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made them improvident; when he had seen, that, during the last hundred, while the increase of taxes had been gradual, the increase of paupers had been gradual, till the enormous taxes began to be raised; and when he had seen, that the last twenty years had been so very fruitful in producing paupers; he would soon have looked out for the real causes in operation during those several intervals. But, to have stated these causes would not have pleased the Boroughmongers, who had imposed the taxes, and who had livings to give to prostituted priests; and, therefore, you pitched upon the labouring classes. They were to be punished for the rapacity and waste of those who had tyrannized over them, and brought them to misery. The cause of the increase of paupers has been taxation, co-operation with a false money. But, as this has been proved so many times, I will not now prove it again. Amongst the labouring classes there wants no more proofs of this kind. They now know the real causes of their misery and slavery.

As to your notion of danger from an increase of the population of the kingdom, it is too absurd to merit serious remark; seeing that, at the end of a thousand years of the kingly government, there remain six or seven acres of land to every man, every woman, and every child! However, in order to expose the follies and falsehoods of the Boroughmongers as to this matter, I will here make a remark or two on it. These tyrants, caused what they called an enumeration to be taken in 1801, and another in 1811. The tyrants wanted to cause it to be believed, that the people had increased in number under their sway. This would have been no proof of an absence of tyranny to be sure; but, at any rate, it would have been a proof that the number of their slaves had augmented. They were extremely eager to establish this proof; and to work they went, and, at last, put forth the population return of 1801, which made the total population of England alone amount to 8,331,434 Now, mind, Parson. In 1811, they caused another enumeration to be taken, when they made the population of England alone amount to 9,538,827. Bravo! Impudent mountebanks ! Here is more than a seventh of increase in ten years! So that, at this rate of going on, the population of England alone will, in 1851 (only 32 years from this time) amount to 16,292,527; and, at the close of this present century, if their paternal sway should continue to that time, the population of England alone will amount to 27,891,009. Oh! monstrous liars! And, this is not all; the increase must be much greater than this; for, from 1801 to 1811, were ten years of most bloody war, when not only many men were killed, but when two hundred thou sand of the men, and those of the most efficient of papas, were always out of the country, either on ship-board or in foreign lands! Impudent liars! The Boroughmonger sway began in 1688; and, if the population have gone on increasing only since that time, the population at that time could not have exceeded 2,000,000! Talk of our Creator," indeed! The Boroughmongers are the most active creators that this world ever heard of.

The second return is made very nicely to keep pace, in most of its parts with the first. The houses, families; all increase in very ex ict proportion. But, there is one difference in the mode of making up the lie, which is worthy of attention, and which blows up the whole mass of cheatery. In the first return the persons were divided into three classes as to occupations, as follows:

1. Persons employed in agriculture .....

1,524,227

2. Persons employed in trade, handicraft, and manufacture 1,789,531

3. All other persons

3,313,758

5,017,434

Ilere were

This was a damning fact for the Boroughmonger system! almost two idlers for every one working man! No wonder that the labouring classes were oppressed! No wonder that they were starving!

I, in my Register, very often observed upon this fact. Therefore, when the second return came to be made out, care was taken to suppress this fact, and yet to preserve an appearance of fairness. The classes, as to occupation, were now stated in families, and not in persons as before.

1. Families employed in agriculture

.... 697,353 2. Families employed in trade, handicraft, and manufacture 923,588

3. All other families..

1,620,941

391,450

This is a pretty change in the space of ten years! To be sure, the families of idlers are the most numerous; but what a monstrous difference is here! They must amount upon an average to nearly 20 persons in a family, whilst the labourers, journeymen, farmers, and tradespeople, amount to little more than two in a family, including lodgers; so that there could have been no children at all amongst these labouring classes! Take heart, Parson! There can be no fear, then, of their overstocking the land! Oh, foolish Parson! Oh, lying Boroughmongers!

The returns were ordered by Boroughmongers and executed by Parsons; and, of course, no truth could be expected to be found in them; but the falsehood might have been better disguised. This band, or, rather, two bands, of liars, should have remembered the old rule : "When you have told a lie upon any subject, never speak on the same subject again."

In 1801, there were 3,313,758 persons of the labouring classes; and, as the increase upon the whole population was, in 1811, a seventh, these labouring classes would, in 1811, contain 3,787,029 persons. But, this last return states them in families, of which the return says, that there were (in 1811) 1.620,941. So that, in 1811, there were, amongst the labouring and trading classes, only two and a third part of another, to each family, including lodgers; or, only seven persons to three families!

Now, Boroughmongers and Parsons, take your choice was the first return a lie; or was the second a lie? Both. It has all been a he from the beginning to the end. It is a mere fabrication to delude, deceive, cajole, and cheat the nation and the world; and the money expended to propagate the cheat ought to be, every farthing of it, refunded by the cheaters, and given back to those labouring classes, from whence the greatest part of it was taken, and to whose detestation I now leave you, Parson Malthus, and your foolish and insolent performance.

WM. COBBETT.

407

TO HENRY JAMES, Esq.,

MERCHANT, OF BIRMINGHAM,

ON HIS PROJECT FOR SAVING THE BOROUGHMONGERS BY MAKING A SHILLING PASS FOR EIGHTEEN-PENCE.

SIR,

(Political Register, May, 1819.)

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

It is now much about two years since your project was first made public. It had been proposed by you to the Ministers, who had rejected it, and then you put it into print, after the manner of playwriters, whose performances are rejected by the stage. Since the time that you published your project, some curious changes have taken place; many shifts and tricks have been resorted to; but, still, the base papermoney continues to be at once the support and the dread of the Boroughtyranny As I think it likely, that your scheme may be the last in the budget, I will now offer to the public, under, the form of an address to you, some remarks upon it; and, the better to make my meaning understood. I will begin by describing the state of things in which the scheme was promulgated.

During the years 1814, 1815 and 1816, the Boroughmongers' bank, commonly called the Bank of England, had been drawing-in its paper by the lessening of its discounts. The scheme was, to pay in specie without reducing the interest of the debt. How such a scheme could be entertained by any people out of a mad-house it is not for me to say; but, it is evident that it was entertained; because, during the session of 1816 (some time in the winter) an Act was passed for issuing a new coinage, which must have had the payment in specie in view; for, unless the paper could be brought up to par, the new coinage must disappear as

soon as out.

This project for paying in specie without reducing the interest of the debt, and without reducing salaries, pensions, sinecures and soldiers' pay, necessarily induced the Borough bank to draw in its paper: but, the fools did not perceive, though I had warned them of it in 1811, that this drawingin of the paper would produce ruin and starvation amongst the labouring classes. The ruin and starvation came on gradually, just in the proportion of the diminution of the paper. And, the paper was, at last, lessened so much as to embolden the tyrants to issue their new coinage; but, alas! the wiseacres then perceived, that, though they had now got dungeon and gagging bills, it was absolutely necessary to put out the paper that they had drawn in; for, that nothing else could save them for six months. They put it out: it is out now: and, accordingly, their new coinage has wholly disappeared. And these are men, are they, fit to govern a great nation !

It was at the close of 1816, just at the time that they were going to

issue their coinage, and just at the time that the ruin and starvation were at their height, that you came forward with your project which was, that the money should be made lighter; so that a shilling should pass for eighteen-pence, or be made into eighteen-pence Your correspondence with the tools of the Boroughmongers was going on in December, 1816, and your publication appeared early in 1817. Your motive was to keep up the system, and to enable the Boroughmongers to perpetuate their usurpations; and, as I think it likely, that they may, in their present embarrassment, and as a last shift, resort to your scheme, I will endeavour to show what would be the effects of that scheme, if put into practice.

First, however, let me take from you your pretended originality as to the scheme as well as to the cause of the distress. The scheme is as old as roguery itself. It has been resorted to by almost every tyrant in every country; when such tyrant has been in debt, or wanted to get the property of his people quickly into his possession. It is not a "new way of paying old debts," but a very old way. There is nothing of ingenuity in it. What can be more simple, than telling a man that he shall take a shilling instead of eighteen-perce that are due to him, and that, if he will not take the shilling, he shall have nothing? The Congress here might do the same thing. They might call half a dollar a dollar, and by paying the fundholders at that rate, rob them of the half of what they have lent. The Congress might, perhaps, be assailed with stones and broom-sticks; but, if they had power to do the deed, it would be a very simple matter.

Therefore, as to originality, the scheme itself has no pretensions. And, as to your statements of the causes of the distress, though your statement is correct, the causes had all been stated to the nation, over and over again, while you were perfectly silent. In 1811 (six years before your publication), I had in "Paper against Gold," demonstrated, that, if the Bank ever attempted to draw in its paper, all the labouring classes (including traders and farmers) must be ruined. The moment the ruin began, I told the nation that the Bank was at work. I pursued the devastations, step by step, from 1814 to the hour of your publishing. In January 1816, Mr. HUNT, who the tools of the Boroughmongers represent as an ignorant man, told an assemblage of lords and gentlemen at Bath, that the cause of the distress was the drawing-in of the paper. Lord Cochrane told them the same at the London Tavern. While they were all bellowing for corn-bills and soup-kettles. I had, in December, 1816, stated this cause, proved it, demonstrated it, in publications, three hundred thousand copies of which had actually been sold in the kingdom and it was at this moment, that you came out with your discovery of the same causes, and with saying, that the cause of the misery had “not yet been clearly explained." You quoted ADAM SMITH and MONTESQUIEU most amply. You even wrote the words of the latter in French, the more surely to make your meaning clear to Englishmen, and to show them that you could read French. But, not a word did you quote, with acknowledgement, from my " Two-penny Trash," which, though it was driving our villains on to adopt the desperate expedient of dungeon-bills, and though it had been, as Sidmouth said, read in all the towns, villages, hamlets, houses, cottages, and hovels in the kingdom, you appeared never to have either seen or heard of!

So much for your discovery; so much for your originality. I will now speak of your scheme itself considered as a remedy. I have said,

that it is roguish; that it is barefaced villany and barefaced tyranny united; that, for a Government to adopt such a measure is to commit an act meriting death to the proposer and the adopter; that any man has a right to attack, by force or stratagem, so base a set of tyrants; or else, we must acknowledge the divine right of tyrants. Such a deed includes a robbery of all those who have lent money to the Government or to any individual; it includes a violation of all contracts; it is, like a tender-law, a legalizing of robbery; it is a law against moral honesty; it is calculated to make men despise the very name of law.

But, observe, though the deed would be of this character generally ; though this would be its character if adopted, for instance, in this country where I now am; yet a nation may, ir consequence of previous measures of its rulers, be so situated as to render such a measure not unjust. To seize hold of a man and rifle his pockets is an unjust act in itself considered; but, if this man have got in his pockets what he has taken fraudulently or forcibly from another man, the rifling is not unjust. Your measure, therefore, as far as it would go to deduct from the unjust gains of the fundholders and from the salaries, pensions, and pay of the taxeaters, would be just enough, only it would not go so far as it ought to go. It would not be unjust as towards persons who had let leases, or taken bonds, or mortgages, and so forth, previous to the drawing in of the paper. It would have, indeed, no injustice in it; but, it would not be a remedy of the sort that you say it would; that is to say, a remedy of a permanent nature, and one that would secure the present usurpation of the Boroughmongers.

It is very true, that the raising of the nominal value of money; or, to speak more plainly, the making of three shillings out of two and three guineas out of two, would, in fact, take one-third from the fundholders and from all the tax-eaters. It would reduce the real amount of the taxes one third. It would relieve all the class of borrowers in the same degree. It would make money plenty; and, for awhile, would create employment for labourers and artizans. But, all this is done as effectually and more quietly by putting out of large quantities of paper-money. We saw, that the drawing-in of the paper produced the distress; and we have since seen, that the putting of it out again has brought relief. You have nothing to do but to look at the bushel of wheat; if there be paper enough out to keep that, on an average of years, at about fifteen shillings a bushel, that will do, for some time; and, it signifies not a straw, whether this be effected by the putting out of paper, or by the making of little shillings and guineas.

But, you say, that your scheme will enable the Bank to pay in specie at once. This is the point! There is no want of paper-money. There is no want of the means of raising or lowering prices. There is no want of the means of relieving the borrowers, in the nation, private or public. There is no want of the means of making money plenty. But, there is a want of real money; a want of corn. A want of the means of enabling the Bank to pay its notes in coin. And, if your scheme can create these means, you will certainly be made into a Lord; and, taking your title from your scheme, you may, perhaps, be known to posterity by the name of Lord Little-Shilling. But, I am of opinion, that this brilliant destiny does not await you; for though I think it likely, that your scheme will be adopted, as a last shift, it will, I am convinced, fail of accomplishing its chief object, and in its failure, send you to be huddled in amongst the

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