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PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY the author, AT NO. 11, BOlt-court,

FLEET-STREET.

1830.

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No. 16. Eastern Tour.-Petition of Mr.
Cobbett's Labourers. Blaspheming

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Bancroft Libr

COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAE REGISTER.

VOL. 69.-No. 1.]

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 2D, 1830.

[Price 7d.

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poách or starve." He means, of course, that he shall poach, and that he cannot and will not starve,

It is thus that you speak of reduction of taxes: you, indeed, in the petition in which you were concerned at Colches ter, very kindly tell the Ministers and the Parliament, that the expenditure "Property is of no value, property does not cannot be materially reduced. Therefore, "exist; that which we call property is not we must, according to you, re-augment " property, unless there be a standard of value. the quantity of money. You never seem "It is the money of a country, and nothing "else, that can make property of any use. to think of the eternal disgrace and inTo the mass of the people, the land can be famy which the Government and the "of no more use than the vacant space above Parliament, of which last you are a "it, unless there be money whereby to deter-member, must bring upon themselves; "mine and denominate its value, and to cause "labour to be performed on it, and to remove you never seem to think of the hatred " its produce to the backs and mouths of the and contempt that they will deserve, "people. Seeing, then, that money gives aye, and that they will receive, too, not value to every thing; that it is the main only from the people of this country, " cement of civil society; what a monstrous "thing it is, that this thing should be left to but from all mankind, if they now re"the direction of bands of men, who have no turn to those filthy and abandoned rags "general interest with the people at large in by the means of which they brought us, "this respect; but who must wish to gain by according to their own confession, to "the money; and whose gain must be detri mental to the nation at large."-Register, within forty-eight hours of barter. You never seem to think of this: you forget the solemn declaration of the Parliament, that it never would lower the standard. In short, you seem to regard the covering of the whole of the Government with infamy as nothing at all; and really one would think that you had been expressly retained in my service by a high fee, to accelerate the period of holding the Grand Feast of the Gridiron.

15th May, 1819.

ΤΟ

MR. WESTERN,

On his Letters recently published, relative to the Money Affair.

Derby, 25th December, 1829. "We must retrace our steps"! Oh, you You are in the field again, I see, and must, must you? When do you mean are pushing hard for the return of the to stop, then? When one of your carters false and base paper-money. You very is backing a cart, he generally knows frequently observe, that we must either where to stop; but can you tell me Save the false money; the base and de- where you will stop, when you begin to preciated money; the" worthless rags"; go back? Will you stop at 1826? the villanous, the cheating, monopo- Will you stop at 1822? Will you stop Izing, blood-shedding, panic-striking, at 1819? Oh, no! You must run all hellish paper-money; that we must have the way back to 1814, and unlimited this, or a great reduction of the taxes; bank restriction; and then out will bat then you immediately fly off from come the assignats, and your whole this latter remedy, as if it were a thing system goes to pieces like a cart going by no means to be thought seriously of; back down hill, dragging the poor horse bat mentioned as an impossibility, or after it, and, finally, coming against a something next to impossible; just as bank at the bottom, dashing itself, the man puts the alternative, "I must horse, and the harness, all to atomis. 558985

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there is regularity, and consistency : yours is a peal of bob-major, but, at every change, we hear the big bell. You are a fine ringer; it is a pity you had not confined your studies to that entertaining pursuit. When I am reading you, I am every now-and-then delighted at your invectives against the double and treble taxes; but before the sentence is out, before the change comes to a close, I always find my ears dinned with the accursed big bell; and I have observed that you never write one single paragraph, at the most, without convincing us that all you have in view is the infamous paper-money.

Iam for retracing the steps, too; but is not round ringing, where the big I am for turning the horse and cart bell comes in always last; and where about, and going steadily over the rough and uphill road, till I get upon the fair and level (plain of 1791; before the accursed small paper-money made its appearance, to the disgrace of England. That alternative which you look at with so much terror, and from which you recoil, as a guilty man recoils from a ghost; that alternative, the reduction of expenses, and taking off of taxes, and rectifying contracts, and bringing in resources now dilapidated and wasted; that alternative which contemplated an end to military sway, and the return of civil government; which contemplates the return of the barrel of beer to the labourer's cottage: that alternative, I am It is curious that while you are thus decidedly for; I prove it to be just; I sounding the big bell, and ringing more prove it to be practicable, I prove it to changes to get at that sound than any be necessary to the happiness of the peo-set of ringers in Essex can get upon ple and the safety of the state. I like six bells, at any rate; while you are at the idea of retracing your steps; but I this, calling aloud for the return to the am for going back the full length; I am paper-money, you profess your confifor going back to the point whence we dence in the wisdom of the Duke of Weldeparted, when the miseries and dis-lington; and your high respect for his grace of England began; and not for character. Why, Sir, if he were to adopt stopping at the point where those mi- the measure that you recommend, he series and disgrace were consummated. would not only be, but would be thought You vary your descriptions and defini- and called, the most cowardly and contions; so that sometimes one thinks temptible creature that ever disgraced the you want one thing, and sometimes that earth by treading upon it. Every arguyou want another. Even your petition ment that you have offered him, if argufrom Colchester contains a mass of self-ments yours are to be called, was offered contradictions. You want the malt and to him before the Scotch Small-note Bill beer-tax repealed: you want a sixth part was passed. You can suggest nothing of the taxes taken off; and yet you that was not dinned into his ears before. cannot, for the life of you, see how the He said that he clearly understood the expenditure can be diminished! But subject: he was the Prime Minister at you want, at the same time, a return to the time, as he is now; he gave every asthe vile paper-money; and what do surance that mortal man could give, that you want a repeal of taxes for, if you he never would consent to the repeal of thus really diminish their amount in the law of 1826. He was told of the one half? To render the several parts evils that he would inflict by enforcing of your writings consistent with one that law his answer was, that tempoanother, I defy mortal man; but, amidst rary evil must be suffered for the sake of all the confusion and all the inconsisten- ensuring permanent good; and he excy, one perceives a constant grunting pressed his determination to adhere to running along through the whole of the bill in a manner the most positive your lucubrations; a constant grunting that words could enable him to do. He in one's ear; or, rather, an ever-recur- has hitherto persevered: an immense ring grunt after the base paper-money, mass of ruin and misery has been occajust as one hears the sound of the big sioned by the bill; and if he were now bell in a peal of bob-major. Yours to give way, what language would af

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ford terms of reprobation sufficient just-Wellington would be in the eyes of all ly to designate his conduct? I trust the world, if he were to lend an ear to that he will not give way: I trust that your eternal peal of bob-major.

he will rigidly adhere to the bill: I trust
that he will return to the taxes of the
year 1791: this is not only my hope,
but my belief; and to say that I be-
lieve the contrary, would be to say, by im-
plication, that I regard him as the mean-
est and most stupid man upon the face
of the earth!

That he will not do this base thing I take for granted; and, therefore, I think it worth while, which otherwise I should not, to warn him of the dangers that now beset him. LOCKE! what do you quote LOCKE for? LOCKE knew nothing about paper-money, and said nothing about it. He never said anything His case is this: he was one of the about small notes. You might have Ministry who adopted the measure of quoted other people, who did know some 1826; the measure had his approbation thing about this matter. LockE has said at that tinie, as a measure necessary for nothing upon the subject of paper-mothe safety of the state: he has since de-ney, which had not been said, and better clared that it was absolutely necessary said, by others, a thousand years before to the safety of the state. When told he was born; for this was a science of the evils which it would inflict upon that the ancients understood as well as the people, he answered, that the pre- the moderns; and that Moses undersent evil was nothing compared to the stood better than LoCKE; but, of the evil if the bill were not carried into ef- tricks of paper-money makers, neither fect: he reprobated the false credit Moses, nor the ancients, nor Locke, which paper-money gave rise to, and he knew anything. But if you must quote justly reprobated it: he gave powerful Locke; if LOCKE were your guide, why reasons, unanswerable reasons, for pre-did not you count Locke in opposition ferring the King's coin to the base pa-to the passing of Peel's Bill? You were per-money. He insisted upon the wis- in the house at the time; you were in dom of bringing the nation back to its former habits of expense. Upon these grounds, he has proceeded with this bill: he has caused the suffering to take place to a prodigious extent: he has gone on till the one-pound notes have nearly disappeared, and until the fives have fol-are one of the men who passed the bill; lowed them to a pretty great extent; and shall he stop now? Shall he be guilty of the wanton cruelty of having produced all this suffering without any chance of any good in return; or shall While you were approving of this he confess himself to have been totally bill, you had had an opportunity of ignorant of what he was about? Will reading my predictions with regard to you hang him up upon one or other of this very bill. In a letter addressed to the horns of this disgraceful dilemma; your friend Tierney, published in Lonyou who profess to be his friend; you don in the month of September, 1818, who profess to admire him and rely on I told you, that if such a bill as that him I, for my part, who make no were passed, it would produce all the such professions, should blush, as an effects of which you so bitterly comEnglishman should blush,at the thought plain; and yet you talk of LOCKE, and of being under the control; I under do not talk of me. Indeed you could the control, did I say? I should blush not talk of me, and of my accurate preat the thought of there being an English dictions, my repeated warnings, with cat, whose happiness could possibly be out suggesting to the mind of every affected by the measures of a being so in-reader of your letters, that it would be expressibly contemptible as the Duke of extremely desirable for you to remain at

doors at the time: why, then, did not you quote LOCKE against the passing of the bill? You can now complain of that bill; you can now represent it as the cause of the ruin of the country: why did you not then oppose that bill? You

and yet you set yourself up as a doctor of this science; and complain of the Government for having changed the value of money, and having doubled the taxes.

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