too for the manifest purpose of excluding for ever hereafter their own children and kindred from all chance, and even all possibility, of possessing military or naval command : we com- plain of the establishment of military asylums for rearing up the children of soldiers in ease and comfort at the public expense, the children of working men being, under like circumstances, treated as paupers, while their fathers are compelled to pay taxes to sup- port these asylums : we complain, that, in accordance with this system of establishing a permanent military force, while the pay of the private soldier has been so augmented as to make it, over and ab^ve his clothing and lodging and fuel, greater than the ave- rage wages of the hard-working man, the soldier, like the aristo- cracy, is excused from paying postage on his letters, while the hard-working and half-starved man, who is taxed to maintain that well-fed and well-clad soldier, is not so excused : we complain, that we have been taxed to give half-pay, in the army and navy, to a large part of the clergy of the established church, who, foF twelve years, were receiving tithes, Easter-otferings, and other dues, as rectors and vicars, and at the same time receiving military or naval half-pay, and who, at the end of that time, were allowed to sell, or transfer this half-pay, still leaving it a charge upon this burdened and suffering people : we complain, that within the last thirty years, 1,600,000/. have been paid out of the taxes for, as was alleged, *' the relief of the poor clergy of the church of England,'*
1st October, 1830. 93
while the bishops of that church have revenues from ten to forty thousand pounds a year, while the Deans and Chapters have wealth enormous, while there arc numbers of the aristocratical clergy who have two, three, or more benefices each, and while, to cite an in- stance, the Earl of Guilford has, at this time, the great living of St. Mary, Southampton, including the adjoining parish of South Stone- ham, the livings of Old Alresford, of New Alresford, and of Medstead, a Prebend at Winchester, and the Mastership of St. Cross : we com« plain, that the revenues of the church are thus distributed, that there are *' poor clergy " in this rich and luxurious church; but we more especially complain, that we are taxed for the relief of those who are made poor by this scandalous grasping of the church-revenues by the aristocracy : we complain, not only of the weight of the taxes arising from the afore- mentioned causes, but of their partial imposition, falling as they do, like feathers on the aristocracy, aod like lead on the middle and working class : we complain, that the taxes on the malt, the sugar, the tea, or the spirits, amount, on either of these articles, to more than the tax on all the lands in the kingdom : we complain, that while foreign wine pays a duty of fifty per cent, on its value, foreign spirits pay four hundred per cent. : we complain, that while the goods which are the result of our labour or skill pay a heavy auction-tax, the tim- ber, underwood, and other produce of land, sold on the land, pay DO such tax : we complain, that, of the more than two millions a year raised by the tax on letters received by the post, the aristo- cracy pay not one single farthing; we complain (leaving out a hundred other instances), that in the case of probates of wills and administrations, no tax at all is paid by the land, while a heavy tax: is imposed on personal property, and thus, while the middle class lias to sustain this cruel tax, not a farthing of it falls upon the owners of the land! we complain, that, as if all these were not enough, a Corn Bill has been passed, and has been in force for fif- teen years, giving the aristocracy a monopoly of that necessary of life, shutting out food, while it was asserted by those who made the law, that there were too many mouths, compelling manufacturers to buy their bread dear, and to sell their goods and labour cheap, sacrificing all the rest of the community to the greediness of the owners of the land : we complain that the game-laws, always unjust in principle, always at war with the rights of nature and the dic- tates of reason, have, within the last fifteen years, become tenfold more cruel than formerly, for that to pecuniary penalties, or short imprisonment, for an infraction of those laws, are now added long imprisonment, corporeal punishment, and transportation beyond the seas for seven years, and these too at the sole discretion of the justices of the peace, appointed by and dismissable at the pleasure of the Ministers of the