one and to pay the other. Very foolish, certainly! But not more foolish than this part of the charge of The Judge, it being notorious that the destruction of property in these cases does not take place with any such view; and that is a sort of reasoning which has no force in it. It is, in fact, the common-place cant of all those who wish to keep the people quiet. The destruction of property, in these cases, is an act of vengeance upon the rich, upon the general notion that it is their fault that the poor are not better off. Nor, do these acts of vengeance fail of producing their effect; of which we have proofs all over the kingdom. In numerous places the people of property have met, and have agreed to make subscriptions, or to do someth ng or other in order to make employment for the poor, and to raise their wages. Some unfortunate creatures will be hanged at Ely; but, the labourers, all over the kingdom, wiI obtain an attention to their demands which they could not obtain before. There fore, though to ruin me does not enable me to encourage labour or pay wages, it may induce a great many of my neighbours to give more encouragement to labour, and to pay more money in wages. In no country in the world, the judge says, are there so many institutions for the humane purpose of administering to the wants and necessities of the poor; in no country does the public and private bounty How in so many streams for the comfort and relief of the distressed classes of the community This is the old cant. It is very true that there are institutions enough of this sort, and a most sorrowful truth it is But, it is a compliment to the humanity of our government, that the miserable labourer is | obliged to receive in the shape of poor-rates that which he ought to receive in the shape of wages? Is this a thing to boast of? And what is this private bounty? Generally speaking, it consists of the farthings, of the fractions, which the plunderers of he sort or another, toss back to the starving people, lest by pushing them to desperation, they should lose the pounds, which they take care to expend upon themselves. I do not mean to deny my countrymen the honour of being really and sincerely humane, speaking of thers in a mass. They are, in the true seuse of the word, humane. They sympathize with persons in distress, it is very seldom that their compassion does not produce an active effect; they are ardent in their attachment as parents and children; they have a horror of all acts of oppression and of cruelty. But, while I do my countrymen in general this justice, deny, that the "Institutions,' to which the judge alludes, have, in general, any other object in view, than that of perpetuating the slavery of the nation by bribing the miserable part of the community to remain quiet, while the middling classes are plundered; for, as I have a hundred times over shown, the burthens imposed by the government press, first or last, upon the whole of the community except those who share in the plunder. "It is to be observed, too," says the Judge, "that "the money which was taken from individuals upon "this occasion was not applied to the support of the "families of the offenders, but was consumed in riot "and intoxication And, pray, Sir, what was this to be observed for? What could be the object of this observation? Why, to prepossess the minds of the public and the jury against these unfortunate perBons. You know very well, that, in such a scene, it was impossible to make a division of the spoil. You know very well, that, to spend the money in drink was the natural consequence of the taking of it. You know that it is the custom among persons of this description. But, you also know very well, that to represent these poor wretches, who had unfortunately fallen under your tongue; to reprc sent them as squandering away, in drink, the money which they might have carried home to their wives and children; you knew that to represent them thus was another means of diminishing the sorrow which their fate would excite amongst people in general. Thus you know the truth of what is going on, though it is hidden from nearly all the people of England. We shall soon hear what the end of these proceedings is, and, I dare say, that the Cossacks of America will rejoice at the event. I should not much wonder if they were to think the matter worthy of being celebrated by processions and thanksgivings. The In spite, however, of the awful example, about to be made at Ely, and the pains which the London “Loyal" press has taken to circulate the Judge's charge all over the country, in a verbatim form, the very next day's post after it was delivered; in spite of such zealous efforts, efforts, indeed, which appear almost supernatural; for how was the loyal publisher in London to get word for word, on Tuesday morning, very early, a Judge's charge, delivered at Ely, on the Monday, at earliest, after. the Rev. Sir Henry Bate Dudley Baronet's Sermon on that day? Ely is 67 miles from London. charge (word for word, mind!) must have been sent off on the Monday Evening. The Judges arrived at 10 o'clock, preceded by a cavalcade" of which I have given you a true account, and a very pretty cavalcade it was, was it not? I dare say that it was very much admired by the ladies. Well! The "cavalcade," be it what it might, proceeded first to the Court House, where the" Speciul Commission" was opened. Well! Then the Judges (and the " cavalcade," I suppose) went to the Cathedral. It must, surely, have been noon by this time. Then "Divine Service was performed," and a Sermon was preached by the Rev. Sir Bate. Expeditious as Sir Bate might be (and he is, indeed, though aged, a most active as well as valorous, member of the true Church Militant) the "Divine Service" of a Cathedral, and that, too, upon so solemn an occasion, could not well be performed, together with the sermon, in less than three hours. Then there was the re-opening of the court; the swearing in of the Grand Jury; and the delivery of the charge. All this must have brought on six or seven o'clock. How expeditious, how quick, and how able, must the reporter of the charge have been! Word for word! What an able set of people follow these judges upon this great occasion! There can be not the smallest doubt, that the charge was written in London, agreed on by the Ministers, and published by their previous orders, as soon as possible after the Commission had opened These two poor, mean creatures, ABBOT and BORROUGH, have no will of their own. They are mere dependants. However, be this as it may, the pains that are taken to scour through the country this charge shows that no little importance is attached to it. But, as I was going on to observe, in spite of the bold language that is used by the hired writers of the day, we see, all over the country, that the people of property are endeavouring, by conciliation, to keep the people quiet. The number of paupers, of the real paupers and beggars, is become very formidable. There are not a sufficiency of troops to be ready to march to every part of the country at one and the same time. When force is not at land, the rich are compelled to give way. In many places subscriptions have been entered into to find work for the poor! The Justices of the Peace have, in other parts, taken upon them to recommend (by a sort of circular manifestoes) the Parish Officers to be very liberal to the poor pe ple. You will easily suppose what a state the country must be in, when means like these are resorted to for keeping the peace! The truth is, that the nation is beggared by those who plunder it, and by its Debt. The sums raised to pay the fund-holders and the army, &c. are so great; so large a part of the produce of men's labour is swallowed by the State, that those who labour have very little left. When there are vast numbers in a community who are never more than one remove from pauperism, there are constantly a certain portion of them becoming paupers; and, as the taxes increase, the paupers increase. If the paupers were all well kept, this increase would not lead to open violences. But, as is generally the case, the more mouths there are to be fed, the worse feeding they get. Those who have to support the poor, do all they can to keep down the expense. The poor being worse fed than formerly, and, indeed, not nearly so well as a pack of fox-hounds which I saw at dinner the other day, they are disposed to keep out of the poor-houses as long as they can. In short, starvation or plunder is their only choice. This is a state of things which surprisingly puzzles the English Cossacks. They, in fact, begin to see that things cannot go on long in this way. A sort of Political Predestinarianism has arisen out of the calamities of the country. The dismal situation in which we are; the weight of the taxes, the decline of trade and agriculture, the amount of the Debt, the immense army, the myriads of paupers, the complete despair of any alteration for the better, the impossibility of longer disguising or palliating the truth, as to these matters; all these have reduced the friends of the System to great difficulty. They will not, however, allow. that this sad state of things is to be ascribed to the war and the system of taxation. They cannot deny the existence of the calamity; but they deny that the calamity has arisen out of the System; of which System you have had a pretty full description. vulsion in nature. We see that the race of men in England increases rather than otherwise. Why, then, should the country (by which are meant the nation and its power and resources) decline with the number of its years? It is a base thought, and one which none but a base mind can endure, that our country, the spot where we first drew breath, where our tongues were first heard, where our little feet and hands first felt their power, where we first thought, where, love first warmed our hearts, where our parents lie buried, and from the name and fame of which, be they good, or be they evil, we never can detach ourselves; it is a mark of inherent baseness to be able to entertain the thought, that our country, that all which is embraced by that name, is upon the decline, and is doomed to perish! Where, except amongst knavish priests and public plunder.. ers, is the man, who could endure the thought, much less state the fact cooly) that his own reputation is on the decline, and will be wholly gone in a few years? And yet, if a man were to endeu|vour to get rid of his connection with his country, the folly of such an attempt would be equal to its baseness. The thing is impossible, when the country, like ours, is of great and mighty consequence. in the world. The native of an obscure Canton, of some petty Principality, known to the worldonly through the means of map makers, and the rulers of which are about upon a level with their Majesties of Clubs and of Spades; the native of such an insignificant spot may pass through life without any anxiety about country. That which is not known to the world can lose no reputation. But, the native of a country so renowned as England; of a country so famous for all that most strongly attracts the admiration of men; of a country whose genius and power have; for ages, been such as to make her views and intentions an object of solicitude with every nation, and with every enlightened individual, in the world; of a country famed for her laws, famed in arts and in arms, famed for the struggles which, age after age, her sons have held with tyranny in every form it has assumed, and, beyond even all these, famed for having given birth to, and reared up to manhood, those men of matchless wisdom and virtue, who, by carrying her unadulterated principles across the Atlantic, bave there turned, as it were by magic, a trackless wilderness into a civilized, flourishing Empire, equal in population to England herself, and fast becoming her rival in every thing of which nations are proud: the native of such a country cannot sneak if he would. His very name of Englishman is a challenge to criticism. People will not stop to hear what party he is of. Being an Englishman is enough, and, if his country sink in reputation, he, in some degree, sinks too, in spite of all the salvos that he may endeavour to invent. Pressed, however, to say whence the calamity has arisen, they say, that nations, like individuals, have their rise and their decline; that the Roman Empire rose to an astonishing height, and, at last, orumbled to nothing; that England is not exempted from this common lot; that her turn seems approaching, and that that of America will come by and by. This is the language of the cool, sleek, tame cheaters, who only care about dying fat in a feather bed. The hungry friends of the System, those who are upon the look out for prey, or who have begun to bite, talk in a very different strain; but, the fashion with the cool and fat friends of the System is, to attribute the present distresses of the country to a sort of natural decline: so that they would be looked upon as not doing the country any harm by living in laziness upon the fruits Therefore, besides the excessive baseness of of the labour of others. It is not they, who have talking coolly about the natural decline of the hurt the country. The country is in a fever; terri-country, the folly is extreme in any man who has bly convulsed; has every symptom of approaching weakness, if not of dissolution. But, it is no fault of these good people! Their being continually sucking its blood and gnawing its flesh does it no harm. Its ailment is a natural decline; in short, it is old age, which, sooner or later, brings every thing in the world to an end? 1 am not aware of any notion that man can adopt more base, or more mischievous than this; and yet it is "all the fashion." We do, indeed, see, that all animals and vegetables rise, decline, and fall; that is to say, all the individuals of the several species of animals and vegetables: but, the species themselves never decline and fall without great mismanagement, or, some extraordinary con any sense of shame, or who has one spark of cou rage left in his bosom. But, the mischievousness of this doctrine is fully equal to its baseness. It is the doctrine of predestination applied to nations, and applied in its worst sense too. Only make up your mind to being damned, and, of course, you may do what you like in the way of robbery and murder; if you can contrive to set the gallows at defiance. And, only make up your mind that you are to be a slave, and that your country is to become a den for slaves and poltroons; only make up your mind to this, and you will, neither in word or deed, attempt to oppose tyranny from within, or conquest from without. The end of this degrading doctrine is to make men indifferent about the acts of the government: and, truly, if the country be to perish, if it be approaching towards a natural and inevitable termination of all its greatness and fame: if this be the case, it is not worth men's while to trouble themselves about what is done to the country; all that they have to do being to take as good care as they can of themselves, and, by no means to run any unnecessary risks. Nay, seeing that the thing is to be broken up, there cannot be much harm in taking part in the pillage, as sailors do in the contents of chests on board a ship which is just going to pieces. It is with a view of justifving this last-mentioned species of conduct, that many persons resort to the doctrine of natural decline: as if they were to say, "it is no matter: if we do not suck out the blood "of the country, others will; seeing that it is to "perish at such a time." I trust, however, that the day is not distant, when the people will convince these leeches, that the country is not doomed to perish; but, that it has enough of its ancient spirit left not only to rescue it from its present degradation, but to do complete justice to all its enemies, internal as well as external. WM. COBBETT. POSTSCRIPT. It is rumoured, that the French bave attempted the life of Wellington and his staff! it is high time, you will say, that France, to save her name from everlasting infamy, did something to get rid, at any rate, of these insulting plunderers. A plot, a sort of gunpowder-plot, is talked of; and, it is very certain, that Wellington is coming home at a moment when nobody expected any such thing. If it be true, that a plot has been laid, that will produce terrible alarma. No matter that it has fuiled. Another may be more fortunate. The attempt will do a great deal. Wellington is excessively shy of powder and steel. This has been often whispered about; and, I believe that he, really, never has exposed himself to danger wilfully. In short, he is said to have a particular dislike to a broken skin. "If there has been a real plot, he will run off!" That is the opinion of all who know him; and, if he leave France, it will give great encouragement to the disaffected; that is to say, all those who do not merit the execration of mankind. If more vigorous measures are adopted, a flame may be produced in that way. Besides, what more can be done without an actual parceling out of the country? That would not suit the Bourbons. Then the allies must be put in motion again. That would demand new subsidies from England, just at a time when we are tired of taxes! Here's the rub! All is in a turmoil. The success of the Despots is yet incomplete. They will yet have to pay for their treachery and cruelty; and the base priests, their coad jutors, will be the companions of their final overthrow. W.C END OF VOL. XX. COPY RIGHT SECURED ACCORDING TO LAW. Published by H. Cobbett and G. S. Oldfield, at No. 19 Wall-street, New-York. INDEX OF NAMES OF PERSONS MENTIONED IN VOL. XXX. ABBOTT, Judge, 802, 803, 805, Charles, 519. Achmuty, Sir Samuel, 659. -, Charles, 625. Bolland, 805. Bourbons, 25, 42, 69, 72, 73, 77, Boyd & Benfield, 36: Rev. Mr. David, 342. Aris, Governor, 408. Athol, Duke of, 406. B. Baker, Rev. Dr. 735. Baldwin, 131. Banks, 172, 176, 518, 519. Beloes, Rev. Mr. 103, 104, 112. -, Hon. Mr. 224, 402. Benjafield, 108, 109, 112, 139. Binns, Mr. 802. Birkbeck, Mr. 152, 154, 155, 156, 157. Blucher, 16, 75, 76, 78, 267, 372, 469. Blandford, Marquis of, 329. Bloomfield, Gen. 372, 611. Brunswick, 651. Bruce, 574. 216, 218, 220, 221, 315, 316, Canning, Mrs. 834. Camden, Lord, 722, 779, 783, 784, Chancellor, Lord, 108. Chaucer, 694. Christian, Edward, Esq. 802. Rev. J. S. 449. House of, 798. Bull, John, 16, 88, 149, 184, 260, Burke, 57, 85, 167, 168, 210, 220, Burrough, Judge, 802. 805, 808. George III. 8, 103, 130, 549. [dle, 313, 722. Geary, Sir Wm. 772, 779, 781,782, Jefferson, Mr. 395, 443, 601. Cumberland, Duke of, 178, 174, General, Attorney, 548. 326, 460, 769. Curtis, Sir Wm. 265. 111, 805. Gibbs, Sir Vicary, 88, 217, 690, Jenkinson, Charles, 43, 130. 699, 805. Curwen, John Christian, 426, 520, Gillray, 11, 335. Davoust, 75. D. Dallas, Mr. 89, 481, 482, 487. Darlington, Lord, 520, 573, 724. Dexter, Mr. 600. Declaration, 760. D'Ivernois, Sir Francis, 11. Dick, Quintin, 134, 216, 217, 516. Double Lady Louisas, 700. Daniel, 160. Dunmore, Lord, 197. Dudley, Rev. Bate, 109, 112, 675, 771, 802, 805, 808. Dudley's Bate, 562. Dudley, 669. Dundas, 526, 729. Dunstan vilie, Lord, &c. 54. Dyke, Sir Thomas, 779, 783. E. Ingersoll, Mr. 415. Mr. 767. Gifford, John, 10, 104, 105, 112. Jolterhead, Giles, Esq: 231, 232, 101, Jones, deputy jailer, 224. 529, Johnson, Dr. 85. Giddy, 517. Glanders, Esq. 232. Gourley, Mr. 24. Goodman, 537. Grant, Mr. J. P. 484, 579, 709. Grattan, Mr. 219, 220, 275, 554, Grey, Lord, 125, 131, 224, Sir Charles, 731. Grenville, Lord, 101, 123, 125, 126, 223, 514, 579. Graham, Sir John, 606. 312, Kenyon, Lord Chief Justice, 328, 124, King of England, 42, 165, 166, 167, Guelph, 8, 12, 74, 78, 99, 107, 161, 174, 511, 769, 770, 773. 167, Gundry, Mess. 631. Gwyder, Right Hon. Earl of, 22. H. Hallett, Mr. 305. Harper, Mr. Goodloe, 293, 314. Ellenborough, Lord, 68, 109, 221, Hampden, 738, 768. 608, 805. Ellis; G. 101. Hamilton, 622. Harry, 92. of Candy, 223. Mr. Rufus, 340; 594. Knatchbull, Sir Edward, 772, 779 L. Lauderdale, Lord, 465. Law, jailer of the King's Bench Henry, Capt. 43, 68, 69, 73, 77, 243. Herriot, 326. Heron, Sir Robert, 453. Folkestone, Lord, 519, 136, 263, Hopes, 729. Foster, Mr. Leslie, 428. 458, 484, 487. Fordham, Mrs. 601. Foulkes, Mr. 802. Frere, 10, 101. Howe, Sir Wm. 653. Mr. H. of Wiltshire, 23, 30, Langton, Wm. Gore, Esq.M.P. 22 Lemmon, Sir Wm. 136. Leopold, Prince, 779, 781, 786. Lonsdale, Lord, 163, 170, 606. M. Maddocks, Mr. 733, 734, 735,736, |