Yet, thus it must go on, until a change take place. The middle class of the people are falling into pauperism at a great rate. The poor-rates will soon divide the ranny. Here is a man, who does not like to be shut up in a dungeon. Oh, the villain! Not like a dungeon? He wants to subvert the constitution! Here is another; who dislikes to see a punk's foot-produce with the fund-holders, boy made a military commander. the army and the pensioned lords Oh! Wretch He certainly wants and ladies; or, at least, they to subvert the constitution! In would soon do it, if the thing could short, any man, that does not like go on; and, nothing but a Reany thing that it suits any bo- form, that very Reform, which roughmonger to do, or to say, is you have been advised to reproaccused of wanting to subvert the bate, will save England from total constitution. And, of course, this confusion, or utter degradation. accusation will be in vogue, and will be dinned in the ears of your Royal Highness even until the very hour of the dissolution of the Borough-tyranny. Your Royal Highness adopts the idea, that the "projects" of the Reformers are wild and visionary, that, if adopted, they would not answer the end professed to be had in view; that Reform Your Royal Highness has been advised to say, that the distress is" would aggravate the evils which local, by which, I suppose, it is it is professed to remedy." Now, meant to tell the world, that it is Sir, I think it has been shown a confined to here and there a place! thousand times over, that Reform, What surprising delusion! You, and Reform alone, can cure the Sir, are the deceived person. It evils. But, at any rate, the evils is not the people who are deceived. have not arisen through the adIt is you and your family. What vice, or measures, of Reformers. astonishing delusion! The cause The evils are the work of the Boof the distress is one, it is general, roughmongers. They have been it affects every part of the coun- engendered, fostered, and brought try and every rank in life and every to their present horrible magnispecies of property and of labour. tude, by Boroughmongers. Why, From all parts of the kingdom then, are you to conclude, without men of property are coming to this reasons given, that, to put an end country; and here they all re- to the power of the Boroughmonmain. More than eighteen thou-gers would aggravate the evils? sand families have actually come and settled on lands within the last 22 months, These remain for Their money.comes with them. They bring away the substance and sinews of England. Many families, now in New York, have been sent out at the expence of their parishes! What a disgraceful thing! But, the disgrace is the smallest part of the consideration. Every sum, paid to send out such families, is so much lost to England; besides the loss of the persons. ever. Upon what ground, I should be glad to know, is it, that the babblers of the Boroughmongers, that Perry and Waithman and the Russells call us wild and visionary? What we propose is plain to the senses and easy of execution. Every one can understand it. All agree, that things cannot go on in the present way. And our opponents have their schemes. Their main scheme, and the only one, that they have ever seriously thought of, is to obtain cash-pay ments, and to keep up an army sufficient to enable them to set us contained lessons for Mr. PEEL, Lord at defiance for ever. But, they LIVERPOOL and Lord must come to cash-payments, or GRENVILLE. Every one who they are never safe for an hour. read their speeches said, that they Therefore, the scheme for cash-had just come, piping hot, from payments is their scheme: it is reading LETTER II. TO THE their only scheme: it is the last PRINCE. Indeed, Sir, though shot in their locker. And, of all they are experienced debatethe wild and visionary schemes battlers, they are very shallow that ever issued from the heads persons. They are wholly unfit of weak and obstinate men, this to form any plan for extricating is the wildest, this is the most the country from its difficulties. visionary; and, the fate of it will They are a sort of political spebe something like this: that, after cial-pleaders. They are wholly having caused unspeakable mise- unfit for the times and wholly unry amongst the poorer classes; worthy of public confidence. after having crushed a great part These men, with their associates, of the middle classes; after having Sidmouth, Canning, and Castledriven away to foreign lands a reagh, thought, in 1817, that, in very considerable portion of the putting down my writings, they real resources of the country; were getting rid of their greatest, after having brought the nation if not their only, danger. How to the eve of some terrible con- busy they were in issuing circuvulsion: after all this, it will be lars, in setting their Magistrates abandoned, and never will an ex- to arrest venders, in crying down pectation of seeing cash-payments, my "trash." If they had been again exist in any mind but that only half as assiduous in reading of a born-ideot. This result can and studying that "trash," how be prevented only by a previous much better it would have been puff-out, produced by a convulsion for England at this day! or by the sowing of Bank Notes. Now, Sir, for the correctness of this prediction I pledge my reputation as a politician, and, if I could, I would pledge my life. This will, probably, have no effect with the Boroughmongers, but, Sir, ought it not to have some effect with you? I have been right, as to this matter, hitherto. What I have been saying, as to the nature and effects of the papersystem, is now said, almost in my own words, by the Boroughmongers themselves; and, Sir, is it very great presumption in me to say, that these my opinions, as to their remedy will, in a short time, be echoed by the same perSous? My letters to your Royal Highness, published in March, And yet, with all these facts before us, I, who speak the voice of the Reformers, am to be accused of having wild and visionary projects! The impudence of your advisers is equal to their ignorance, or they would now, at any rate, hesitate a little in pronounc ing such censures. The remedies for the evils that exist are, to me, clear, plain, easy, safe, just and full of the seeds of peace and good-will. These remedies would change the face of things as that of the fields and gardens is chang ed by the arrival of spring after a dreary winter. But, I know well, that these remedies never can be adopted without a reform of the Commons House of Parlia ment. With such a reform, with a people conciliated, encouraged, and full of gratitude and hope, how great and how happy would England become! I say, and do not think that I shall be regarded as presumptuous, that I have no doubt of being able to point out the means of carrying on the government of the kingdom, without exciting a single murmur on the score of taxation, and, at the same time, of providing most amply for maintaining the dignity and character and power of the country. And, why should I be deemed wild and visionary? I have had great opportunity for observation, reflection, study. I have been sober, industrious, and have taken delight in the pursuit of politics. I have had no selfish purposes to blind my judgment. My great and constant desire has been to promote the happiness and renown of England, and to find my reward in the fame naturally attendant on the success of exertions pointing to that end. And, with all these circumstances in favour of my coming to correct conclusions, say, that I possess the means of pointing out how the nation may easily and justly be rescued from all its difficulties; and that the schemes of your advisers and of the Boroughmongers, are "wild and visionary." The Boroughmongers used to laugh at my confident predictions. They do not laugh now, Sir; they grin and curse. They may as well relax in time; for, they must yield in the end. I verily believe, that, as to the money concern, the proper remedies would have been adopted long ago, if those remedies had not been so well known to be mine. Have the proud, insolent, envious creatures mended the matter? Has BURDETT, by his long continued intrigues to keep me out of Parliament, secured that elevation, to which I had mainly assisted to raise him, and which I never envied him one single moment in my life? Has any man, or any body of men, succeeded in their attempts to pull me down, or to keep me down? Where are now Gibbs and his set? Where are the hundreds of hirelings, set up to write me down? Where are Burdett and his Rump Committee? Where are all the host of foes, that, from various motives, have assailed me with a species of hostility that seemed to argue that they thought the salvation of their souls depended upon my destruction? Where is Lord Folkstone? Conning over, I suppose, that petition of mine which he refused to present, in order to learn, whether it be possible for him, on a future occasion, to be right without adopting the principles of that petition. He may conn, as long as he pleases: he never will be right without adopting those principles; and now he never shall adopt them without my claiming them as mine. There is, in the hostility which arises from envy, something more hateful than that which arises from any other motive. The fear of danger, the hope of gain, want, revenge, create an hostility, which may admit of some apology; but that which arises from envy is built on a conviction that the object of it merits love, friendship, or admiration. This hostility, too, shows itself under the most hateful of forms: those of meanness and hypocrisy. Look, Sir, at the paltry pretences of the gabblers in parliament and of "the "race that write." You will see them, in depicting the evils of the paper-bubble, using my arguments in my very words; and, at the same time, pretending that the discovery is one of their own, upon the principles of Adam Smith and of Old Jenkinson, whose writings would lead to exactly opposite conclusions. Lord GRENVILLE alluded to an author, whom he did not name, from whom he had derived great light on the subject; but, he took care to add, that this author was, now "in Europe!" What, then, he was afraid, that the public might think he alluded to an author in America? What despicable meanness! But, what folly too! For did this dull man imagine, that a knowledge of my writings could be hidden by any thing that he could do, or leave undone? 66 However, Sir, TIME now stands, the Palm in one hand and the Fool's Cap in the other. The nation are looking on; and the award will soon be made. With a most ardent and anxious desire, that your Royal Highness and your Family may, in the approaching crisis, act a part that will entitle you to the love and admiration of your now suffering people, and that our beloved country may speedily exchange misery for happiness, slavery for freedom, disgrace for glory, I am, and hope I shall always remain, Your most obedient and most humble Servant, WM. COBBETT. I have now fixed on the 10th of October for the day of my sailing from New York. I shall go in the Quaker-Ship, the AMITY, to Liverpool. So that I shall see how things are in November. In the meanwhile, let me recommend caution as to language as well as movements. Our cause is too good to require violence of any sort. We need not be vehement, when all goes as we could wish. "Sober; Sober!" as the Somersetshire people say; and all will be well. That, which we want to see go to pieces, will go to pieces almost of itself.-I do not return home to help knock it to pieces; but to help to prevent its going to pieces being injurious to the king and people. Entered at Stationers' hall. Printed by H, HAY, 11, Newcastle Street, Strand, for T DOLBY, 299, Strand. COBBETT's WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER 321] LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1819. ΤΟ THE PRINCE REGENT, On his Proclamation against the Reformers. New York, 10 Sept. 1819.' MAY IT PLEASE YOUR ROYAL [399 seat-selling crew expect. It is, one would think, impossible for any man in his senses not to per ceive, that a great change must speedily take place in the nation's affairs yet, this stupid and insolent crew really do appear not to perceive it. They seem to resemble a gormandizing animal of prey, which is killed in the midst of its meal, and has its plunder and its breath knocked out of its body by one and the same blow. HIGHNESS, That Proclamations are not laws we have to thank those, who brought CHARLES the deluded and obstinate to the block. Nevertheless they are documents, which ought always to have great weight with the people; because" they never ought to be issued but upon proper occasions, and ought always to be evidently tending to the general good. Whether these circumstances belong to the Proclamation of the 30th of July last, we shall presently see. reserve. ཀ By his Royal Highness the "A PROCLAMATION. I, of course, look upon this do-' cument as the work of your Mi-Great Britain meetings of large "Whereas in divers parts of nisters and their prompters; and numbers of his Majesty's subshall, as I have a right to do, com- "jects have been held upon the ment upon it without the least"requisition of persons who, or It contains denuncia-some of whom, have, together. treasonable speeches addressed "with others, by seditious and to the persons assembled, endeavoured to bring into hatred "and contempt the Government and Constitution established in this realm, and particularly the and to excite disobedience to "Commons House of Parliament, the laws and insurrection against his Majesty's authority: tions and threats against great "And whereas it hath been re Printed by H. HAY, 11, Newcastle Street, Strand; 66 "We, therefore, being resolved to repress the wicked, editions, and treasonable practice aforesaid, have thought fit, in the name and on the behalf of his "presented unto us, that at one "of such meetings the persons "there assembled, in gross viola-" "tion of the law, did attempt to "constitute and appoint, and did as much as in them lay, consti-"Majesty, and by and with the "tute and appoint, a person then advice of his Majesty's Privy "nominated, to sit in their name "Council, to issue this our Royal "and on their behalf in the Com- Proclamation, solemnly warn"mons House of Parliament; and ing all his Majesty's liege sub"there is reason to believe that "jects to guard against every at"other meetings are about to be "tempt to overthrow the law, and "held for the like unlawful pur-" to subvert the government so pose: happily established within this "And whereas many wicked" realm, and to abstain from every "and seditious writings have been "measure inconsistent with the 66 printed, published, and indus-" peace and good order of society, 66 triously circulated, tending to "and earnestly exhorting them 66 promote the several purposes" at all times, and to the utmost "aforesaid, and to raise ground-of their power, to avoid and "less jealousies and discontents" discountenance all proceedings "in the minds of his Majesty's "tending to produce the evil ef"faithful and loyal subjects: "fects above described: ແ 66 "at "And we do strictly enjoin all "And whereas we have been "further given to understand," his Majesty's loving subjects to "that, with the view of better en- "forbear from the practice of all "abling themselves to carry into "such military training and exer"effect the wicked purposes afore-cise as aforesaid, as they shall "said, in some parts of the king-"answer the contrary thereof at "dom, men, clandestinely and un"their peril. "lawfully assembled, have prac- "And we do charge and com"tised military training and exer- mand all Sheriffs, Justices of ❝cise: "the Peace, Chief Magistrates of "And whereas the welfare and "Cities, Boroughs, and Corpora "happiness of this kingdom do,"tions, and all other Magistrates "under Divine Providence, chief-" throughout Great Britain, that ❝ly depend upon a due submis-"they do, within their respec"sion to the laws, a just reliance" tive jurisdictions, make dili"on the integrity and wisdom of "gent inquiry, in order to dis"Parliament, and a steady per-cover and bring to justice the "severance in that attachment to "authors and printers of such "the Government and Constitu-"wicked and seditious writings ❝tion of the realm, which has " as aforesaid, and all who shall 166 ever prevailed in the minds of "circulate the same; and that "the people thereof: and where they do use their best endea "as there is nothing which we so "vours to bring to justice all per"earnestly wish as to preserve "sons who have been or may "the public peace and prosperity," be guilty of uttering seditious "and to secure to all his Majes-"speeches and harangues, and all "ty's liege subjects the entire "persons concerned in any riots "enjoyment of their rights and li- or unlawful assemblies which, "berties: "on whatever pretext they may |