LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 16TH, 1830.

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3. But (oh, the wondrous effects of " principles which I have been permitPeel's Bill!) in this very town I" ted to have the honour to hold and have now met with the most kind" maintain before you; and particuand generous reception amongst larly, and above all things, if you find persons of all ranks and degrees; "me to desist from the most earnest more especially amongst the more "endeavours to obtain for the poor opulent part of the community. I man the right of participating in have made four speeches on four" choosing those who are to make the successive nights; the place, the laws affecting his earnings and his theatre of the Mechanics' Institu- life, then say that you were, on the tion; the price of admission, a" 8th of January, 1830, listening to a shilling; the number of persons vile impostor, instead of listening to, that the place will contain, better as you thought, a man of sincerity. than a thousand; each evening the Gentlemen of Manchester! old men, place was crowded to excess; the" they say, forget recent occurrences, interest went on increasing to the" while they correctly remember those last; and, on the last evening, "that have long passed: in the present more persons, it is said, were com- "instance, I trust, and, as far as I am pelled to go away, than could ob-" concerned, I know that the contrary tain admission. The very platform" of this will be the result. Your conon which I stood was so crowded" duct towards me has clean washed as to leave me and my little table" from my mind all recollection of the not more than two square yards" past, while your indulgence and kindof space; and, in short, nothing ness shown to me will be rememcould possibly be more crowded."bered with gratitude to the last moBy these audiences I was listened" ment of my life." to with the greatest attention; Thus we parted. I do not recollect from not one single person was any moment in my life when I felt, all there heard a single hiss or mark taken together, so much pleasure as of disapprobation; I received more when I uttered the first words of the approbation than any man could last sentence. The sentence before the merit, and, at parting, I retired last, which gave a prospect of my being under a general cheering and wav-in Parliament, had been enthusiastically ing of hats.

cheered. Whether it were pride, or what it was; whether it were a recollection of the past, joined to a recollection of the present; but, certain it is, that when the words, "Gentlemen of Manchester," came out of my lips, I felt a degree of pleasure, which my heart had seldom, at any rate, ever experienced before during the whole of my eventful life, the contrasts in which have been as great as ever were experienced by mortal man.

These are facts which I state, as it were, in the hearing and the presence of thousands and thousands of intelligent, acute, and well-educated men, who reside in this wonderful hive of industry, perseverance, ingenuity, intelligence, and talent of all sorts. Such a change, such a reception, compared with what I had experienced on this spot before, was well calculated to fill me with all the feelings of delight. It did so, and What I felt, however, upon this ocI took my leave of my audience in the casion, is of little consequence, compared following words, as nearly as I can re- with the moral which you ought to collect: "A great many months will draw from it. In the first place, the "not pass over our heads before I shall change with regard to me is abundantly "be upon the same floor with that of Mr. worthy of your attention; for I have "WILLIAM HUSKISSON, of whom we have not changed; I have been the same "heard and read so much; and, Gen-man; I have held the same principles, "tlemen, if you find me doing any thing and preached the same doctrine; for "there contrary to the opinions and six-and-twenty years I have not deviated:

for six-and-twenty years I have been
calumniated by almost the whole of the
press: still I have persevered, and, at
last, here are the people of property,
who thought me their foe, come round

to me.

that it is not. Mr. PITT said, long ago, that, without putting an end to seatselling, or, in other words, without an effectual reform in the Commons House of Parliament, no honest man could be a Prime Minister of England. That things have not changed, in this respect, for the better, since the time of Mr. PITT, we know very well: nobody pretends that they have changed for the bet

hope that we shall have your support in effecting a reform in that House. You, by this time, must well know the consequences of a want of such reform: you must feel all the dreadful shackles and embarrassments that are imposed on you, in consequence of the House of Commons being returned in the manner described in his petition of 1793: all beneath the aristocracy are well convinced that the country can never know happiness again; never can again know freedom from harassing embarrassment, until that reform shall take place.

This is of importance. It ought to set you deliberately to consider what is the cause of this change in men's minds. In the year 1819, in my answer to the threat of the boroughreve and constater; and, therefore, we have a right to bles, I said this: "Gentlemen, we shall "live to see the day, and that day is, I believe, not distant, when I shall be able "to visit the excellent people of Man"chester and its neighbourhood, with"out your thinking it proper to step in " between us with your threats of inter"ference." And we have now seen that day. I have preached the forgetting of injuries amongst ourselves; the putting a stop to divisions amongst us; the cordial union of masters and of men; the defeating of the old, tyrannical maxim, “divide and govern.' "? Never was the maxim more successfully acted upon, than by the boroughmongers and their corrupt crew of seat-dealers. As long as they could persuade the middle class, and particularly the richer part of the middle class, that the lower class had in view nothing but the taking of their property and cutting their throats, the base and corrupt dealers in seats knew they were safe in the enjoyment of the fruits of their infamous traffic.

Now, my Lord Duke, I am glad to be able to tell you; and I hope that you will be glad to hear it (for I can see no reason why you should not), that the two classes have begun to perceive that their interests are one and the same; and that seat-selling, that infamous traffie, which was in the House itself declared to be as notorious as the sun at noon-day, has been, and is, the great pervading cause of the ruin of the rich amongst the middle class; of the great embarrassments of the whole of that class; of the degradation of the whole of that class, and of the half-starvation of their working-people.

But grievous as this news must be to the vile traffickers in seats, ought it to be so to you? It ought not; and I hope

I now come to matters of more immediate interest, because they relate to your decision relative to the currency of the country. First, I will observe, that all manufacturers, all persons in trade, who have real capital, who are not, in . fact, insolvent, or nearly so, anxiously wish that you may persevere steadily in adhering to the present law relative to the one-pound notes. Every tradesman perceives the ruin that would now be inflicted on him by a return to the base paper-money; he sees that his book debts, he sees that his bills by long date due to him, would, in fact, be paid him in about one-half their real and honest amount. Widows and orphans might see that those who hold their money in trust, would pay them with about one-half of their due. Every one sees that yearly servants would be robbed of half their wages. The foreign merchant sees that his debtor at New York would pay him with one-half of what is his due, while his creditor at New York would insist upon being paid in full, In short, every one who is a creditor, whether as mortgagee, merchant, legatee, tradesman with book debts, yearly servant, or in any shape whatsoever,

would, by a return to the base paper-look to for a defence of your conduct, if

money, be robbed, by Act of Parliament, of one-half of his due.

Then, sensible men see no security in a return to the worthless rags; they know what ups and downs there have been already; and if the Government once more recoil; if a Government, with a man of your reputation for firmness; with a man pledged as you are; if a Government with a man like YOU at the head of it, recoil; and that, too, in the teeth of its solemn declarations; and that, too, I say, after having solemnly declared, that to recoil, would put at hazard the peace of the country, and the safety of the crown itself; if a Government thus constituted and thus pledged now recoil, on what are the people of England to rely in future? Who can venture to make a contract of any description, unless completed and satisfied upon the spot; all credit, all confidence must be banished from amongst men of property; the whole machine of commerce must come to a stand; and all the energies of the country must die away.

you now go back? You must confess yourself to have inflicted all this suffering; to have brought to ruin so many hundreds of thousands of happy families; you must confess that you have done this in mere sport, in the mere wantonness of cruelty; or, that you have done it through the most profound ignorance. If you persevere, you are consistent; and I say you are just and wise, provided you bring back the taxes to bear a due proportion to the increased value of money; and this, I hope, is what you intend to do; a hope which I have always expressed as a condition on which I supported the abolition of the one-pound notes. In going forward, therefore, you are perfectly consistent, just, and wise; but if you recoil, you are on one or the other of the horns of the above-stated frightful dilemma; you again toss men's fortunes into the air; and you plunge this country into confusion.

Nevertheless, my Lord Duke, it is right for me to inform you, that, though men of real capital are all of one mind Every man of sense perceives that as to their wishes that you may proceed, there is now no return to the base paper-there is division amongst them with money, without protecting the Bank in regard to the opinion as to what you London, and all other banks, against will do. The greater part of them demands of payments in gold. It has think; or, at least, many of them think, not required me to tell them, that, with the present quantity of gold in the country, such a protection of the banks must lead to two prices in the market; and that, when that comes, it will go on, and would go on in spite of laws like those of ROBESPIERRE, until the whole amount of a year's taxes would not pay for the ornaments of a single gateway in St. James's Park.

that you will recoil; they know, and I know well, that it will require uncommon firmness in you to resist the importunities of the landowners, generally speaking. They, in general, are debtors; their estates, from the very nature of things, must be, and always must be, mortgaged in a very considerable proportion; and they are now paying twice as much interest, in general, as they Therefore, the general impression is, ought to pay; twice as much as they that you will not recoil. I have every have contracted to pay, especially if the where given it as my decided opinion mortgage be of long standing. I know that you will not; because, besides the that this is unjust; but, in the first monstrous injustice of such a measure, place, the landowners have sanctioned, and the evident peril of it to the state if not assisted, to make the very laws itself; besides these, there is your own that have inflicted the injustice. The character. For, what defence would landowners ought to be relieved from you have to offer? Having inflicted all the effects of these laws; but they this suffering to enforce a gold pay-ought not to be relieved by the ruin of ment, in order to prevent the greatest men in trade. There ought to be an dangers to the state, where are you to equitable adjustment run throughout,

funds and all included. It is curious and, at any rate, they would know that
that the writers in favour of the land they had something to rely upon.
now recommend an adjustment with Therefore, be the determination what it
regard to mortgages; but with regard may, it is of importance that people
to nothing else.
know it as soon as possible; for, at
present, there is a suspension of all cre-
dit, and all confidence, generally speak-
ing.

I must not conclude, however, with

However, what the landowners, take them as a mass, are aiming at, is, to force you back to the base and false, worthless rags; which they choose, with all the disgrace to you, all the dis-out observing, that it will be quite imgrace to the Government and the coun- possible to persevere in gold payments try, all the danger to the state and to without a great reduction of the taxes. the throne; they choose this rather than This is what I said in my petition to a return to low taxes, in which taxes the Parliament at the time when the they, their sons, their kindred, their de- present law lay before them. I have pendents, and their boroughmongering heard (a falsehood, of course) that you tools, have so large a share. They have said, that we have turned the corknow well that they are now getting ner; that we have, as the farmers call double taxes in the various ways in which they receive them; but they perceive that, if they keep the double taxes, they must pay double mortgages; and that, in a short time, they must lose the landed part of their estates. They have one estate in land and another in the taxes: they wish to keep both; but they must part with one or the other. If you proceed, leaving them the estate in the taxes, they lose the land to a certainty.

it

it, got over the bad place; and that now we shall go on pretty cheerly, getting better and better. My Lord Duke, believe no such thing as this: the thing is impossible; it is against reason; is against nature; it cannot be true. A considerable part of the five-pound notes have disappeared; but they must all disappear if we persevere in this law. As they disappear, prices will fall lower and lower, until we come back to the prices of 1791; when the average price of wheat had been, for twenty-five years, four shillings and sixpence the bushel, Winchester measure. The price now of English wheat, taking England and Wales throughout, does not exceed six shillings a bushel, notwithstanding the two successive bad harvests that we have had, and notwithstanding that there is now scarcely any old rick standing, instead of the large stock of them that was always seen standing, up to the year 1791. At the same time, the average price of fat beef in Leadenhall and Newgate markets, is four-pence a pound. My opinion is, that if we persevere with this law for two years, prices The sooner, however, that the coun- will be lower than they were in 1791, try is informed of your determination, because there are less gold and silver in the better. The King's speech itself Europe than there were in 1791. There ought to express a determination to per- having been scarcely any brought from severe in the present law. Then every the mines for the last twenty years; man would know what he was about: and the drain from Europe to China let things be managed ever so wisely, having been so great during that time. there would be great suffering still to By the perverseness of the English Parcome; but men would know the worst;liament, North America has been created

Therefore it is, that they wish you to return to the base paper-money, which will still give them a lien upon both these estates. They are driving at this privately they are endeavouring, I am sure they are, to wheedle and cajole you. Their county meetings have no other object than this, generally speaking; and thus they will persevere until they shall receive from you a positive denial, which will be a sentence passed upon them; which will tell them almost in so many words, you and your families shall no longer live on the industry of the incessantly toiling community.