In the year 1812, when it was evident to me, that, if the Ministry pursued their then measures, a war with the United States of America was inevitable, I used, through the means of the press, my best exertions to prevent that war. The party in opposition to the Ministry, pledged themselves to support the war upon a certain contingency, which they thought would not arrive. knew that it would arrive; and, therefore, I endeavoured to convince both the parties that they 'were wrong; that war would 'come; that the progress of that war would be disappointment and defeat; and that the result would be enormous loss and everlasting disgrace. The whole nation will bear witness to my strenuous labours to prevent that war, and it will also bear witness that I ia boured alone. Upwards of seventy millions of money, now making part of our hideous Debt; upwards of seventy millions of money expended in that war, and now forming a part of the irredeemable mortgage of the lands and labour of the people of this kingdom; great as this was, it was nothing compared with the disgrace of that war, which remains written in the history of numerous battles by land, and still more legibly written in more numerous battles by sea: the history of which baitles an Englishman will 'never be able to look at without feeling his cheek burn with shame. At the outset of that war, one of the then Lords of the Admiralty, Sir JOSEPH SIDNEY YORKE. vauntingly said, in the House of Commons, that we had the President of America to depose before we could lay down our arms! This was answered by the calm disdain of the President, and by the thunder from the American ships. Then it was, for the first time since England was England, that Englishmen were beaten, gun for gun and man for man. I I cannot bring myself to believe, that, if your Majesty had read what it was then in my power to write to you, in the form of petition, that war would ever have been begun. I possessed knowledge upon the subject which your Ministers did not possess. I knew what the result would be before the first shot was fired. was in possession of facts, the bare statement of which must have convinced any man open to conviction, that defeat was certain. These facts I could not disclose in print. To disclose them to a man like Mr. PERCEVAL, the very sound of whose name I abhorred, was hardly to be expected; but, besides this, I despised him on account of his arrogance, insolence, and total want of judgement and of talent. Add to this, a firm conviction in my own mind, founded upon positive assurance, as well as upon reason and experience, that every thing urged by me against any measure, was, with the Ministers, a strong inducement to persevere in it. It has been thus, in several instances; and I have little scruple in saying (however presumptuous it may be deemed) that a very considerable portion of the calamities which the nation has to endure at this day, may be truly ascribed to a rejection of salutary measures proposed by me. A spirit of haughtiness has prevailed; and to that spirit we may fairly attribute à great part of our sufferings. When your Majesty was a youth, occasionally rambling with two of your brothers and your tutor, about Kew Gardens, I was a little boy, in a blue smockfrock, working in those gardens; and I remember that you passed me once when I was sweeping the grass-plat round the foot of the Pagoda. But, since that time, I have seen a great deal of this world; I have seen more of mankind, in all their various situations, than most men have seen. I have been a very attentive observer; a very accurate retainer of all that I have observed. I have been very communicative, and have found, in all rauks and degrees, every body that knew me ready to impart to me their thoughts. Always ready to repose confidence in others, I have sometimes been deceived and betrayed; but I have never been intimate with that human being who was not ready, almost at first sight, to repose confidence in me. Hence, and from the resources of my industry, and my delight in labour of all sorts, a stock of knowledge has accrued, which was unavoidable unless nature had deprived me of the common capacity of comprehending and remembering. But your Ministers seem to kave had the little blue smockfrock continually in their eye, and to have thought it beneath their bigh mightinesses to condescend to listen to any thing coming from an origin so low. They, who, for the far greater part, had never exchanged the purlieu of a county and the chicanery and wrangling of a Quarter Sessions for any thing but the smoke and buz of London, were, nevertheless, as full of conceit as if they had occasionally resided in different, nations and had studied the man ners, feelings and interests of all classes of mankind. To this one cause, I ascribe a very considerable part of the Debt, and the whole of those laws against popular liberty, and particularly the liberty of the press, which now make England appear like any thing but England. But, at any rate, I know for certain that, at the time of beginning the late disgraceful war against America, one man in authority actual-ly said: "we shall now beat these Americans; and that will destroy COBBETT's credit for "ever." Monstrous as this may seem, I know the fact to be true; and as a truth, I solemnly state it in an address to your Majesty. Therefore, I could have no hope, that any petition or memorial, addressed to the Ministers, would be of any use. They would, I knew, spurn at it; and, as I had no means of approaching your Majesty with a petition, the facts have remained in my own bosom; the war took place; and the fatal result we have to deplore. Upon another occasion, not much less important, I wrote, and caused to be printed, a petition, addressed to your Majesty. allude to the petition written in America, not published there, but published in England, with regard to the struggle going on in the South American provinces.But that the petition contained a very small part of the knowledge which I possessed upon the subject. Though living in a very obscure part of the country, gentlemen from South America, agents from the Provinces, found me out. I had opportunities of knowing every thing relating to the contest; relating to the views and wishes of the insurgents; and I was put in possession of nume rous most interesting facts, accompanied with an anxious expression of the desire of the parties that I would cause them to be communicated to the government in England. I could undertake nothing of the kind. I had no channel of communication but LORD SIDMOUTH, and men like LORD SIDMOUTH. The facts, therefore, remained with myself; a series of measures, the contrary of what I should have petitioned for have been pursued; and the result will be as heavy a blow as the greatness of this king dom ever received. fences; I hope not much less anxiously that your own Royal hand will be again opened freely and graciously to receive, agreeably, I am sure, to the dictates of your own heart, our humble and dutiful petitions. I am, Your Majesty's Dutiful and faithful subject, WM. COBBETT. DEATH OF THE KING. His Majesty expired, it appears, at Windsor Castle, on Saturday evening, the 29th instant, at half past eight o'clock, in the eightysecond year of his age, and in the fifty-ninth year of his reign; having been born in the year 1738, and having ascended the throne in the year 1760. Could I have entertained the Could I have entertained the smallest hope of my petition reaching the hand of your Majesty, I should have dispatched a son as the bearer of it, notwithstanding the dungeons were still In the remarks which I have to open to receive every one, whom offer upon this event, I shall proyour Ministers might chuse to bably differ from many of my conimprison on suspicion of treason- temporary writers; but, it offers able designs. But, having left, an occasion for laying before the of my unalienable Right of Peti- Public, truths which I deem of an tion, nothing but the Right of useful nature: it is, therefore, Petitioning LORD SIDMOUTH, the my duty to lay those truths before duty which I would have perit; and I trust that fear of clamour, formed remained unperformed; will never prevent me from disand the Gulf of Mexico will now charging any part of my duty. be passed by a British fleet only by sufferance, if it ever again pass that Gulph at all. It would be impertinent in me to pretend that I feel any sorrow upon this occasion. All the circumstances considered, if it had been my own father, whose decease, in place of that of his Ma These, may it please your Majesty, are only amongst a few of the evils which naturally arise out of this not very gracious cur-jesty, I had now to announce, I tailment of the last resource, in the way of right, left to an oppressed subject. A new reign ought to begin with acts of grace; and, though I anxiously hope that the first exercise of your Royal Prerogative will be to open the prison doors to those who have een imprisoned for political of should be afraid to express any feelings of sorrow, lest I should be taken for a fool or a hypocrite. I should thank God that he had released my parent from a state, the prolongation of which could be viewed by no rational man as any thing other than a very serious calamity. I cannot, for my part, bring myself to entertain even a alty, which we are not called upon to show on the demise of common men, however highly they may good opinion of persons, (especially those not connected with his Majesty by ties of blood), who pre-have been respected in their lives tend to be oppressed with grief and how well soever they may upon this occasion. However have deserved that respect. But, if we carry the thing further, and, pretend that our feelings are engaged in the matter, all the world sees that we are guilty of affectation, not to call it by the harder from our lugubrious whine with contempt and disdain. Much higher duties, however, has the public writer to perform in such a case; for, let it be borne clearly we may be convinced that the death of our parents or children is a great good to themselves, reason, when the moment comes, will give way to the weakness of nature. But, is it not imper-name of hypocricy, and they turn tinence, as well as affectation in us, who never can have known any thing even of the private character of his Majesty; and who by no possibility, can have contracted for him any personal affec-in mind that the pages of to day tion; is it not, in us, impertinence as well as affectation, to pretend that we are overcome by those feelings, which, in the case of rable things withheld from common parents, children, wives and per-men. And, therefore, it is just sonal friends, are allowed to lay that, when that enjoyment comes reason asleep for the moment, and to an end, the acts of their lives lead men to express their sorrow should be more freely canvassed at events which ought to be a sub-than the acts of common men. ject of joy? become the documents of posterity. Kings and Princes and all rulers, enjoy, during their lives, innume As to the private character of Decorum, good manners, a feel- his Majesty, I know full as much ing of respect for the office of the as my countrymen in general, King, and also a feeling of respect and that is, just nothing at all. It towards his successor, and the rest is to discover a degree of imof his Royal Family; all these call modesty, rendering the party dead upon us, on an occasion like this, to all feelings of shame, to prefora grave and serious deportment, tend to know any thing of the and for those outward marks of character of a personage that the veneration even for deceased Roy-party has never been able to sp D proach. His Majesty's private gistrates of all descriptions, and character I know nothing of; I especially those of Princes and of have never known any thing of it; Kings! and therefore, nothing can I truly say of it; and not being able to say any thing truly of it (except by mere guess), nothing will I say of it. This is a matter wholly out of our province. The relationship between us and our King, is that of subject and Sovereign; and partake, not, in the smallest degree, of any of those ties which are not purely political. I, therefore, keeping these principles in view, shall now proceed to submit to the public some few obser. which reign, instead of having been glorious, as some persons have thought proper to declare it to be, has, in my opinion, been inglorious in the extreme. I wish to premise, however, that I ascribe to his late Majesty, none of the acts of his reign; and, of course, none of their fatal Indeed, this is a matter with which we, the subjects of the King, have nothing at all to do. And, if we take but a moment to reflect, we shall see the great danger of our impertinently pre-vations relative to the acts and tending to meddle, one way or the events of his Majesty's reign, other, with the private character of a chief Magistrate. If we are to praise him for a good private character, does it not follow that we are to censure him, if he have a bad private character? If we are to obey him with the more willingness and alacrity, on account of his good private character, are we not placed in danger of un-consequences. To do this would willingness to obey him at all, if be to remove the responsibility his character should happen to be from where the law and constitubad? And, let it be borne in mind, tion have lodged it, and to place that unwillingness to obey is only it where it never was yet placed one short step from resistance! by any faithful subject or sensible Yet, what mischiefs; mischiefs man. Our government is not a monarchy, which means a go. vernment in one single person. It is a mixed political government, at the head of which we have a King, whom the law presumes incapable of doing wrong towards how great and how numerous, and how dreadful in their results, have not arisen from this fatal political error of confounding the private character with the public functions of men in power; ma |