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on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Fri- he seen; so that, during the fifty-three day nights, we prepared to quit Not-days of my absence, the frost and snow tingham for Leicester; but, before we lasted all but the last day; thus tercame off, it being Saturday, and the minated a journey of 667 miles, during market day morning, a gentleman which I made seven and twenty speeches, took me to see the meat market, occupying, in the whole, about sixtywhich was the finest, with regard to one hours, and returning on the very day the quality of the meat, its cutting- that the frost broke up, and made it, in up, its cleanness and every other some measure, necessary that I should thing belonging to it, that I had ever be again at home. seen in my life. This is a matter of which I am a very competent judge, having seen the London markets and that of Philadelphia, and being a great connoisseur with regard to the article of meat. I saw here a greater number of fine sirloins of beef than I had ever seen in any one market before. After I got back to the inn, I hankered after one of these sirloins of beef, went back,

had it sewed up in cloths, and brought it to London. It was not of the largest size; but with the third part of the suet left in, it weighed 61lbs. and whiter and fatter than any one of the

was

same size that I ever saw before. The butchers told me that the oxen were

bought in Lincolnshire, and that a great part of the sirloins had that morning been sent off to London sewed up in cloths. I have always sought for this Lincolnshire beef in Newgate market. It comes sewed up in cloths, the rump and sirloin in one piece.

We got to Leicester, through very rough weather, on Saturday evening, 6th of February, and I intended to give a lecture in a work-room which had been prepared for the purpose; but we had omitted to write from Nottingham, and, owing to that omission, no notice of the lecture had been given. Our friends wanted us to stop until Monday; but my appointments at home rendered that impossible.

On Sunday morning, the 7th of February, we found that a thaw had come in the night; and when we got to Birchill, where we slept on Sunday, we found there had been a heavy rain. On Monday morning, we set off for Kensington, finding less and less snow as we approached London; and when I got to Barn-Elm, which I did before it was dark, scarcely a bit of snow was to

TO THE FARMERS.

Barn-Elm Farm, 11th February, 1830.

BROTHER Sufferers,

I HAVE been to condole with the sons of cotton, woollen, iron and steel; and now I will go and condole with you, my dear brethren of the earth. I intend to deliver a lecture in London, on Thurs

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day, the 18th instant; and then to set shall see, in my way, what is doing at off for Norwich, to lecture there. Bury St. Edmund's. In the mean while I shall be glad to hear from any friend at either of those places, relative to a proper place to lecture in. The to write, the better. After Norfolk and sooner such friends have the goodness Suffolk, I shall take Kent and Sussex.

Comfort yourselves, dear brethren, as well as you can; for, be assured, that you will never see the pretty little notes again. WM. COBBETT.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20TH, 1830.

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MY FRIENDS,

Kensington, 16th February, 1830.

I HAVE prepared a petition to be presented to the House of Commons, containing, in the first place, a recital of the several instances in which it has

been warned by me of the dangers to which its measures would expose the country; and in the next place, giving it one more warning with regard to the future. I here insert this petition for your perusal, and that you may have it to refer to as events shall come on. have always, for many years past, taken care to have my predictions recorded, and that, too, in the papers of some sort or another belonging to the House itself. I have adhered to this course in the present instance: whoever lives a few years, will see the predictions verified; which predictions I have now, in this very petition, conveyed to this most honourable and most wonderful House, which sits under a law made to protect it against the contempt of the people, to govern whom it is daily making laws. When 1 have inserted the petition, I

[Price 7d.

shall have a good deal to say to you upon the subjects of it.

To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in parliament assembled.

The petition of William Cobbett (farmer of the parish of Barnes, in the county of Surrey), being dated this 15th day of February, 1830,

Most humbly showeth,

That your petitioner perceives, with great alarm, that there are persons who appear to be combining for the purpose of inducing your honourable House to pass laws to cause the King's coin to be again supplanted by a fictitious currency, consisting of worthless rags; a measure which, if adopted, would deprive the people of that protection which they derive from the most important of all the prerogatives of the Crown, and would, in the firm conviction of your pose the nation to the horrors naturally petitioner, finally and even speedily exresulting from an extinction of all measure of value.

duce your honourable House not totally That your petitioner, in order to inbe permitted to state the following to disregard this his opinion, begs to facts to your honourable House; that

is to say,

1. That, in the year 1817, your petitioner, together with some thousands of the people of Hampshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and other counties, sent to your honourable House a petition, humbly praying, that you would be pleased to reduce the interest of the Debt, and all public salaries and pay, in proportion to the then-augmented value of money; that you would be pleased to reduce the standing army; that you would be pleased to reduce all the taxes, and to abolish the taxes on malt, hops, leather, soap, and candles; and that we the said petitioners, most humbly and honourable respectfully besought your

House to believe, that, unless measures of this description were adopted in time, the final consequence must be distress so

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general and so great as to expose the whole I frame of society to dissolution. 2. That your honourable House was pleased to give to these humble representations and prayers, no answer other than that which the petitioners found in a law, which your honourable House hastily passed, to enable the King's Ministers to shut them up in prisons and in dungeons without being confronted with their accusers, without crime specified in the commitment, and without the power of appeal to the Act of Habeas Corpus; and that in cousequence of this law, many of the petitioners were thus imprisoned, cut off from all communication with wives, children, and friends, and deprived of the use of pen, ink, and paper; that some of these petitioners died in prison; that the rest, after long suffering, were sent forth from the dungeons, without any trial, without any hearing, without any knowledge of the offences imputed to them, totally ruined in their affairs, some finding that their wives and children had perished for want, and all cut off from the possibility of obtaining redress, your honourable House having in the meanwhile, passed a Bill of Indemnity bearing harmless all those, of whatever rank or degree, who had, in their treatment of those unhappy men, gone even beyond the severity of the imprisonment law itself.

6.

7.

3. That, in the year 1818, your humble pe-
titioner having fled to Long Island, in
order to avoid the dungeons and the treat-
ment aforementioned, and having heard
of an intention on the part of your Ho-
nourable House to cause a return to the
ancient measure of value, lost not a mo-
ment in praying your honourable House
not to cause such return, without, at the
same time, passing a law making an equit-8.
able adjustmeet with regard to the inte-
rest of the Debt, with regard to all con-
tracts between man and man, and without
a reduction of the taxes to, at least, one
half of their then nominal amount, hum-
bly beseeching your honourable House to
be assured, that, if your honourable House
caused a return to the ancient measure of
value without adopting these concomitant
measures, you would, in effect, more than
double the amount of the taxes, cause a
violation of all contracts, fatten the usurers
at the expense of the industrious classes,
and would plunge the country into con-
fusion and misery indescribable.
4. That, in the year 1819, your honourable
House, totally disregarding this solemn
warning of your humble petitioner, though
he had enforced it with arguments wholly
unauswerable, actually passed a law for
re-establishing the ancient measure of
value, and that, too, without any of those
concomitant measures so earnestly prayed
for by your humble petitioner.

5. That, in the year 1822, that distress, the

coming of which had been so clearly and
so confidently predicted by your humble
petitioner, was spreading itself over the
country with such fearful strides, that
your honourable House repealed, in effect,
the most material part of the law of 1819,
leaving, however, other parts, which, in
time, your humble petitioner knew must,
if left without remedy, teud to produce a
convulsive revolution.

That, in the year 1823, your humble peti-
tioner, together with a great majority of
his brother freeholders of the county of
Norfolk, sent to your honourable house a
petition, praying you, while yet there was
time, to pass laws for the making of an
equitable adjustment of all contracts, not
excepting the contracts with those who
were receiving interest on account of the
Debt; praying you to abolish all unneces-
sary expenses; praying you to abolish the
taxes on malt, hops, leather, soap, and
candles; praying you to apply certain por
tions of public property to public purposes;
praying you to restore the people to the
enjoyment of their right of freely chosing
their representatives in Parliament; and
imploring your honourable House to be-
lieve, that, without these measures, there
would be great danger arise to that consti-
tution which had, in former times, been a
a source of so much greatness and happi-
ness to England.
That your honourable House, while you
received, and caused to be printed this our
humble petition, did not condescend to pay
the smallest attention to its earnest prayers
and its solemn warnings, though these
were speedily followed by similar prayers
and warnings, expressed in petitions from
the counties of Cambridge, Hereford, and
Surrey.

That in the year 1826, the consequence of
this inattention made its hideous appear-
ance in a panic, which, according to the
confession of one of the King's Ministers,
had, at one time, brought the country to
"within forty eight hours of barter"; that
in this state of alarm, your honourable
House passed a bill to abolish all notes
under five pounds on the 5th of April,
1829; that while the bill was on the table
of your honourable House, and before it
was passed, your humble petitioner sent
to your honourable House a petition, pray
ing you to pass the bill, but not without
reducing the taxes to the amount at which
they stood before the small paper money
supplanted the coin of his Majesty, so-
lemnly warning your honourable House,
that if the said bill were passed and en-
forced, without such reduction, it would
produce throughout the kingdom ruin and
wretchedness absolutely insupportable; that
your honourable House, not condescending
even after all that had passed, to listen to
this humble supplication and solemn warn-
ing of your petitioner, passed and have

enforced, the said bill, and that the unhappy people are now smarting and writhing under the consequences.

That your humble petitioner, begs to be permitted to express a hope, that your honourable house will not, after the recital of this series of facts, at once so striking and so notorious, deem it an affront offered to the wisdom of your honourable House, if he entertain an expectation, that you will now at last condescend to lend an ear to his humble representations and prayers with regard to the present and the fu

ture.

tioner fears, as he thinks that all men must fear, that if the King's coin continue to be the measure of value, without a reduction of the taxes to the amount at which they stood previous to the issue of the small paper-money, civil society will be shaken to its very base; that already, even though the law of 1826 has not yet produced one tenth part of its inevitable effects, all property begins to feel its insecurity; that the manufacturer, the merchant, and the trader, whether wholesale or retail, are carrying on business without profit, and living on their capital, or on the That it is his decided conviction, that, capital of their creditors; that the landif your honourable House shall unhap- lord finds even the rigid law of distraint pily entertain, or give countenance to, insufficient for the obtaining of his rent; any measure for again debasing the that the farmer finds his stock and all currency, without, at the same time, his means melt imperceptibly away, closing the bank against demands for while the increasing wants of the ungold, and making the paper a legal employed labourer augments the detender, there will be a general run on all mands on those diminished means; and the banks; that another panic will en-that, while all these classes are suffering sue; that the gold will be buried; that the extreme of both bodily and mental there will be no measure of value; and anguish, they behold the receivers of that all law and all the rights of property the more than doubled taxes, wallowing will yield to the tingovernable ravings in luxurious waste, and glittering in of hunger and to the unbridled indul-insulting splendour. gence of the dreadful passion of re

venge.

That your humble petitioner hopes that your honourable House will not inThat, if your honourable House adopt terpret into any want of respect towards the said measure of debasement, and at your honourable House an expression of the same time close the banks against his earnest hope, that you will be pleased demands for gold, and that if you do while there is yet time, seriously to rethis in a manner so sudden as to prevent fiect on the catastrophe to which this the run above-mentioned, your humble state of things naturally tends; that, petitioner beseeches your honourable even at this moment, hundreds of thouHonse to reflect on the awful conse-sands of the manufacturing labourers quences of two distinct prices in all obtain their miserable pittance in great dealings, one price in paper, and ano-part from the voluntary contributions of ther price in money; an event which those amongst the next class whose has always taken place under similar means are not yet exhausted, the law circumstances; an event clearly in- having long since failed to enforce a evitable in the case contemplated; an collection of rates sufficient for the purevent that has always proved, and that pose, and that, in the manufacturing always must prove, the death of paper-districts, to the dolings of charity on money; an event that has never failed the one hand and the menace of military to be attended with the total destruction force on the other, is to be ascribed of every thing called credit; an event the keeping of the peace amongst a that must, your humble petitioner is people the most industrious and the convinced, produce in this country, a most expert and ingenious in the whole convulsive, if not a sanguinary, revo- world. lution.

That, in the agricultural part of the That, however, your humble peti- kingdom, that is to say, in nineteen

sent relief, and of security for the future; and that, therefore, in this hope, he humbly prays, that your honourable House will, with all possible speed, pass a bill, or bills, having the effect following; to wit,

1. To reduce the amount of the taxes to the amount at which they stood in the year 1791.

To take from the revenues of the Church, from the Crown lands, and from mismanaged corporations and public charities, whatever sum may be wanted annually beyond the amount of the taxes of 1791.

twentieths of it, the prospect is infinitely your honourable House to lose no time more full of peril; that the people of in adopting effectual measures of preEngland have a clear right, in law as well as in reason, to food, raiment, and fuel, out of the produce or proceeds of the land of England; that if they cannot obtain these out of their own means, or by their labour, they have a right to them in the shape of parochial relief; that they know their rights in this respect; that already they have in divers instances, shown a determination not to lie down and groan out their souls under 2. the unspeakable pangs of hunger; that already they have in several instances, enforced their demands of relief with cudgels in their hands; that, in every case they have been tranquillised by a yielding to their demands; and that 3. your humble petitioner beseeches your honourable House to reflect, while there is time for reflection, on the swiftness 4. of the spreading of this species of contagion, and to put to yourselves the solemn question of, what could be done if half a county here and half a county there were in a state of commotion, arising from hunger, and urged on by all the hostile passions known to the breast of man?

a

To make a just reduction of the interest of the debt, commonly called National.

To make a radical reform in your honourable House, so that the members of that House may be freely chosen by the people at large.

That it has been with extreme reluctance, that your humble petitioner has thus ventured to trespass on the time of your honourable House; but that, being fully convinced of the existence of the dangers of which he has spoken; being little short of certain, that, unless prevented by the measures which he has suggested, the catastrophe will be even dreadful than that which he has at

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That such is a possible and even probable event, your humble petitioner believes that no man will deny; that, if such an event were to take place, it is manifest that there would be an instant and universal run on the banks for gold, and that general bankruptcy, adding to the turmoil, would hasten the tempted to describe; being thus conmoment when the word property would vinced, he thought it a duty due from be without a meaning; and your hum-him to his country, to add the present ble petitioner beseeches your honourable to all the past warnings given by him to your honourable House, whom he, in House to reflect, that, in such a state of things, the choice would lie between conclusion, once more earnestly implores universal violence and bloodshed, and to save the country from all those hora transfer of all rented property from rors, into which he firmly believes it the owner to the occupier, and thus, as must finally be plunged by a rejection the least evil of the two, making the of those measures which he has here so respectfully, and with so much anxiety, rich and the poor change places. suggested for the consideration of your honourable House.

That your humble petitioner cannot trust himself to venture on a description of the scenes which the metropolis would present in case of any of the events above contemplated; that barely to hint at these will, your petitioner

And your petitioner will ever pray. WM. COBBETT. Now, my friends, you, observe, com

humbly hopes, be sufficient to induce pose the only part of the community,

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