"their hand, and cause them to cease feeding the flock; "neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; "for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them."

It is clear, from all that we behold, that the church, as by law established, has not answered, or, at least, that it does not now answer, the purposes for which it was intended. It does not hold the people in the bond of faith; it does not promote peace and good-will; but, on the contrary, creates eternal divisions and feuds, while it consumes uselessly a large part of the produce of the land, and takes from the farmer the means of giving you, the labourers, wages sufficient for you to support your wives and children. Besides this, this establishment is a hot-bed for breeding gentlemen and ladies, who must be kept without work, all their lives, somehow or other; and taxes must be raised, and are raised, upon you, and upon all of us, to pay them salaries, stipends, pensions, or something or other. This is so now, and it must be so as long as this establishment shall exist. The sons of the parsons are, for the far greater part, kept by the public in some shape or other; the husbands of the daughters are kept in the same way; they engross the offices, and the employments, and shut out the sons of farmers and tradesmen. do not blame the government for this; for, in the nature of things, it must be so; it is a necessary effect of the establishment. It is the only establishment in the world, or that there ever was in the world, the priests of which are allowed to marry. Wherever there are priests paid by the public, they are not allowed to marry; and it is clear that they ought not to be so allowed; for, otherwise, what is it, but to tax the people to keep a race of men and women to breed persons to be maintained by the public, and to take away from all the industrious classes the chance, even the chance, of sharing in the honours and powers of the country.

I

It is, in short, an establishment which makes the people keep fathers and mothers, that they may breed children for them to keep also! And such a thing never was heard of before in the whole world.

My friends, labourers of England, there is a PARSON, of the name of MALTHUS, who has written a book to show that you breed too fast; and in order to check your breeding, he proposes, that, if you be married, you shall have no relief from the parish, but shall be left to starve. The Scotch and Irish place-hunters, who live, or want to live, on your labour, applaud this parson Malthus to the skies, and so do our pensioners and parsons. But neither Malthus nor any of his crew ever propose to check the breeding of the PARSONS and the PENSIONERS! Think of that. They grudge YOU, who make all the food, clothing, houses, and fuel; they grudge you parish relief; but they do not grudge to parsons and pensioners paid out of the taxes raised on you! Oh! the insolent ruffians! Is there not a just and merciful God; and is his hand for ever to be stayed! The ruffians have seen, of late years, a million and a half of guineas given by the parliament, out of the taxes, "for the RELIEF of the POOR CLERGY of the church of England;" they know that YOU pay a large part of these taxes; and yet they would refuse you relief in cases even of the extremest distress!

But as long as this establishment shall exist, so long must it continue to inflict evils on the country; it must of necessity take from the farmer and tradesman and merchant and manufacturer the means of paying just wages to those whom they employ; and there is no man can doubt, that it is the want of just wages that is the cause, and the only cause, of the present troubles of the country. Well, then, ought not this cause to be removed? And how is it to be removed? without legally taking away those tithes and other public pro

perty, the leaving of which in the hands of the parsons pro ́duce this calamitous cause. The establishment does not now answer the purposes for which it was intended; those who receive the revenues are, in great part, absent from the parishes; the churches are empty; the meeting-houses are full; those who do the work of the church are living in penury; and, more than all the rest, the present distribution of this property, helps to make the working-people so poor and miserable, that they must either die with starvation, or resort, for the purpose of obtaining the means of sustaining life, to acts of violence dangerous to the peace of the country. And is it not, therefore, just to take this property "THE SAFETY OF THE PEOPLE IS THE away? SUPREME LAW." How can they be safe, then, as long as they are constantly exposed either to starvation or to the consequences of unlawful acts? And if they must (and I have shown that they must) be constantly thus exposed, as long as this establishment shall exist, are the people to perish, are we all to be ruined and destroyed, for the sake of those who profit from this establishment? Is that just? Why, then, it is just to repeal and abolish this establishment.

THIRD the measure is necessary. This I have, indeed, just showed; but there are still further reasons why this measure is necessary. The weight of taxes is one great cause of the distress and the troubles of the country. Your wages go, one half, to pay taxes. More than the half of these taxes are required to pay the interest of what is called the NATIONAL DEBT. It is impossible to collect such heavy taxes without a large army. Therefore, it is in vain to hope for relief as long as this Debt, to its present amount, shall exist. The Debt-people receive more than they ought to receive. Every man of sense says this, and the present First Lord of the Admiralty (a very clever man) proposed to take 30 per cent., or nearly a third part, away from the Debt

people. Now, if this Debt were justly reduced, and the tithes and other church-property sold, and the money paid to the Debt-people, the Debt would be nearly paid off, the army might be disbanded, the heavy taxes taken off, and the nation be again great and happy, the working-people well fed and clad as their great-grandfathers were, and the employers and their property in a state of safety. And are we to forego all this; are we to give up the hope of ever seeing England happy again, merely for the sake of upholding this establishment of parsons and bishops! It is just that the Debt-people should be paid less than they are now paid; every one must confess, and every one does confess, this; but every one feels and says that it would be injustice,, monstrous injustice, to call down the curses of all mankind, to take one single farthing from the Debt-people, so long as the clergy continue to receive their enormous emoluments. And now, my friends, I haye, I think, proved the legality, the justice, and the necessity of this measure. dislike to the religion of the church in which I was born and bred and have always continued; I have great respect for many of the working-clergy, whom I know to be amongst the most worthy of men, and whose lot would be mended by the measure that I propose, as religion and morality would also be advanced by it. I am actuated by no antipathy or personal ill-will: I wish for the measure, for the reasons that I have given; and I exhort you to join cordially with your employers in petitions, and in all other lawful efforts, to cause that measure to be adopted, and that, too, immediately, being thoroughly convinced that, until it be adopted, England will never again know happiness.

I am,

My good and honest Friends,

I have no

Your faithful servant,

WM. COBBETT.

168

TWO-PENNY TRASH; 1ST JANUARY, 1831.

P. S. What I would wish to have done with regard to the present parsons I will clearly state in my next letter to you; but I will say this much now, that I wish them to be treated with full as much lenity and indulgence as the Catholic clergy were treated with, when the tithes and other church-property were taken from them; and this, I am sure they cannot complain of with any show of decency.

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