your Royal Highness, is on the supposition of little, or no, debt and taxes ; to which I will add the supposition of there being no injuries, nor recollection of injuries, rankling in the breasts of the people; and, I will, moreover, suppose the people to be as ignorant of these matters now as they were before the " Two-penny Trash," convinced them that butchers, bakers, millers and farmers, were not the cause of their misery and the proper objects of their vengeance.

If in such a state of things, a return to coin, or, to part coin and part paper, would produce confusion, what would such return produce now? And, what then would be the consequence of a sudden and complete annihilation of the paper? It is of no importance if we believe, that it is not likely that this latter will ever take place it is sufficient for us to know that it can take place whenever it be judiciously attempted. Your Royal Highness may think, that my information as to the likelihood is incorrect; but, in order to induce your Royal Highness to endeavour to be prepared for such an event; to be sure, that it is in the power of any man to produce it by the judicious use of a thousand pounds, it is much more than sufficient. And, therefore, in my next letter, I shall have humbly to beseech the attention of your Royal Highness to my opinion as to the means of preserving the Crown and preventing universal confusion, in case of a sudden blowing-up of the paper-money.

I am, may it please your Royal Highness,

Your most humble

And most obedient servant,

WM. COBBETT.

TO HIS

ROYAL HIGHNESS, THE PRINCE REGENT,

ON THE MEANS OF PRESERVING THE CROWN AND OF PREVENTING UNIVERSAL CONFUSION, IN CASE OF A SUDDEN BLOWINGUP OF THE PAPER-MONEY.

(Political Register, March, 1819.)

LETTER III.

North Hampstead, Long Island, Jan. 12th, 1819.

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS:

In the two foregoing letters I have shown, I think, that the Boroughmongers have done great injury to the king and his family as well as to the people; that it has been their unvarying policy to assail each, alternately, by the means of aid afforded by the other; that, at last, however, they have brought their affairs into a state of great danger; that their power now depends solely upon the duration of a fictitious money; and that, in case of a destruction of that money, the crown must, as matter of course, be exposed to great danger, if it be in the minds of people,

VOL. V.

identified with these traffickers in bribery, corruption and perjury. It, therefore, now only remains for me humbly to lay before your Royal Highness my opinion as to the means, which ought to be employed, in order to obviate that danger. I am fully aware of the powers of delusion; I know well how difficult it is for your Royal Highness to be induced to believe, that there exists any danger: I know well that we may listen to the most glaring falsehoods, till we regard them as undoubted truths: I know how prone all men, and princes rather more than others, are to be slow to see any danger which calls upon them for great exertion; I know how ready we are to repose confidence in any bold promiser, who pledges himself for our protection. But, still, I am in hopes, that your Royal Highness has now seen enough of the seat-fillers to doubt, at least, of their wisdom and capacity, as well as of their disposition to do any thing efficient for the preservation of the crown and for the people's safety in case of a sudden blowing-up of the paper-money.

Surely we ought, in their case, as in the case of all other men, to . judge of their capacity by their past actions, and the effect of those actions. They themselves acknowledge, that the country is in a state of difficulty; they themselves acknowledge, that danger exists; they have, in full peace, an army of a hundred and fifty thousand men on foot; dungeon-bills, gagging-bills, new treason-bills; and they have indemnity-bills to protect themselves against the operation of the ordinary laws of the land. Yet, they boast, that they have succeeded in their enterprise; and they have voted large sums of the people's money for the purpose of erecting monuments to commemorate the glory of that success. If such, then, be the effects of their past success, what hope can your Royal Highness have from any future success of theirs?

There is nothing, may it please your Royal Highness, by which we can judge of the wisdom of statesmen and legislators, but the effects produced upon the nation, during the operation of their measures. The seatfillers have, since the year 1792, adopted and pursued a certain set, a series, of measures. Nobody has been able to thwart them. They have, by force or by fraud, had at their command, and have used at their pleasure, all the resources of a great kingdom; they have had all the purses and all the persons of a great nation at their absolute command. They have done just what they pleased. They have been restrained by no customs of the land; no law, written or unwritten; no law of nature or of nations; no considerations of compassion for sex or age. The property and the people of the whole kingdom have been as completely under their control as the shoes upon their feet.

And, what is the result? To what a state have they brought this concern of theirs! How do we now find that nation which was so happy when they took it in hand to manage it according to their own new system? We find it with twelve millions of annual poor-rates, instead of two millions and a half. We find it with a debt of eleven hundred millions, instead of two hundred and fifty millions. We find it with a tax of ten pounds upon every eighteen pounds worth of labour, instead of a tax of two pounds upon the same worth of labour. We find it with a false, base paper-money, upheld by the horrors of the gibbet, and by annual bills of indemnity, and still exposed to instant destruction; instead of seeing it with a king's coin, solid and sure as the earth we walk on. We find it with jails of five-fold dimensions, and with transportings and hangings five-fold in number.

If such be the result and we all know, that it is the result, of the measures of these seat-fillers; if nobody can deny the existence of this result, what ground of confidence do they present to your Royal Highness? Upon the supposition (a very strange one, to be sure) that they have meant well; that they really meant, to do no harm; to the King or people; that, though they were resolved to keep their power, they meant not to bring the people to starvation and the throne into jeopardy: upon this supposition, does the result of their plans and measures warrant any reliance on their wisdom for the future? But, at any rate, we must suppose them to have meant, and ardently desired, to provide for their own safely. It is impossible to believe, that they ever meant to place every inch of their land in pawn to scrip-dealers; to expose themselves to a forfeiture of the pledge; and at the same time to render themselves so viewed by the people at large, as to need for their protection a large standing army, dungeon-bills, gagging-bills, new treason-bills, soldier'stalking-to-death-bills, spies, blood-money men, and, besides all these, police-officers to watch over them in their very lobbies. It is impossible to believe, that they ever meant to place themselves in this situation. They have done, therefore, that which they did not mean to do. Their plans and measures have produced effects contrary to the effects that they were intended to produce. What reliance can there be, therefore, on their wisdom for the future?

If your Royal Highness condescend to think on the grounds and arguments put forward by them for the adoption of some of their most prominent measures, you will easily perceive abundant proofs of their want of capacity for the managing of even those affairs of the nation, in which their own interests were deeply involved. Who, that had professed capacity to provide against the now-existing perils of the country, would have ever thought of making the Bank pay in specie, without first reducing the interest of the debt: when it was obvious, and when it was told them by so humble an individual as I am, that such a measure, which was, besides, hideously unjust in itself, must spread ruin and famine over the kingdom? Who, that had capacity for great affairs, would have issued a new coinage, at a moment when, in order to put a stop to general starvation, it was absolutely necessary again to put forth paper-money in quantity sufficient to cause that new coinage to be melted down and exported? Who, that possessed any capacity at all for thinking, would have talked, from year to year, of a return to cash-payments, when every year afforded new proof, that the thing, without a reduction of the debt, could never take place? Who, that was not, in point of capacity, below the level of common labourers, would have, one year, believed and acted upon the belief, that cheap corn was a.national evil and was the cause of want of employment, and would, the very next, have believed and acted upon the belief, that dear corn was a national evil and the cause of want of employment? Who, not that possessed mental capacity, but that had even a cavity in the skull intended for brains; whose very formation did not exhibit a want of the possibility of conception and comparison, would ever have proposed, amongst his remedies for a want of employment, to set men to dig holes one day, and to fill them up the next?

Your Royal Highness has been precluded, by your rank, from being amongst the hearers of these people. If you could once hear them, all doubts as to what may be expected from their foresight and other useful endowments would soon vanish from your mind. But, at any rate, you

have before your eyes the result of their past plans and measures; and this result will, I confidently hope, be quite sufficient to make you listen, at least, to what I am now about most humbly to submit to your Royal consideration.

In whatever way the paper-bubble shall burst, it will give rise to occasion for great energy as well as great wisdom at the helm; and at that helm your Royal Highness will, I trust, firmly stand. There is now no patching up of the paper-system for any length of time; and, it has so completely wound itself into the private affairs of every one, that its dissolution must, happen in what manner it will, and when it will, give a rude shock to the whole fabric of the Government. But, what I contemplate, as being within the compass, not only of possibility, but of likelihood, is, a sudden blowing-up of the paper-money; a sudden bursting of the bubble, from causes, and attended with immediate effects, such as those which I have already done myself the honour to describe to your Royal Highness. What aid, in such an emergency, your Royal Highness would be able to derive from the seat-fillers I must leave you, after all that you know of them, to determine; but, I am of opinion, that you, acting in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, would be able to do every thing necessary to the safety of the crown and of the nation.

In 1806, when the nation had just been delivered from that great enemy of king and people, the late William Pitt, and when a New Ministry had been formed, including in it the late Mr. Windham, I addressed, and delivered a memorial to that gentleman on the subject of the extinction of the debt; and, as many of the suggestions, contained in that Memorial, are applicable now, I will first beg leave to lay before your Royal Highness a copy of that paper; to which I shall humbly add other suggestions, called for by the changes which have since taken place.

"SIR,-You are now a Minister, and, therefore, a thing, which I deem of the utmost moment, and which has, up to this time, been a subject of conversation only, I will now take the liberty to make the subject of a written and formal communication.

"In your eloquent speech of the other night, you dwelt, with great force, on the danger which we have to apprehend from the never-ceasing encroachments of the Usurper of France. Without any desire to speak slightingly of those dangers, I must say, that I think nothing of them, when I compare them with the dangers to be apprehended from the never ceasing encroachments of the Usurpers in Threadneedle-street. The former are visible, they require nothing but loyalty, public-spirit, and bravery, to face and overcome them; but, the latter are invisible, and, if suffered to proceed but a little further, will become such as to render loyalty, public-spirit and bravery, of no avail. These Usurpers have already assumed some of the most important functions of the King and even of the Parliament. This muck-worm and bloodsucker, as Lord Chatham justly called it, collects money at its pleasure under the name of subscriptions; it makes itself a fountain of honours and rewards for military and naval services, it grants pensions and heir-looms, it bestows badges of distinction; and, which is, indeed, more than all the rest, it has taken wholly to itself the high prerogative of making, issuing, and affixing a value on, the money of the country; which prerogative is, in point of efficiency, the very highest that can belong to a sovereign.

"You will please to observe, Sir, that a King, in the exercising of this mighty prerogative, has numerous legal checks, besides the absence of all particular and private interests, and besides his acts relating to metallic coin, having an intrinsic value. But, on these Usurpers there is, and can be, no check, while they are strongly urged, by their particular private interests to do as much as they can in a way that must of necessity draw away the fruits of labour to be consumed by those who do not labour.

.

"But in the end, if these encroachments be suffered to proceed, there will be no certainty in any pecuniary transaction. There is no property but as it is made of use by money. They are inseparable in society. Render one uncertain, and that act renders the other uncertain. Leave the money at the absolute command of the muck-worm, and all your property is at the mercy of the muck-worm.

"I am, however, well aware that the muck-worm is not to be stopped in his ravages as long as interest shall be paid upon the debt; and, therefore, I am for extinguishing that debt; or, in other words, for paying (no longer any interest upon it. For holding and promulgating this my wish, I have been charged with injustice and cruelty. In the Registers of the 25th of January, the 22nd of February, and the 1st of this present month, I have, I hope, clearly shown, that this charge against me is unjust; and, also, that the measure I propose is just and necessary, unless it be maintainable, that the nation ought to perish rather than ruin the fundholders.

"Nevertheless, as I seriously propose this measure for adoption, it is my duty frankly to state my opinions with regard to the dangers which might arise out of it; and with regard to the means which ought to be adopted for the meeting of those dangers.

"The sweeping away of the debt would sweep away the whole system of paper-money, which could not be again speedily revived. One consequence would be, the loss of income to a great number of persons. But this would not be so terrible a thing as one might, at first thought, suppose. For, the very talking of the measure in Parliament would alarm those who had their all in the Funds. These would sell out, in whole or in part; for there would be speculators as long as a hundred three per cents. would sell for twenty silver shillings. The servants and trades people of the fundhoiders, for agreat part of whom reside in or near London, would be a more formidable body; but, the incomes, which would remain in the hands of others, would very quickly invite and employ those servants and tradesmen, while the enormous burdens now imposed on labourers and artizans to support idlers, would cease, and their cessation would be hailed with universal acclamation.

"But, then, there comes a danger, compared with which, those above-mentioned are not worthy of a moment's notice. The very proposition to extinguish the debt, would throw such discredit upon the paper, that it wuold not sell for five shillings in the pound for real money. Every piece of gold, silver and copper, would come forth into circulation; the guineas and half-guineas would flock in from abroad; as, in the case of the assignats of France, our paper would, to our great surprise, be almost instantly replaced by real money. But, the quantity of this would be so small in comparison with that of the paper, which it would supplant, that prices would fall amazingly, and, though this would not affect present dealings, it would affect all contracts, in such a way as to spread about ruin with an unsparing hand, unless means were promptly adopted to set this matter to rights.

"The first measure, therefore, would be an Act of Parliament to appoint a commission to sit in every county, and to change the place of its sittings from market-town to market-town. This commission should have full power to reduce debts of all sorts, rent, interest, and, in short, to make the letter of every contract agree with its spirit. I will not trouble you with detail. That would easily be arranged. Thus, no injustice would arise from the change in the quantity and value of the currency. Men would stand upon precisely the same footing towards each other that they stood on before the change. This measure should be ready, and well digested beforehand. The Act should suspend all process for debt; and allow defendants, in actions for debt, to plead the Act and the decision of the Commission.

"It will hardly be said, that the Parliament has not the power to pass such an Act; but if this should be said, you have, first, the precedent set by the Parliaments, which, in 1797, protected the Bank against the demands of its creditors, which stopped process against it, and which has continued to do the same from that day to this. You have also the precedent of the Parliament, which in 1800, suspended the process in actions of debt brought against many of the clergy, though these actions were grounded upon express Act of Parliament. This suspension of process was continued for two years; and, then by a third Act of Parliament, the debts were annihilated, and the plaintiff ruined by the payment

of costs!