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years, received from the aforesaid source much more than half a million of principal money; and if your petitioners were to say nearly a million of money, their statement would only approach nearer to the truth.

“10. With regard to salaries, paid out of the public money, your petitioners beg leave humbly to observe, that they have only to refer your honourable House to your own Journals, and to the Statute-book for the space of the last twenty years, in order to afford your honourable House ample conviction of the fact that the salaries of the Judges have been doubled, that the salaries of the Police Justices have been greatly augmented, and that a like augmentation has taken place in almost all other salaries, and in the pay and allowances of an enormous military staff establishment, and that all these augmentations have been adopted upon the express ground of the augmentation which had taken place in the price of wages, in the price of all articles of dress, in the rents of houses and land, and in the prices of all the necessaries of life; and, therefore, now, that it is notorious that these latter have all been diminished in the degree of nearly one-half, your petitioners will not insult your honourable House by appearing to suppose that you will refuse their humble request, that the above said salaries and pay may be immediately reduced in the same degree.

"11. And, as to the interest on the annuities constituting the funded debt, your petitioners, agreeing in opinion with a noble Earl of the other House of Parliament, that the currency of the country had been changed, that the taxes, which were imposed in a currency of low value, are now collected in a currency of high value, beg leave to observe also, that the far greater part of the debt, which was contracted in low currency, is now paid an interest for, by the people, in a high currency, and that this, the greatest of all the causes of the nation's ruin, has arisen from the stoppage of cash payments at the Bank of England, in the year 1797; a stoppage in breach of the Charter of the Bank Company, in breach of all the laws of debtor and creditor, tending only to the advantage of the Bank Company itself, and solicited, and procured to be sanctioned, by that Company. Therefore, your petitioners most humbly pray, that the rate of interest on the funded debt may be immediately reduced, in such a degree that the fruit of the whole productive labour of the country may no longer be swallowed up by the dealers in bank-paper, or, to adopt the words of a petition, received by the House of Commons from the town of Leicester, at the time of the South Sea-Bubble, your petitioners most humbly implore your honourable House, that the last drop of the nation's blood may not be poured out to be licked up by the cannibals of Change Alley.'"

I am very far indeed from being satisfied with the reduction, mentioned by you, my Lord. My petition of 1818, which your Lordship refused to present because it was too long, contains a prayer for a measure, which would be just, as far as it went; but, indeed, the measures, humbly submitted by me, in my letters, of last winter, to the Prince Regent, contain the only plan, which, in my opinion, can prevent a bloody revolution in England.

Nevertheless, the sapient JENKINSON will not hear of a reduction of the value of the circulating medium upon your plan and that of my Lord Little-Shilling of Birmingham; for, this latter nobleman's project is precisely the same as yours in principle, though the two projects differ in degree. You are for making gold pass at four shillings an ounce more than its usual value, and Lord Little-Shilling is for making a shilling pass for eighteen-pence. Oh no, says wise Jenkinson, we must come back to the old standard!—and while Grenville is bawling aloud, that the Bank has caused a violation of all contracts, Jenkinson insists, that no contracts shall be violated with the fundholders or other lenders of money.

If this man be in his usual senses, what a state must England be in, to have such a prime minister? It is clear to me, and I think it must be clear to every one, that the Borough-bank can never pay in specie, without bringing wheat down to fire shillings a bushel. And, can the

interest of the debt be paid with wheat at that price? This is the question and the only question to keep in view. And, indeed, this is the question, which the Borough-bank Directors have in substance, put to the Committees of the two Houses.

However, your Lordship's project of debasing the currency would not succeed. You have borrowed from me (without acknowledgement) a sound principle or two; but your application of them is all your own; and it is childish beyond all description.

All the obstacles to the obtaining of coin, on the part of the Boroughbank, applies to the obtaining of bullion. It is agreed, on all hands, that the Bank has not the bullion now. The paper is now at discount of about five per centum, and there you wish to keep it by law. And yet you wish, by the same law, to compel the Bank to pay in bullion. So you think, that, because the gold is now at this discount, it will not get to a greater discount, when the Bank shall be compelled to pay in bullion. Before it can pay in bullion, it must buy bullion, if you please; for, though Acts can be passed to put men into dungeons, no Acts can put gold bullion into the Borough-bank, without the Bank's buying the gold first. Now, this very pro ceeding of buying the gold will raise the value of the gold abroad, and sink the value of the paper at home; for, the wise and omnipotent Parliament, all-wise and all-powerful as it is, cannot, by any means prevent this effect.

But, my Lord, I am weary of proving the truth of these opinions. Look again at "Paper against Gold." Look at the supposed case, in that work, of our old friend, MADAME DE YONG, selling gold to the Bank. Look at my Letter to Tierney. And then look at the confessions, which the stupidity of the Borough-tyrants has extorted from the Directors of the Borough-bank. Look at these, my Lord Folkestone, and then you will, I hope, clearly see the childishness of your project.

Well, then, after all, how is any such plan to succeed; and, indeed, how is it ever to have effect in any degree? Things utterly impossible are required by these plans. They require, that the Borough-bank shall pay in gold; and yet that it shall not increase the amount of its notes; though it is clear as the sun at noon-day, that the Bank has not the gold now, and that it cannot get it without first putting out more notes than it now has out, to get the gold with. Does there need any thing more to show the monstrous, the brutal, absurdity of such a plan, and of every plan of a similar description?

There is, however, one thing yet to notice; one little rag of this bundle of frauds and blunders; and that is, that the Borough-bank will be enabled to pay in bullion, or specie, or in both, by the means of payments to be made to it by the thing that is called the Government. Now, how does this matter stand? The Government has to pay an army, judges, police-justices, placemen, pensioners, Olivers, Castleses, and so on; and in order to do this, it has always, in advance of the taxes, a parcel of bank-notes from the Borough-bank. This is precisely the same thing as it would be for the Government to issue these notes themselves. Well; how is the Government to pay the Bank for these advances ? Why, by suffering the Bank to keep the ten millions (suppose that to be the sum) of its notes, when they come in, and not advance them again. But, how is the Government then, to pay Castles, Oliver, and the rest? Why, it must make a loan; and how is the loan to be paid? Why, by heavens, in new advances of notes, or not at all!

No, say you, the loan may be paid in another way. Well, suppose there to be no loan for a while; what then; why, at the very least, the ten millions would be taken out of circulation; the circulating medium would be diminished in a great degree; and the consequence would be distress and misery far surpassing that of 1816.

Thus, then, is the system fairly on the breakers. It has, ever since 1814, been endeavouring to get off; but, there it still lies, rocking and rolling, and beating itself about, with ever and anon a shot fired into it by me, striking it, sometimes in the rigging, and sometimes in the huil : and, with the lightning of the " PUFF-OUT," constantly threatening it with instant destruction.

Yet, my Lord, on the safety of this system, so perilously situated, the safety of the Borough-system wholly depends. Not one week can the latter outlive the former. It would, therefore, if the Boroughmongers had common sense, be their object, their main object, to inquire how they can so manage matters as to preserve their tities and estates amidst the convulsions, which the dissolution of the paper-system will give rise to. But, perhaps, I may treat of this matter in another Register; though, what the Boroughmongers shall do in such a case is a matter of far less consequence than what shall be done by the King and his oppressed people.

It is clear to every man of common sense, that the nation cannot go on in the present path for any length of time. A great change must take place; and whether that change shall produce the total ruin and degradation of the order, to which your Lordship belongs, will depend, even now, on the conduct pursued by that order. Scourges, dungeons, gags, halters, axes, will no longer be of any avail. A nation cannot be kill d; and, killed the English nation must be now, or it must and will have its rights.

Every day's experience tends to add, if that be possible, to the hatred and contempt, which the people have long justly entertained towards those, who have been the cause of their sufferings. The gabbling about erchanges and bullion and market-prices of gold and silver is as ridiculous as the disputes of Milton's Devils about grace, free-will, free-knowledge, and predestination; and the situation of those Devils does, upon the whole, afford no very imperfect resemblance of that of the inhabitants of the pandimonium of paper-money.

Who can have any respect for men, who, though differing as widely from each other as opposite colours differ; whose principles all differ; whose opinions as to effects differ; and yet who came to an unanimous decision: whose fears haunt them to that degree, that they dare not even back their declared opinions with their votes? It was echoed about that you must look your situation in the face. Faith; you dare as much look death in the face. I have, over and over again, held up its face to you; and you have constantly turned away your eyes.

And this, I am disposed to think, will be your conduct to the last moment. "In all human probability, the whole of the interest of the debt, and all the sinecures and pensions and salaries, and also the expences of a thundering standing army, will continue to be made up, by taxes, by loans, by Exchequer bills, by every species of contrivance, to "the latest possible moment, and until the whole of the paper-system, "amidst the war of opinions, of projects, of interests and of passion, shall go to pieces like a ship upon the rocks." This, my Lord, was

my prediction, in that Address, which contained my taking-leare of England a little more than two years ago; and, perhaps, before I again see the shores of that beloved land, short as the interval may be, the prediction will have been completely fulfilled.

WM. COBBETT.

TO SIR ROBERT PEEL,

BARONET AND COTTON-WEAVER,

ON THE PETITION, PRESENTED BY HIM AGAINST THE RESOLUTIONS, IN PARLIAMENT, RELATIVE TO SPECIE-PAYMENTS.

SIR,

(Political Register, October, 1819.)

North Hampstead, Long Island, Aug. 1, 1819.

Few things have given me more pleasure than to hear your dismal tone at the Meeting, at the London Tavern, on the 18th of May last, and your more dismal tone, in the House of Commons, when you presented the Petition of the Merchants and Bankers. This tone bespoke the great change, which had, of late years, taken place. It said, that you felt, that the good old times of popular delusion, and of Church-and-king mobs, were gone for ever; and it told me, that you might possibly now be in a proper state of mind to hear some remarks on your past, as well as on your recent conduct. At any rate, this is a proper time, to offer such remarks to the people of England; for now it is that the natural fruits of your conduct and that of your numerous associates are ripening and shedding their poison.

I cannot, it seems to me, proceed, in the performance of this task in a better way than that of taking your two speeches, that made at the Tavern, and that male in the House, and comment upon them. You have been suug out of sight for some years; but, since you have thrusted yourself forward, you must take the consequences. The speech at the Tavera refers us back to the origin of the paper system; or, at least, to the epoch, when it became daringly unjust; and it also refers us to the part, which you acted, upon that niemorable occasion.

The speech at the Tavern is given to us as follows:—

"Sir ROBERT PEEL rose for the purpose of proposing certain resolutions. It gave him much pleasure to see upon the present occasion so numerous and re. spectable a Meeting. He would take the liberty of occupying their attention for some time, but it was not necessary to offer any apology, when the subject upon which they were assembled was of such vital importance to the country. He observed the effects of the Bank Restriction through its various stages, from the commencement to the present time. He was in Parliament in 1797, when that great and upright Minister, Mr. Pill, felt it his duty, under the circumstances

of the country, to bring forward this measure, which was dictated by necessity. Their enemies at that time, finding themselves unable to overcome them by force of arms, had recourse to another expedient, and endeavoured to ruin them in their finance. It was this which rendered it expedient to propose a Restriction of Cash Payments, and the measure was sanctioned in that City by the approbation of a most respectable meeting. He hoped a like result would take place on the present occasion, and that they would come to such Resolutions as would inspire both the Bank and the country with confidence. He did not attend there from any personal or interested motives, but because he felt that the interests of trade and commerce were deeply interested in the present question. He was under no obligation to the Bank, but as an Englishman he could not but feel the services they rendered to the public. Through their means the country was enabled to pass successfully through all its difficulties, to terminate a long and arduous struggle with glory, and to give security and independence to Europe. The measure, when first proposed, was to be of short duration, but it was continued from time to time. During its operation trade and commerce went on increasing, because there was abundant circulating medium to supply all demands. Previous to the Restriction gold was the medium through which trade was carried on. That being drawn away by the necessary calls of the public service, if paper was not substituted, the country could not stand. The Bullion Committee was the first that examined this subject, and it might be said that their Report was the origin of the two others, lately presented to both Houses of Parliament by the Committees appointed to inquire into the affairs of the Bank. He had a relation at the head of one of them, but he did not for this reason consider himself bound by the opinions they expressed, or answerable for them in any way. He differed from these reports in many respects There were, no doubt, many able men concerned in drawing them up, but they had not, and could not have, so many opportunities as persons in trade, of observing the effects produced by a sudden contraction of the circulating medium of the country. However able they might be, and however deep their speculative knowledge of the subject, he felt convinced, that the sound and most eligible mode of proceeding in the business, would originate in that great city. Knowing from experience the advantages arising from an abundant circulating medium, the conveniences it afforded to trade, and all branches of industry, he should be sorry to see the time when they were cramped in their circulation and credit.Whatever might be the effects attributed to the Bank Restriction, he would venture to say, that the country was at present in a more flourishing state than before that measure was passed. During its continuance trade and commerce were every day extending themselves. He was no longer in trade himself, but his heart was with it, and nothing could give him more pain than to see the means of carrying it on cramped in any degree."

Now, Sir, to follow the order of your speech, what right had you to insult any single Englishman, and much less a company of Englishmen, by saying that PITT was a great and upright Minister? As to his uprightness, he lies covered by bills of indemnity ten-fold, one of which was to protect his carcass, while alive, from the legal consequences of having, in a secret manner, misapplied large sums of the public money! If these be proofs of uprightness, infamy and honour must change significations. His acts of atrocious tyranny; his cruelties, committed on so many men, during the existence of his gagging and dungeon bills; his swarms of spies and informers; his unsparing plunder of the people : all these live in our recollection, and are called up fresh before us, when we hear men impudent enough to speak in his praise. The day is not, I trust, far distant, when those bands of scoundrels, called PITT CLUBS, will think it prudent to change their tone. They have insulted the nation long enough with praises bestowed upon this man; this inventor of all the infamous measures, which in the finance and taxing way, have harassed and tormented England.

As to the GREATNESS of Pitt, the subject of astonishment is, how any

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