in complete subjection! And Bristol! rich against the poor would prevent Does the insolent beast recollect that these tumults and their natural consethat city is inhabited by a hundred quences: it would produce just the conthousand people; that within a few trary effect; and if any-thing could miles of it there are more colliers at produce bloodshed in England, it would work under ground than would make be this very measure which you are now up, three times over, the population of recommending, with so much insolence the city of Salisbury; and that the and so much malignity. sailors, the bargemen, and other persons What has been the language of the employed upon the water, far exceed rich to the poor? What has been the the whole of the population of Salisbury? language of farmers to their labourers? Does the insolent and stupid creature What has been the language of manuknow that the working men at either facturers, miners, and coal-masters, to Birmingham or Manchester, each hav- their workmen? Why, this: "We ing either a gun or a sharp spindle al-"wish you to be happy: we give you ways within his reach, exceed, five-" every farthing that we can afford to fold, the whole of the population of "give: but we ourselves have so much Salisbury, all ranks, ages, and sexes in-" to give in taxes and in tithes; and cluded? Far from me the thought of " you, on your part, have so large a saying this in disparagement of Salis-" portion of your earnings to give in bury, which is a beautiful city, and just "taxes on what you consume, that it what a city ought to be; which has five" is out of our power to give you that little rivers, which become one at or near it; and which has every circumstance in and arouud it to make it a scene of happiness, were it not for the existence of those causes out of which the corps of this Brodie has arisen, over and above that brilliant cause, Brodie's "natural taste" for military tactics.

Our next extract has more sense in it; that is to say, if this scrawler be right in his premises.

Do not let it be supposed, that when the Reform Bill shall have been passed (which it will be), all things will go on quietly. No: the lower orders, the uneducated, and the unreflecting, still struggling with difficulties, will be disappointed because immediate relief is not afforded them. There will be tumults, dreadful riots, and bloodshed, such as it sickens the heart to contemplate. Yes, I repeat, there will be, if the middle classes are not armed.

"which you ought to receive." This has been the language of the people of wealth, to the working people. Aye, my dear Doctor, and this has been your language, too, for the last year and a half, during which time you have been incessantly accusing the boroughmongers of causing, by their extortions, the halfstarvation of the working people. What, then! do you now recommend bayonets to be raised against the working people in order to keep them in a state of subjection; that is to say, kept down by force in that state of half-starvation! Is this what your justice and humanity suggest? When you inserted this villanous letter, and sent it forth with a stamp of your approval, I hope that you ̧ had not read it.

I do not mean that they should arm them Very true, hero of Salisbury: the Re-selves without authority from his Majesty's form Bill alone (which you say will be Government, but 1 do call on that Government passed, and which I will say most earnestly, without loss of time, to insti-1 not) will not tute corps of volunteer infantry in all the make things quiet; and there will be principal towns of the kingdom. Let them be tumults, though not so bloody as you entirely under the control of Governmentseem to apprehend. There will be let judgment and discretion be exercised in the these, unless the Reform Bill exchange and of the other officers, and let no man be choice of the commanding officer in particular, the accursed potatoes for bacon; but this admitted, even as a private, who cannot (as I it would do, if it were passed in its understand has been the case at Salisbury) original form and fairly act upon. But, bring good testimonials as to his character. Brodie, you are certainly misled "by King and his Government, the nation will be With such a force, under the control of the your natural taste for military tactics," safe. Without it-Reform or no Reform Bill if you really suppose that arming the the nation will be ruined, and the lower

orders, like the angry lion, who lashed himself to death with his own tail, destroy themselves, and, in doing so, will destroy us of the middle class, and all those who rank above us, even to the monarch on the throne.

A

Well said, beast! But after this: after your insolent advice shall be adopted, you will not, I hope, pretend that we do not live under a military despotism: you will not pretend, I hope, that Englishmen are living any longer in a state of freedom and of law. In short, then, "the nation will be safe" enough; safely enough living under the command of the bayonet, only that it could not live so for above half a year; at the end of which time, or thereabouts, every man who had taken up arms in this way, would be stripped as naked as a callow mouse. In short, here is a proposition, not for civil war, but for producing general plunder, devastation, and bloodshed; and I should like to hear, Doctor Black, any arguments, not that a puffing, purse-proud, insolent beast like this has to offer, but that YOU have to offer in opposition to this opinion.

You and I, Doctor, who know the trickery of this species of scrawling, should want no more than this last little paragraph to convince us that this effusion of stupidity, insolence, arrogance, and want of feeling, was never written at Manchester, never came from Manchester, but was written at Salisbury, either by Brodie himself, or by some patron of the gallon-loaf-andthreepenny system, sent up to London in a coach parcel, and dropped into your office, along with a flattering note to yourself, by some double-distilled devil of a pettifogger, who lives upon the crumbs that roll down the fat jowles of the inhabitants of Salisbury-Close; and I challenge you, Doctor, to say, that it came to you with a Manchester post-mark. One more remark; the scrawler says, that if his advice be not followed, "farewell to the PEOPLE." The people, beast! What, are they all to be killed? Is there to be one general scene of mutual slaughter, and is "darkness to be the "burier of the dead?" Some would survive, to be sure! Aye, and it is only by acting upon advice like yours, that can cause any bloodshed at all. Here the comparison with regard to the scenes at Paris, coming directly after your "farewell to I hope, Mr. Editor, that the whole of this the people," shows what a stupid beast letter will be admitted into your most valúable and patriotic paper; and still more do I you are, and how thoughtless it was of hope that the advice contained in it, however Doctor Black to speak with approbation badly I may have expressed myself, will be of your blundering and atrocious stuff. followed, and speedily followed, by his Ma- Did the people perish at Paris in the jesty's Government, and by that class in soyears 1792 and 1793? Did the people ciety which it so seriously concerns. I say to the Government," Call on the middle classes of France suffer in those years? Was to arm themselves-offer them arms-you not France better cultivated, and the have hundreds of thousands of muskets rust-people better off, and the name of France ing in your magazines." To the middle more honoured in 1792 and in 1793 classes, that is, to the people, I say, swer the call with one simultaneous voice than it and they had been for seven accept the offer of arms, and learn the use centuries before? Others suffered, inof them." Government" Be jealous, be deed; the nobility and the clergy were afraid." People-"Be supine." Then fare-stripped of their all. In the height of well to the Government, farewell to the people, and let them prepare themselves for such scenes as took place in Paris in 1792 and 1793, and to sing lo triumphe," to anarchy and

One more extract, and I consign this scrawler over to the detestation of my readers.

confusion.

"An

1 shall leave this place to-morrow on my way home, where I shall hope to find your paper with this letter in its columns, and God grant that my advice may be followed.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

ONE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES.

their rage against their country's oppressors, they unjustly and cruelly put to death the king and all his family that they had within their reach. But the people did not suffer; they drove the nobility and clergy away, and sold and divided their estates; and, every one knows, that the soil of France is now better cultivated, and that her population

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is now greater than they were at the epoch to which you refer.

These old stupid Pittites and Foxites are always trying to terrify the people by ripping up the scenes of the French revolution. If they were as great fools as they are profligate knaves, they would shun all mention of that revolution, as a mad dog shuns water, or as a wheatrick would shun fire if it could. At any rate, Doctor, I hope you will, in future, scout their balderdash; and in that hope,

I remain your friend, patron,

and most obedient servant,
WM. COBBETT.

COBBETT-CORN.

Kensington, 1st December, 1831.

of this country can be made to produce without the cultivation of this corn. My eldest son, to whom belongs all the praise due to the introduction of this article of food, urged me to the undertaking, on the ground that the introduction of the plant into general use would have such prodigious effect; and the impression made upon my mind by his calculations and his reasoning, induced me to yield to his request.

The

It is to speak greatly within bounds, to state, that, on an average, this corn would produce, at least, ten quarters of grain to the acre, which is more than three times as much as the average crop of wheat throughout the kingdom. It stands upon the ground but five months; and admits of a crop of tares or of cabbages during the other part of the year. fodder, as I shall further on prove as clear as daylight, is worth eight pounds an acre, to speak greatly within compass. I shall I NOTIFIED, a week or two ago, that prove, from incontestable evidence, that a I should publish a new edition of my bushel of this corn produces more flour Treatise on this Corn on the 1st Decem- than a bushel of the very best wheat. I ber. This is the 1st December; and shall also prove, that, in point of real the book is published. I should deem utility, it is of more value, pound for it unfair to make it necessary for any pound, than wheat flour; and if I do prove one, if I could avoid it, to purchase this all this, is not the introduction of this book a second time. It is absolutely ne- corn the greatest and most laudable uncessary that all those who plant the corn dertaking of which mortal man ever had upon a scale extending even to half an to boast? And what a wonderful effect acre, should possess the addition which is here from a cause the most trifling I have now made to the book; and yet in itself! My son brought three little miI am very unwilling to put any one to serable ears of this corn to England in the expense of another five shillings on the year 1826, neither of them longer than account of it. I therefore insert here my middle finger, and neither of them every word that I have now added to bigger round than a common mould-canthe book ; and if the readers of the dle. I have plenty of ears from several Register go through this piece of writ-parts of the country, seven inches long ing, they will find it more deeply inte- and some ears approaching the weight resting to the nation than any one that ever before came from the pen of

WM. COBBETT.

ADDITION.-FIRST PART.

THERE never was a subject of so much importance as this, presented to the attention of any people in the world; for, if I be correct in my opinions, here are the means pointed out of doubling, at the east, the quantity of food, which the land

of half a pound. The corn goes on increasing in size as well as in goodness of quality. I can show a bushel of ears equal, even in size to the average of the corn-ears of the general run of crops in Long Island ; and, as I shall prove before I have done, our crops are four times as great as their crops, while the quality of our corn is, beyond all measure, superior to theirs. This, therefore, I scruple not to say, is the greatest thing that individual ever did for his country; and such it must be acknowledged to be, if I prove

the truth of the assertions I have here Mr. PADDISON, of Louth, in the same made. county, has sent me a fine sample of corn But it is, first of all, necessary to prove growed in that neighbourhood. He canthat this corn will come to perfection in not speak to the amount of the crop, but this country; and that I am now going to says his corn is as fine as any that he ever prove, in a manner which would close up saw of my growing, which indeed it the gainsaying jaws of any one upon appears to be, from the sample which he earth, THE LIAR only excepted. In has sent. Seven other persons in his giving an account of the corn which I neighbourhood have growed the corn, and have received from the several counties, I have had very fine crops. DOCTOR shall begin at the NORTH, come on SNAITH, at Boston, in the same county, towards the SOUTH, and then go into the tells me, that he himself has had a fine EAST; then go to the WEST; and then into the four SOUTHERN counties of SURREY, KENT, SUSSEX, and HAMPSHIRE, ending with a very particular account of what has been done in the parishes round about BATTLE, and in the little bunch of HARD PARISHES in the north of Hampshire.

crop; that the ears are generally finer than those that he received from me; that he has received eight or ten samples from those to whom he gave the corn; that all who have cultivated it have had good crops, excepting one person; that the whole neighbourhood is delighted with it, and that several farmers have applied to him for information about it.

From NORFOLK I have not received any specific information, nor any samples; but from SUFFOLK, I have received from Mr. ROBERT CHILD, of Bungay, samples of very fine corn, growed this year in several parishes of the eastern part of that county. From Mr. Clouting of EYE, in Suffolk, I have received two ears of beautiful corn. He tells me that the

From Mr. DUNCAN ANDERSON of PAISLEY, I received two very fine ears of corn that were gathered in the month of September: they were not ripe, nor anything like ripe, nor was the season come for their being ripe even in the south of England; but Mr. ANDERSON had a friend coming from PAISLEY to London; and he gathered the ears a month before the time in order not to lose that opportunity. Paisley is, I believe, four hundred miles to the north of London. I corn amounts to twenty coombs per acre; have received a large bunch of very fine that is to say, ten quarters per acre; and ears of corn; not so long nor quite so he tells me, that he has seen Mr. KENT, -large as some others, but perfect in form, of Stanton, who tells him that he has and perfectly ripe, growed, this year, by growed, this year, full twenty coombs Mr. BLAKEY, at Morpeth, in NORTHUM- upon an acre, and that the shelled corn BERLAND, for which I am very much weighed 234 pounds the coomb, which is obliged to that gentleman. At Preston, fifty-eight and a half the bushel. This in LANCASHIRE, Mr. WILCOXSON, the falls a little short of my weight, which I editor of the Preston Chronicle, to whom shall have hereafter to state. From IpsI sent a bag of corn in the spring for dis- wich I received a very fine sample of tribution, informs me that several persons corn, and it was the first I received this to whom he gave the corn have had very year; but I mislaid the letter, and beg fine crops at and near that place, where pardon of the writer for not having anit seems eight or ten persons have culti-swered it. vated the corn. towards the WEST. In BERKIn LINCOLNSHIRE, at and near Great SHIRE I have only to speak of some samGrimsby, the corn has been growed with ples of very good corn raised by Mr. great success. Mr. JOSHUA PLASKITT, BUDD of Burghcleare, Mr. GRAY of of that place, has sent me twenty-one Newbury, and Mr. FORSBURY, who lives, samples of corn, growed in and near it, I believe, at Newtown. In WILTSHIRE all ripe, sound, and perfect, and marked some beautiful corn has been growed at with the names of the several growers, and near Malmesbury. I ought to have amongst which I have the pleasure to see accounts from Pewsey and that neighthat there are those of some labouring men.bourhood; but they have not arrived.

I now go

The corn has been growed at Fisherton, schoolmaster there; but it was small in near Salisbury, by Mr. BARLING, and quantity, and his land is exceedingly good. by others, to whom he gave some of the There is a part of that extensive parish corn sent by me. There is no better called the Bourne, which in some sort situation in the kingdom for the growth resembles the seat of the Benedictine of this corn; but the farms in WILT- Monks in the times of the ancient and SHIRE have always been large, from the desolating wars; it is a wild common, very nature of that fine and beautiful covered with heath, with here and there a county. The labourers have worse gardens green dip, lying between the innumerable than almost anywhere else; and they have little hills; at least, such was its state been brought down closer to the infernal when I was a little boy; and there I potato level. spent many a day, digging after rabbits'. From GLOUCESTERSHIRE, I have re-nests, rolling down the sand-hills, and ceived a letter from Mr. DANIEL CROOME whipping the little efts that crept about of Berkeley, and twenty ears of his own in the heath. But this scene is quite crop of most excellent corn. This gen- changed; the land being generally too tleman distributed eighty-eight ears of poor to attract the rich, this common has the corn that I sent to him to an equal escaped enclosure bills; and every little number of persons in the parish and green dip is now become a cottager's neighbourhood. He tells me, that he finds garden or field, appropriated on the printhat the corn has been very productive, ciples of the law of nature; and, the and ripened well; and that he finds that Bishop being the Lord of the Manor, the leaves, and even the stems, of the while the herbage is hardly worth looking corn-plant, are very good food for horses, after by his tenants, these appropriators which I well knew before, and which have been suffered to go on, till they have I have amply experienced this last sum- formed a grand community of cottages, mer. From Mr.RICHARD ISLES, of Fair- each with its plat of ground and its pigsty. ford, I have the following account, Humble as are the dwellings of the which I am compelled to give in abridg-" Bourners," they have not, it seems, ment; namely, that he has had, on three wholly escaped the viper tongue of slander; quarters of an acre and nine rods, an ave-but, though I do not pretend that their rage of sixty-eight bushels of shelled corn community, like that of the ancient fato the acre. He having encountered many thers of Saint Benedict, is, to quote the disadvantages not to be expected to be beautiful description of Mr. Southey, absoexperienced in the ordinary course of lutely" a green OASIS amidst the desert;" things; but here, under all these disad- and that, "like stars in a moonless vantages, Mr. ISLES has eight quarters night, it shines upon the country round and a half of shelled corn to the acre, with a tranquil ray;" though I do not which is more than double the average pretend that the Bourners are equal to amount of a crop of wheat upon regular the Benedictines, either in learning or in wheat-land; and, observe, always when piety; though I do not pretend, that the the wheat is seven shillings and sixpence Bourne is that "Goshen of God, which a bushel, the corn will be worth six shil-" enjoys its own light amidst darkness and lings the bushel. From Mr. GOMME, "storms;" I do pretend that this commubookseller, of Gloucester, to whom I sent nity of cottages, trespassers" as the a bag of the corn for distribution, I have a occupants are, is a good thing, *seeing letter, in which he tells me that he gave that it gives bacon to hundreds who, the corn to fifty-seven persons, nearly all without it, would have to live upon the labourers; that they have all had excellent soul-debasing potatoes. And if I live till crops, and that next year, as he believes, next spring, and can possibly find the the planting of the corn will become very time, I will go down, and make all general. these Bourners cultivate my corn; and hereby, to save postage (and not run the risk of losing a letter to Farnham, as I lost one from it), request my nephew to

I now return to the SOUTH. At Farmham, in SURREY, some very fine corn has been growed by my nephew, who is a

I

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