so often told you, they cannot raise taxes. paid partly in wages and partly in poor-rates, are actually clad in part at the expence of the farmers and landlords in England; because, though they pay the Master Manufacturer for what he has paid in the wages, they do not pay the poor dogs of farmers for what they have paid to eke out the wages. The Master Manufacturer makes no charge in his invoice on account of poor-rates, and, if he did, he might keep his goods at home; for they could be made and sold as cheap here, especially as they would not have an import tax to pay. So that, at this moment, you are actually forcing an export trade, which is a charge upon the poor-rates, a loss to the nation at large, and again to the nations you trade with; and, this is one cause, amongst many, of the ruin and misery that now stare you in the face, and frighten you half to death. The same profound Lord said, at the opening of this session, when speak ing on the poor-laws and the distresses of the parishes, that, the main thing was to find employment for the poor; and that he would have them set" to "dig a hole one day and fill it up the "next, rather than let them remain "idle." Profound Statesman! Worthy desciple of PITT! Worthy fellow. scholar with CANNING! Worthy pupil of GEORGE ROSE! He would have this, and he would have that, with the English People! There are very few amongst those, whom he speaks of in this way, who could not tell him, that it is not employment that is wanted, but the means of paying for the employment; and, the Parishes have now told you this too; for, they tell you that they have no longer the means to pay the poor-rates. So different a thing it is, LORD CASTLE-portance as Lord Castlereagh's digging REAGH, to manage the affairs of an assembly of German Princes, or to manage a House of Commons, and to manage the affairs of a nation in distress! Probably this loan to Parishes may be confined to certain manufacturing districts; and, if this be the case, it will be just so much money given away to foreign nations, in whatever degree it be employed to relieve the Poor, who may be employed in the making of goods for those nations. Whatever portion of this money goes to feed the man who is making goods for exportation, in that same proportion it will operate as a bounty to the Master, and will not, in fact, relieve the man at all. In short, it is as clear as day-light, that, unless the labour bestowed upon goods be paid for by the consumer, there must be, to those who pay for the man's work in poor rates, a dead loss to the amount of those poor-rates; and thus are the very vitals of the nation drawn out in this way, and transported, as far as the exportation of such goods goes, to foreign lands; and the farmers of America, who wear English cloth, made by those who are This matter is of quite as much im and filling up of holes, and, therefore, I will try if I cannot make you understand it, though I feel by no means so confident of success, as I should if I were addressing myself to my old friends, "THE WEAVER-BOYS OF LANCASHIRE." It is a notion, entertained by nobody but such men as Mr. CURwEN, Lord CASTLEREAGH, and the like, that poor-rates press particularly, and in the end, upon the farmer. The farmer is paid back by the consumer of his produce; and, thus, as with all other taxes, the weight is at last upon the consumer, in proportion to the quantity or amount of his consumption. Thus, then, it is the whole nation who pay the poor-rates, not excepting those paupers themselves, who earn any part of their living. Very well now let us suppose, that SIR ROBERT SPINDLE is a master-manufacturer, who employs a hundred hands, who receive amongst them 20 pounds in poor-rates weekly. In the year they would receive 1040 pounds. SIR ROBERT has rivals in the manufacturers of the country to which he sends all his goods, who, if he pay his workmen more than six shillings a-week, will be able to under-sell, that this is not the case in England, at this time, is notorious, a fact full as worthy of your attention as any part of that long discourse about trade and manufactures, with which the sapien Mr. BROUGHAM entertained his wor ended, as his discourses of an inoffensive rature generally do, without leav ing the smallest impression upon the minds of the public. him. Therefore, he must get his goods made by paying this wages, or shut up shop. But, as 6s. a week would not be sufficient to enable SIR ROBERT'S Workmen to carry their carcasses to his manufactory in the morn-thy associates last winter, and which ing and home again at night, and, as he will, of course, not employ them at a loss, the Overseers of the poor, rather than pay the poor creatures the whole 10s. a week, give them 4s, a I intended here to enter into an exaweek each, to enable them to get the mination of the Report of your FIother six from SIR ROBERT. SIR NANCE COMMITTEE, relative to SiROBERT, thus furnished with a year's necures and to the Standing Army in goods, packs them up, and off he time of Peace; but, it will, I perceive, ships them, charging in his invoice for require more elbow room than I have raw-material, for his profit, and 1560 now at my command. I shall, therepounds for wages. He does not charge fore, postpone this examination to the the 1040 pounds which his workmen date of my Number succeeding the have received out of the poor-rates. next, and will conclude the present He would gladly do it, and laugh at with some observations, applicable to the Overseers; but, he dares not, for the general state of the question beif he did, rivalship abroad and cor-tween the government and the people. ruption at home would send his goods. back to him as being too dear. Yet, this 1040 pounds has been paid by the nation; the 1040 pounds are really in these goods and is not this, then, a dead loss to the nation, and a clear gain to the country to which the goods go? SIR ROBERT has his profits, though the goods are sold for less than they have cost: and so has a thief who sells a five guinea watch for a crown picce; but who would not think the owner of it mad, if he were to look upon the sale of his watch as something fortunate, and as a mark of prosperity? When, therefore, the COURIER is again talking of the "immense orders" that are pouring into Manchester and Birmingham, let him recollect, that they are so many orders for parcels of poor-rutes, which, when they have been raised from the general industry of England, are going off to render life easy and happy, to fruetify the soil, augment the population and the power, in other countries. It is only when the labour in the making of goods is wholly paid for in the price of the goods themselves, that the exportation of manufactures can be advantageous to any country; and The Ministry and those who fill the Seats have not ignorance to plead. Indeed, you will not do that. That would be a shocking plea for the up-` holders of the system of " a Heavenborn Minister;" and a still more shocking plea for "the wisdom of the House," which is eternally dinnéd in our ears. Neither can you pretend that this accumulation of evil has come upon the country without your being warned of all the danger, and without the means of prevention being pointed out. My writings, if you put forward this plea, are always at hand to silence you. For more than twelve years have I been warning you. The causes of the nation's final ruin were all then clearly explained; the means of prevention were pointed out, and that, too, with the most disinterested views, and with feelings wholly divested of factiousness; and, as much pains has been taken to destroy me, as if I had all the while been plotting to procure the murder of the king and the subjugation of the counrty. Sir, are we to be made answerable for what is called our seditious con duct, and, are we to be told, that there is no responsibility to attach to those, who have had all the powers of the nation in their hands, while causes have been suffered to produce the present dreadful effects? The Ministry and the Parliament assert their right to pass Acts to check our writings from circulating, to prevent us from reading what they do not like we should read, and to place all our very persons in the absolute power of the Secretaries of State. And, are we to expect any thing short of perfect wisdom in persons invested with, and actually exercising, such powers? Shall those, who have such an absolute command of all the means of a nation, and who reject with disdain the petitions of so large a portion of that nation, put in the plea of a want of foresight when the nation is brought to ruin, or of a want of power to extricate her from that ruin? Only a few years ago, enumerations were made and books printed at an enormous expence, more altogether than seventy thousand pounds, in orde: to prove the vast increase of the Population of the country; and you well remember what a boasting was made about it; what a clear proof it was deemed of the growing prosperity and power of the country; and what stifling cheers it brought down upon PITT, when he stated it in answer to those, who had called the war a cause of wasting the country. And, shall we now live while these cheerers are complaining of a surplus population, and are preaching at second-hand the doctrine of moral restraint, and while they are, at the same time, laying a tax upon Bachelors, and whipping girls for having bastard children; shall we live and see and hear all this, with out daring to open our lips, or to move our pens; and that, too, while a hundred thousand pounds a year have, for many years, been paid out of the taxes to relieve the Poor Clergy of the richest Church in the World, without apparent dread of producing a surplus population of priests? No: such a state of things cannot be lasting, and especially when it is no longer possible to deceive the people as to the real state of the case. It is not sedition that is dreaded. Itis truth that is dreaded. The people of England want to listen to nothing seditious. The great events of the world, during the last 27 years have not taken place unobserved by them. They wanted no Revolution, as it is called, meaning a scene of blood and devastation. They felt themselves in a state of unexampled misery. They stated what they thought the real causes of that misery. They besought the Parliament to remove the causes; and, what is the answer they have received? You and they know it too well for me to state it here. However, the past cannot be recalled. We must submit to what is imposed upon us. But, I do hope, that not one single man of us, will, either by word or by act, ever yield one particle of those claims, which we were convinced we proved to be just, and which never have received even a discussion from those by whom they were rejected. Our cause is just, and our prospects are fair. The hand, which now presses us down, will become feeble; its sinews will be shrivelled, and it will finally become impotent as a straw. This will take place in consequence of the failure of pecuniary means, of which I have treated in this letter; and, thus, at last the freedom of the country will be restored, and will, I hope, be rendered more perfect than ever, by the very means which have been so earnestly pursued to accomplish its extinguishment. I am, Sir, Your most obedient servant, Next week, Letter Three, of the History of the Last Hundred Days of English Freedom. Entered at Stationets' Hall. Printed and Published by WM. JACKSON, No. 11, Newcastle Street, Strand, London. COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL PAMPHLET. 609] LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1817, [610 Mr. COBBETT's Weekly Political Redress of Grievances, and for a RePamphlet, though written in America, form in the Commons House of Par and first published in that country, relates chiefly to English affairs, and is especially intended for English Readers. The Author regularly transmits a manuscript copy of each number, as soon as possible after composing it, to his Publisher in London, who has consequently been enabled to continue the publication weekly from its re-commencement on the 12th of July. The first Number of the Resumed Pamphlet is No. 15 of the present Volume, which, with Numbers 16, 17, 18 and 19, may be had at 11, Newcastle Street, Strand. A HISTORY OF THE LAST HUNDRED DAYS OF ENGLISH FREEDOM, liament. North Hampstead, Long Island, MY WORTHY AND BELOVED FRIENDS, As the opening of the Session of Parliament, which took place on the 28th of January, approached, the hirelings of the press were more con instantly employed in hinting, that Ending with the Passing of the Absolute-Power-of-Imprisonment Act, the Month of March, 1817. ADDRESSED TO MR. JOHN GOLDSMITH, OF HAMBLE- WHO WERE The Chairman and Seconder at the some vigorous measures must be adopted to keep down what they had the impudence to call the disaffected. So early as the month of November, they evinced their alarm, and began, even then to endeavour to communi¬ cate their own feelings to the timid Meeting of the People of Hampshire part of the nation. There was, how on Portsdown Hill, in the Month of ever, something so perverse in the February 1817, to Petition for a proceedings of the Reformers, these Printed by W. Jackson, No. 11, Newcastle Street, Strands judices of the people against machinery and of their notions about the extortions of bakers, butchers, &c. which notions Corruption's press was constantly fostering. But, I knew my countrymen well. I knew; that, if, in kind language, they could be made to see their error, they would no longer latter were so provokingly peaceable and loyal, that Corruption dared not openly, all at once, talk of violent measures: She did, through her press, "caution the well-affected against our peaceable language and conduct;" but, she found nobody but the grossest of the feeders on the taxes to listen to her; and, to her great mortifica-persist in it; and I relied upon my tion, my Register, which she held own talents to produce that conviction forth as a species of political torch, in their minds. calculated to inflame not only the minds of the people, but to produce real flames in the stacks and barns and mills and manufactories and farm-houses, did, in the precise proportion in which it circulated, produce a directly contrary effect; and those excesses, which had finally loaded the gallows at Ely and in Nottinghamshire, were no more heard of. I was not deceived in this reliance, and the nation will bear witness, that, from the time that I began to write upon this subject, a total change took place in this respect; and, that I did more in the space of a month, to prevent depredations of this sort, than all the new penal laws, all the magistrates, and all the troops, had been able to do in seven years; and to prove this there were fifty Magistrates ready and willing to come to the Bar of the Par No. 18 had principally this object in view, and besides the Letter to the Luddites, written in November, Iliament. Why, then, did William missed scarcely a week to inculcate the doctrine of absolute necessity to avoid all acts of violence of every sort, and to observe a strict and real obedience to the laws; nay, I went so far as to reprobate, in the severest terms, all those who had been, or who were disposed to be, ready to commit acts of violence. It is no small compliment to the heads as well as the hearts of the people, that I could do this not only without any loss of popularity, but with a vast daily increase ofit. I was well aware of all the pre GIFFORD and SOUTHEY; why did these two Sinecure Reviewers so bitterly lament, in their Quarterly Review, that the people "swore by, lived by, and were ready to die by," my Register? Could they; could these Sinecure-holders wish for the peace of the country? Yes, they really did wish for the peace of the country: but, they had a wish which stood higher than this: that of keeping their sinecures, which was wholly incompatible with the doctrines that I preached. . And as to the hirelings of the press |