can life, been so proud, and to which I much of my thoughts. "Nothing have always been so true and faith-brought I into this world, and noful; and, in addition to this motive," thing can I carry out of it." And, by the desire to obtain a certain and as to family, the best inheritance I signal mark of my countrymen's re- leave to them is the freedom of their gard for me; and, though this latter country to be enjoyed in common with may be fairly deemed a motive of amtheir countrymen, bition, it is, I hope you will think, a I remain, kind of ambition worthy of your ap- Your sincere and faithful friend, plause. WM. COBBETT. For many years I most earnestly endeavoured to prevail on others to do that which I myself would have done. They were placed in parliament. They had the power; and they wanted not the will, or, at least, I thought so. But, they wanted the industry; they wanted the diligence; they wanted the resolution; they wanted the perseverance: and, without these nothing can be done. Therefore it is, that I now have a desire to be so placed as to be able to do myself those things, which I have long, in vain, endeavoured to prevail on others. to do. LETTER I. To Messrs. Benbow, Evans, Sen. and Evans, Junr; John Roberts, John Smith, Francis Ward, John Johnson, John Knight, Samuel Brown, John Buguelly, and the rest of those, who have acted the same truly noble part. North Hampstead, Long Island, 31st March, 1818. FRIENDS AND FELLOW COUNTRYMEN, I have just received an account of the transactions, in England, of the month of January, of this present year. The opening of the Parliament; the soft and unmeaning Speech; the impudent talk about "returning pro"sperity"; the still more impudent talk about the necessity and use and good effects of the despotic bills; the big words and little deeds in both Houses; the hurried and furried repeal of the Dungeon Bill; and, of your release from the dungeons of the despots. Though this last event has given me very great pleasure, it has not given me a thousandth part so much as I have derived from reading the account of your brave and able conduct at the time of, and after, your release. The Boroughmongers are in their agony; and it is you, my countrymen, who have greatly contributed to bring them to that agony, for doing which you will always be held in ho nour by me, and by every man, whose esteem is worth having. You, my friends of Coventry, as well as the rest of my countrymen, must be well satisfied, that it was by my pen that Corruption was unveiled, exposed, degraded, and driven to arm herself with the dungeon and the halter. You must be well assured, that, either by false witnesses, or by an act of undisguised tyranny, she would have stopped the movement of that pen. I came across the sea; took up my station here on the coast; renewed the combat with her; and I still make her feel what it is to have opposed to her a man, who, though single-handed, has knowledge, zeal, and indefatigable industry and perseverance at his command. I still haunt her; still trouble her; still annoy her and keep alive the spirit against her. Think, i pray you think, for a moment, of the labour necessary to the transmission of these papers; of the writing, the copying, the reading, necessary to keep up this combat so steadily. And, I have now before me, the account when you have so thought, think of (as published in the daily papers) of what I should be able to do, if placed the conduct of those of you who ap in parliament by you. As to my pri-peared in the Court of King's Bench vate interests, they will never occupy on the 23rd of January. To those worthy men I address, not only my congratulations, but my most sincere thanks for, this act of theirs will be memorable in the history of the laws and rights of Englishmen. Three of the Judges scampered off before these brave men, an' thus got rid of their complaints by breaking up the court! Well might they fle from the looks and demands of injured and honest men; men notoriously oppressed, but whom, if the Judges had had the will (which I am far from supposing), they had not the power, to relieve. I hope, and, indeed, I am sure, that these men, will, finally, have ample redress. However, in the present case, there was neither fraud nor violence. It was a mere question of prudence; and, as the result has shown, even this step has been attended, and most strikingly, with advantages hardly to have been expected, but produced by the wise and manly measure of appearing in the Court of King's Bench. What could more strikingly shew the injustice of demanding the recognizances! And, which was still more, what could tend more to establish an opinion that all law and justice were at an end! I shall have to remark on these things in future letters, addressed to you. I do not say, that I at all blame them for having entered into recog- But, if the illegality, the injustice, nizancès, though all the world knows, the cruelty, the brutal insolence, of or, at least, all Englishmen know, demanding these recognizances; if that, legally to subject any man to any of these had been doubtful at all, this species of restraint and disgrace, how clear must they have been renthere must have been committed bydered by the release of Messrs. BENhim some crime, known to the settled BOW and the two Messrs. EVANS, laws of the land; and, that informa without recognizances! I have read, tion on oath, and a confronting of the in Mr. WOOLER's paper, an account accused with the accuser, must take of the conduct of the former, when place, before any bail, or recogni-brought before CONANT (whom, by the zances, can be lawfully required. In bye, we must remember), and when cases of libel a conviction must take the man of the "Lower Orders" place before bail can be legally de- showed that he was so much superior manded, though your and my friend, to the men of the "Higher Orders." the saintly SIDMOUTH, has told Co-Insolent wretches! And, shall we lonel FLETCHER, and others like him, that they may, in case of libel, commit or bind over before conviction. Though this is the law of England, and though this law is our "birth66 right" and " best inheritance;" still, I blame none of you for having given bail, for, we may make use of any means to extricate ourselves from the grasp of tyranny. If a robber stop us and clap a pistol to our breast, we may, without any sin, promise him, and even swear to him, that we will give up all the money we have; and may, all the while, retain our money secretly. RAAB Secreted the spies of Joshua ; she denied that they were in her house, while they were there; and this was accounted to be a righteous act. Any means are justifiable in the defending oneself against oppressors; or, in the resisting of oppressors. never make the stupid tyrants change their tone! I have read, and not with less pleasure, an account of the manly, the able, the excellent conduct of the Messrs. EVANS, and how they spurned the haughty and insolent tyrants; and, I do hope, that what I read is true, that Mr. EVANS, jun. means to sue for damages and to plead his own cause; for, as experience has proved, the Bar is too corrupt, or too cowardly, to be trusted in any case where the Boroughmongers are a party. I have heard, since I have been in America, and from a person well acquainted with him, that this young gentleman has great natural talents as well as great resolution. I hope he will follow up his purpose; for, at the least, he will make another grand ex posure of the tyranny, and assist to keep the spirit of resistance alive. As to the talk in the Den, I beseech you not to be, for one moment amused by it. Some of the Den, who affect to be our friends, regard us now as restored to our rights! To be turned out of a dungeon is restoration to the rights of Englishmen, is it? But, mark; the far greater part of these The treatment of the Messrs. I would have kept silence while you EVANS, though not,more unjust than were rotting. Mr. HONE has now that of the others, has been attended | found friends; but it was not 'till he with some feature of atrocity peculiar had triumphed by his own stubbornness to their case. What is to compensate and talents. The repeal of the dunthem for their sufferings and their geou act is your own work, aided well loss of business! When Mrs. EVANS by Mr. HONE and Mr. WoOLER, and, was appealing to the justice and hu- [ hope, too, by myself. But, all manity of the public for some little our labours, with the press and. in aid in her distressed state, the vile the Courts, would have been of no miscreant of the COURIER (whom we avail without your unsubduable spirit. must remember well), exhorted people The final triumph will be with the not to relieve her; for, that "Gon people; and the people will have nohad said, that the sins of the father body but themselves to thank. ought to be visited on the children;" but, GoD pointed out what the sin should be. He did not order, or provide, punishment without sin. The COURIER forgot this; and he seems to have forgotten also, that God ordered, that dogs should eat the flesh of JEZEBEL, because she had cruelly persecuted NABOTH on a false charge of sedi-"gentlemen Opposite", talk of you, as tion and blasphemy! I have received of poor, helpless, ignorant creatures! letters from Mrs. EVANS, sensible, af- Faith, you may well be poor, seeing fecting, and such as would have in- that your labour has been mortgaged, duced me to serve her if I had been and its produce taken from you, to able. The little that we shall be able give to gentlemen and lady and high. to do here must now be done for poor blooded children place and pension Mrs. BRANDRETH and her children. and grant holders, and to fatten the Gracious God! And are the authors swarm of locusts who make and deal of all these oppressions, afflictions, in paper-money. You may well be sorrows, and heart-breakings, to es- poor, when every labourer or artizan cape justice! To suppose such a amongst you, who is now forty years thing would be blasphemy indeed!.. of age, has paid, reckoning the inMy good and worthy friends, true-terest, more than a thousand pounds born and full-blooded Englishmen, if in taxes. And, is none of this ever to I had ever slackened, for one mo- come back! You may well be poor; ment, in affection for my country, but, as to helplessness and ignorance, your conduct would have revived let the Den not deceive itself; for that affection. England has produced neither of these qualities belong to more true-hearted, stubborn, unsub- you. PERRY of the Chronicle, on the duable friends of freedom than all the 24th of January, calls the two Messrs. world besides; and in the list of these EVANS unfortunate WRETCHyour names will live for ever. Ty- ES." The insolent, place-hunting, rants of former days have endeavoured Boroughmonger agent has not a fiftieth to subdue this stubborn spirit; and part of the sense or virtue of either they have always failed in the end. the father or the son; and, I shall be The Boroughmongers' endeavours will much deceived, if he does not yetshare the same fate. They are now see the day, when he will be glad in their agony; and their end ap- to call them by other names than proaches. that of WRETCHES." But, my friends, suffer me to beg you not to be CAJOLED. You will now have those to fuwn on you, who 1 66 My good friends, be not deceived and cajoled by any big, loose talk, that you may hear in the Den. Did any of the Den visit you in prison? Did I have many more things to say in I once more congratulate and thank you all from the bottom of my heart, and I always remain, proud of being your countryman, WM. COBBETT. TO THE PUBLISHER OF THE REGISTER. SIR-Will you give me leave to as sist Mr. Cobbett out of a difficulty which he confesses he feels, in properly characterizing our present corrupt and profligate government.-See "On the absolute sway of the GREAT SEAT OWNERS, over King, Ministers, and People." No. 12, p. 377. Men, who set as defiance all wise laws and just principles, may be suc cessful for a time, but it is often seen that in the midst of their vain glory they very unexpectedly fall. victims themselves. The following little scrap of biography is somewhat connected with Coventry, and will exhibit the fate of a monster, exactly the prototype of our Boroughmongers. He formerly had great power when that once beautiful city was the residence of the kings of the Mercians. But, above all things, put into writing immediately, each of you, a detailed account of what has been done to you. Preserve all the names and dates. Be very particular. And, now His name was Eadric; he boasted is the time for all the men, who have of high qualities, was nobly allied been taken up by magistrates and other and very potent. King Ethelred, to people, under SIDMOUTH'S CIR-render him faithful, gave him his CULAR, to put their cases in writ-daughter in marriage, made him Earl ing; not forgetting the names of all of Mercia, and was obliged to use the Magistrates, Attorneys, Lawyers, him in his councils and armies. He Spies, Runners, and all the actors of was an artful, intriguing, insidious every description, all sorts of persons, wretch; and so avaricious, that he by whom they may have been, in any was called Eadric Streona, i. e. way ill-used. If these statements be Eadric the Gatherer, from the great conveyed to the Gentleman who pub estates he acquired, and the immense lishes the Register in London, I will wealth he amassed. He was not only take care to arrange them, so that they the cause of his brother Edmund, the may be ready, when the day of law and successor of Ethelred, losing two bat justice shall arrive; and this I will nottles with our invaders, the Danes, but fail to do whether I am here or in England. I would, by all means, advise you all to remain in England, which, with a wise and just government, is, as I always said, the best country in the world, as it is the country of the best people in the world; and, be you assured, that it will not be long before we shall have a wise and just govern meni. actually murdered him, or caused him to be murdered at Oxford, which he openly boasted of to Canute, who, from this circumstance, seized upon the whole kingdom. Canute, thinking, that neither himself nor any other person that stood in opposition to his infamous principles, would be safe, caused him to suffer the same fate. May it be a warning to others! Entered at Stationers' Hall. VARRO. Printed and Published by and, for WM. JACKSON, No. 11, Newcastle Street, and No. 19%, Vol. 33, No. 18.---Price Two Pence. COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER. 539] LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1818. [540 TO THE HONOURABLE THE COM- that system of treachery and cru- ASSEMBLED. fears, still is, carried on in his unhappy native country, and which system has, for its agents, bribers, spies, informers, and prostituted lawyers; purchasers and venders of innocent human blood; and, with regard to the actors in which horrid traffick, your humble Petitioner has recently received some particular and authentic inform ation, which he beseeches your Honourable House to be gracious The Petition of William Cobbett of Botley, in the County of Southampton, now generally residing at North Hampstead, in Queen's County, in the State of New York, but, at present, on this 7th day of March, 1818, being at Bustleton, in the State of ly pleased to condescend to perPennsylvania, Most humbly sheweth, That it is impossible for your humble Petitioner to reflect on the character of your Honourable House without feelings of respect and veneration, and especially when he thinks of any of those numerous acts, in which your justice and humanity shine forth with such peculiar lustre. Deeply impressed with these feelings, he now begs to be permitted to approach your Honourable House, and, with the greatest humility, to present at the threshold of that far-famed sanctuary of the laws, his humble supplications and prayers relative to the operations of one branch, or department, of mit him to communicate, Your humble Petitioner, therefore, proceeds most respectfully to state; that happening to be, a few days past, in the City of Philadel phia, he saw there two of his Countrymen, the one named William Stevens, late an inhabitant of Nottingham, and the other named Charles Pendrill, late a citizen and inhabitant of London; that these men related to your humble Petitioner many facts relative to the conduct of one William Oliver; that your bumble Petitioner suggested to them that it was their duty to state the said facts in an authentic and solemn manner; that they, in consequence of this suggestion, drew Printed by W. Jackson, 11, Newcastle Street, Strand, S |