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VOL. VI. No. 25.]

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LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1804. “Fu. 'Tis all a LIBEL-Paxton, Sir, will say. "P. Not yet, my Friend! to-morrow 'faith it may; "And for that very cause I print to-day."-POPE. Epil, to Sat.

DEFENCE OF MR. PITT.

[The following letter comes, as the reader will at once perceive, from a thorough-paced partisan of Mr. Pitt. It has been drawn forth by my letter to Mr. Pitt upon the subject of the Corn-bill; but it goes occasionally into other matters, and, on many accounts, I think it right to make some comments on most parts of it. With this view the paragraphs are numbered, in order to render a reference to thein more easy. The comments will be found under the head of Summary of Politics.]

SIR, 1. You are certainly liberal in admitting, and publishing the observations of those who differ with you, and I believe, that any thing of censure contained in them, would not induce you to be otherwise. I do assure you, that I have often, very often, read your papers with great satisfaction; that I have approved your sentiments on many subjects, and that 1 have admired the talents you have shewn in expressing them. I have thought your work very useful, in many respects, and I should be sorry to see it sinking in estimation. But, to be open with you, it has of late met with many animadversions unfavourable to it; and I always exceedingly lament the justice of them, when directed against a degree of scurrility and defamation, into which you sometimes descend, and, also, a party spirit, which leads you into unfairness.

2.-It has oftner been said, of late, than used to be the case, that you are not always correct in your observations, as to the truth of them, and that you oppose measures, because you do not like the men. It is within my own knowledge, that you were totally ignorant of every circumstance that concerned Mr. Canning and Lord Hawkesbury; and, though I am not at liberty to enter into the detail, be assured, that it would prove no dess honourable to the former, than disgraceful to the latter; and, that the whole conduct of the former, throughout the arrangements that were proposed, on Mr. Pitt's return to office, was most highly creditable, and acknowledged to be so, by the principal persons concerned. You may imagine, therefore, that it is unpleasant to read censures that are unjust, and that prove your entire ignorance of the real state of the case.

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3. With regard to your unfairness inopposing measures, I am disposed to address you in consequence of your observations to Mr. Pitt, in your last Register, on the subject of the Corn Bill. Your object is an attack on him, and not on the bill; and, though I exceedingly lament that it passed, and feel that it has as yet done mischief only, yet, I must confess, that your observations are futile and unfair, and unworthy of you.

4.-The animal muan is naturally, I fear, a rogue, and whatever gives him an opportu nity of playing off his tricks is to the bad. The Corn Bill gave a sanction to somewhat of higher prices, and they soon became much higher, than it could intend to authorize; and, I verily believe, that Mr., Pitt's single declaration that the harvest would be defi cient, went a great way towards producing a general cry of its being so, and towards raising the prices accordingly. But, assuredly the object of the Corn Bill was to equalise prices in general, and to prevent those distressing variations, which you yourself lamented in a former Register; and, if unluckily it had not passed just on the eve of an harvest, that is not, perhaps, beyond an average crop, it would have had the desired effect, and would have satisfied the farmer that he would always get enough for his corn. If the yield had been as it was last year, it would have been a beneficial measure, for certainly there was every reason to believe, in the spring, that wheat would not fetch £8 a load, and that the farmers would be ruined; and, therefore, it would have been desirable to secure them a fair price from exportation, of such superabundance, as, in that case, we should have had.

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5.-Why cavil at the expressions in the report, expect a supply," and "product of the growth." Surely they are both perfectly ineligible. It is not that the price is to have any thing to do with the seasons, and tempt them to give good expectancy, as your friend would ridiculously represent. But, that by holding out a bontis, we may tempt men to grow the corn, and bring it to market, and export the superabundance. And, surely, the product of the growth, is simply the yield after threshing, and you could not possibly apply it fairly to any idea of inone) to purchase supply.

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estates, yet to raise the rents upon every casual high price, is to perpetuate the mischief

of it.

6.-The great object certainly is to give add largely to his profits, only to make them the farmer a fair profit, year after year. Ca- regularly sufficient, and this would stop the sual high prices will undoubtedly induce him progress of the evil of raising rents, and reto continue the growth of as much corn as fusing leases; for the landlords have certainhis lands will bear, and so would a regularly a fair right to the full profit of their fair price; and there is no question, but that the latter would be far more beneficial both to the farmer and to the people. It would te far better for him to have 15 for every 8.-All your friend's reasoning about exload of wheat each year, than it would be for portation, appears to me founded upon false him to have only for two successive years, premises. Of corn there may be a superand £29 the third. He is led, perhaps, into abundance, and, then as the home market is extraordinary expenses by the extraordinary too low, a foreign market must be found in profits, and the 4th year the price may be order to support the farmer. But of all the reduced again to the lowest ratio; every ar- other articles he states, we have never a suticle may have increased, labour, and the perabundance, and therefore, always a fair value of every commodity in life; an income price at home, and no need to encourage estax comes upon him, and he would be ruin-portation; and really part of his reasoning is ed. To prevent these mischiefs, an equalization of his profits is surely desirable for him, and we had all rather pay a moderate price every year, for bread, than have it at a very cheap rate one year, and at a very dear one another; to say nothing of the other consequences from its advance in price.

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7.-A.market certainly should always exist, in order to encourage the provision of corn, and after two years of plenty it is evident, from the state of things in the last spring, that the home consumption was not sufficient to make a market; for if we had bad a very plentiful harvest this year, corn would hardly have been worth carrying to market at all. From ignorance of what a harvest will turn out, and which cannot be known till housed, every farmer will always grow as much wheat as his lands, in the usual course of cropping, will bear; and though other commodities have been raised from the excessive high prices that they obtained three years ago, they have not since fallen, and therefore, the quantity grown would not, if superabundant, have such desirable effect, and be a sufficient inducement to the farmer to sow the more. A regular settled price would have a much better effect, and go further towards increasing the population, upon your own argument, as it is of course the effect of two or three years easy condition, and is as much checked by a year's scarcity, and high prices, as it is encouraged by a year's abundance and cheapness. I lay it down as certain, that every farmer will grow all the wheat he can, either for the chance of casual high prices, or on expectation of bounty; but if five years of plenty were to succeed each other, he might be discouraged, and to prevent this, it is ne cessary to hold out the bounty, which so far aids the production. It is not intended to

childish, and unworthy the subject, and from the lowness of its value might deserve a bounty to be got rid of.

9.--I do not know at what age you might draw your conclusions about the producing capacity of the land, but you must now surely see, from experience, that two plentiful years give more than sufficient for the supply, and that one scanty year, succeed. ing them, creates a scarcity, or, at least, exorbitant prices; so that the sustenance requisite, and the productive power do not keep pace with each other. Nor will a bounty make them do so, more or less, nor is the Corn Bill expected to have such ef fect, by any of the four classes, for whom you provide arguments. It is only intended to prevent prices that are extravagant, either way; to prevent the farmer from being discouraged by such successive years of cheapness, as might give him no profit, and by allowing him a better price at home, maintain a juster equilibrium between consumption and production, when somewhat less of plenty ensues.

10.-I do not think that any farmer enters into the sort of calculation you suggest, about the future price, and the disposal of his land. If it is in turn for wheat, it is sown with wheat; for it is inpossible to decide that it may not answer perfectly well, as in the case of this very year, when there is an abundance on hand, and an average crop, and still an enormous price. If the yield is not good, the price will be accordingly high, and if it is good, it is surely desirable that a foreign market should afford a fair price, if our own will not. If he were to reserve the producing capacity as you imagine, he might very probably lose more by keeping it for a plentiful year, than be would by having a moderate price only, in

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a regular way, and if a sufficient price were secured to him, he would be always benefitted.

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11. You argue as if the difference could be made in a few days, instead of its being the work of nearly fourteen months, to alter the state of plenty or scarcity, and draw a lamentable picture of the effect of exportation, which, as it never could take place, under the circumstances of deficiency at home, but only of superabundance, could never produce any of the consequences you deprecate.

12-Though I lament that the bill passed, because from accidental circumstances it has been mischievous, yet, I think, it would be unwise to repeal it, until a fair trial of it has been made, on an average of crops, and of its effects, therefore, on the prices.

13.-I must pass over all your arguments, by which you would insinuate, that the measure originated in party politics, or that it had any connexion with the new income tax, as I cannot but consider such arguments wholly unfair to the person, against whom they are used, and wholly unworthy of yourself. The farmer is not benefitted by a casual high price, and you are not fair in your conclusion, that Mr. Pitt meant that a high price was favourable to the grower, because he stated that, at one time, it was too low-a medium is the best for you can hardly seriously suppose, that the value of every article sinks so immediately on the sinking of corn, as to make a low price most advantageous to him. I fear the value of such things as you mention, will never be reasonable again, and bence, more than from an excessive issue of bank paper, which you always suppose to be excessive, is derived the distressing depreciation of money.

14.-The price of labour in this part of the country has been raised a little, since the rise of the value of corn, but by no means as much as in my opinion it ought to have been raised. The labourer ought to live by his hire. It is destructive of his independence that he should not, But the miserable system of rates is now always resorted to, to make up the deficiency between the value of his labour, and the necessary expenditure for the support of his family. In my opinion every farmer should pay his own Jabourers; but that is not the case; and the consequence is, that every shopkeeper, and person in moderate circumstances, is charged in the rate for their support. The farmer therefore, does not, as you imagine, suffer in proportion to the rise in the price of corn; it is fit he should, and that he should pay,

in proportion to his gains, but he throws it off on others.

15. It is the fluctuation of prices that induces landlords to with-hold leases, but they would be granted for a sufficient term of years, if the average profits of the farmer were better ascertained, and could only be raised, when they would fairly bear an ad

vance.

16. But the whole system is at present radically bad, for it is my firm belief that there is much iniquity with respect to prices. It is notorious, that corn factors have been ready to buy up throughout the country all the wheat they could procure; and most certainly the country markets are now regulated by the reports from London, and by the state of each other, though at great distances, in a sort of way that never used to be the case. A rider will attend three and four markets on the same day, and it is in vain to deny that speculation has thrown its baleful eyes and hands on the first articles of necessity. The price of the market is not according to a balance between consumption and production, winch is sufficiently proved, in my idea, from the extraordinary variations in price, and report, though it may not make actual combination, (which may not be possible,) has yet some effect, by influencing each individual in the supply. It is in this respect that I think the Corn Bill was mischievous, coming upon a harvest that was not generally abundant. But I cannot agree to any one principle, on which you oppose it; and you appear to me to have attributed intended effects to it, which were never thought of at all, on purpose only, to argue against them, and indirectly to attempt to weaken Mr. Pitt's power, by endeavouring to effect the repeal of a measure he carried. You have hatched up mischiefs, that never could arise from it, because it would never operate, when they were possible; you have perverted and misrepresented its purposes and effects, and treated it altogether in a manner unworthy of yourself.

17. Before I conclude this communication with you. I must beg that you would be cautious in the sentiments you express respecting the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. Your sentiments have great weight, and I am sorry to see them incline towards the admission of sectarics especially, who are already labouring incessantly to the destruction of the Established Church. You are very little aware of their numbers throughout the country, and of their mischievous influence on the minds of the common people. Those of the most discordant

principles unite for the sake of strengthened | Sir Edward Coke,* thought some explanaopposition, and are always at work. The - catholics. I verily believe, are barmless, and the absurdity of some of their docrines and ceremonies, makes them nefficient. But the presbyterian and independent hate our establishment in church and state, work insidiously on points that do not appear material, debase the minds of common people, and would produce, as formerly, incalculable mischief. I would write to you further on these points, but have already detained you too long, and have not myself time to add more.I am. your faithful humble servant, P.-Hints Dec. 11, 1804.

INCAPACITY OF HENRY THE SIXTH.

LETTER VI.

tion of the office of Protector a necessary branch of his Institutes; but, to a bare list and short commendation of the principal passages to be found in the rolls of this reign (for even he has not included all)he bas only added a solitary reference to Holinshed, for historical information. Sir William Blackstone, in sending us back to him, has given a new sanction to the same authorities, and, in adopting the langoage of his advice,+ has pointed, though perhaps unconsciously, to a peculiar and important doetrine, which they contain.

There must of course be always a greater degree of difficulty and delicacy in ascer taining when the one sort of incapacity begins to exist than the other. The fact, however, once admitted, in the principle of

SIR.The reign of this pious and well-procedure, no distinction seems to have been meaning, but weak and unfortunate prince, made. And Sir Edward Coke clearly makes which our general historians only mark by none. Though he professes to speak only losses and disgrace abroad, discontent, in- of the case, where the king is of tender surrection, and civil slaughter at home, is age, yet he directs our attention to the first one of the most interesting in our ancient protectorate of the Duke of York, as one annals for the development of the doctrines source of instruction On the other hand, of our constitution, as it was then under- it has been already hinted, that, when stood. It may surprise many to be told, the office was conferred on that prince, the that we may there discover the traces of a most scrupulous regard was paid to the just theory, perhaps more scientifically ex- precedents of the king's infancy. Indeed pressed, though not in all respects so con- there is but one circumstance that can be sistently and successfully applied, as that supposed to make any difference between which we hold at this day relative to the the one case of incapacity and the other; it mixed nature of our government: yet this is, that in the one there cannot be any is certainly true. In the repeated discus- Prince of Wales, in the other there may; sions which took place on the means of sup- in fact, there was a Prince of Wales in the plying the deficiency, when the king was only instance of that kind, which has ever himself unable to discharge the functions of actually occurred, and may God in his the regal office, our ancestors by degrees mercy, so often vouchsafed to this country, systematized more and more. While the graciously grant, that no other such ever splendor of the monarchy was overshadow- may occur! But, in that single instance, ed, they could look more steadily at the ob- the prince was an infant in the cradle. Whejects which stood nearest to. it. The ques-ther, if there had then been a son capable of tion in particular which occasioned these high deliberations, was originally, and hitherto finally settled by them. Indeed it was of very frequent recurrence in different shapes, and at intervals more or less remote; for the single life of Henry the Sixth fur; nished examples of each sort of personal incapacity in the sovereign, natural and acci· dental, during infancy, and in consequence sof disease. The statesmen of those times, therefore, left posterity little to desire on that score, except that the authentic monuments which remain to us, had been in some parts fuller, more regular, and exact. Yet such as they are, all the records of all our other parliaments put together do not contain any thing worthy of notice in comparison of them. The great oracle of English law,

sustaining the whole weight of the government during the absence of his father, the parliamentary leaders of that day would have determined otherwise than they did

* 4 Inst. 58,

That" it is the surest way to have him "(the Protector) made by the great council "in parliament." The "great council" is, properly speaking, the peerage, and this we shall see to have been in the time of Henry the Sixth, a distinct claim of the lords, acknowledged, regarded in practice. Perhaps it was sounder, and founded on a more solid theory, than may, at first sight, be imagined. But that will be for consideration hereafter.

See Letter III. p. 580, of this Volume.

(except as to the share of power which they might have confided to him) may be a question, on which it is possible that some men may reason one way, and some another, from the same declarations and actions. It is not my design to enter upon it here. What I have said was merely by way of caution, that you, Sir, and your readers, might not expect what they assuredly will not find. All that I have undertaken is, to lay faithfully before you and them what was really done. And this I shall attempt in the natural order, deducing my subject from its origin. Of course I shall intersperse such other more general historical matter as may seem necessary or expedient for the purposes of elucidation and connexion.

The situation in which parliament stood at the accession of Henry the Sixth, was favourable to the establishment of any claim, which the two houses might think it just to advance. Under the two preceding kings, of the line of Lancaster, the power of that assembly had been gradually consolidated and augmented. Henry the Fourth came as the avenger and restorer of parliament, slighted, debased, over-awed, and even surrounded with armed men, by the violent and ill-advised Richard. The defect of his title supplied only by the legislative settlement of the crown on him and his issue, and the many rebellions which were continually starting up against him, compelled him, even if his inclination had leaned the other way, to uphold and strengthen that authority which was the surest support of his own. His son, the victorious Henry the Fifth, pursued the same policy from different motives. Like his illustrious progenitor, Edward the Third, while running the career of military glory and foreign conquest, he was necessarily dependent on those, from whose liberal grants alone he could derive the means of success. The last time that he met them, he submitted to them one of the most undoubted prerogatives of the crown. He presented the Treaty of Troyes for their confirmation, by one article of which he engaged never to make peace with the Dauphin, without the consent of the three estates of the realm. In the mean-time the condition of the commons, individually and collectively, was improved and raised. Slavery among the peasantry began to wear away. Laws from time to time were found, or were supposed, to be necessary for regulating the increasing class of labourers in husbandry The small freeholders grew proportionably more numerous, and the county-elections became

* The rea state of the country in this re

in general what may be fairly called popular. When party ran high at home, the power and influence of the great lords, mu tually opposing and opposed, afforded to the inferior gentry and the mass of the electors the opportunity of making either scale preponderate according to their own honest preference. When the great lords and knights were absent in foreign wars, the former could be lit le consulted in a canvass, and the place of the latter, as candidates, was usurped by esquires and persons of still lower rank, till restraining statutes were passed, which required certain qualifications of property both in the electors and the elected. As a seat in the House of Commons came to be an object of amb:tion, returns were irregularly and corruptly obtained, and hence new penalties were enacted to keep sheriffs to the impartial discharge of their duty. The duration of parliaments was insensibly lengthened, and the * prerogative of continuing the same assembly by prorogations was more frequently exercised. The effect of this was more especially relt in the House of Commons: it rendered them more expert in the science of legislation, so as to enable them to prepare their petitions more nearly in the form of acts; and it cherished in them a sort of corporate spirit, which united them among themselves into a firmer and more powerful body.

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From the time that Henry the Fifth first

spect (though at a period a little later) is shewn in a more lively manner by the facts stated in my IVth Letter, p. 80 of this Volume, and the Letter of your Correspondent, a Norfolk Freckolder, (for which I return him my thanks) than in any account of general historiaus. Upon one of the letters quoted by your correspondent (No. 00, in Vol. III.) Sir John Fenn truly remarks"This is a true picture of modern election. "eering, and such a letter might be written "from any county or town in the kingdom "during the time that a choice for members

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was depending:" and yet, this is clearly the same election, on occasion of which the same editor had before rather hastily asserfed the dependence of the House of Commons on the great Lords in those days. The restraining Statutes, whether right or wrong in policy, all go to prove the actual existence of a popular spirit still more early. Such remedies presume the supposed evil to be of adult growth.

*The parliament in 1407 under Henry the IVth held three sessions, and sate 159 days, between March and December. This was the longest parliament which had ever been known.

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