395

TO PARSON MALTHUS,

ON THE RIGHTS OF THE POOR; AND ON THE CRUELTY RECOMMENDED BY HIM TO BE EXERCISED TOWARDS THE POOR.

PARSON:

(Political Register, May, 1819.)

North Hampstead, Long Island, February 6th, 1819.

I have, during my life, detested many men; but never any one so much as you. Your book on POPULATION Contains matter more offensive to my feelings even than that of the Dungeon-Bill. It could have sprung from no mind not capable of dictating acts of greater cruelty than any recorded in the history of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Priests have, in all ages, been remarkable for cool and deliberate and unrelenting cruelty; but it seems to have been reserved for the Church of England to produce one who has a just claim to the atrocious pre-eminence. No assemblage of words can give an appropriate designation of you; and, therefore, as being the single word which best suits the character of such a man, I call you Parson, which, amongst other meanings, includes that of Boroughmonger tool.

It must be very clear to every attentive reader of your book on Population, that it was written for the sole purpose of preparing beforehand a justification for those deeds of injustice and cruelty, of which the Parish Vestry Bill appears to be a mere prelude. The project will fail : the tyrants will not have the power to commit the deeds, which you recommend, and which they intend to commit. But, that is no matter. It is right that the scheme should be exposed; in order that, as we ought to take the will for the deed, we may be prepared to do justice to the schemer and to the intended executors of the scheme.

In your book you show, that, in certain cases, a crowded population has been attended with great evils, a great deal of unhappiness, misery, and human degradation. You then, without any reason to bear you out, predict, or leave it to be clearly inferred, that the same is likely to take place in England. Your principles are almost all false; and your reason, in almost every instance, is the same. But, it is not my intention to waste my time on your abstract matter. I shall come, at once, to your practical result; to your recommendation to the Boroughmongers to pass laws to punish the poor for marrying.

I have in my possession a list of 743 parsons (of the Church of England I mean) who have taken an active part in the Dungeon and Oliver proceedings, either as justices of the peace, or as suppressers, unlawfully, of my publications. They have threatened hawkers; they have imprisoned many; they have starved the families of not a few; they have threatened booksellers; they have, in many instances (not less than twenty that have come to my knowledge) caused "Paper against Gold" to be excluded from reading-rooms, though that is a work which ough

to be read by every one, high as well as low, rich as well as poor. I must hate these execrable Parsons; but, the whole mass put together is not, to me, an object of such perfect execration as you are. You are, in my opinion, a man (if we give you the name) not to be expostulated with; but to be punished. And, I beg the public to regard this paper of mine as intended merely to prove, that you deserve the severest punishment that outraged laws can inflict upon you.

The bare idea of a law to punish a labourer and artizan for marrying; the bare idea is enough to fill one with indignation and horror. But, when this is moulded into a distinct proposal and strong recommendation, we can hardly find patience sufficient to restrain us from breaking out into a volley of curses on the head of the proposer, be he who he may. What, then, can describe our feelings, when we find that this proposition does not come from an eunuch; no, nor from a hermit; no, nor from a man who has condemned himself to a life of celibacy; but from a priest of a church, the origin of which was the incontinence of its clergy, who represented views of chastity as amongst the damnable errors of the Church of Rome, and have, accordingly, fully indulged themselves in carnal enjoyments: what can describe our feelings, when we find that the proposition comes from a priest of this luxurious, this voluptuous, this sensual fraternity, who, with all their piety, were unable to devote their own vessels to the Lord!

But, before I proceed further, let us have your proposition before us in your own insolent words; first observing, that, at the time when you wrote your book, the Boroughmongers began to be alarmed at the increase of the Poor-rates. They boasted of wonderful national prosperity; wonderful ease and happiness; wonderful improvements in agriculture; but, still the poor-rates wonderfully increased. Indeed, they seemed to increase with the increase of the Boroughmongers' national prosperity; which might, I think, very fairly be called the eighth wonder of the world.

Being in this puzzle, the Boroughmongers found in a priest the advocate of a method to rid them of their ground of alarm. You, overlooking all the real causes of the increase of the paupers, assumed, without any internal proof, and against all experience, that the giving of relief is the cause of the evil; and then you came to your proposition of a remedy. The words, the infamous words, are as follows:

"To this end I should propose a regulation to be made, declaring that no child born from any marriage taking place after the expiration of a year from the date of the law; and no illegitimate child born two years from the same date, should ever be entitled to parish assistance. After the public notice, which I have proposed, had been given, to the punishment of nature HE should be left; the punishment of severe want: all parish assistance should be rigidly denied him. HE should be taught that the laws of nature had doomed him and his family to starve; that HE had no claim on society for the smallest portion of food; that if HE and his family were saved from suffering the utmost extremities of hunger, HE would owe it to the pity of some kind benefactor, to whom HE ought to be bound by the strongest ties of gratitude."

I never yet knew a parson that understood grammar, so that I am little surprised at this HE, which, according to the words, means the child (though it may be a girl); but which HE does, I suppose, mean the man, who shall dare to marry or to have a bastard by some unmarried woman; and yet, in this latter case, what mean you by talking of the

man's family? Cruel, impudent, and muddle-headed a parson all through! I will, however, suppose you, by HE, to mean the man; and will, if I can, coolly remark upon this atrocious proposition.

You talk of the "punishment of nature;" you talk of "the laws of nature having doomed him and his family to starve." Now, in the first place, the laws of nature; the most imperative of all her laws, bid him love and seek the gratification of that passion in a way that leads to the procreation of his species. The laws of nature bid man as well as woman desire to produce and preserve children. Your prohibition is in the face of these imperative laws; for you punish the illegitimate as well as the legitimate offspring. I shall not talk to you about religion, for I shall suppose you, being a parson, care little about that. I will not remind you, that the Articles of the Church, to which articles you have sworn, reprobates the doctrine of celibacy, as being hostile to the Word of God; that the same article declares that it is lawful for all Christian men to marry; that one of the Church prayers beseeches God that the married pair may be fruitful in children; that another prayer calls little children as arrows in the hand of the giant, and says that the man is happy who has his quiver full of them; that the Scriptures tell us that Lor's neighbours were consumed by fire and brimstone, and that ONAN was stricken dead; that adultery and fornication are held, in the New Testament, to be deadly sins: I will not dwell upon any thing in this way, because you, being a parson, would laugh in my face. I will take you on your own ground; the laws of nature.

The laws of nature, written in our passions, desires and propensities; written even in the organization of our bodies; these laws compel the two sexes to hold that sort of intercourse, which produces children. Yes, say you; but nature has other laws, and amongst those are, that man shall live by food, and that, if he cannot obtain food, he shall starve. Agreed, and, if there be a man in England who cannot find, in the whole country, food enough to keep him alive, I allow that nature has doomed him to starve. If, in no shop, house, mill, barn, or other place, he can find food sufficient to keep him alive; then, I allow, that the laws of nature condemn him to die.

"Oh!" you will, with parson-like bawl, exclaim, "but he must not commit robbery or larceny!" Robbery or larceny! what do you mean by that? Does the law of nature say any thing about robbery or larceny? Does the law of nature know any thing of these things? No: the law of nature bids man to take, whenever he can find it, whatever is necessary to his life, health, and ease. So, you will quit the law of nature now, will you? You will only take it as far as serves your purpose of cruelty. You will take it to sanction your barbarity; but will fling it away when it offers the man food.

Your muddled parson's head has led you into confusion here. The law of nature bids a man not starve in a land of plenty, and forbids his being punished for taking food wherever he can find it. Your law of nature is sitting at Westminster, to make the labourer pay taxes, to make him fight for the safety of the land, to bind him in allegiance, and when he is poor and hungry, to cast him off to starve, or, to hang him if he takes food to save his life! That is your law of nature; that is a parson's law of nature. I am glad, however, that you blundered upon the law of nature; because that is the very ground, on which I mean to start in endeavouring clearly to establish the rights of the poor; on

which subject I have, indeed, lately offered some observations to the public, but on which subject I have not dwelt so fully as its importance seemed to demand; especially at a time, when the poor ought to understand clearly what their rights are.

When nature (for God and religion is out of the question with parsons); when nature causes a country to exist and people to exist in it, she leaves the people, as she does other animals, to live as they can; to follow their own inclinations and propensities; to exert their skill and strength for their own advantage, or, rather, at their pleasure. She imposes no shackles other than those which the heart and mind themselves suggest. She gives no man dominion over another man, except that dominion which grows out of superior cunning, or bodily strength. She gives to no man any portion of the earth or of its fruits for his own exclusive enjoyment. And, if any man, in such a state of things, cannot get food sufficient to keep him alive, he must die; and, it may truly enough, then, be said, that " the laws of nature have doomed him to be starved."

But, when this state of things is wholly changed; when the people come to an agreement to desist, for their mutual benefit, from using their cunning and strength at their sole will and pleasure: when the strong man agrees to give up the advantage which nature has given him, in order that he may enjoy the greater advantage of those regulations which give protection to all, he surely must be understood to suppose, as a condition, that no state of things is ever to arise, in which he, without having broken the compact on his part, is to be refused, not only protection from harm, but even the bare means of existence.

The land, the trees, the fruits, the herbage, the roots are, by the law of nature, the common possession of all the people. The social compact, entered into for their mutual benefit and protection; not Castlereagh's 'social system," which means the employment of spies and blood-money men and the existence of mutual suspicion and constant danger to life and limb. The social compact gives rise, at once, to the words mine and thine. Men exert their skill and strength upon particular spots of land. These become their own. And when laws come to be made, these spots are called the property of the owners. But still the property, in land, especially, can never be so complete and absolute as to give to the proprietors the right of withholding the means of existence, or of animal enjoyment, from any portion of the people; seeing that the very foun dation of the compact was, the protection and benefit of the whole. Men, in agreeing to give up their rights to a common enjoyment of the land and its fruits, never could mean to give up, in any contingency, their right to live and to love and to seek the gratification of desires necessary to the perpetuating of their species. And, if a contingency arise, in which men, without the commission of any crime on their part, are unable, by moderate labour that they do perform, or are willing to perform, or by contributions from those who have food, to obtain food sufficient for themselves and their women and children, there is no longer benefit and protection to the whole; the social compact is at an end; and men have a right, thenceforward, to act agreeably to the laws of nature. If, in process of time, the land get into the hands of a comparatively small part of the people, and if the proprietors were to prevent, by making parks, or in any other way, a great part of the land from being culti vated, would they have a right to say to the rest of the people, you shall

breed no more, if you do, nature has doomed you to starvation? Would they have have a right to say, "We leave you to the punishment of nature?" If they were fools enough to do this, the rest of the people would, doubtless, snap them at their word, and say, "Very well, then; "nature bids us live and love and have children, and get food for them "from the land: here is a pretty park, I'll have a bit here; you take a bit What!" "there, Jack;" and so on. the proprietors, "would you take our property?" "No: but, if you will neither give us some of the "fruits without our labour, nor give us some of them for our labour, we "will use some of the land, for starved we will not be." "Why do you "Because nature impels us to it, and lore and have children then ?" "because our right to gratify the passion of love was never given up "either expressly or tacitly."

say

But there are the helpless; there are those who are infirm; there are Are the proprietors to support babies and aged and insane persons. them? To be sure they are; else what benefit, what protection, do If these are to be refused prothese receive from the social compact ? tection, why is the feeble and infirm rich man to be protected in his property, or in any other way? Before the social compact existed, there were no sufferers from helplessness. The possession of every thing being in common, every man was able, by extraordinary exertion, to provide for his helpless kindred and friends by the means of those exertions. He used more than ordinary industry; he dug and sowed more than ordinary; all the means which nature gave were at his command according to his skill and strength. And, when he agreed to allow of proprietorship, he understood, of course, that the helpless were, in case of need, to be protected and fed by the proprietors. Hence the poor, by which we ought always to mean the helpless only, have a right founded in the law of nature, and necessarily recognized by the compact of every society of men. Take away this right; deny its existence; and then see to what a state you reduce the feeble shadow of a man, who calls himself a landowner. The constables and all the whole posse of the county are The able and hearty labourer is to to be called forth to protect him. be compelled to fight for this frail creature; but if the father of this labourer become helpless, this father is to be handed over to the punishment of nature; though nature would enable the son to provide most amply for the father, if there were not laws to restrain the son from using for the supply of the father that same strength which he is compelled to use in the defence of the feeble proprietor! Oh, no! Mr. Parson! If we are to be left to the punishment of nature, leave us also to be rewarded by nature. Leave us to the honest dame all through the piece she is very impartial in rewards as well as in her punishments: let Their us have the latter and we will take the former with all our hearts. Boroughmongerships were extremely angry with the SPENCEANS for their talking about a common partnership in the land; but the Spenceans have as much right as you to propose to recur to a state of nature; yet you have not yet been dungeoned.

By this time the Hampshire Parsons, who are at the bottom of all projects brought forward by STURGES BOURNE, who is the Chairman of their Quarter Sessions, may, though they are as stupid as they are malignant, begin to perceive, that you might as well have left the law of nature alone. Let us next see how the case stands according to the law