got it from, he must lose it. If he could prove that he got it from Bob, Bob must lose it; and so on; but, either Dick or Bob or the tea-man must lose it. There must be a loss somewhere.

Now, it is clear, that, if there were a great quantity of forged notes in circulation, people would be afraid to take notes at all; and, that, if this great quantity came out all of a sudden, it would, for a while, put an end to all payments and all trade. And, if such great quantity can, with safety, be put out, I leave you to guess, Jack, at the situation of your five pounds. I will now show you, then, that I could do this myself, and with perfect safety and ease.

I could have made, at a very trifling expense, a million of pounds in bank-notes of various amounts. There are fourteen different ways in which I could send them to England, and lodge them safely there, without the smallest chance of their arrival being known to any soul, except the man to whom they should be confided. The Boroughmongers might search and ransack every vessel that arrived from America. They might do what they would. They would never detect the cargo!

There they are, then, safe in London; a famous stock of bank-notes, so well executed, that no human being, except the Bank-people would be able to discover the counterfeit. The agent takes a parcel at a time, and drops them in the streets, in the dark. This work he carries on for a week or two in such streets as are best calculated for the purpose, till he has well stocked the town. He may do the same at Portsmouth and other great towns, if he please, and he may send off large supplies by post.

Now, Jack, suppose you were up at London with your master's waggon. You might find a parcel of my notes. You would go to the first shop to buy your wife a gown and your children some clothes, yourself a hat, a great coat, and some shoes. The rest you would lay out at shops on the road home; for, the sooner you got rid of this foundal, the less chance of having it taken from you. The shopkeepers would thank you for your custom, and your wife's heart would bound with joy.

The notes would travel about most merrily. At last they would come to the Bank. The holders would lose them; but you would gain by them. So that, upon the whole, there would be no loss, and the maker of the notes would have no gain. Others would find, and nearly all would do like you. In a few days the notes would find their way to the Bank in great numbers, where they would all be stopped. The news would spread abroad. The thief-takers would be busy. Every man who had had his note stopped at the Bank would alarm his neighbourhood. The country would ring with the news. Nobody would take a bank-note. All business would be at a stand. The farmers would sell no corn for bank-notes. The millers would have nothing else to pay with. markets, because no money. The baker would be able to get no flour. He could sell no bread, for nobody would have money to pay him.

No

Jack, this thing will assuredly take place. Mind, I tell you so. I have been right in my predictions on former occasions; and I am not wrong now. I beg you to believe me; or, at any rate, to blame yourself, if you lose by such an event. In the midst of this hubbub what will you do? Farmer GRIPE will, I dare say, give you something to eat for your labour. But, what will become of your five pounds? That sum you have in the Savings' Bank, and, as you are to have it out at any time when

you please, your wife sets off to draw it. The banker gives her a fivepound note. She brings it; but nobody will take it of you for a pig, for bread, for clothing, or for any thing else! And this, Jack, will be the fate of all those, who shall be weak enough to put their money into those banks !

I beg you, Jack, not to rely on the power of the Boroughmongers, in this case. Any thing that is to be done with halters, gags, dungeons, bayonets, powder, or ball, they can do a great deal at; but they are not conjurers; they are not wizards. They cannot prevent a man from dropping bank-notes in the dark; and they cannot make people believe in the goodness of that which they must know to be bad. If they could hold a sword to every man's breast, they might, indeed, do something; but, short of this, nothing that they can do would be of any avail. However, the truth is, that they, in such case, will have no sword at all. An army is a powerful weapon; but, an army must be paid. Soldiers have been called machines; but they are cating and drinking machines. With good food and drink, they will go far and do much; but, without them, they will not stir an inch. And, in such a case, whence is to come the money to pay them? In short, Jack, the Boroughmongers would drop down dead, like men in an apoplexy, and you would, as soon as things got to rights, have your bread and beer and meat and every thing in abundance.

The Boroughmongers possess no means of preventing the complete success of the dropping plan. If they do, they ought to thank me for giving them a warning of their danger; and for telling them, that, if they do prevent the success of such a plan, they are the cleverest fellows in this world.

I now, Jack, take my leave of you, hoping that you will not be coaxed out of your money, and assuring you that I am your friend,

WM. COBBETT.

TO HIS

ROYAL HIGHNESS, THE PRINCE REGENT,

ON THE MEANS BY WHICH THE BOROUGHMONGERS HAVE DEGRADED THE KING AND HIS FAMILY.

(Political Register, February, 1819.)

LETTER I.

North Hampstead, Long Island, January 1st, 1819.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS:

I have reason to believe, that the paper-money, which is now current in England, will be speedily destroyed. I will frankly own to your

Royal Highness, that, as a loyal subject of his Majesty, as an Englishman to whom the freedom and renown of England are as dear as is his own life, I wish for that destruction; because, until that paper be destroyed, there can, I am convinced, be no safety for his Majesty's crown and none for the property, liberty, or lives of his faithful and brave people.

Let me, with great respect, though with great urgency, beseech your Royal Highness to look steadily at the picture, which England now presents, though I will not point at particulars; for the sight is so odious and so disgraceful, that I cannot bring myself to the act of exhibiting its parts to your view. But in this group of objects, every one so offensive to the mind, what is the station that your Royal Highness occupies? There you are, surrounded by a set of Ministers, protected against the law of the land by a Bill of Indemnity, yourself protected by a Treason Bill, made for the avowed object of preserving your life from the violent hands of the English people! Eight hundred years have kings reigned in England, and, never until these our days, has a King or Regent of England needed such protection, the very idea of which must fill your Royal Highness with indignation, and especially when you perceive the real, though artfully disguised, object of this odious measure.

The Bill provides, that it shall be high treason to do certain things, which were high treason before, and then it adds, that it shall be high treason to endeavour to "put any restraint, or force upon, or to inti"midate, or overawe, BOTH HOUSES, OR EITHER HOUSE, OF "PARLIAMENT." This was the object, and the sole object of the Bill; and yet it is entitled, "An Act for the safety and preservation of His Royal Highness, THE PRINCE REGENT'S PERSON and Govern"ment." And thus stands your Royal Highness before the world, a person so thought of by a part, at least, of the people; aye, even the English people; that a new and terrible law has been found necessary in order to save you from destruction by their hands! What a situation for a King of England to be placed in! What a light wherein to be exhibited to your own people and to the world! What an outrageous slander on us, or what an imputation against you!

This Act, which was first passed in 1795, and which was to last during the life of the King, has now been applied to your Royal Highness. If it had said nothing about his Majesty or you, it would have been only one amongst the rest of the effects of the Borough usurpation; one amongst those numerous deeds which have been committed in order to uphold that usurpation. But, by including your personal safety in its objects, and by its being called an Act to protect your person, it levels against you all the odium, while, in fact, it does nothing new but tend to protect and uphold those who dispose of the seats, in the people's house of Parliament. The inference from this Act is too obvious not to be seen by every one. The real object is disguised; but, the ostensible one is to protect your person against the people. Whence it follows, of course, that, as no such act was ever passed before, this Act was wholly unnecessary, or, the king and yourself have been more hated by the people than any former king of England ever was.

The Borough-usurpers and their instruments frequently complain of attempts to bring the king and Government into hatred and contempt. Men have been severely punished on charges of this kind. But, was there ever thought of by mortal man any thing so well calculated as this

Act to bring your Royal Highness into hatred and contempt? This Act proclaims to the world; records amongst the national archives; sends down to posterity, the fact, that your Royal Highness is in danger; in danger from the hands of those whom you call your loving subjects; in greater danger than any former king of England, except your father,

ever was!

I was astonished to hear Lord Holland say, when this Act was proposed, that he was willing to extend to the Prince the protection given to the King. Just as if the Act had been asked for by your Royal Highness just as if you had sent to the Parliament to pray them to protect you against the people! This Act gave to the King, and gives to you, no protection, which the law did not give you before. It is a new treason-bill; it has made a new treason; but this new treason is a treason against "both Houses, or either House, of Parliament." Having usurped all the real powers and prerogatives of the crown as well as the rights of the people, the seat-fillers appear to have thought it time to assume the last characteristic of sovereignty by making it high treason to compass their destruction! And by this Act they have made it hanging, beheading, quartering, with forfeiture of estate and corruption of blood, to attempt" to put any restraint, or force upon, or to intimidate, or overawe them." What a band of sovereigns are here! Oh, fie upon us! Dare to put these tender creatures to affright! Dare to intimidate any of this thousand tender-hearted beings, who passed a bill of indemnity for those who crammed RILEY into a dungeon, and who were so merry at the description of Ogden's rupture!

It is impossible that your Royal Highness should not feel the insult contained in this Act; and if Lord Holland, by his conduct at the passing of it, astonished me, how much more ought I to have been astonished, that it passed without a word of reprobation on the part of your Royal Brothers. They had seats in Parliament, if you had not: they could have opposed it, if you could not; and, if one of them had moved an amendment; if he had moved so to alter the title and provisions as to make the Bill appear in its true light; if he had said, "pass a law, my Lords, if you find it necessary, to protect your own persons against the hands "of the English people; but, my Royal Brother is not hated by the peo"ple; he stands in need of no such protection; he is in no danger from "the hatred of a just, brave and humane people and if my vote is the only one against this odious Bill, it shall never pass without that vote "and my solemn protest." If either of the Royal Dukes had thus spoken, and thus acted, what an effect would it have had upon the nation!

:

But they appear to have believed all the calumnies which were heaped upon the people. They appear to have thought it necessary to their own preservation to make common cause with the Borough-usurpers; or, rather, to submit to their sway. Now, however, when it must be clear to every eye, that the Borough usurpation rests wholly upon a little bit of their paper, and that that paper can be destroyed at any moment, I shall hope, that your Royal Brothers will lose no time in shaking off their dependence on that slender foundation.

The fact, may it please your Royal Highness, has come to me, that Mr. BAGOT, your Envoy in America, has, through the Consul at Philadelphia, applied to artists in that city for specimens of bank-notes, in order that he may transmit them to his employers! Thus is the representative of the King of England acting as the agent of a company of paper-money

makers, who have falsified their contracts and violated their charter, and who have an annual Indemnity Bill to protect them against the operation of the offended law; and thus is the name of your Royal Highness associated with those of these plunderers of your father's people. It was not enough, it seems, to render null the prerogative of the King as to the uttering of money; it was not enough to degrade his Royal name and office by affixing his portrait to pieces of money issued at the sole will and pleasure of persons who wholly disowned his control or authority, and who made the money of what weight and what quality and of what nominal amount they pleased: this degradation of the king's person and office was not enough without the suffering of these same persons, a company of merchants who had falsified their promises, to employ his ambassador as their representative.

This single fact, may it please you, Sir, speaks with a voice of thunder to all those, who make common cause with this base institution of papermoney. It can hardly be supposed, that the ambassador would have been employed thus without the concurrence of your Ministers, though I am very sure, that your Royal Highness's sense of duty and of dignity would have prevented your assent to an act so degrading. The connection, then, between your Ministers and the Bank here shows itself in a most staring light. But, which is far more interesting to your Royal Highness and the people, it shows, that the state of the Bank's affairs is so desperate as to make them resort to aid such as no rational man, in private life, would rely on in any case. It must be in contemplation to adopt the specimens. To make English notes according to the specimens. And, if this be done, the imitating of these notes is as easy here as the making of the specimens.

To address your Royal Highness on matters of so vulgar, so low, so peddling a nature, I bring myself to do with the utmost reluctance. But, those who have been your Ministers for so many years, and those who are in reality their masters, have brought the affairs of England into a low and peddling state. When a loan-jobber is a principal personage at a Congress of Crowned-Heads, and when a King's ambassador has full powers to negotiate with manufacturers of bank-notes, loan-jobbing aud bank-note-making may be tolerated in an address from a subject to a sovereign.

It is a gross delusion to hold forth, that the notes made at Philadelphia are inimitable. They are imitated here continually. And I, on my duty and allegiance, of which no man can entertain a higher idea than myself, most solemnly assure your Royal Highness, that the Bank in London can make nothing in the shape of notes, fac-similes of which cannot be made here for two guineas a hundred. The making of bank-note-paper has been pushed to a degree of perfection which is wholly without a parallel. All commercial intercourse between the two countries must be cut off, and that instantly, or the English bank-notes can have not one day of security.

I bear constantly in mind the oppressions of my country; the tyranny which has laid its iron hand upon myself I never forget for one twentyfour hours; but, I still love my country, and would prepare for the inevitable destruction of the paper-bubble. That the estates and distinctions of the wrongers of the people will be in danger is nothing; but, that all should be thrown into confusion is what no considerations of private, or or even of public vengeance, however just, can induce me to wish.