YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE
RICHARD S. fellowes FUND

COBBETT'S

MANCHESTER LECTURES,

IN SUPPORT or nis

FOURTEEN REFORM PROPOSITIONS :

Which Lectures were delivered in the Minor Theatre, in that town,
on the eiz last days of the year 1831,

TO WHICH is SUBJOINED

A Lettei to Mr. O'Connell, on his Speech, made in Dublin, on the
4th of January, 1832, against the Proposition for the establishing- of
Fooi-Laws in Ireland.

LONDON:
PUBLISHED AT No, 11, BOLT-COURT, FLEET-STREET.
soid by mr. le-wis, market-street, manchester j by mr, t. smith,
uvehpool; by me. wilcoxon, preston; and by all book
sellers, IN LONDON AND IN THE COUNTRY,
1832.

LONDON:
PKI.\TED BY MILLS, lOWBTT, AND MILLS,
£0LT-C0DBT, FLEET-STaEET,

By 62.

CONTENTS.

   Pegi
Preface, .7  v
Xectube I. — On the necessity of a great change in the
affairs of the kingdom  1
Lecture IT. — On the Propositions for aboUshing pen
sions, sinecures, gi'ants, allowances, and half-pay,
and for the reducing of salaries; silso for (Uscharg-
ing the standing army, suppressing the military
«ca<Jen)ies and barracks ; and for establishing
an efficient militia lorce iii the (iOurit!6§, ."".Tl '. iT 24
Lecture III. — On the Propositions for abolishing tithes,
and for selling the real property of the Church,
and also the Crovvn-lands and estates, together
-with all the public property in the Duchies of
Cornvyall and Lancaster, aud to apply the pro
ceeds to public uses  53
Lecture IV. — On the Propositions relating to the Debt
(called national), and to an equitable adjustment
¦with respect to private pecuniary contracts . , , . S3
Lecture V. — On the Propositions for abolishing the
internal taxes, for maintaining a great navy, for
-defraying the expenses of the king, and for layhig
a land-tax  110
Lecture VI. — On the Proposition for abolishing the
Protestant Hierarchy in Ireland, and for causing
the Parliament to change its places of meeting. . 131
Letter to Mr, O'Connell on his Speech against Poor-
laws for Ireland  154

PREFACE.

Having in the month of August last received from
a committee of gentlemen at Manchester, who from
their state in life would he electors in that town if the
Reform Bill then before the House of Lords became a
Jaw ; having received from this committee an invitation
to become a candidate for the representation of this
great town, I answered it by expressing my gratitude for
the honour conferred on me by the invitation ; but by
stating, at the same time, that I must decline even such
great glory unless those -who choose me would pledge
themselves, in the firmest and most solemn manner, to
stand by me and support me to their utmost in my en-»
deavours to cause to be adopted certain great public
measures, which I plainly described to them in TniRTEEff
(since become /"oMr/eew) distinct propositions.
The House of Lords rejected the first Reform Bill;
but a second being now before Parliament ; it being
certain that a Reform must take place ; and it being also
certain that there can be no Reform without Manchesten
having members allotted to it : under these circum
stances, [I thought it my duty to lay before the people of
Manchester the facts and arguments upon vi^hicii my
a3

VI PREFACE.
propositions were founded j and it appeared to me that
the way to do this in the most respectful, and at the
same time the most frank and effectual manner,^was to
come hither in person, and to do it in their hearing, and
to their faces.
This I did, as is stated in the title-page, in six LEC
TURES, delivered oh the six last days of the last year.
The subjects are of the greatest importance ; the crisis
is such as the country has not been in before since the
reign of Charles the First ; my opinions are by many
persons deemed worthy of great attention ; justice to my
own name and fame demands that I give proof of the
^sincerity of these my opinions, and of my desire to see
¦my propositions adopted ; and as I cannot give a better-
yroof of this sincerity than would be given by puttihg into
print, and by publishing, under my own name, a report
xrf these lectures, 1 hereby put them into print, and send
ihem forth to the public.
They were not in fact lectures but speeches, having in
every case been made from notes, not exceeding in any
case the space of one side of half a sheet of quarto paper.
it is understood of course that these are reports of the
substance of the speeches, each of which was at the least
two hours long. Nevertheless I have, in these reports,
retained all the principal facts and arguments : I have
written them out with all due consideration : and I here
put forth that by which I, with regard to this great
matter of Reform, mean to abide.
. I ought here to explain a thing connected with this
matter which, if left unexplained, might operate unjustly
towards the Earl of Rad nor. That nobleman, npon hearing
that it was the intention of the reformers of Manchester
to put Ihe in nomination as one of. their members, wrote a

PREFACE, -yil
'Utter, of which the followiiig is a copy, to Mr, Whittlie,
ithe zealous and able Editor of the Manchester an-d
Salford Advertiser.
" Longford Castle, Aug. 20th, 133,L
1" Dear Sir,
.. "I w%s much pleased to learn from your paper, that itwas
.^termined to propose, Mr, Cobbett for the represeatative of MaQ-
, Chester atthe first election under the Reform Bill ; and still more
;§o to learn from yourself that there is reasonable ground to hope
for success.
; "Though I was deterred, by reasons -which are not unknown to
you, frora returning Mr. Cobbett at the two last elections for
Downton ; yet I have never ceased to regret that he was not a
Member, and to believe that his presence in the House of Commons
¦WQuld have been essenti'dlly useful. These feelings increase with
the increasing embarrassment of affairs — enibarr-assnients which
Le has so long foreseen, and so accurately foretold ; which he has
clearly traced to their origin ; which he is therefore more likely
than.any other perpbu to De,abl.e to. devise a remedy for, and! for
-which he has repeatedly pointed, out the remedy, especially in the
•Norfolk petitioti. To the necessity of adopting such measures as
are there proposed, I, instructed by him, have been long alive ;
and within the last few months, public opinion, has taken suph a
turn, that I think (why do I say 1 think ? I am sure) that very
many persons are , now prepared for those of tbem which, when
first propounded, appeared the most startUng and-alarming.
"That converts to his doctrines will fast increase I have, pp
-dpubt; 5ome turning to him and avowing their adhesion, others
^^dopting his opinions without owning, even to themselves; that
they have become his disciples. His active exertions, therefor^,
fbecome daily more desirable, and more likely to be useful,
"With these sentiments, I cannot but feel that the people.of MaUr
ehester, by choosing Mr. Cobbett for their Member, do themselves
sgreat honour, and the state great service.
"Of course, I must be anxious for your success. Even under
the Reform Bill, I suppose some expense will be tp be incurred-
'Jf any arrangement fof a subscription is made, pray put my name
down to it ; or if, as I am not known in Manchester, and have
no connexion with that place, an anonymous subscripiipn would
be better, enter me as ' An old Cobbettite; ' I will send you 50/.
in the first instance j and, when the time comes, if there is a neces
sity, I shall not be unwilling to add a second subscription.
" With respect to the measures which ought to be adopted, I
have no hesitation in saying, that my decided opinion is, that,
for tbe safety of the state, the internal peace of the country, the
¦well-being of the people, the preservation of property, and the

¦vm PREFACE,
--maintenance of anything like liberty, measures must be adopted
vto the full extent of any that have ever (as far as I recollect) been
proposed by Mr. Cobbelt. I am persuaded that he has all these
objects sincerely at heart.
"I wholly acquit him of any personal ambition, except probably
that anxious desire for fame, and that wish to live in the grateful
recollection of his countrymen, which are the signs of an exalted
and of a noble spirit. Sordid views of interest he certainly has
none — no petty ambition. The good of the people is what he
-seeks; his fame — the mere fact of his being thought of to repre
sent Manchester — is the assurance that he has the means Of
promoting it.
" For the sake ofthe country, of all orders in the state, from
the highest to the lowest, I wish you success.
"I ara, dear Sir, faithfully yours,
" Radnor.
"To J. Whittle, Esq., Advertiser Office, Manchester."
Now it should be observed, that this letter was writteii
hefore his Lord.ship could have seen or known of my
present Propositions, The first that I heard of this
letter was from a friend in Hampshire, where I was in
the early part of September ; and my Propositions
were not then in print. My Lord Radnor therefore, by
this his letter, gave his sanction to no propositions or
opinions of mine, bej^ond what were expressed in the
Norfolk Petition, which he, in his place in the House
of Commons, had defended in 1823, Being uncommonly
anxious that no ground of misrepresentation of my Lord
Radnor's conduct should be given by any act of mine I
Tiere insert the Norfolk Petition, that the public may
see the difference between the propositions contained in
It, and those contained in my present propositions.

preface, IX
ao THE HONOURABLE THE COMMONS OS THE UNITED KlltV-
DOM OF GREAT BKITAIN AND IRELAND IN ffABLIAMENS"
ASSEMBLED. , ,
The Petition ofthe Nobility. Gentry, and others of Ike County
of Norfolk, in Ciiunty Meeting assembled, this ad day ^
JanuaTy, 1833,
Most humbly showeth.
That your petitioners have aiways been ready to make any. sst-
crifices which were necessary to the defence of their country, and
to the safety and dignily of their Sovereign's throne ;' but that tbey
are now impelled By their well-known, indescribable, and unme
rited sufierings, to appro jcb your honourable House -with an hum
ble prayer, that you will be pleased to adopt tbe best means of re-
iievnjg'tbem frora thoSe sufferings.
That, in proceeding to suggest those means, which they do with
the greatest respect and deference, your humble petitioners caflnot
disguise from themselves, and they will not disguise from your
honourable House, that they entertain a fixed opinion, that this now
unhappy country owes all its calamities tothe predominance of
Cferfain particular families, -who, since the passing of -the Septennial
Act, have by degrees appropriated to the.T.selves a large part of
the property and revenue of' the whole nation, and who have, at last,
by taxes, debts, and changes in the currency, involved themselves
as well as the whole of this industrious community, in difficultates
too great to be reraoved by the hand of Time, or by any but the
most vigorous raeasures of legislation.
That, whether we look at the Church, the Army, the Courts ®f
Law, the Customs, the Excise, the Colonies, or the Crown-Lands,
-we see in each a channel of enormous emoluments to these parft-
cular families, for whose benefit and aggrandisement, more than for
, anything else, the whole of these sources of riches would appear
to exist. And tbat, therefore, though justice and necessity demand
a reduction ofthe interest of the debt, and an equitable adjustment
of all other contracts, your bumble petitioners w:ould deem such
reduction an act of deep iniquity, and they deem such atyustraent
wholly impracticable as long as these particular families enjoy those
.empluments, and. as long as .^hey retain in the legislature that ab
solute sway which they have acquired through the meaps of the
Septennial ,^ct, in conjunction with the notorious and scandalous
abuses connected with the representation.
;That it is well known to your honourable House, that, for
niore than twenty years, the particular fanailies received a large
part pf the, above-mentioned emoluments out ofthe money bpr-
'liQwed from the fundholders ; that, during that period, more than, a
' million of money was taken out of the loans to begiven to the
Church ;,and that, in fact, no inconsiderable part of the -whole pf
the loans went jnto the pockets of these families; and, therefoije,
your petitioners will not suppose -it-^iossible for your honourable

X preface.
House to harbour an intention to take even a single shilling f™m
the fundholders, so long as these families shall continue to receive
those emoluments. , . ,_ i_„„„„_
Your petitioners, therefore, most humbly pray, that > our nonour-
able House will be pleased to pass an Act for '=^."='"3. '!"jf*'; ^
Reform in the Comraons' House of Parliament, '". "/der tha such
Parliament may adopt the measures necessary to effect the loUowing
purposes : —
1. An ;
called t
2. A redu....„.. -.   -„ - ... - ^^
and Colleges, to a scale of expense as low as that ofthe array
before the Ust war.
3. A total abolition of all Sinecures, Pensions, Grants, and
Emoluments, not raerited by public services.
4. A sale ofthe numerous public estates, commonly called Crown
Lands, and an application of the money towards the liquida-^
tion ofthe Debt.
5. An equitable adjustment with regard lo the Public Debt, and
also with regard to all debts and contracts between man and
man.
But, while your humble petitioners are aware, that to reform the
Commons' House and to eff'ect the other purposes of justice arid
necessity, which they have here raost respectfully pointed out, may
require a lapse of months, they know, that your honourable House
have the power, and they will not believe that you want the will, to
aff'ord them immediate protection against further ruin. They, there
fore, seting the present nature of their case; seeing the abject misery
that hourly awaits them, pray that your honourable House will be
pleased, ¦
1. To suspend, by law, for one year, all distraints for rent, and to
cause distraints to be set aside where they have been begun.
2. To suspend all process for tithes for the same period. ^ '
2. To suspend, for the same period, all processes arising out of
mortgage, bond, annuity, or other contract aft'ecting house or
land.
4. To repeal the whole of the tax on Malt, Hops, Leather, Soap,
and C-jndles.
These measures, so analogous to others, taken by your honour
able House under circumstances far less imperious; these measure's
so easily adopted; so free from the possibility of inflictinc wron^;'
.and at the same time so necessary to relieve your petitioners from
=the daily alarm in wliich they live ; so necessary to aff'ord them a'
hope of escaping from the pains and disgrace of the lowest pauper
ism and beggary : tp belicve that these measures, measures of bare
protection trom further wrong and ruin ; to helieve tbat these will
be refused to your suffering petitioners, would be to suppose the

PREFACE, XI
existence of that callousness of heart which your petitioners are
far indeed from imputing to your honourable House, ¦
Having thus, vrith the most profound respect, submitted to your
honourable House those which tbey deem the best means for re
lieving their distresses, your humble petitioners, though they are
satisfied that evils so unusual and of sucb uncommon magnitude
require remedies of a nature extensive and e.\ttaordinary, beg leave
to assure your honourable House, that they venerate the constitution
of their fathers ; that tbey seek for no change in the form of the
Governraent ; tbat they know how many ages of happiness and of
glory their country enjoyed under a Government of King, Lords,
and Commons; that they fervently hope that this constitution may
descend to their cbildren : but that they are fully convinced, that,
unless the present evils be speedily arrested and effectually cured, a
convulsion must come, in which the whole of this ancient and
venerable fabric will be crumbled into dust. And your petitioners
-will ever pray.
The reader will see, that the present Propositions
go, in some respects, far beyond those contained in this
petition. But then he will please to recollect, that not
only have just nine years passed over our heads since
'1 823, when this petition was agreed to ; but there have
taken place, since that time, I, The Small Note Bill
(repealing Peel's Bill in its most essential part), 2, The
Panic in 1825, 3, The Re-enactment of Peel's Bill
IN 1826. 4, The Catholic Em.ancipation Bill, These
measures have produced an augmentation, an accumu
lation of evil, that demands, in my opinion, the remedies
which I now propose. However, 1 have, in the following
Lectures, fully stated my reasons for this my opinion;
and I am quite willing to abide by the decision of the
nation and of time, with regard to the soundness or
unsoundness of that opinion. All that I am here anxious
about is, that it should be clearly understood, that my
Lord Radnor does not, hy his letter to Mr. Whittle,
stand by any means committed to these my Manchester
Propositions : these express my opinions and my views.
Chosen by a body of electors, pledged to support me to

Xll PREFACE.
their iitiftost ih my endeavours to give effect to those
opinions, I am ready and wilting, and anxious to under
take the arduous task ; but otherwise T will not undertafca
it, though chosen by this great, industrious, opulent, and
enUghtened town.
Wm. COBBETT.
At Mr, Johnson's, Lime-place, Broughton,
Manchester, 3d January, 1S$2.

COBBETT'S
MANCHESTER LECTURES.

LECTURE I.
2Slh December, 1831.
Gentlejien op Manchester,
I AM here for the purpose of maintaining, irr the pre
sence and hearing of the inhabitants of the most intelligent
town in the kingdom, those propositions, which I some time
ago put forth in an address to the reformers of this town,
-who had sent to me an expression of their intention to put
me in nomination as a member of Parliament, whenever
the Reform Bill should give them the power of choosing
one. Upon an occasion of so much importance to the
country, as well as to myself, I thought it necessary to state,
in the most distinct manner, the terms upon which I would
undertake the honourable, yet arduous task which had been
tendered to me. These terms I stated in thirteen propo
sitions, to which I now add another, making fourteen pro
positions; and I am now here to submit to you, with the
greatest respect and deference, that statement of facts
and those arguments which occurred to my mind when I
put forth the propositions ; and which, when submitted to
you, will, 1 trust, convince you of the reasonableness, the
justice, the necessity, and the practicabihty of the measures

2 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
propounded in those propositions; which, with your per
mission, I will now read to you : —
1. To put an end to all pensions, sinecures, grants,
allowances, half-pay, and all other emoluments now
paid out of the taxes, except for such public services
as, upon a very scrupulous examination, shall be
found fully to merit tbem ; and to reduce all salaries
to the American standard.
2. To discharge the standing army, except sueh part of
the ordnance and artillery as may be necessary to
maintain the arsenals at the sea-ports in a state of
readiness for war ; and to abolish the military aca
demies, and dispose of all barracks and other property
now applied to military uses.
3. To make the counties, each according to its whole
number of members of Parliament, maintain and
equip a body of militia, horse as well as foot and
artillery, at the county expense, and to have these
bodies, as they are in America, mustered at stated
periods ; so that at any time, a hundred thousand
efficient men may be ready to come into the field, if
the defence of the kingdom require it.
4, To abolish tithes of every description ; to leave to
the clergy the churches, the church-yards, the par
sonage houses, and the ancient glebes ; and, for the
rest, leave them to the voluntary contributions ofthe
people.
5. To take all the rest of the property, commonly called
church-property ; all the houses, lands, manors, tolls,
rents, and real property of every kind, now possessed
by bishops, chapters, or other ecclesiastical bodies, and
all the misapplied property of corporate bodies of
every sort; and also all the property called crown-
lands, or crown-estates, including that of the Duchies
of Cornwall and Lancaster ; and sell them all, and
apply the proceeds to the discharge of the Debt
which the late parliaments contracted vvith the fund-
holders.
6. To cease, during the first six months after June, 1832,
to pay interest on a fourth part of the debt ; second
SIX months, to cease to pay interest on another fourth •
and so oa for the other two fourths ; so that no more

LECTtfRE I. 3
interest, or any part of the debt, would be paid after
the end of two years,
7. To divide the proceeds of all the property mentioned in
paragraph No. 5, and also in paragraph No. 2, in due
proportion, on principles of equity, amongst the
owners of what is called stock, or, in other words,
the fundholders, or persons who lent their money
to those who borrowed it in virtue of acts of the late
parliaments, and to give to the fundholders, out of
the taxes, nothing beyond these proceeds.
8. To make an equitable adjustment with respect to the
pecuniary contracts between man and man, and
thereby rectify, as far as practicable, the wrongs and
ruin inflicted on thousands upon thousands of vir
tuous families by the arbitrary changes made by acts
of the late parliaments, in the value of the money
of the country.
9. To abolish all internal taxes (except on the land),
whether direct or indirect, including stamp-taxes of
every description ; and to impose such a postage-
charge for letters as to defray the real expenses of an
economical and yet efficient post-office establishment,
and no more ; so that the postage would be merely
a payment for the conveyance of letters, and not
a tax.
10. To lay just as mach custom-house duty on importa
tions as shall be found conducive to the benefit of
the navigation, commerce, and manufactures of the
kingdom, viewed as a whole, and not to lay on one
penny more.
11. "To make effectual provision, in every department, for
the maintenance of a powerful navy ; to give such
pay and such an allotment of prize-money to the
seaman as to render/ impressment wholly unneces
sary ; to abolish ^e- odious innovation of naval
academies, and re-open the door of promotion to
skill and valour, whether found in the heirs of nobles,
or in the sons of the loom or of the plough ; to
abolish all military Orders, and to place the navy next
in honour to the throne itself.
12. To make a legal, a fixed, and a generous allowance
to the King, and, through him, to all the branches
and members of his family ; to leave to him the
unshackled freediom of appointing all his servants,
b2

4 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
whether of his household or of his public ministry;
to leave to him the full control over his palaces,
gardens, and parks, as landowners have over their
estates; to take care that he be not worried with in
trigues to purloin from him that whicb the people give
him for his own enjoyment ; so that he may be, in all
respects, what the Chief of a free people ought to
be, his name held in the highest honour, and his
person held sacred, as the great guardian of the
people's rights.
13. To make an accurate valuation of all the houses,
lands, mines, and other real property, in each county
in the whole kingdom ; to impose a tax upon that
property, to be paid quarterly, and in every county on
the same day, and in such manner as to cost in the
collection, or, rather, payment, not more than /oar
hundred pounds a year in any one county ; to make
the rate and amount of this tax vary with the wants
of the state, always taking care to be amply pro
vided with means in case of war, when war shall
be demanded by the safety, the interest, or the honour
of the kingdom.
14. To cause the Pbotb.stant Hierarchy to be legally
repealed and abolished in Ireland ; and to cause the
Parliament ofthe -whole kingdom to hold its sessions,
and the King to hold his Court in Ireland once in
every three years ; and to cause the same to take
place in the city of York once in every three years,
and also in the city of Salisbury, once in every three
years.
I ara well aware, gentlemen, that, upon hearing these
propositions read, many will be disposed to exclaim "'What
a visionary this man must be I " I am well aware of this :
but, it is a great change which we want: something very
great must be done ; and, as to the propositions bqing vision
ary, are they more visionary than the man would have been
deemed, who, thirty or forty years ago, should have pre
dicted many things of which we now behold the sad reality?
The fourteenth proposition will, I dare say, appear to many
more visionary than all the rest ; but, let some one then, even
that sensible Lord Althorp, who has recently been engaged
in so dignified a correspondence with certain persons in
this county, tell us what can be done with Ireland

LECTURE. I, 5
which, you will please to observe, is far too great to be
treated as if it were insignificant ; and with regard to which
the Ministers know not what to do, any more than 1 should
be able to obey an order to take this house and fling it into
the air. However, my reasons for proposing these mea
sures with respect to Ireland, I shall have hereafter fuUy
to state.
As to the propositions being visionary, if any person had,
thirty years ago, predicted that we sbould, in the year 1831,
see a half-military police established in England ; dressed in
uniform, and iu numbers so great as to constitute d real
army, formed into companies and battalions, put undet
leaders with military titles, marching rank and file : in short,
if any one had told me, thirty years <ngo, that 1 should live to
see a Bourbon gendarmerie established in London, with a
lieutenant de police, together with all the rest of these things,
for wbich, from my childhood, I had been taught to hold
the Bourbons in contempt and abhorrence; if any man
had told me this in the year 1800, I should have deemed
him a visionary indeed ; I should have turned from him as
a person unworthy of attention. Yet, we have seen this
horrid thing come to pass ; and we have seen a hundred
English parishes burdened enormously for the maintenance
of this army ; burdened much more than for the mainte
nance of the poor. If, only a very few years before the late
war, some one had predicted that there would be established
in England a standing army of 100,000 men ; nay, if some
one had predicted during the last war, at the time when
Pitt was promising us a peace that should give us indemnity
for the past and security for the future, and calling upon us
to make sacrifices of all sorts, in order to ensure the attain
ment of these objects; if, at that time, some one had
said, " The peace will bring you neither indemnity nor
"security; you will have to niaintain a regular army of
" 100,000 men, besides 10,000 Bourbon gendarmerie ; you
" will have to maintain what they will call a dead weight,
" which shall surpass, in expense annually, the whole revenue
" of this happy kingdom at the time when his present
" Majesty was born ; you will find this, indeed, a very
" lively weight, though called a dead one, and find it
" singularly prolific ; though dead, it will breed exceed
" ingly ; you will have to maintain the widows and the chil-
" dren of the men, and lest the burden should cease, at
" some tirae or other, the old men will be aUowed to sell

6 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
" their half-pay to young men, which these young men
" may repeat when they become old, and thus the burden
" will remain stuck upon your children's children. '
If, I say, any one had foietold this at the time when Pitt
was promising indemnity for the past and security for the
future, and was making this credulous nation believe that the
monstrous sacrifices which it was making during the war
would lead to a peace that would enable every man to sit
under his own vine and his own fig tree, without any one
to make him afraid : if at that time any one had told the
nation that this standing army, this gendarmerie and this
dead-weight, would be the result of the war, he would
have been prosecuted as a stirrer-up of sedition, or pitied as
a maniac. Yet we have seen these things, and see thera
yet ; we have found them to be no vision, but a cruel reality,
under which we are writhing. If any one had at that time
foretold that the peace establishment, military and naval,
would cost the nation a great deal more annually than the
annual cost of army and navy during the war with the re
volted states of America, when England had not only to
carry on a war against those states, but against France,
Spain, and Holland, at the same time; if any one had fore
told this at that time, he would have been treated as a
visionary; yet such is the case, and the annual expense of
army and navy, at the end of sixteen years of peace, exceeds
that of any year of vear against the revolted states of America,
including the war against the three great countries before-
mentioned; a fact which, of itself, is more than sufficient to
convince any sensible man that this system must be totally
changed, before any one can hope to see real peace and pros
perity in England.
If, forty -five years ago, any one had told Mr. Elman, a
very celebrated farmer in Sussex, who gave evidence before
a committee of the House of Commons in 1821, and who
told that comrnittee, that when he began business as a farmer,
every man in the parish brewed his own beer, and drank
it with his family by his own fire-side; and that NOW (in
1821) not one single man in that parish did it, except a
servant or two of his own to whom he gave the malt as
a present. If any one had, at the time when Mr. Elman
began business as a farmer, told him, that before his farming
would be over, be would see the people of bis parish
become so miserable as hardly to know the taste of beer, and
to be compelled to drink water and eat potatoes, he would

LECTURE T,

have turned from tbe prophet with disgust : visionary would
have been an appellation much too mild to be applied to
such a person, yet this horrid state of things has come to
pass ; and this state of things we must change, or else
Parliamentary Reform will be a mockery and a delusion.
One more instance, not going so far back. If, in the
memorable year 1817, when the bankers and merchants
of London, with their surprisingly wise Lord Mayor at
their head, were assembled in what they call their Mansion-
house, to address the King, and petition the Parliament, in
approbation of the Power-of-lmprisonment Bills, and the
Dungeon Bill, and the Gagging Bill, as being means abso
lutely necessary to put down those turbulent men, who, under
pretence of seeking reform of Parliament, were, in fact,
seeking to accomplish the treasonable design of over
throwing our happy constitution in church and state ; if, at
that time, when a reformer could not move without a
bayonet being presented at his breast, or a halter being
shaken in his face; if, at that time, the wise men of Gotham,
being so assembled as aforesaid, to express their unshaken
attachment to things as they were, and their resolution to
use all the means in their power to put down and annihilate
those seditious men who were crying for Parliamentary Re
form ; if some one had stepped into the Mansion-house, and
had just said, " My Lord Mayor, it will be better not to
" issue these declarations; for, in just fourteen years from
" this day, these very bankers and merchants of London,
" will meet in this very place, and will send forth addresses
^' to- the King, in which they will bully the Lords for not
" consenting to a Parliamentary Reform much more extensive
*' than that which would satisfy the present reformers ! " —
" Turn him out I " — '•' Knock him down ! " — " He's a par-
" son ! " — Something of this sort would have taken place
to a certainty ; the bankers and merchants of London, not
being remarkable for their forbearance, when they possess
power, and when their adversary is feeble. Yet, we have
seen even this take place; and, in that very Mansion-house,
we have heard speeches against the Lords, and particularly
against the Bishops, more inflammatory than any-where else.
Therefore, gentlemen, I am not to be deterred by the im
putation of visionary as applied to me on account of those
propositions, which I shall suffer still to be called visionary if
any one choose so to call them, but I am perfectly satisfied
'that the measures which they describe must be adopted, or

S MANCHESTER LECTURES.
that the reform which is talked of will be a contemptible
delusion. A great many people mistake the Reform Bill for
reform itself; and a very great mistake it is. The Reform
Bill furnishes the means of making the reform. A reform
means a change for the better ; and, in this case, the change
must be very great to be of any use at all, A great many
people seem to imagine, or at least they act as if they
imagined, that the mere sound of reform would be sufficient,
-without any proceedings to produce a change in the state
of the country. The Ministers themselves appear to be
amongst these persons ; for you never hear from their lips
any-thing seeming to indicate that they look upon it as ne
cessary that some great change should take place in the
manner of managing the affiiirs of the country. Yet, if some
great change do not take place, in this respect, I am per
fectly convinced that the passing of the Reform Bill would
lead to disappointment and discontent, such as must plunge
the country into utter confusion. Does any one believe
that the mere sound of the word Reform will quiet the
country ? That, when the trader, who feels the work of
luin still proceeding, is told, in order to pacify him, not fo
complain now, for that we have got reform : does any one
think, that that will make him submit to his ruin without
further complaint r 'K\ hen the hungry and angry half-starved
labourers complain of their sufferings, and are ready to break
out into acts of violence ; will they be quieted by telling them,
that they must not complain now, for that we have got
reform ; will they, at the sound of that word, cease to har
bour vindictive thoughts relative to those whom they deem
their oppressors? Oh, no ! the reform raust be soraething
more than a hill, something more than a bit of printed
paper ; it must, to be productive of harmony, cause some
thing to be done to better the state of ike people; and, in
order to do this, it must produce, and quickly too, not only
a change in the management ofthe affairs of the country, but
a very great change. When a man is brought by his extrava
gance to the verge of insolvency; when having been puffed up
by Pitt's paper, and pulled down by Peel's bill, he sees bank
ruptcy staring him in the face, it is not savings in the articles
of salt and pepper that v/ill rescue him from his embarrass
ments. Oh, no ! the turtle, the wine, the coacb, the horses,
the footmen and grooms and lady's maids must go, and even
the house, the fine house itself, and the pianos and the music-
masters, must all disappear. The tvord economy will not

LECTURE I. 9
keep such a man out of the Gazette. It raust be real
economy: there must be 20/. a year given for a house to
live in instead of a thousand; otherwise the word economy
is a delusion.
Such is our case now. If the Reform BiU be to leave the
system of sway tbat which it now is; if the same sortof ma
nagement of our affairs be to go on after that bill shall have
passed as is going on now ; and really, to judge from the
language of the Ministers, one would say that Uiey contem
plate no change; if the tithes and taxes he still to remain
such as they now are ; if a Bourbon gendarmerie be still to
dog our steps, and stop us when they like at any hour of the
day and night ; if the Englishmen, who do all the work, be
still doomed to live on potatoes and water, while those who
take frora them the fruit of their labour, are living ou all the
choice products of the earth ; if Englishmen and women be
still harnessed and made to draw like beasts of buiden ; if a
reformed Parliamen-t cannot find the means of protecting tha
dead bodies of the working poor, while such ample means are
found for protecting the dead body of a hare, a pheasant, or
a partridge ; then, indeed, the bishojis did right in opposing
the Reform Bill; for a greater delusion, a greater fraud,
never was attempted to be practised on any part of mankind.
Let me stop here, gentlemen, to request your particular
attention to this matter relating to the want of law to protect
the dead-bodies of the working-people. You all know, or at
least every Englishman ought to know, that for an unquali
fied person to have in his possession, the body of a hare,
pheasant, or partridge, was, a few months back, a crime,
punishable by fine or imprisonment ; that to have in his
possession TcireSj or other implements, for taking any of these
wild animals, is still a crime, punishable in the same manner ;
that, to be out in the night wparsi.-ii o/j and seeking after, the
bodies of either of these wild animals, and carrying with him
the implements wherewith to take or kill them, is still a crime,
punishable vvith transportationfor seven years, and this punish
ment may be inflicted, too, and has been, and is, frequently
inflicted without the sanction of a judge, and at the sole dis
cretion and pleasure of the justices in quarter-sessions, who,
as you well know, are the game-preservers themselves. Yet
those who could, and so recently too, pass over this last-
mentioned law, and those new and " liberal " members who
have been able to sit quietly, and say not a word about this
law for transporting men for making free with the bodies of
B 5

10 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
wild animals, which, according to Blackstone, are the pro
perty of no man, and which belong in commoii to all men ;
those who could make and so vigilantly enforce this law,
cannot, for the lives and souls of them, find out the meansof
passing a law to protect thc bodies, alive or dead, of the work
ing-people ; other than that of making it lawful to sell their
bodies when dead, to be cut up and cast away like the bodies
of murderers or traitors.
Gentlemen, from every-thing that I have ever heard here
in the North, and particularly iu this town, I believe, that if
the horrible bill to which I have just alluded had become a
law, that law would have never been acted upon by the pa
rochial authorities of Manchester. I hope that the same
would generally have been the case ; but I have no scruple to
say, that an attemjit to enforce the law in any of the agri
cultural counties would have produced open and desperate
rebellion. Judge you, gentlemen, of the feelings of the
country people on this subject, vvhen I tell you that there are
clubs in the country parishes in Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Hamp
shire, and, I suppose, in all the southern counties, which clubs
are for the purpose of forming a fund for defraying the ex
pense of watching the graves oJ the relations of the members of
the club, if any of them should die, or the graves of the
members themselves if they should die 1 How honourable to
the feelings of the working people, and how disgraceful to
the Parliament, is this fact ! Judge you, gentlemen, what
would have been the consequences of an attempt to enforce
amongst such a people the atrocious bill for selling their
bodies to be cut up like those of the most heinous malefac
tors ! A labouring man, James Ives, wbo worked constantly
for me some time ago, came to me, with tears in his eyes,
to get 12s. in advance of his wages, to pay (that being the
price) for watching the grave of his daughter, who was just
then about to be buried ! Why, gentlemen, what ^ouerM/nenf-
protection could tbi.s man discover ? What had this man
-to make him willing to be obedient to the laws ? Great care
is taken of the property of the rich ; the law hunts it with
inflexible eagerness go whither it may ; here the law has
grown harder and harder, till it has made the receiving of
stolen £roods a Jelonious offence, punishable with transport
ation. But those who passed and have enforced so rigidly
this law, have not been able to find out any means whatever
to punish the RECEIVERS OF STOLEN BODIES ; though
they MUST of necessity KNOW them to have been stolen,

LECTURE I, H
if not murdered as well as stolen! Common justice, even
natural justice, would make 'it felony, punishable with death,
in any one to have in his possession a dead body, or a part of
a dead body, unless able to produce proof that he obtained
it in consequence of a sentence of a court of justice, or in
virtue of the last will of the party.
This is vvhat the people have a right to demand from the
Parliament. For the want of it, even the horrid murders
recently come to light in London, are manifestly to be as
cribed ; and, if the working-people find no better protec
tion from a reformed Parliament ; if such Parliament still
«how that it values the dead body of a hare above that of
the dead body of the working man, his wife, or his child; if
this be the case, far better would it have been never to have
brought in the bill. If Irishmen be stdl to be treated as they
have been ; if they, whenever the Government pleases, be to
be shut up in their houses from sun-set to sun-rise, on pain of
transportationfor seven years if absent for more than fifteen.
minutes ; and if that punishment be still to be inflicted without
judge or jury, at the sole discretion of two justices of the
peace and a barrister, all appointed by, and removeable at,
the pleasure of Government ; if these things be to remain ;
and if the bloody tithe battles be still to disfigure Ireland and
fill the world with wonder and with horror ; if, in short, the
reform of Parliament be still to provide heaps of luxuries for
the idle tens of thousands, and taleave the labouring millions
in misery, then we want no reform; then to talk of reform is
to insult the suffering people.
But, gentlemen, if we do want a reform, we want a real
one, and not a pretended one. We want a great change for
the better ; not merely a change, but a great change. The
propositions which I have been permitted to read to you,
have been said to aim at tbe destruction of the institutions
of the country. I shall, in the future proposed lectures,
prove clearly that they aim not only not at the destruction,
but not at the impairing, of any one institution of the country,
properly so called, unless to take money away from the in-
(dustrious and to give it to the idle be " an institution of
the country." We want no change in the form of the go
vernment; we want, indeed, to make this same government
a great deal cheaper than it is ; and, by so doing, we take the
only sure course of preserving it ; for it is utterly impossible
that the millions can love it, while it is so very costly as it
now is. We have, or at least I have, no quarrel with the

12 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
form of government. I know that our country has been the
greatest, the most renowned, and the happiest in the world,
under this form of government ; I know that all its famous
institutions have risen up, and that it vvas the cradle of real
liberty, while there were a king, lords,,and commons. I
know that it is not republican government alone that can be
cheap government ; for I know that England knew nothing
of an internal tax for century after century, while it still had
this same kingly government j to which [I might have added]
that the first time that it was cursed with an excise-tax, was
during the short period that it vvas called a republic. I there
fore wish to see no change in the form of the government ;
and while I express a wish to see it made a cheap govern
ment, and express my determination to have nothing to do
with its affairs unless I see a fair prospect to give effect to
that wish, I am clearly of opinion, and indeed I know the
fact, that it con be rendered, vvithout injustice to anybody,
even a cheaper government than that ofthe United States of
America. But, to arrive at this end, I can see nothing short
of the adoption, the hearty and cheerful adoption, of the four
teen propositions vvhich you have had the indulgence to
permit me to lay before you.
I am sorry to say that I do not discover in any of the acts
of the present Ministers, any disposition, or even any
thought, to make that great change of which 1 have been
speaking. I say not this in hostility to them. I have not
the smallest desire to see them removed from their places,
or to see them fall into discredit vvith the nation. If I could
hive my wish, my Lord Grey would remain in office until
he had accomplished all the good which would arise from
the adoption of these propositions. Nothing would please
me better than to see this take place. But at the same time,
it is my duty to state to you, that I have not been able to
discover, either in the words or the acts of his lordship, any
thing that encourages me to hope that he has any intentions
at all of making so great a change as that which I hold to
he absolutely necessary.
He who undertakes the great task which is now imposed
upon the man vvho would set the affairs of this great king
dom to rights, must be prepared for exertions such as scarcely
ever before were imposed upon any man. The thing, to be
done well, and to make this reform really satisfactory to the
nation, must be set about in right earnest ; must be begun,
as men begin to plough a field, or to weave a piece of cloth

LECTURE I. 13
and be pursued on from the beginning to the end, without
relaxation, and with a resolution to finish the work in the
manner in which it has been begun. What, then, is the sord
of men, to whom the people, who will now enjoy the right of
voting, and especially in those great hives in the north ; what
is the sort of men whom they ought to choose to encounter
this arduous undertaking? First, they should be stored with
a great and perfect knovvledge relative to the whole of the
affairs of the nation. Next, they should possess the talent
sufficient to enable them to state vvith clearness, and to argue
conclusively, and to the producing of conviction, the matters,
which they have the disposition to impress upon the minds of
others. Next, they should possess resolution to speak what
they think, in spite of every effort to damp or overawe thera.
Possessing all these endowments, however, still there would
be wanting that prime quality of all, steadiness of purpose,
and indefatigable industry, vvit^hout which not all the virtues,
and all the genius in the vvorld, could do any-thing effectual,
in the renovating a country, corroded with abuses of all sorts,
embarrassed and entangled as the affairs of this country, and
the country itself, novv are. Even endowed with all these
qualities, with perfect disinterestedness, with zeal, with de
votion to country, all into the bargain, there would still be
wanting a mind, not to be made to swerve from its point for
one single moment by the blandishments of a court, or the
still more dangerous blandishments of the aristocracy. Whe
ther I have been drawing my own picture, and thereby saying
indirectly that I am the man to be chosen for this great town
of Manchester, whose bounden duty it is to set an example
to all the other towns in the Norlh ; whether I have been
doing this or not, I must leave for you yourselves to decide ;
but, lest you should come to a conclusion in the affirmative,
it is necessary that I should now address myself to you more
particularly upon tbe personal interest that I take in this affair
as connected with the town of Manchester, Gentlemen, ifl
were capable of affectation, I could not carry it to the point
of saying, that it is a matter of indifference with me, whether
I be chosen to serve in Parliament or not, by this great town,
I should, indeed, be an insensible clod, did no desire exist in
my mind to have the great glory of being the representative
of that town, the name of vvhich is, throughout the whole
world, synonimous with excellence in ingenuity and industrj'.
But, justice to myself calls upon me to say, that I am not
here for the low purpose of canvassing for a seat in Parlia-

14 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
ment. It has, for years, been my resolution, never to ask a
mau for his vote upou any occasion, a resolution from which
nothing shall ever make me depart.
My sentiments with regard to this matter have been put in
print, and the proraulgation of them in that raanner did not
take place until I thought it was necessary to the public good,
and until, indeed, it was called for by the circumstances which
I am now about to state. The propositions which I bave
read to you had been published some time before that dis
cussion in the House of Lords on the late Reform Bill, which
ended in the rejection of that bill. During that discussion
four of the Lords, Falmouth, Wynford (old Serjeant Best),
Carnarvon, and Lyndhurst, alluded to the propositions,
expressing, at the same time, their great alarm lest the ten-
pound suffrage, as it stood in that bill, should lead to so dis
astrous an occurrence as that of putting me into Parliament.
The great alarm of their Lordships made them less delicate
and reserved upon this occasion than upon former occasions,
it having, for a great many years, been their practice, in
speaking of opinions or of matters connected with me, to
content themselves with distant allusion, abstaining with all
possible dignity from mentioning the name. Now, however,
this reserve was thrown aside : Cobbett and Manchester were
too much for dignity to endure in silence ; and out came the
names tumbling together. With regard to Falmouth and
Wynford, my dignity would certainly have prevented me
from bestowing a moment's thought on what they said; and
with regard to Carnarvon, he being a HERBERT could, I
well knew, from my long familiarity with the name, have but
one single point in view; a Herbert always slicking to that
point, as a needle to the pole. But my Lord Lyndhurst was
another sort of man : to what he said I paid great attention,
having great respect as well for his talents as for his cha
racter, and always remembering his wise and good conduct
while he was Attorney-General. But nothing said by Lord
Lyndhurst tended to convince any impartial man that Mr.
Cobbett ought not to be elected for Manchester, while it had
a very strong tendency the contrary way.
However, " Cobbett and Manchester " having been
made one of the great arguments against the Reform Bill, it
became me to be more explicit than I had theretofore been,
with regard to my ovvn desires and my own views relative to
a seat in the reformed Parliament. Therefore, in a published
letter, addressed to my Lord Grey soon after the rejection of

LECTURE I. 15
the Reform Bill, I, in the frankest manner, and vvith the
most perfect sincer'ity, fully stated to his Lordship, and
through him to the nation in general, and to the people of
this great town in particular, those desires and those views.
And, gentlemen, as this paper was written after the ma-
turest deliberation ; and as it is my determination to abide
by every sentence contained in it, I will, with your permission,
now take the liberty of reading it to you, begging you to be
pleased to consider it as addressed to yourselves, and to re
ceive it as tendered to you with the greatest respect.
" But, my Lord, the peers who oppose the bill seem to
" have thought of nothing but the present moment. They saw,
" as I saw, that the members coming from the great towns,
" and chosen by the working-people, would never suffer that
" working-people to be borne down to the earth as they
" now are ; and they clearly saw that tbere was no possible
*' way of relieving the working- people, other than that of
" taking off the taxes to a very great extent ; and they knew
" that this could not be done without beginning by taking
" from them and their families and dependents the enormous
" sums which they now receive out of those taxes. They
" saw, for instance, that the ten-pound suffrage would, if
" I chose it, put me into Parliament, where they well know
" that I never would be, without making the most strenuous
" efforts to cause this object to be accomplished. I am fully
" warranted in believing that the certainty, or nearly the cer-
" tainty, that the ten-pound suffrage would put me into Par-
" liament, was one of the reasons for their rejecting the bill.
'" I am fully warranted in believing tbis, because, while
" almost every one of tbem who spoke against the bill made
" allusion to me and to Manchester, no less than four of them
" named me and that town, and cited the intention of that
" town to choose me, as an instance of the great danger to be
" apprehended from the ten-pound suffrage in great towns ;
" and, my Lord, I would not take my oath that it was not
" Cobbett and Manchester that convinced your colleague Lord
" Brougham, of the propriety of being ' ready to re-consider'
" his opinions relative to that part of the bill I
" To be plain, I do verily believe, that Cobbett and Man-
" Chester had great weight in the rejection of the bill, and
" also great weight with most of your colleagues, if not with
" your Lordship, in forming that design, which I believe
" to have been entertained, if it be not still entertained, to
" aller the bill in this respect, and to raise the suffrage.

16 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
" and thereby diminish the number of voters in the great
" towns ; and 1 further believe, that this is the conviction of
" every well-informed man in the whole kingdom.
" Such a thing as this never before disgraced any body of
" rulers upon the face of the earth ! What a surprising
" thing that a man, literally bred up at the plough tail; never
" having been put to a school ; never having had a patron of
" any description ; having had to work all his life like a horse,
" to maintain and breed up a numerous family ; having had no
"one contingency that has favoured his progress in lifej
" having had no one earthly resource out of himself; never
" having written a line to catch the thoughtless, or to flatter
" any description of persons, high or low ; having preferred
" living on a crust to riches and ease obtained by any of those
" means by vvhich literary men usually obtain wealth and
" exaltation : what a surprising thing that such a man, lead-
" ing such a life, should become so formidable to two
" great parties, dividing between them the whole of the
" powers of the government of the greatest and richest
" country in the world, as to make those two [larties
" (waging eternal strife as to every-thing else) unite like
" children from the same mother, in efforts ofevery descrip-
" tion, to keep that man down 1 Yet, surprising as it is,
" it is not less true than it is surprising. Before the
" Reform Bill was brought in, and when vve were all on
" the tiptoe of expectation, I said toa friend, vvho was sitting
" talking with me on the subject, * What sort of reforra
" do you think they mean to give us ? ' His answer was,
" ' I think they will give just as much as will enable them
" ' to keep you out of Parliament.' I told him that I made no
" doubt, that that would be the wish ; but that if they gave so
" little as that, they would soon become more odious than
"^their predecessors ; and that they could not very well ex-
" elude me by name, as they had very nearly done in the SIX
" ACTS, two of which might as well have had the name;
" for every man in the kingdom saw that the Acts were in-
" tended solely fur the man.
" What adds to the curiosity of the thing is, that I never
" have wished to possess any public power of any sort, ex-
" cept that of being in Parliament, and that wish arose
" from a desire to assist in effecting a Parliamentary Re-
" form. I cannot but know the prodigious difficulties that
" must surround a man who shall now undertake to assist
" in putting the affairs of this great and troubled country

LECTURE I, 17
" to rights. I know well that my thirteen propositions,
" which Lord Wynford (I think they call him), who was
" once the renowned Serjeant Best, lamented that he had
" lost, and therefore could not read them to the House,
" and vvhich I will subjoin to this letter, that the late Ser-
" jeant may have them another time ; I know, my Lord,
" that these thirteen propositions must be adopted to the
" very letter, or thatthe discontent after the reform will be
" even greater than it is at this moment. And am I, of all
" men in the vvorld, so stupid as not to perceive the great'
" difficulties attending that adoption ? Am I so short-
" sighted as not to foresee the turmoil which will arise in
" consequence T Do I know so little of mankind as not to
" be aware, that he who inflicts present evil on a comparative
" few, is sure to find but weak apologists in the many, on
" vvhom he is bestowing future and permanent good ? Do I
" not know, that reproaches follow the knife of the sur-
" geon, though it be necessary to the saving of life ? Can
" I behold in prospect, as I (\o, as clearly as I behold the
" paper on vvhich I am writing, swarms of clamorous
" pensioners, sinecure people, retired-allowance people, dis-
" carded coramissioners, dead-weight people, by thousands
" upon thousands, growling fundholders, and dependents of
" all these, swarming like locusts upon the banks of the Nile,
" and all directing a good share, at least, of their reproaches
" towards rae : can 1 behold all this, and behold, at the
" sarae time, the delivered, the freed, the benefited, the
" happy nation, leaving me to bear the reproaches as well
" as I cau : can I behold all this, and, still possessing my
" senses, embark in the perilous concern as on a party of
" pleasure ? Can I, who have lived all my life as free as a
" bird in the woods ; vvho have never been thwarted in my
" vvill by any-body, and vvho have never had on my shoulders
" responsibility to any living soul ; vvho value not wealth ;
'¦ who cannot gain a particle of fame ; vvho despise the very
" thought of possessing what are called honours and digni-
" ties, and who would not pass one evening amongst the
" guttlers- and gossippers and spitters and belchers of the
" boozing-ken of Bellamy, even on condition of thereby
" adding five years to the length of my life ; can I, for
" my own sake, sigh after a seat in the Parliament ?
" Yet, what a fuss, what a contriving, what a plotting, ia
" keep me out of the hole of candle-light confusion, to sit in
" which, more than one session by candle-light, would de-

18 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
" mand a motive much stronger than I can at this moment
" conceive ! What an intriguing, what a plotting, what a
" prosecuting, by both the parties; and vvhat terrible calami-
" ties, to this our country ! And, at once horrible and
" ludicrous as is the thought, 1 verily believe that, at last,
" both parties would prefer a going upon the rocks to the seeing
" of me in that Parliament, in vvhich I do not want to be,
'^ but to go into which I will never decline, if any body of
" electors shall freely, and of their own accord, choose me to
" be the representative of their will ; and in which Parlia-
" ment the nobility, if they had had coramon sense, would
" have taken care to have me long and long ago, seeing
" that, vvhile I would not have suffered them to take one
'* penny unjustly out of the pockets of the people, I would
" not have suffered them to be despoiled by loan-mongers
" and Jews; always having been convinced, as I still am,
" that an aristocracy of title and of privilege, when kept
" within due and constitutional bounds, brings none of that
" oppression upon the working-people which is always
" brought upon them by a. damned aristocracy of money .
" Now, ray Lord Grey," [the propositions were inserted
just before this,] " here, at any rate, there is nothing of an
^' abstract nature ; nothing theoretic, nothing dark, nothing
" covert. This is what I would do, if I could have my will ;
" and if I were a raember of Parliaraent, and found that this,
" the ivhole of this, could not be obtained by the Parliament,
" I would quit the concern as soon as I .had ascertained this
" to be the fact ; as soon as I had ascertained that the people
" had chosen men not ready to do all this, or, at least, as
" soon as I had ascertained that the people would again
" choose such men. I would not consent to be the repre-
" sentative of any body of persons who would not pledge
" themselves most solemnly to support me in my endeavours
" to accomplish all this. And, further, I would accept of the
" post only on the condition that I should be at liberty
" to vacate it if I chose, at the end of one session, if the
" Parliament continued the shameful practice of sitting by
" candle-light, and uuder the same roof where there are an
" eating-house and a boozing-place. I will never sit, for any
" length of time, amongst ' legislators,' vvho drop in one
" after another, or half a score at a time, belching, and picking
" their teeth. In such a scene, how can attention and re-
" flection exist ? From such a scene sober thought is
" excluded by the laws of nature. From the fumes of port

LECTURE I, 19
" and sherry and grog and brown stout and tobacco, from the
'* spattering of the frying-pan and the hissing of the gridiron,
" wisdom flees as men flee from a pestilence. To account
" for so great a country being brought to the state in which
" this now is, after-ages will only want to be informed that
" its legislators lounged away the morning in bed, and held
" their deliberations in the night-time, under the same roof
" with a guttling and guzzling house, and that, on an aver-
" age, a fourth, or a third, of them were eating or drinking,
" at the very moment that laws affecting the property, the
" liberty, the life of millions were under discussion. This is
" all that after-ages will want to know about the causes that
" produced a state of things such as that vvhich now exists
" in England. To a body of men leading such lives and
" addicted to such manners, no motive, not much more power-
" ful than I can have an idea of, would induce rae to belong
" any longer than the time sufficient to enable me to
" ascertain that no change in their raanners was to be rea-
" sonably expected. So that the renowned Old Serjeant
" need not be very uneasy about the danger to be appre-
" hended from my being in Parliament. Those who have the
" power of choosing members of Parliament generally look
" for a little coaxing ,- and none will anybody ever get from
" me. It will be scrvice for me to bestow, and not a. favour
" for me to receive. I have, vvith the rest of the people, an
" interest in the general happiness of the nation; but I have
" none but a common interest; and there is no moral obliga-
" tion on me to submit, for the sake of the general good, to
" endure the breath of the belchers from Bellamy's, who
" have, I am told, even a ' smoking room ! ' All this must
*' be changed, or there cau be no good nr'ise from reform. At
" any rate, it shall be changed, or Iwill have nothing to
" do with it for more than one session. So that, again I say,
" Old Serjeant Best may make himself pretty easy on ac-
" connt of met."
Such, gentleraen, were my sentiments upon this im
portant subject, and such they remain. I repeat that it
would be great glory for me to be chosen a member for Man
chester, but that that glory does not in my mind weigh as a
single feather, when compared with the weight which it
would give me in my endeavours to effect those objects which
are described in the propositions which I have read to you this
evening. Manchester includes, in its own name, in the
opinions of the rest of the kingdom, not only all the ia-

20 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
dustrious part of Lancashire, but extends itself into parts of
other counties. It is the centre of them all. The word
Manchester nieans industry, English industry, ingenuity, and
opulence. To have my name go over the world coupled
with that of Manchester, would be great glory indeed ; and
so great that the best efforts of the .remainder of my hfe,
even if successful, would be no raore than enough to merit
such reward. But I most solemnly declare to you, gen
tlemen, that great as the honour would be, proud as I should
be of it, great as would be the triumph that it would give me
over more numerous and more malignant foes than man
ever had before to encounter ; it would not give me a thou
sandth part of the satisfaction vvhich I should derive from
the certainty that it would give me much greater weight
than I could derive from being chosen for" any other place in
the kingdom. "Westminster, with a vastly superior population,
I consider a mere nothing compared to Manchester : it is a
mass of drones and wasps got together, to swallow up the
honey collected by the industrious bees : it is a heap of rabble,
and of court sycophants : a swarm of loungers at clubs
and gaming-houses, collected together, as it vvere, for the ex
press purpose of devouring the fortunes of skilful and indus
trious raasters, and the earnings of their work-people. The
CITY of London is, in itself, vvhat it always was, a place for
the deposit of wealth, and for the reception and the circulating
of goods ; its inhabitants, indeed, pretty well corrupted by
the crapulous crowds which the taxes have drawn together in
its environs, and by the swarms of Jews that carry on their
usurious traffic in its centre. The city of London, how
ever, is a great commercial city, as it always was, and alv/ays
will be; but the West-end of the town, as they call it, is at
once the great corrupter of the nation, and the great de
vourer of the fruit of its toils. MiUions upon millions of the
hard earnings of the people" have been drawn thither to be
wasted on objects of mere show, and thrown away, scattered
about with such profusion, and with such an abuse of all good
taste, as to make it rational in rae to believe that the squan
derers have had no other object in view than that of wasting
the substance of the people, and that of collecting together
swarms of the most degraded, and, at the same time, most
insolent and prostituted wretches that ever disgraced the
human shape. Mr. Edmund Grundy, who lives at Bury, in
this county, and who, being in London, last spring, and
having been to take a look at vvhat is called the House

LECTURE I. 21
of Commons, saw, during the short time that he was present
in the gallery, 60,000/. of the public money voted to
widen and ornaraent some street in Westminster, at which
he was greatly astonished, seeing that, in Lancashire, the
towns themselves, by local taxes or collections, paid for works
of this sort carried on within their precincts. Mr. Grundy
and I, being compelled to vvork for that which we possess,
had not leisure for the purpose, or I could have taken him,
in the course of half an hour, and shown him how at least
ten raillions of the nation's raoney had been wasted in a similar
manner. And vvill these industrious towns send to a re
formed Parliament one single man who will not pledge
himself most distinctly to put a stop to this prodigal waste of
the people's earnings ? if one single man be sent from any
of these towns without such pledge, the j)eople of that tovvn
will deserve never again to behold days of prosperity.
Gentlemen, I have heard it said, that Manchester, being a
commercial tovvn, onght to choose none but commercial
menas its representatives in Parliament. If the Parliament
were intended for no other purpose than that of ascertaining
what would be best for Manchester, relative to the importa
tion of cotton and silk, and the exportation of cotton and
silk goods, and what regulations would be best, relative to the
use of machinery, of coals, and of engines ; if, in short, the
Parliaraent vvere to be merely a chamber of commerce,
then, raen brought up and engaged in commerce all their
lives might be the most proper to represent Manchester.
But, as the prosperity, as the well-being, of this great town,
is, and always must be, completely inseparable from those of
the nation at large ; and as it requires, in order to deter
mine that which is best for the whole, a thorough know
ledge of all those relationships which bind the interests of
one part of the kingdom to that of all the rest ; as laws vvill
have to be passed, affecting every part of the people, from
the lord in his mansion down to the labourer in his cottage,
it does appear to me that there is very little weight to be
given to the opinion which points out commercial raen as
being the only men fit to represent great commercial towns.
As far as my observation has gone, experience by no means
speaks in favour of this opinion. In the city of London I have
the honour to be represented by four commercial men ; and I
do not happen to know any four other raembers of Parliament,
with whose services I think the city of London could more
conveniently dispense. However, against one thing! beseech

22 manchesteh lectures.
the people of these towns to guard themselves, and that is
the choosing of raen of such amiable facility as to be easily
seduced from their duty by blandishment. Many a man of
perfect honesty, of perfectly good intentions, and of real
public spirit into the bargain, has been rendered a mere tool
in the hands of the Ministry, or of the other party, by appeals
well made to his vanity. He means well, goes with a resolu
tion to be firm, even anticipates the heartfelt applause of his
constituentsas the reward of his fidelity to his trust, gets clapped
down at dinner between an earl and a duke ; or, if his virtue be
of an extremely stubborn kind, by the side of a lord's daugh
ter, or, if the wife be handsomer, by the side of the lady
herself. In an instant the lights dance before him ; his
brain swims; he looks back to tho town tbat has sent him,
as a rich manufacturer looks back to the clogs which he
wore when he was a boy; away goes all his resolution;
and, though he become not an absolute rogue, he becomes
of no more use to his constituents than if he were a man cut
out of wood.
Once more, to speak of myself and of my views as to tbis
matter, I repeat to you, Gentlemen, that, were 1 to consult
my own private taste, my own private feelings and pleasure,
I should decline serving in Parliament even for this famous
town ; aiKl I again raost positively declare, that nothing shall
induce me to sit for more than two sessions by candle-light,
and that I will not pledge myself to sit by that light for more
than one session. It is impossible that an assembly keeping
such hours, even if consisting of wise and upright men,
should produce good works. As a strong instance in con
firmation of this opinion, suffer me to relate to you what took
place in the American Congress (when I was last in Ame
rica) in consequence of candle-light legislation. In 1817)
the war had broken out between the Spanish Colonies in
South America and the King of Spain and the United
States had passed an act, which they called an act of neu
trality. This act had just been promulgated when I (flee
ing from the dungeons that Sidmouth and Castlereagh had
prepared for the reformers) arrived in Long Island. Upon
hearing the complaints, relative to this act, of some of the
Spanish revolters, I read it, and found, that, instead of its
being an act of neutraUty, it was an act of great partiality
against the Colonies, which I reprobated with great seve
rity, especially as it came from a country who boasted of
that independence which it had acquired, and so recently too,

lecture I. 23
by revolting 'against its own king. The paper, containing
these just reproaches, was sent to be published, and was
published, in the Register, in England ; but, at the same
time, it Was published in New York, because I would not say
any-thing of the Americans that I did not say to their face.
Now, observe, it had always been, and still was, the practice
of the Congress to sit from nine o'clock in the morning to
three in the afternoon. When the Congress mel, in Novem
ber, I having written about this act in the previous month
of July, the very first subject that they took in hand was a
revision of this Act of Neutrality ; and a bill was brought in
by Mr. Clay to alter and amend that act ; and this gentle
man, in moving for leave to bring in the bill, said, that the
House would be aware that the error had been pointed out by
a celebrated Englishman then in the United States, who might
with propriety, perhaps, have spoken of it in terms less
harsh ; but that his censure of the act, however unnecessarily
severe, forms no ground for not at once correcting the error,
and thereby doing justice to the Spanish colonies. The bill
was brought in and quickly passed ; but, Gentlemen, that which
is worthy of your particular attention is this; that Mr. Clay
stated, as an apology for the error, that the act was passed on
the last day of the session, and, on account of the press of
business, was passed at ten o'clock at night !
All the world knows, that the morning is the time for all
matters of importance ; that the mind is then serene, if it ever
be; that it is then unclouded by heavy food and muddling
drink ; that it is then, if ever, fit to be employed in the
making of laws ; that is to say, in the performance of things
affecting the happiness of millions. When a man undertakes
a duty like this, those whom he represents are entitled to
his best hours. The present hours were resorted to in order
to accommodate lawyers, clerks in office, merchants, and
bankers, who want the prime of the day for themselves
and their own private affairs, and who give to their constituents
only that part which they have to lounge away. All this
must be changed, or the reform will bring no good to the na
tion ; and, as far as I am concerned, Gentleraen, it shall be
changed: loe I will never sit, at most, more than two ses
sions amongst men who debate by candle-light, and who
have a guttling and a guzzling place under the same roof
that covers the scene of their discussions. This is my
firm deterraination. If 1 quit my pleasant course of life, it
shall be for the purpose of accomphshing some great good

24 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
for my country. My career has been long, and always brilliant,
and brilliant it shall be to the last. On the first of January,
the day after the close of these lectures, I shall have published
a Register every week for thirty years, with the exception
of the six weeks that it took to carry" me across the Atlantic
(out of the reach of Sidmouth) and the six weeks that it
took to bring the first Register from Long Island fo England.
I, last January, expressed my intention to close this publica
tion at the end of 1832; being resolved, that my light shall
never go out twinkling in the socket ; being resolved, that
the last number shall want no part of the spirit that marked
the first. Judge you, then, Gentlemen, whether I be a man
to set any, even the smallest, value on a me7-e seat in Parlia
ment ! Judge you, whether I be a man voluntarily, and
with my eyes open, to sink quietly down into that insignifi
cant thing called an " lionourable gentleman," sitting beside
the "gallant officer" or the " worthy alderman." Judge you,
whether I be made of vulgar stuff like this ! Oh, no !
Gentleraen of Manchester, great though I should deem the
glory of having my name associated and sent through the
world, coupled with that of this renowned hive of industry,
not even that would I accept of unaccompanied vvith the
assurance of being able to perform some great and memora
ble good for my country, and especially for its laborious
millions ; and, ns I can have no such assurance ; as I can
have no such hope, unless those vvho choose me be ready to
pledge themselves to stand by and support me in my endea
vours to effect the jiurposes that I have so fully and so frankly
stated to you, on that pledge being given or withheld, vvill de
pend whether I shall have that great honour, which is the
only thing that; could be a compeuEation for the labours that
the task would impose upon me.

Gentle.men,

LECTURE II, 271/1. December, IS3I.

I am this evening, under your indulgence, lo enter upon
a defence of the fourteen propositions which I have put
forth in print, and vvhich those who live in idleness upon the

LECTURE II. 25
fruit of the foil of the people have not scrupled to declare
to be utterly subversive of the institutions of the country.
The first three of those propositions are as follows : —
1. To put an end to all pensions, sinecures, grants,
allowances, half-pay, and all other emoluments now
paid out of the taxes, except for such public services
as, upon a very scrupulous examination, shall be
found fully to merit them ; and to reduce all salaries
to the American standard.
2. To discharge the standing army, except such part of
the ordnance and artillery as may be necessary to
maintain the arsenals at the sea-ports in a state of
readiness for war ; and to abolish the military aca
demies, and dispose of all barracks and other property
now applied to military uses.
3. Tl) make the counties, each according to its whole
number cf members of Parliament, maintain and
equip a body of militia, horse as well as foot and
artillery, at the county expense, and to have these
bodies, as they are in America, mustered at stated
periods ; so that at any time, a hundred thousand
efficient men may be ready to come into the field, if
the defence of the kingdom recjuire it.
Now, gentlemen, is there anything liere destructive of
the institutions of the country ? This phrase, "institutions
of the country," has become very fashionable, ever since a
reform of the Parliament has been proposed by the Ministers,
In the absence of all argument, in the absence of every
thing amounting to a rational objection against the Reform
Bill, the general and sweeping charge of its tending to
destro)' the institutions of the country, has been in the mouth
of every one, from the highest to the lowest, who saw, in
the natural operation of that bill, the sure termination of
that base corruption vvhich has so long disgraced, and that
system of plunder which has so long been beggaring, this
country, which was once the foremost in the world for
honour and for happiness.
Well, now, before we go further, before we enter on a con
sideration of the propositions which you have permitted me
to read to you, let us, since these enemies of the Reform
Bill vvill not do it, name the institutions of the country ; let
us say what they are ; and then we shall be better able to
c

2ff MANCHESTER LECTURES.
judge whether these propositions of mine have any tend
ency to destroy these institutions. It vvill hardly be pre
tended that the power of justices of the peace to transport
men for seven years for being in pursuit of their hares and
pheasnnts, is an institution of the country. It will hardly
be pretem'ed that half-pay, military and naval, given to
rectors and vicars and deans and prebends and bishops of
the Church of England, is an institution of the country. It
will not, surely, be pretended that tacitly sanctioning the
receiving of dead bodies, whether stolen from the grave or
murdered, and cutting them up, in order that men may
acquire the knowledge necessary to ease the pains of the
rich ; it will hardly be pretended that this is an institution of
the country. It can scarcely be an institution of the country
to harness poor men and women, and raake them draw
carts and wagons only because they are poor ! But, let us
see what the institutions of the country are. I bave endea
voured to ascertain what they are ; and I find them to be
sixteen in number, and to be as follows : —
1. The conimon law of England.
2. An hereditary king, having well-known powers and
prerogatives. 3. An heret"<*;ary peerage, wilh certain titles and privi
leges, and certain legislative and judicial powers.
4. A House of Commons chosen by the people, and in
the choosing of whom, the peers are forbidden to interfere.
5. A Court of Chancery, having a chancellor at the head of
it, appointed by the King.
6. Three courts of law, the judges of which are appointed
by the King.
7. Juries to try causes and accusations, under the advice
and assistance of the judges.
8. Courts of quarter and petty sessions of justices of the
peace. 9. Mayors and olher magistrates, to administer justice
in cities and towns.
10. Sheriffs to impanel jurors, and to execute the writs and
other legal commands of the judges and justices.
11. Coroners to examine into sudden, accidental, and
strange deaths of any of the people.
12. Constables to obey the judges and justices in the per
formance of acts necessary to the keeping of the peace and
the execution of justice.
13. Manorial lordships, having, in most cases, the power

LECTURE II. 27
of appointing constables, and other petty officers, for keep
ing, the peace.
14. Jails for the pur|>o.?e of enabling the sheriff to keep
safe the criminals committed to his charge,
15. Piirish stocks for the punishment of petty offenders.
16. A church established by statute law, having a ritual
also, established by statute law.
Now, these are the institutions of the country; they are the
settled, permanent means of governing the country, of
managing its affairs, of causing; the laws to be obeyed, of
preserving its peace, and providing for its honour and for
its happiness ; and, instead of tending to the overthrow of
any of these institutions, my propositions must necessarily
tend to the preserving of them, or, rather restoring them
tp their ancient purity, and causing them to produce effects
such as they used to produce.
But though I do not aim at the destruction, or at the
impairing, of any one of these institutions, I do aim at the
destruction of those things which have caused the far greater
part of these institutions to be greatly impaired, and, in
inany instances, to become merely a screen for the hiding
of oppression. I know of hardly one of these institutions
which has not lost its due effect, which has not been adul
terated or corrupted. In looking over the list of them I
hardly perceive one which is what it was, and wliat it still
ought to be. The office of the King has been shorn of a
great many things that made it beneficial to the country;
the House of Peers has been so multiplied, and so managed
by one party after another, as to make it that which it
formerly was not ; as to the House of Commons, the
people have just called upon it to pass sentence upon itself.
The Court of Chancery is quite another thing than it vvas
in the time of Sir Thomas Moore and Bishop Gardiner, when
thelatter had a retinue more splendid at the opening ofhis
seals than appertained to any sovereign prince in Europe;
of judges, 'juries, justices of the peace, and coroners, I
shall speak by-and-by. After looking over the list wilh the
greatest care, and comparing the present practice with the
original institutions, and with the practice of ages, I really
<;an perceive no one of these institutions of the country that
has not been wholly changed, if not totally annihilated, save
ami except the fifteenth institution ; namely, the parish stocks,
¦which seems to be kept up in all its pristine purity : for,
there, in every parish, are still the two oak-planks which,
c 2

28 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
when -shut down together, have two circular holes going
through them, to receive the legs of the patient : there is still
the post and all, just as the thing was a thousand years ago;
and this, because, at coramon law, every parish is indictable
that does not keep its stocks in perfect repair; and because
country attorneys have a great taste for the little pickings
which arise out of indictments preferred against parishes. But
though the institution still remains unaltered in its geometri
cal dimensions, the use of it has been wholly laid aside ; and
the solitary dungeon and the treadmill, two perfectly new in
ventions ; these harsh things have come to supply the place of
this old and gentle and good-humoured mode of chastisement.
But, gentlemen, there are some of these institutions of the
country, vvhich have undergone a change of a very impor
tant nature, and whicb must be changed back again before
England will again be worthy of its ancient name. Of all the
institutions of the country, none are cf so much importance
to the people as the institution of judges, jurors, and coroners.
The judges of England have been, and very justly, its
greatest boast, from the days of Alfred to the present time;
for though we sometimes see what vve do not like to see
pass upon the bench, taking the whole together, it is pretty
nearly all that we have left, the person of the King excepted,
which has not, raore or less, been stripped of the veneration
that belonged to it; but though the judges themselves are, I
love to believe, everything that they ought to be, they have
heen stripped of their power of protecting the people, in those
- cases where their povver vvas thc most necessary. This strip
ping has not taken place by a direct and positive abridg
ment of their power, but by giving to justices of the peace
most important power, which ought to have remained ex
clusively with the judges. You know, gentlemen, as well
as I, that our boast has been that the judges were appointed
by theKing; and that by that appointment, being jor life,
unless put an end to by impeachment, or a joint address
of the two Houses of Parliament, the King rendered the
judges independent even of hiraself. This was our great
security for the impartial administration of the law. All
foreigners writing on our form and mode of government,
have eulogised this part of our institutions, which has
always been our great boast. The ground of the eulogy
was this ; that no person, that no Englishman could be
made to suffer any serious punishment, whether pecuniary
or bodily, except convicted by a jury of the vicinage, under

LECTURE II. 29
the advice and expoundings of a judge, holding his office for
life, independent even of the King ; and this vvas not only
the theory, but it was the practice in our country for ageSi
But how stands the matter now ? By statute after statute;
line upon line ; here a little and there a little, we at last find
the justices ofthe peace, vvho are all chosen by the minister
of the day; who are appointed to, and who are turned out, of
their office at the pleasure of the minister without cause
assigned ; vve find these men, and jierhaps more than half
of them parsons, pensioners, placemen, officers of the army,
or officers of the navy, whose preferment and promotion, and
whose very bread, in many cases, depend upon the breath
of the minister; we find these men empowered to try mis
demeanors; to try felonies of a heinous character; vve find
these men empowered to imprison for any length of time,
and to transport men and women even for life ! And vve have
recently seen Knatchbull and bis brethren on the bench of
Kent, sentence a man to five years' imprisonment for
agricultural rioting, and the magistrates of Surrey sentence
a libeller to be imprisoned for two years in Horsemonger-lane
•jail amongst felons. We have seen a man, vvhom the presid
ing magistrate in Middlesex had sentenced to transportation
for seven years, having uttered some insolent words to the
chairman, called back again, and sentenced to transporta
tion for life! Thus, then, I think, that there is not much
fear that the adoption of my propositions would do much
injury to this institution of the country.
Of more importance still is the institution of juries. And
how stands this matter? If there be anything truly and
exclusively English, it is the institution of juries. Magna
Charta says that no man shall suffer in life, limb, person,
or property ; that no punishment shall be inflicted on his
body, and that no money or goods shall be taken from him,
except by the assent of a jury of the vicinage. Give me time,
and I could point out, at the very least, five hundred instances,
in which men are now liable to be fined, and frequently are
fined, and sometimes to their utter ruin and the ruin of their
families, without the intervention of a jury, and at the sole
will and pleasure of justices or commissioners appointed and
removeable at the pleasure of the ministers of the day. In an
equal number of instances, the people's bodies are liable to
be iraprisoned, or otherwise punished, by the same autho
rities, and vvithout the intervention of a jury ; but in un
happy and ill-treated Ireland, though now united with

30 MANCHESTER LECTURES,
England, though the English common law be applicable to
Ireland as well as to England, we see that men and women
may be, whenever the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland shall
choose so to determine, even transported without trial hyjury.
Aye, and at the sole pleasure of two justices of peace, and
of a barrister iu the pay ofthe Government, and this for the
heinous offence of being absent from their dwellings for the
space of fifteen minutes at a time, between sunset and
sunrise. Wtioever looks into the ancient and admirable laws of
England, vvill see vvith what tenderness those laws watched
over the lives of Ike people. The institution of Cobunbk, still
unknown to every country but England aud the United
States, was, of itself, enough to immortalize the nation by
which it was first adopted. So important was this institution
deemed by our forefathers, that the regulations concerning
it form no small part of their code. So careful was the law
of the lives of the people; so imperative did it make the
duty of every one to take care not to expose those lives to
danger; that mills, wagons, wells, chalk-pits, bitten and
goring animals, in some cases, became forfeited in conse
quence of injury done by them to the life of any person, poor
as well as rich; and the institution of coroner, and the
practice arising out of that institution, precluded almost the
possibility of any man, woman, or child, coming by their
death in any violent manner, or frora any accident, vvithout
the true cause of the death being ascertained, and without
punishment falling upon the gui!ty causer of the death, if
guilt there were; or punishment of an inferior degree, if
arising from fault or negligence. What do we behold now
then ? We have certain information that innumerable human
bodies are taken possession of and cut to pieces, without
any inquest on the part of a coroner. It has come to
light that many ot these bodies have been obtained by wilful
murder, and jet we see the Parliament meet, after this
horrible discovery has been made, and we hear no cne come
forward vvith a proposition lo cause even inquiry to be made
into the subject ; and vve hear of no one proposing a law to
cause the office of the coroner to be applied, in order to put
an end to these horrible practices.
Even the office of constable has been superseded ; the
povver of the parishes, in many instances, has been taken
avvay ; their legitimate and ancient power of appointing their
own constables. In the case of the justices, especially for

LECTUKB II, 31
the four counties of Middlesex, Kent, Surrey, and Essex, the
Government has been allowed to give ihe justices salaries;
and these justices in these four counties form a majority
on the bench. In the same counties the office of constable
has been superseded by a half-military establishraent called a
" police," in imitation of the Bourbon governraent of France.
This police is appointed by the Government and not by the
parishes ; aud, therefore, even the institution of constable
is gone. After this review, let no one ,iccuse me of contemplating
the destruction of the " iiisliftitions of lhe country." It will-
clearly ajjpear, on the contrary, that my propositions, if
adopted, must tend to produce a restoration of the insiitu-
tions of the country. And now, gentlemen, under that in
dulgence, of which I have already experienced so much, I will
proceed to lay before you the reasons which occur to rae,
in support of these propositions, beginning with that which
relates to pensions, sinecures, grants, retired allowances,
and salaries,
I make an exception in all cases, except the sinecures and
the salaries, in favour of those sums that sball be found to
be fully raerited by public services. With regard to the
pensions and other emoluments, which are clearly unmerited
by any such services, there being no other justification or
excuse, my Lord Althorp, who has recently made so brilliant;
a figure in a correspondence with Mr. Hulton, of Hulton,
said frankly that, in most instances, they must be deemed
" works of charity." And, as charity covereth a multitude
of sins, Mr Hulton might have been a little sparing of his
lordship. But charily used to mean quite a different thing
than this. St. Paul recommends charity very strongly ; and
the old-fashioned religion of our fathers, vvhich held charity
to be the first of the catholic virtues, explained it to mean
feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, harbouring the har-
bourless, and comforting the bruken-kearted. The persons
included in this proposition of mine answer to none of these
descriptions. They are not hungry, naked, houseless, nor
are they bowed down in spirit, but very much the con
trary ; for, they are amongst the most arrogant, haughty, and
insolent wretches on the face of the earth. Hut there was,
according tothe definition of St. Paul, explained and enforced
by the ancient fathers of the church, and by all the great
.civilians, ope very essential circumstance in constituting
•charity, which is wanting here. Charity, according to all

32 MANCHESTER LECIURES,
these high authorities, meant the bestowing of somethingr
whieh was the property of hira vvho bestowed it; and gene
rally it meant the giving to another something of your.-
own, which really might, if kept by you, be useful to your
self Never before, in this world, did we hear it deemed'
an act of charity to make a gift of other people's goods,
A distressed object going to a grocer, nothing so easy as fbr
the charitable grocer to go into the shop ofhis neighbour the
baker, and relieve the poor object vvith a loaf, without
giving the baker anv i hing for it, which, however, instead
cf being an act of charitj-, the law would call an act of
theft or robbery. What lerm we ought to apply to those
who take the people's money, and give it to persons selected
by themselves, and principally amongst their ovvn order, I
leave you, gentlemen, to determine.
St. Paul exhorts, and not by dry precept, but by example,
those to whom he addressed his epistles, io work luilli their oien
hands, and to live sparingly at the sarae tirae, that they might
have to give to those who needed ; but this is a species of
charity of which those who have the fingering of our raoney
do not seera to have any very distinct idea. Upon this list
of pensioners, this long list of objects of charity, we find
lords, dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, duchesses, and
countesses, and so forth, and whole families of children,
beginning generally with the mother, and going down to .
the baby in arms. Amongst these vve find a whole family
of the name of Hay, one of the feihales of which was,
at any rate, about twenty-two years upon the pension list,
and who, at the end of that time, becarae the "lady'' of
tbe present Sir John Cam Hobhouse. Whether she has
the pension yet is more than I can say. Some of these
pensions are granted for life ; some of them during the
pleasure of the King, that is to say, his ministers; some of
them for a term of years ; tlieie being in all this concern a
•variety so great ancl so enchanting, as to make it the work
of a man's life to come at anything like a clear statement
of the manner in which the money is taken away from usw
But, in order to have a fair view of the extent to whieb the:
principles of justice are adhered to, let us look at the man^
¦ner in which the settled laws of the counfry operate upo^ni
lhe middle and lower classes, when any of their families,
any of their children, any of their parents, stand in need of
parochial relief lhe celebrated act of Elizabeth, which first
made parochial provision for the relief of the poor, and of

LECTURE II, 33
the cause of which act I shall have to speak to-morrow
evening, when I come to speak of the property of the church j
that celebrated act, while it imposed a compulsory assess
ment for the relief of the poor and indigent, compelled the
father or mother, if of substance sufficient, to give, out of
their own substance, relief to their indigent children, grand
children, and even great-grandchildren; and also compelled
children, if of sufficient substance, to give, under similar
circumstances, relief to their fathers and mothers, and, if
necessary, their grandfathers and grandmothers. Nothing
could be more just than this provision of the law ; such is
the law still ; a law bottomed upon the maxim of St. Paul,
that he who abandons his own kindred to want, is worse
than a heathen. But if this law be just, why is it not
applied to the families of lhe nobility and the clergy and
the gentry, as well as to the middle and working classes
-who toil for their bread ? A few years ago, a raan in the
parish of Ticehurst, in the county of Sussex, applied to
me for advice, under the following circumstances : The maa
was nearly or quite four-score years of age ; he had been a
hard-working man all his life-lime ; had. reared a great fa
mily without any assistance fro-m the parish ; had from his
long and sedulous savings, become the proprietor of two
tenements, worth 15/. a year, upon the rent of wbich,
togethervvith what he vvas still able to do in the way of vvork,
he kept himself from the parish, and hoped so to do, till
"the end of his life. One of his sons had died, and left three
children, who were all old enough to be able to work for the
farmers. They did work for them ; but, as the farmers paid
part of their wages out of the poor-rates, they deemed
the poor children to be paupers, according to the present
debasing and infapious phraseology, the word pauper never
having been used in the act of Queen Elizabeth. The chil
dren being thus placed upon the poor-book, the parish
officers applied to the magistrates to make the grandfather
pay to the parish that part of the wages vvhich the childrea
received out of the poor-rates. The magistrates made the
order accordingly. The old man answered that, if he did
this, he must go to the workhouse himself. The reply
was, that HE MIGHT SELL THE TENEMENTS; and
that if he would not do that, the parish officers should do
it for him. Precisely how the thing terminated I do not:
now recollect, but I think it ended by a seizure of the te
nements ou the part of the parish officers, and I dare say
c5

Si

MANCHESTER LECTURES.

ihat the dismal drama closed by the old man's expiring
in that poor-house, from which, by constant industry and
care, he had kept himself and his family for so many
years. Here, then, is an illustration of my Lord Althorp's English
charity. Lady Juliana Hobhouse vvas doubtless the child
or grandchild of somebody that had something more than
two tenements worth 15/. a year ; and, observe, ray lady
Juliana was not set to work as the poor children at Tice
hurst vvere ; they, poor things, were working in the fields,
where it w:is right for them to be at work ; while she was
living like a lady, partly upon the fruit of the labour of
these very children. Not another word need be said upon
this part of the subject; for, if you, gentlemen, who will
now have the povver of choosing members of Parliament, ,db
not choose men who will pledge themselves to do avvay
with this injustice; if, under the influence of any motive
whatever, you neglect the performance of this great
duty, this so-much-desired Reforra Bill will be of no benefit
to the country, and you will deserve to suffer, all your
lives, that pressing want of vvhich many of you now so justly
complain. With regard to the sinecures, we have a very happy
illustration in the history of that of the auditor of the Ex
chequer, the present Lord Grenville, who, from this office,
has received 4,000'. a year during about fifty years ; and, of
course, he has received from us, in this shape, besides others,
about 200,0t)0/. of principal money. A sinecure means
a place which gives a man nothing to do. In this case,
however, it was the duty ofthe auditor, just to sign the ex
chequer bills issued by the treasury. This, however, Lord
Grenville did uot do ; but left them to be signed by a
clerk. One Haslett, who was iu sume office in the
Bank, stole a great parcel of these exchequer bills, and dis
posed of them for his own purposes. He was tried for the
offence, convicted ; and, as every one thought, was surely
lo be hanged by the neck till he was dead ; but a motion
was made for arrest of judgment, upon the ground that these
were a parcel of good-for-nothing papers, not having been
signed by the auditor of the exchequer himself a doctrine
which vvas confirmed by the decision of the twelve judges!
. And, thereupon, Haslett was not hanged for stealing the
exchequer bills, but transported for stealing bits of papei" !
Well, but Lord Grenville signed the exchequer bills fOr

t.ECT.UBE IJ. 35
"the future to be sure ? Not he ; but the Parliament passed
an aci to authorise his clerk to s'gn them ; and to make it a
•capital felony to steal them in future, though signed only by
lhe clerk ! An auditor means an ex iminer of accounts ; and
the business of this auditor professes to be to look into, and
pass, the accounts of the treasury. By-and-by Lord Gren-
TiLLE became First Lord if the Treasury himself; and it
did seem too monstrous for a man to be auditor of his
own accounts. The poet speaks of " soldering close im
possibilities, and making them kiss ;" but even his imagina
tion never reached the reality of that which was now be
held. Lord Grenville did not like to part with the 4,()0Q/.
a. year ; yet how was he to keep it? for, it was against
law, as vvell as against reason, that a man should be auditor
and treasurer at one and the same time ; at last the diffi
culty vvas got over by tl.e old reiiiedv, a resort, to the parish
pump ; and out came an Act of ParUamenI, brought into
the House of Commons by Charles Fox himself, to make
it lawful for Lord Grenville to be First Lord of the
Treasury and auditor of the accounts at the same time.
This is a saraple of the whole sack. It would be tedious,
gentlemen, to go over the whole list, which, adding the
suitable description in each instance, and printing very
closely, would rnake a book bigger than that which contains
the New Testament. .These sinecures are only another
name for the same thing; another channel through vvhich
those who have had the power over our purses have taken
our money, and used it for themselves. There is enough,
then, on the subject of pensions, sinecures, and grants, of
which latter there is a pretty great number, and each of
them of thumping amount, and founded ia justice just as
much as the two former items. We now come to what
are called "retired allowances;" which means salaries, or
parls of salaries, still paid to persons who have been in pub
lic employ, . but who have, from no matter what cause,
ceased to be in that employ. So that, for every office that
there is, we have two, three or four persons to pay. Uppn
what principle of reason or of justice ; upon what
practice, ever heard of amongst men, are vve taxed to
pay these allowances ? If a merchant, or manufacturer,
or-farmer, or anybody else, vvere called upon to pay his clerks
or workmen, who were no longer in his service, I woncler
what answer they would make to the call; but, if a law
were passed to effect this purpose; if a law were passed Jo

36 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
compel manufacturers, for instance, to maintain every
workman who had worked for them till he was worn out,
for the rest of his life, would they not say that that was a
most unjust and wicked law ? Yet this case that I am
speaking of is a great deal worse ; for nineteen twentieths of
these persons are not half worn out. If, indeed, they had
been forced into the several offices, as seamen and soldiers
are sometiraes forced to becorae seamen and soldiers, it would
be quite another matter. So far frora being forced inta
these offices by the public, they and their patrons generally
force the public to take them into their employ. They
are very often reared up by their parents for the express
purpose of being forced into the offices, even against the
wish ofthe Ministers themselves; and when a new Ministry
comes in, it generally turns out whole shoals of these
clerks and others, in order fo make room for their own
set ; so that we have always two, and sometiraes three,
offices to pay cn account of the same office. Before Sir
Anthony Hart died the other day, we were paying three
Lord Chancellors for Ireland, one in office, and two out ; we
are now paying two Lord Chancellors f'or England, one in,
and one out ; and, as Lord Eldon is a pretty tough fellow,.
and as the concern is in a very changeable state, I should not
much wonder if vve had another to pay before the next
year be out. AVe have about fifteen ministers at foreign'
courts, and we are always paying more than half a hundred,
AVhenever you see a dozen clerks in an office, reckon that
we have three dozen to pay for that office. Why, gentlemen,.
vvas there ever such a monstrous thing as this heard of
before in the vvorld ? Thus it is that vve stagger along under
these burdens. The Americans have ten ministers at the
courts of Europe ; and ten they pay, and uo more. They
change them very often ; they do not let them stay till
they get too closely connected with the governments to
¦which they send them; but, the moraent they go back,.
they cease to pay thera. When vve cease to have any
given service perforraed ; for instance, if we no longer keep
on a certain department of revenue, we discharge the officers,
of course, but we continue to pay thern. Some of them
have contingent pay or pensions. The renowned Huskisson,
for instance, took care, in the year 1799, to have a pension
of 1 ,200/. a year granted to him for his life, at all times
when he should not be receiving more than 2,000/. a year for
an office ; and, as he might die, he took care to have a pension

LECTURE II. 37
settled on his wife for her life, in case of his death, for
600/. a year ; at the tirae when this was done, he had never
been anything but an under-secretary to Dundas. It is
nonsense to talk of the Reform Bill, gentlemen, unless you
send raen firraly pledged to put an end to these practices.
With regard to the half-pay : but, first, I had forgotten
to mention a striking instance of this retired-allowance
work. The public seem to congratulate theraselves that Sir
Byam Martin, who was in sorae of the offices of the navy,
was turned out the other day, he having voted against the
Reform Bill. Sir Byara, like a raouse in a barley-raow,
¦was bred in the concern ; and the navy is full of his young
ones. But thougti turned out of his office, he loves us too
¦well to part from us, and he reraains to be paid by us at the rate
of SOO/. a year, a retired .lUowance. The character of those
who serve this generous nation is indelible; once in our
service, always in our service till deaih. Priests were
formerly said to be married to their churches. With much
more truth these fellows raay be said to be married to our
money ; for when once they get their hands in our pockets,
those hands nevei- come out again till pulled out by the
hand of death. If vve appoint an ambassador he serves us
four years ; but vve pay hira for life. Thus it is in every
case. If a commission be appointed, no matter of what sort,
or for vvhat purpose, the commissioners are coraraissioners
for life ; that is to s.iy, however short a time the commission
ought to endure, the commissioners continue to receive pay
to the end of their lives. Much about forty years ago;
indeed, thirty-eight years ago, a coraraission was appointed,
agreeably to the stipulations of a treaty entered into with the
American Governraent, in the year 1794, to arrange matters
which were in dispute between the two Governments, relative
to claims which each had on the other for real or pretended pe
cuniary injuries or wrongs. The coramissioners on our part
were a Mr. Thoraas Macdonald, a Mr. Rich, and a Mr. Guille-
mard. This commission comraenced its operations, or the com
missioners began to receive pay from us, just about two years
after I was married ; and if tbe commissioners be still alive,
they have received pay to this day. I remember seeing in
the public accounts, a charge on account of these comrais
sions, no longer than five or six years ago, or thereabouts.
In consequence of the coraraission, and which indeed was
the object of it, certain English merchants obtained pay
ment of debts, which, during the rebeUion, had been con-

.38 MANCHESTER LECTDRES.
fiscated by the American states ; but, gentlemen, do mark,
I beseech you, that the whole of the money obtained by this
-commission from the Americans did not amount to so
much as the cost of these commissioners, while, on tbe other
hand, the claims which the Americans had on us, we have
had to pay to an enormous amount ! Observe, too, that
the American commissioners were forced to wind up their
part of the concern pretty quickly ; and they were paid only
for the time that they vvere actually employed. And, ac
cordingly, the working people in America are well clad and
well fed, while those iu England are in rags. and half-starved.
But, perhaps, the most curious instance of all of the
imperishable nature of offices in our service, is that of the
commissioners of the Nabob of Arcot's debts. It is now
between fifty and sixty years ago since the East India
Company took away, upon some ground or other, the do
minions of a prince in Indostan, who was called the
Nabob of Arcot. How they disjiosed of him I do not know ;
but there being certain parties to vvhom he was in debt,
they came to our Government with claims for payment.
Whereupon a commission was appointed to impure into
the nature of these claims, and to settle and liquidate the
debts. This commission has existed from that day to this.
It consists of a chairman and a parcel of inferior commis
sioners, who have a secretary, clerks, door-keeper, and a
fine 'house for an office, vvith abundance of candles and of
coals; and there stands an account of them all in the
Court Calendar, this commission being one of the regular
established institutions of the country ; costing, probably,
in charges for stationery and every thing, not less than
from ten to fifteen thousand pounds a year, more than half
as rauch as is required to carry on the whole of the civil
Government of the United states of America. The head
commissioner, for about twenty-seven years past, has been
Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, the venerable father of the patriotic
member for Westminster. So that even the pap of this
latter has been paid for by us. Sir Benjamin being dead, it
is more than probable that the son will succeed him in
his office, as well as in his title of baronet; but it is
also much more than probable that Sir Cam will be
called upon to refund a part at least of this large sum of
money, with which, doubtless, the father purchased that
which reraains behind. If this be not the case in. some
thousands of instances, little indeed would I give for the par-

LECTURE II, 39
liamentary reform. In spite of boroughmongers, I can live
very happily amongst the woods and the fields ; but if
1 quit them, for a seat in Parliament, it shall not be for
long, unless effects like these be produced by the reform.
It has been said, and even iu this town, and cast as a sort of
reproach upon me, that the putting forth of ray propositions
caused the late Reform Bill to be thrown out. Well,
then, the proposisitions did good, for everybody allows
that the present bill is better than the last; and, if this
illustration of the propositions should throw out the
jjresent bill, we shall get a better still, according to
all the analogy of reasoning. Besides, we have gaine'd
this great point ; the new bill having passed in the face 6f
those propositions, we have a right to conclude that the
House of Couir.ions, who have novv carried the bill, two
to one, mean, as a matter of course, that the bill is to be
productive of the measures pointed out in those propositions.
However, gentlemen, mean vvhat they will, I here tell
them plainly what I mean; and if this illustration of iriy
meaning cause the throwing out of the present bill, out let
it be thrown ; for I will not disguise my sentimenis and in
tentions, be the consequence what it raay. But, gentlemen,
the short statement of the case is this: the bill must haVe
those effects which I have been pointing out, or it vvill only
-produce that disappointment and rage in the people which
must end in a terrible convulsion : I can plant cabbages,
and do other things that I like, without any other morti
fication and disgrace than those of living under the borough
mongers ; but I cannot be a member of Parliaraent, and
suffer these audacious plunderings of the people to go on
without being covered wilh infamy.
To come now in real earnest to the lialf-pay, or dead weight,
as it is called. In the first place, it costs the nation very
nearly as much annually as the whole revenue of the king
dom amounted to at the time when his present Majesty was
born. It amounts to twice as much, very nearly, as the whole
of the sum which is required to carry on the government of
the United States of Araerica, civil, military, and naval ; in
cluding the interest of the debt of tbat country. Why, then,
what a monstrous thing is here ! During the last peace, the
half pay or dead weiglit did not amount to more than 200,000?.
a year : now it amounts to nearer six millions than five ! Let
us, therefore, see, if vve can, upon what principle il is that the
nation is loaded vvith this intblerable burden; Those who i^-

40 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
ceive this pay are persons whose services are no longer wanted
by the country. The principle, upon which the pay is given,
is stated to be, that it is a retaining fee for future services,
and not a reward for past services. I beg you to mark this
well, gentlemen. It cannot be a reward for past services; if
it be, vve live under the raost odious tyranny in the world.
For it is notorious, that every Ministry, whenever they please,
scratch any man's narae, without cause assigned, out of the
military and naval half-pay and pension lists. Thus, then, it
is not a reward for past services, but a retaining fee for future
services. And now, raark, I do beseech you, that none of
these persons can ever be employed again, according to their
own regulations ; for they have a military and naval academy,
filled with the sons and relations and dependents of the aris
tocracy and clergy, out of which academies all the new officers
are to come. Hitherto, indeed, officers have, sometimes, if
connected with the nobility and clergy, been taken from the
half-pay; but soldiers never are takeu from the pension list,
unless scratched out of it for stnne offence which they give to
the Ministry or the raagistrates. Very few have been taken
frora the half-pay to fill up vacancies; and it is manifestly
intended that the new officers shall he supplied frora the aca
demies (of which I shall speak more fully presently) for the
excellent purpose of breeding gentlemen and ladies for us to
keep, vvhile projects eternal are on foot to get the labouring
and productive classes out of the country, on account of a
pretended over population ! And, if these things be still to
remain, will any one have the audacity to say that this will
be a parliamentary reform? This I will say, at any rate;
that if these things be suffered to reraain, vvhile these northern
towns have the power to choose men to represent them, that
which the people of these towns have hitherto suffered is
nothing compared with that which they will deserve to suffer.
To give half-pay, as a retaining fee for future services, is
the right princijde on which to grant it ; for the parties re
ceiving it may, under certain circumstances, be wanted, to
hold themselves in readiness to, serve again. As a reward for
past services, it is as unjust as the granting of the retired
allowances before mentioned. These men vvere not com
pelled to go into the army and the navy. They allege, that
they have spent their best days in the service, and that it is
too late novv for them to take up any other pursuit in life.
"Very vvell, but this is their own affair. If, indeed, they had
been impressed into the army or navy, then the nation would

LECTURE II, 41
be bound to support them for the rest of their lives, and that
too, without being very scrupulous, as to the raeans they
might have of maintaining themselves; but, if a man enter
voluntarily into the navy or the army ; if the indulgence
of his own taste, if his desire to live without labour, if his
vanity, or anything else, induce him to enter into that way of
life, and especially, which is almost always the case, if he get
into it in consequence of his own solicitation, and of some
undue influence being made use of to get him into the service,
what claim has such a man to an hour's remuneration beyond
the extent of that service ? If I be asked how such a man is
to live after he quits the service, or after he has been dis
charged from it, I answer, that he should have put that
question to himself before he voluntarily, or by virtue of
solicitation, got into it. He has been receiving, at least, four
or five times as much as a private soldier, and he ought to
have saved something during his service to keep him after
'wards, if he chose not to go to work, just as other men do.
In short, he makes a bargain with the nation to serve it for
so much pay ; he receives the pay punctually, as long as the
service lasts ; and when the service has ended, whether from
his own desire, or from the will of the employer, he ceases to
have any just demand upon the nation on account of that
service. "To receive half-pay, forms no part of the bargain ;
it can form no part of it ; because he can, at any moraent,
be disraissed from the service at the sole nod of the Ministry
of the day ; he can be also scratched off the half-pay list at
the sole will of the Ministry ; and in either case, vvithout any
cause assigned ; and that, too, upon the ground that the half-
pay forms a retaining fee for future services, and that the
King can, at any time, tell the party that he has no longer
any occasion for his services. If all other views of the matter
failed of producing conviction vvith regard tp the justice of
lopping off this heavy charge, this view of it would ; namely,
that the military and naval half-pay and pensions being a re
taining fee for future services, what right has any man to
complain that the nation gives up its claim on his services ?
It were a jest indeed for a man to say. You use me ill in not
holding me bound to venture my life for you in future I In
short, the plea is a mere pretence for taking money out of
the pockets of the people, and giving it to the sons and other
relations and dependents of the aristocracy. That's it, gen
tlemen ; and it 's nothing, neither more nor less, but that.
But, gentlemen, even at the risk of fatiguing you, I must

42 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
not here stop my remarks upon this affiiir of the dead
weight. This is not a question of a few pounds, or of a few
thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of pounds. It is a ques
tion of millions a year. It relates to a larger annual sum of
money than is given in parochial aid for the relief of the
whole of the working people of the kingdom ; and I have
always reproached the farmers, when I have had them sitting
or standing before me, for making such an outcry about the
five millions a year or thereabouts, vvhich is all that is givea
really in relief of the poor, vvhile they never utter a word
of complaint relative to the greater sura given to the dead
weight. They rail eternally against the helpless labourers, of
whose sweat ][they have had the profit; but not a word do
they say against the dead-weight, who do nothing but eat,
drink, and swagger about the streets and the roads, or sit at
benches of magistrates to transport raen for what is called
poaching ; and in other cases to transport thera, or iraprison
them for life ; and lo infl'ict fines on raen for evading the
payment of taxes, out of which taxes come their means of
living in luxury, or without work.
Nevertheless, if the thing afforded us any chance of ces
sation, I should be less disposed to press it upon your notice;
hut here is no cessation ; this dead-weight forces upon our
minds the recollection of the at once sublime and awful de
scription of St. Paul, who (having spoken of the burden of
his sins) exclaimed, in allusion to the practice of tying the
dead body of the murdered man on the back of the mur
derer, till he died also from the stench, " Who shall deliver
me from the body of this death ! " Thus also we may exclaim
with regard to this dead-weight, AVho shall deliver us from
the body of this death ! If, like annuities in general, the
half-pay ceased vvith the life of the party, it would be quite
another matter: the sum would have been reduced more than
one-half, whereas the amount of it is now greater than it .was
the year after the close of the war; for, in the first place, men
have been allowed to sell their half-pay; old men have sold
their half-pay to younq men; and, in the next place, the
widows of half-pay officers have a pension for life, and their
children until they be a certain number of years of age; so
that here is at once a premium for matrimony, and a pre
mium for breeding idlers at the expense of the industrious
classes, while my Lord Howick is torraenting his brilliant
imagination for the means of getting the working-people out
ofthe country; all the agricultural distress, according to him,

LECTURE II, 43
being produced by a surplus population ! So that this dead
weight is eternal, unless the reforra furnish the shears to cut
off the thread of its existence.
However, while I insist that strict justice would demand
the cutting of it off entirely; and that too, without sparing
any one man or vvoman of the dead-weight, with whom I
happen to be acquainted ; there are certain cases in which
that scrupulous examination, vvhich is spoken of in the pro
position, would result in a suggestion to continue tiie half-pay,
and especially to officers of the navy. The regulation of the
last peace was, that officers who had been wounded in the
service, and who had long served in dangerous situations,
should continue for life to receive their half-pay. The
widows, also, of officers slain in the service, and of those who
had lost an eye or a limb, or had been otherwise severely
wounded in battle ; these cases were provided for, and I
Would have these cases provided for in the^present instance.
For, other than this, the generosity of the nation would not
suffer it to be niggardly upon this score, if its other burdens
were taken off; and, for my own part, I should be willing to
contribute my share towards the half-pay to any officer that
had been raore than once in the face of an eneray out of the
kingdora, and had with that enemy exchanged a shot in
anger. From the widows of officers who had been serving
nearly all their lives, the nation could not withhold their
pensions or half-pay; but, besides the bad policy of the
thing; besides the inevitable mischievousness of the tend
ency df giving pensions to women married to officers ajter
they become half- pay ofiicers ; besides the stupid policy of
this," the thing is so clearly unjust; it is so manifest a robbery
ofthe industrious classes ; it is such a barefaced arid auda
cious insult to the understanding of the nation, that a mari
who vvill give his vote for another, as a member of Parlia
ment, without that other pledging hiraself most solemnly to
do his utmost to remove this oppression; the man who will
give his vote, without receiving this pledge, ought to be
deemed a slave by nature, and to be trampled under foot.
We now coine to the last part of the first proposition;
namely the salaries lo be paid to persons in the Ministry,
and other persons wanted -to carry on the affairs of the country,
exclusively of the King and his royal family ; for of these I
shall have to speak by-and-by. The proposition states that
these salaries should be, if I could have my will, reduced to
the"Atnerican standard ; and cousin Jonathan should no lougef-

44 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
have to taunt us vvith our dear governraent. And why should
they not be so reduced ? I defy any man to state a reason
why this government should not be as cheap or cheaper than
that. This American standard is this, that the whole of the
civil government of the United States, president, his minis
ters, his ambassadors, and other ministers to foreign courts,
all the clerlis, in all the offices; the judges, and aiiother
officers pf courts of justice; every person belonging to the
civil government, including those civil officers who direct the
affiiirs ofthe array and the navy, including also the pay to the
members of both houses of congress, and all the expenses
attending the holding of the session of the legislature, amount
to a sum less than ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY
THOUSAND pounds Stirling a year ; while (hear it, you
who are novv to have the power of choosing raembers of Par
liament) Sir James Graham showed, that ONE HUNDRED
AND THIRTEILN persons belonging to the privy council,
and chiefiy belonging to the two Houses of Parliament, and
excluding the royal family and the bishops, some of whom
belong to the Privy Council; he showed, the winter before
last when he was out of place, that ONE HUNDRED AND
THIRTEEN of these persons received, amongst them, annu
ally, SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS
bf the public money ; and still he called the House of Com
mons, vvho permitted this, " the noblest assembly of freemen in
the world," which vvas certainly true, if nobleness and freedom
mean the taking of money away from the industrious people
ofthe nation, great part of whora are pinched with want, and
giving it to themselves, their relations, and dependents, to
support them in idleness and luxury. Sir James still belongs
to the noblest assembly of freemen in the world ; he is now
one of the Privy Council himself; and even one of that select
part of it vvhich is called the cabinet ; and Sir James, since
this his translation, has never uttered a single syllable about
the 113, and about their 650,000/.
One argument (inipudc:ntly enough, to be sure) used, in
order to afford a pretext for this heaping the public money
upon these persons, under the name of salaries, is, that tmless
you give high pay you cannot have the benefit of high talent
in your service ; that even in the vulgar-minded trans.tctions
with the butcher, if you will have the best beef, you must
give the best price ; and it has often been objected to my
economising doctrines with respect to salaries, that I have
always contended that the best beef was not only the best.

LECTURE II. 45
but the cheapest in the end ; and this is not only correct, but
I am ready to apply it to the subject of salaries ; only, the
misfortune to us is, that we do not get the best talents, but
the worst, if we are to judge from the effects : we are not
suffered to go to the shop to pick out the best beef; we are
shut out by a monopoly : there is somebody to choose the
mess for us ; and it is chosen precisely in that manner which
is calculated to give us the worst that can be found. Some
years ago, when men in power were a little more light-
hearted than they are at present, and very prone to be jocose,
in answer to our complaints on the score of salaries ; at the
time when Canning set the House in a roar of laughter by
an alliterative jest in speaking of the " revered and ruptured
Ogden ; " at tbe time when this despicable jester, who was
at once as noisy and as hollow as a drum, was calling the re
formers a " Zoic degraded crew ; " about the time, or a little
before, a jest, vvhich vve find put forth by the late Mr. Wind
ham, and which I have related several times, was the standing
answer to every one who complained of the squandering of
our money in high salaries, 'lhe jest consisted of a story of
a farmer who went up to London from the country, and
having a very bad toothache, was taken to an expert operator,
who whipped it out in a raoment, giving the patient hardly
any pain ; but when he came to ask what he had to pay,
and the operator told him a guinea, he exclaimed " A guinea !
" why, Tom the blacksmith of our village would have dragged
" me all round the room by the head for a shilling ! '' This
story was always followed with an applauding laugh by the
honourable persons in both houses, but they never had any
man amongst them vvith sense and with spirit sufficient to.
tell them that they icere not expert operators, that they in
fact demanded the guinea instead of the shilling due to Tom
the blacksmith ; for that no ignorant and clumsy blacksmith'
ever dragged poor chopstick round the room with more vio
lence and less feeling than they have dragged this n.ition up
and down and round about. No maxim is truer than that
which tells us that vve are to know the jdaiit by its fruit, and
that men do not gather grapes from thorns, and figs from
thistles. Look, then, gentlemen, at the fruit which we have>
gathered and are gathering from the salaries in question. ,
Look at Peel's Bill and its effects ; Brown-bread Bill of the
year 1801 ; look at the laws for spending millions of English
money in the Highlands of Scotland, to prevent emigra
tion, while money was actually expending at the same time,

46 MANCHESTER LEC-IURES.
to cause the labourers of England to emigrate ! Look at the
bill for putting out the small paper money in the year 1822 ;
look at the bill for drawing it in again, passed in the year
1,826 ; look at the dreadful ruin inflicted upon hundreds of
thousands of virtuous families, by the tossing up and pulling
down the value of money; look at the blunder after blun
der, the blind, the obstinate proceedings of these " expert
operators ;" and, to cut short the detail, look at the recent
scherae, actually put into the shape of a bill, and passed by
the House of Lords, for putting a stop to acts of arson ; to
put a stop to the destruction of ricks by fire, by granting
licenses to farmers, to set guns and traps, to catch the la
bourers by the legs, or shoot them through the body, and
containing a provision, at the same time, that the permission
to set these engines should be confined to enclosures, vvhile
nine-tenths of the stacks are actually standing in the open
fields !
Look at all these things, gentleraen, and say, whether, if
this nation had been in the hands of any thirteen chopsticks
at 1 s. 6rf. a day ; or even in the hands of any thirteen ba
bies, in any thirteen cradles in Manchester, blunders more
gross, and mischief's more deadly, could have been inflicted,
upon us. But, why need we bring any charges of this sort
against them ? They stand self-convicted ; they allow the
country to be in a state, out of which tbey are unable to
bring it. They allow that its state cannot be made worse:
they allow that they know not what to do in Ireland. We
saw one Minister actually driven from his place by public
indignation. Every man must acknowledge, and they them
selves do acknowledge, that they know not what is to hap
pen next; well, then, having now, for just forty long years,
having had all the resources of this great and most
favoured country at their absolute command ; having had
our purses and our persons as completely in their power, as,
taking the beautiful simile of St. Paul, the clay is in the
power of the potter ;-»having made war, having made peace,
and having been victorious in war too (or else they are
the greatest vain-boasters that God ever made); having
done just what they pleased with this whole kingdom ; hav
ing abrogated innumerable ancient laws ; having made
as many new acts as- they pleased ; having made new
crimes without number; having punished our bodies as
they liked; and, as to our property, having made so
many liens upon it, that no man has anything which he can

LECTURE II. 47
properly call his own; having had the power to do all
these things ; and having at last come to the acknowledg
ment that they can go no further, without an appeal to the peo
ple, and without having their advice and assistance, how can
they now have the face; high as is their blood, and ac
customed as they have been to say and do what they liked,
how are they novv to find the face to tell us, that they are " ex
pert operators," and that we are to continue to pay thera high
salaries, in order that we may lead lives of security and
happiness ?
There is one quality belonging to them so peculiar as
to deserve particular notice; that is to say, the quality
of getting rich themselves, and going on increasing regu
larly in riches, while the nation, whose affiiirs they raanage,
has been getting poorer and poorer. Like the masters
pf our workhouses, their piety, or soraething else, brings
such a blessing on them, and makes thera so fortunate,
that they, like the master of the hospital mentioned in
the Spanish romance (from whom, if he had not been bound
by an oath of celibacy, I should really be disposed to
think that our rulers vvere descended), invariably got rick,
by taking care of the concerns of the poor. If I had the
time, and if I dared so much to trespass upon that patience
on which I have too much trespassed already, I could
give a list of about one hundred of them off-hand, whose
piety of this sort has produced most wonderful revolu
tions in their state oflife. Not to mention the Duke of Wel
lington, who enjoys more from the public purse of Eng
land than the annual cost of the American president
and all his ministers and arabassadors and their secretaries
and clerks, including, of course, the rental of the mon
strous grant of SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds
sterling, as a reward for those " victories, " as they are
called ; the effects of which are all now swept away ;
not to mention the monstrous sinecures of the late Marquis
of Buckingham, and the present Marquis of Camden ; not
to mention the equally monstrous sinecures of Garnier and
tiord Arden, and the AVindhams, brothers of Lord Egre-
mont; not to mention these things, nor to poke about
after the estates which have been purchased by the money ;
look only at Long and Vansittart. The former was
a mere clerk somewhere or other, before he was made
a secretary >3f the treasury under Pitt ; and in that capa^
city I knew him just thirty years ago. He is now a peer

48 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
and is called Lord Farnborough, having a thumping es
tate, near that little village which is in Kent. The same
county has the honour and happiness to contain a village
which gives the title of Lord Bexley to Vansittart. About
thirty-four years ago. Van regularly carried a brief bag
to the court of quarter sessions in Berkshire ; but. Van, fol
lowing his high destiny, went up to London, and having
written a pamphlet applauding the economy of Pitt,
and the vvar against France, Van became a " Commissioner
OF Scotch Herrings." From this he became a Secretary
of the Treasury, under Addington ; and under Liver
pool he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. This per
sonage signalized his career by divers remarkable acts,
two only of which I think it necessary to mention. In 1811,
he moved, in the House of Coramons a resolution, stat
ing that a one pound note and a shilling were equal in value
to a golden guinea ; and in 1619, he being still Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the Governraent brought in a bill,
founded on a report, which declared that a one-pound note
and a shilling had never been worth a golden guinea since
a period long prior to 1811. That Van should become a
peer after this will surprise no man ; but what may reason
ably surprise every man, and indeed fill every man with ad
miration, is the exemplary econoray which must have
marked the life of Long and Van, and all such fortunate
persons ! " A penny saved is a penny earned," says the
proverb; and how saving these gentleraen must have been,
thei), to be able to purchase such fine estates ! They might,
indeed, have possessions of their own, of which a man in
my state of life was not likely to be informed, but there
presents itself to us another still greater subject of praise
and admiration, namely, that, though possessed of such
great pecuniary means, they humbled themselves to become
mere clerks and " commissioners of Scotch herrings,"
from their anxious desire to assist in taking care that their
beloved country was not cheated in any of its mighty pecuniary
transactions. All this, however, though tending greatly to mitigate
my hostility to high salaries, does not take out of my wishes,
and out of my propositions arising from them, the part which
describes a resolution to reduce salaries to the American
standard ; without being enabled to enforce which resolution,
I would not reraain in the Parliament two years ; and
without a pledge, a distinct pledge, to support me with al]

LECTtfttE 1. 49
their might in an endeavour to accomplish this object, I
would not receive even from the people of Mancnester one of
those seats which it vvill be m tneir povver to oestow.
We now come to the standing army : and the first question
that presents itself to us here is, what we can want this
standing army for. AVe have already been at peace six
teen years ; and evervti me the Parliament either meets or
seoarates the King assures us, from his own lips, that the
continuance of peace vvith all the powers ofthe world becomes
more and more certain. During the last peace the regular
army cost the nation less than one million of pounds in the
year. It now, including everything, costs nearer eight
millions. What, then, do we want this standing army for,
which now consists of more than one hundred thousand
men ? The coramon notion is, that it is wanted to support
the Government; and I vvish raen had a clear conception of
what the word government raeans. Our Government is
to be found in each county; just as the Government of the
United States is to be found in each state, with this difference,
that their state governments are not near so expensive
as our county governments are. Let us look at our county
governraents, however, which are, in their form and man
ner, stripping them of their abuses, just what they were
seven hundred years ago, and are the very best govern
ments in this world. What is government, and what is its
business? Its business is simply to keep the peace; to take
care of men's persons and property, and to give to people all
the enjoyments which nature tenders to them, as far as the
mutual safety of the whole will permit. To effect these ob
jects, we have in each county a chief raagistrate called a
Lord -Lieutenant, appointed by the King; he has deputy-
lieutenants appointed by hiraself; and that they are men of
spirit we know from the circumstance of one of them having
called to account even a minister, who, poor man, seems to
have felt the superiority of his antagonist. We have jus
tices of the peace in abundance, holding their petty sessions
in every small district, and bringing their collective wis-
- dom to a sessions of the whole county once every quarter
of a year. We have, in case of emergency, a sheriff to call
out his posse, to protect persons and property. The posie
beiitg thought -insufficient, we have one, two, or three
battalions of militia in each county, ready to be called otit
by officers already appointed. This is the Governraent of
England, This is English Government; and, in God's

50 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
name, what do we want wilh more ? AVhat do we want
with an army to cost us, besides our county governments,
seven or eight millions a year? God has drawn the
waters around us; and by all that he has done for us, seems
to have said to us, " Be wise and be virtuous, and be the
" greatest, the freest, and the happiest people in the
" vvorld "; what, then, gentleraen of Manchester, are we to
cast these blessings from us? Are vve impiously to reject
what appears to be the commands of Providence itself; and
are vve still, though left to choose for ourselves, to encum
ber ourselves with this standing army, with this burden,
which presses us to the earth, and vvhich exists in open viola
tion anil defiance of all those principles vvhich were the
guide of our free and happy forefathers? If you cannot rousd
yourselves, so as to make a pledge to cast this burden and
this disgrace from you, by these legal means, vvhich the law
will now so amply put into your hands, think not of me,
but find some other to be the bearer of your irresolute and
slavish behests.
How many times were we promised that the long, bloody,
devastating, cruel, and wasteful vvar which was waged against
the republicans of France, should give us " indemnity jor the
past and security for the future ?" The distresses of the nation,
the unparalleled miseries of Ireland, the confusion in the
affairs of the wisest and raost punctual of men; the still
enorraous araount of the taxes, tell us whether vve have gained
indemnity for the past; while the fires in the south, the me
nacing attitude of Ireland, the building of carriages to convey
foot soldiers swiftly by land, and the existence of a standing
army of a hundred thousand men, ask our rulers in a voice
of angry thunder, whether they have given us security for the
future. Go and ask the parson in Ireland; go and ask the
big farmer in Norfolk or iu AViltshire, vvho, most likely, vvas
a yeomanry-cavalry man, for the purpose of keeping dowu
jacobins and levellers, whether the wars of Pitt, Dundas, and
Grenville, of Addington, Perceval, and Liverpool, whe
ther the victory of Waterloo, to celebrate which they roast
ed whole sheep and whole oxen ; go now, and ask them,
when they are sleeping with their clothes on by night, and
have watches to wake them, in case of danger; ask them,
wheiher the wars and the victories have brought them security
for the future ?
Blackstone, the great teacher of our laws, though a court
sycophant, tells every student that the laws and constitution

LECTURE II. 51
¦of England know nothing of astanding soldier ; that those
laws hold barracks, inland fortresses, and everything tending
to make the soldier a character different from the citizen, ia
abhorrence ; that those lavvs, in their very principle, forbid
any thought of keeping the soldier in a state of separation
from the people; that, when men have arras put into their
hands, and are embodied for the purposes of war, they ought
to be disbanded, and become citizens again the moment the
war is over ; that the character of a soldier can never be per
manent consistently with the lavvs of England ; that the citi
zen becoraes a soldier only for a teraporary purpose, and then
returns to his character of citizen again ; and that, in what
ever country there is a permanent standing army, there can
never be, and never vvas, anything worthy of the name of
public liberty.
Well then, gentlemen, this is not an " institution of the
country" at any rate. I am not here recoraraending any
thing hostile to the institutions of the country, unless the
great teacher of our laws knew not what those institutions
were. But, as if our rulers were determined to leave nothing un-
-done, in order to make the Government of England precisely
the contrary of that which Blackstone says it is, not only have
4hey made a permanent standing army, in time of peace; not
only are they iu time of peace continually augmenting that
¦army, not only do they by the means of barracks, fortresses,
<lepots, and other establishraents, carefully keep the soldiers
-separated from the people; not only have they made it death
by the law, in any man to atterapt to seduce a soldier from
his duty; not only do they keep up thc enormous half-pay ;
svoit ABly have they numerous bands of railitary officers ON
1.XJJJ.J — _, an., engagci. ,., no service t.  .,^
which they call UNATTACHED officers; not only these
have they done, and these things they do, but they have
establishments for the purpose of taking children from their
homes at a very tender age, keeping them shut up in what
they call a military acaderay, which is an enorraous build
ing, standing in the raidst of the wildest heath in the king
dom, at a great distance from all the habitations of men, there
to be cut off from the rest of the people, to have their minds
formed in a purely military mould ; to imbibe no feelings in
comraon with thepeople at large, taken so young as to require
nurses to attend them ; an establishment, in short, the very
outline of which conveys lo the mind of every man who con-
D 2

62 MANCHESTER LECTURES,
templates it, a complete conviction with regard to the motives
from which this establishraent was made.
If sorae one, vvhen Blackstone first published the book of
his Commentaries, had told him not to be too positive, for
that one Pitt, and one Grenville, and one Perceval, would
arise, who would establish academies blowing all his English
constitution to the air, vvhat would he have said? AVithout,
however, stopping to answer this question, you shall know
what! say, gentlemen ; that is this, that I will be the repre
sentative of no body of men who will not pledge themselves
to support me with all their might, in my endeavours to cause
these academies to be put down, and to cause a legal sale of
the materials of which they are composed, to go towards a
fund for the liquidation of the debts alleged to be due to the
fundholders. It is not a small aggravation of the evil of these last-
mentioned establishments, that the expenises of them are
defrayed out of the general taxes raised upon the nation, and,
as none but the sons of the rich, or the dependents of the
rich, can, in the nature of things, be admitted into these aca
demies, the middle and working class are here compelled to
pay for the education ofthe sons of the rich and their depen
dents, and, as all the future commissioned officers of the
array are to corae out of these establishraents, a private
soldier never can again become a comraissioned officer, so
that the immense sums of money which we pay on this
account are not only for the purpose of educating the sons
of the rich and their dependents, but, in effect, for securing
the exclusion of our own children from all possibility of ever
shining in railitary rank, honour, and emolument, however
distinguished their conduct, their genius, or their valour. In
this academy, as the accounts laid before Parliament tell
us, there are nurses, teachers of French, teachers of music,
teachers of^ dancing, teachers of drawing, teachers of gram
mar, and of arithmetic ; so that, gentlemen, without the
smallest raisrepresentation or exaggeration, here are mul
titudes of the sons of the nobility and clergy and gentry,
and the dependents of these, educated in the most open
manner, out of those taxes, nine tenths ofwhich are paid by
the middle classes and the working people of this country.
Gentlemen, the Reform Bill is a deception ; it is mere sham;
it is a raere thing wherewith to cheat the people, unless
it send men having a firm determination to use their utmost
endeavours legally to put down these monstrous abuses.

LECTURE III. 53
For my own part, great honour as I should deem it to be
chosen to represent the people of Manchester, provided they
were ready to pledge themselves to labour with me, with all
their heart and all their soul, for the effecting of these ob
jects, I say over and over again, that I would reject, as
nothing worth, their election of me, if they were willing for
these things to continue. It has been my lot, my very
honourable lot, to produce great effect, by every literary
effort of my life. I stand now in this state, and never will
I sink down into insignificance': a great change shall be
produced, a very great change ; one that will corapletely
renovate the nation ; one that will, in a short time too,
make it what it once was, and what it always ought to have
been. To see this accomplished, and by peaceable means,
is a desire raore ardent than any that ever before found its
way into ray heart ; but if I find that there exist not the
means of accoraplishing this, my name shall never be asso
ciated with any of the miserable shufflings by which the
accomplishment of this object shall be prevented.

LECTURE 111. 28th December, 1831,
Gentlemen of Manchester,
It is my business this evening to subrait to you the rea
sons upon which the fourlh and fifth propositions are
founded, and to endeavour to convince you that the measures
described in thera are just and practicable, I will first read
them to you again.
4. To abolish tithes of every description ; to leave to
the clergy the churches, the church-yards, the par
sonage houses, and the ancient glebes ; and, for the
rest, leave them to the voluntary contributions of the
people.
5, To take all the rest of the property commonly called
church-property; all the houses, lands, manors, tolls,
rents, and real property of every kind, now pos
sessed by bishops, chapters, or other ecclesiastical
bodies, and all the misapplied property of corporate^

64 MANCHESTER LECTURES,
bodies of every sort ; and also all the property called
crown-lands, or crown-estates, including that of the
Duchies pf Cornwall and Lancaster; and sell them all,
and apply the proceeds to the discharge of the debt
which the late parhaments contracted with the fund-
holders.
I shall have to show, by-and-by, that, without the adoption
of these measures, a reform of the Parliament must be a
mere empty sound; that, though the rest of the propo
sitions ought to be adopted, it is absolutely necessary that
these two should be adopted, and strictly acted upon ; be
cause, without this, it will be impossible to provide the
means for carrying into effect the raeasures which I recom
mend with regard to the national debt, the subject of which
I am to discuss to-morrow evening. With any show of jus
tice and humanity, this debt cannot be got rid of without an
abolition of the tithes, and vvithout an application of the
other property of the church, as it is called, to the purpose of
liquidating such parts of the debt as ought to be liqui
dated. Many gentlemen present will recollect, that the first time
that a proposition was openly made, and in print, for
meddling with the revenues of the church, was in a petition
ofthe county of Norfolk, in the month of January, 1823.
Many gentlemen here present will remember, that that
memorable petition, which I had the very great honour of
being permitted to draw up, and to present to the meetings
was passed almost unanimously in an open raeeting, fairly
asserabled, iu that very great and spirited county; that,.
upon the appearance of this petition, which also contained a
proposition for a great re.luction of the interest of the debt,
the whole of the London press appeared to be in a state of
absolute commotion ; that the parsons called me " infidel,"
while the fundholders called me " robber," not appearing to
perceive that I myself vvas in a situation of life which ex
onerated me from the payment of tithes, and that, at any
rate, I rayself owed but a very sraall portion of the debt ;
and not appearing to perceive also, that, if there vvere infi
delity and robbery in the proposition, the whole of the
county of Norfolk, farmers, tradesmen, and working people>
who met in the great hall of St. Andrew's, at Norwich, were
infidels and robbers. Nevertheless, the London papers rang
with accusations against me palrticularly, laying the whol&

LECTURE III. 55
blame upon my poor shoulders ; and, in the fulness of their
humanity, ascribed the sanctioning of the petition to the
delusion practised by rae upon the simple people of Norfolk.
Above all things, this proposition relative to the property
of the church, was represented as " will and visionary." It
was called unjust, cruel, ferocious, diabolical, but utterly
contemptible at the same time, on account of its wild and
visionary character. Now, gentleraen, what is the language
of these same newspapers now ? It is very vvell knownto you
all ; or, at least, to those who have done me the honour to
read my writings for some years past, th.at 1 have constantly
endeavoured to press upon the rainds of ray readers, that the
passing of enclosure bills, and the moulding of several
farms into one, together with the operation of the tithe
system, had gone on rendering the lot of the labourers
worse and worse, and that it would finally reduce them to
the necessity of breaking forth into acts of violence, or sub
mitting to a life very nearly approaching that of starvation.
My readers of long standing will recollect, that when that
impudent old sinecure placeman, and formerly purser in the
navy, old George Rose, used to cite the increase of the nura
ber of inclosure bills as a proof of the prosperity of the
country, and of the goodness of the Government, I said
these bills were laying the sure foundation of raisery to the
country, and adding to the chances of a final violent over
throw of the state, AVith regard to large farms, I have
always contended, that they were a species of monopoly
growing up out of the system of fictitious money ; and that,
at last, if not put a stop to in time, they would produce two
classes in agriculture, haughty masters, and work people
whom they would deem their slaves ; the natural result of
which would be a violent contention between the two at last,
and something like a general convulsion. AA'^ithin the last
ten years, the evil having gone on Increasing in magnitude,
the debt and other causes of taxation having .so enormously
increased in weight, in consequence of the doubling of the
value of raoney by Peel's bill; within these ten years, I
have contended that some great branch or other of expen
diture must give way; that the debt was the thing first to
give way; and that, yet, common decency, very ordinary
morality and conscience, would not suffer that to be totally
extinguished, until the eraoluraents had been taken froni
the aristocracy and the clergy ; and that, therefore, resorfc

56 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
must be had to the properfy commonly called church-pro
perty. Novv, gentlemen, these are opinions vvhich I have been
promulgating for the last five-and-twenty years at the least,
as will be seen frora those pages which will remain to be
read for many vears yet to come. With regard to the
church-property, my opinions, openly expressed, are of
about ten years standing. During these five-and-twenty
years. Brougham's best possible public instructors have been
constantly inculcating the great benefit of new inclosures
of wastes, as they call them ; the greater benefit still of
putting many farms into one ; the monstrous injustice of
touching the property of the church ; and they have been,
¦without measure and vvithout mercy, censuring ray opinions,
whenever they thought them worthy of anything beyond
expressions of contempt. All this is vvell known to many
gentlemen now present, to whom it is equally vvell known
that these best possible public instructors have all of a sudden
changed their tone, and are now far more vehement than I
ever was, in censuring the greediness of landlords and
farmers, in stripping the labourers of the wastes ; far more
vehement in censuring the monopoly of farras ; and coming
almost up to my mark in recommending the abolition of the
tithes, and the seizure of thc other church-property for public
uses. If I had a bundle of their recent broadsheets, and
dared so far to trespass upon your time as to rummage up
their rubbishy columns, I could occupy ten evenings as
long as this, in merely reading passages from these papers
in confirmation of vvhat 1 have heard said. 1 will content
myself, however, with reading a passage from the Morning
Chronicle, and from the pen of the editor of that paper, of only
four days ago ; naraely, Saturday last, the 24th of this
month of Deceraber, in the following words : — " The first
" effect of throwing several farms into one was favourable
" to cheap production. But the demoralization of the
" labourers vvas not calculated on. No man can possess
" property in security, with a demoralized population around
" him. The labourer who, while independent, vvas honest,
" now steals without scruple. The farraer finds this to his
" cost, when he casts up his accounts. We must retrace our
f' steps; and the landholders, who have robbed the labourers
" of their little possessions, must be made to contribute to
" their emancipation. The real and the able-bodied poor must

LECTURE III. 57
*' be distinguished from each other ; and where there is a,
'.' redundancy of able labourers, land must be allotted to the
" supernumeraries. But without an alteration in the tithe
" as well as the poor system, all attempts to benefit the
" poor will be fruitless. A thorough reform is required,
" And as soon as the Reform BiU is carried, that great curse
" of the country — the tithe tax — must be placed on a rational
'f footing." It is not true that throwing several farms into one was
favourable to cheap production. That is not true, except
cheap production mean cheapness to the monopolist, and dear
ness to the rest of the community. But now they have,
discovered, then, that this amalgamation of farms tends to
demoraliza the labourers ; and this man says that no man can
possess property in security, with a demoralized people around
him. What a vast improveraent vve have raade 'ia words !
I do not know what rfemora/wed means ; but, if it mean empty-
bellied, it is a very proper word to make use of in this case ;
for, not only cannot a farmer, or landholder, or any other
person, possess property in security, vvith empty-bellied la
bourers around him, but I contend that he ought not to
possess it in security, surrounded with labourers who have
not a sufficiency of food.; and it is not stealing to take, with
out scruple, that which is necessary to sustain hfe. Gentle
men, I am aware that this assertion of mine will startle
spme persons ; but I am sure that it will startle no one who
is well acquainted with the law of either God or man ; for,
according to all the laws laid down by God himself, accord
ing to the canon law, the common law, and the statute law
of England, it is not criminal stealing for a man to take
food or raiment, and no matter from whom, if the person
himself be not in absolute want, -if such taking be necessary
to preserve the taker from perishing with hunger or with
cold, I wish to be very explicit upon this subject : it is a
matter vvhich all persons of property ought clearly to under
stand : I say, then, that if a man, and the same applies to
women, boys, and girls, be in want of food and raiment neces
sary to sustain life, and if he cannot obtain the food and rai^
ment by su-ppUcations to private persons, or by his appli
cation to parochial authorities, he is fully justified in taking
that which he wants for the purpose just mentioned, in what
ever house or place he may find it, and that this justification
he has, in the lavvs of God, in the decisions of the fathers of
the Christian church in the decisions of all the great civi"
»5

68 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
lians, and in the letter, as well as the practice, of the canon
law, the common law, and the statute law of England. The
poor-laws of England, provided they be put into practice,'
strip him of all excuse for this sort of taking ; but, if it
were to happen that those laws were to fall into disuse, or to
be set at defiance by the parochial officers, the right of taking
would revert to every man in such a state of deplorable want.
And this doctrine I am ready to maintain, in the face of alf
the clergy and all the lawyers of England. So that fhis
¦writer of the Morning Chronicle may talk about stealing as
long as he pleases ; it is no stealing to take under such
circumstances ; for, as Soloraon says, in the 6th chapter of
Proverbs, I think it fs, and the 30th and 31st verse, "Men
" do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul
*' when he is hungry." Very strange, that men should
not despise a thief : and both the Catholic Bible, and the
learned Grotius, who was a Protestant, say that the word
thief was not in the Hebrew text, but that it was, " AVe do
not despise a man:" and as to the word steal, it only
meant secretly taking : and, to be sure, it would be mon
strous indeed, and mankind would be monsters, if they were
to maintain that the persons of property of any comraunity
had a right to withhold the means of existence from even
any one soul in that community.
But here vve have, at any rate, a confession that the scheme
of throwing several farms into one has produced great evil ;
and that we must " retrace our steps." This is a great decla
ration ; for it means that we are to throw open the enclosures
again ; make allotments of land to supernumerary labourers ;
make them corapensation for the " robbery " that the land
owners have committed upon them ! 'Tis not I that wrote
this, gehtlemen : God preserve me frora so doing ; for, on a
charge of sedition, how soon would the sagacious Denman
have me by the heels vvere I to write in this manner ! I
verily believe that we shall have small farms again : and
if I did not believe it, I should not care a straw vvhat became
of the country ; but this is not to be effected by the grovelling-
means which writers like this appear to have in view. But
we now come to the great matter of all ; the tithes !
This gentleman tells us, that all attempts to benefit the poor
will be unavailing, unless there be an alteration in the tithe
system ! It is quite amusing to observe this fresh source of
anxiety with these public instructors. I have known them
for thirty years, for unfeeling revilers of the labouring poor,

LECTCRE HI, 59
and particularly the writer on wJiose writing I am now ohr
serving ; for ten years at least I have known him for a pro
poser of harsh and cruel measures towards this best description
of persons in the country : I have known him for a prater
aboiit surplus population ; I have known him for a eondemner
of premature marriages; Ihave known him to recommend,
like the hard-hearted and well-paid Thomas AValker, Esq.,
of-Lamheth, to leave the poor to their oivn resources, and
hanging them if they take, in order to preserve their lives ; I
have known him for a reviler of the famous act of Queen
Elizabeth ; I have known him for a recommender of driving
the poor from the estates of the nobility in Scotland and ia
Ireland ; I have known him for an advocate of compulsory
emigration ; 1 have known him for an advocate of the atro
cious proposition to sell the dead bodies of the poorest of the
poor, and thereby to terrify those that were alive from putting
themselves into the hands of hospital-keepers, and keepers
of workhouses : all this I have known of these 6es/ jJossi6/e
public instructors, and of this one in particular : and now I
find him anxious above all things to improve the situation of
the poor. Gentlemen, you know I dare not say that the fires
have done good, and I do not say it, therefore ; but 1 must
be an idiot not to see that it is the fires, and the very just
alarm excited hy that dreadful and irresistible mode of taking
revenge, that have produced such a wonderful change in this
very hard-hearted man.
However, all attempts are vain, he tells us, to benefit the
poor, unless there be an alteration in the tithe system. There
is, he tells us, a thorough reform required ; and that as soon
as the Reform Bill is carried, that great curse of the country,
the TITHE-TAX, must be placed on a rational footing."
What a rational fooling may mean, according to his view of
the matter, I cannot tell. But it must include a taking of -
some part, at least, away from the parsons. This is worthy
of particular attention. The alteration of which he speaks -
can do no earthly good to the labourers, unless it cause the-
parson and his family to take less of the produce of the land<
than they now take. What can be the use of composition, or
commutation, or of any other measure, unless the parsofl
take less than he now takes ? How am I, being a farmer,
rendered better able to give sufficient wages to my labourers
by the parson ceasing to take in kind, the corn, the wool,
the wood, the calyes, the pigs, the eggs, the milk, the lambs,
the apples, and the cabbages, and all other things ; how am

60 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
I to be rendered better able to pay my labourers sufficient
wages by the parsons ceasing to take these in kind, and by
taking the full valkie of them in money ? If a man come to me,
to take away auy thing that I have, what do I gain by pre
vailing on him not to take the thing away, if he compel me
to give him the full worth ofthe thing in money ? But there
is this further disadvantage in giving him a money-right ; for,
whether I have crop or no crop, he comes and demands the
money; and the money-claim gives him a right over me as
a creditor ; a right to take my goods and seize my person ; a
right which the law of tithes never yet conferred.
In short, gentleraen, by " rational footing,'' this writer
must mean taking part at least of the tithes froni the clergy ;
and what principle is there which will sanction the taking of
a part, which will not sanction a taking of the whole ? and,
indeed, there is no other scheme vvhich has anything rational
in it : it is a case in which there can be no compromise';
and if you were to atterapt a compromise, 5'ou would instantly
get into confusion. To give the parsons the use and com
mand of the churches ; the control over the church-yards ;
all their present authority, as far as relates to these raatters ;
to give thera the parsonage-houses, and the glebes of ancient
endowment ; and for the rest, to leave them to the voluntary
contributions of their parishioners for everything beyond the
fees to be settled and determined by law : this would be
placing the concern on a rational footing; on a really rational
footing; and I am quite satisfied, that it would be a change
greatly beneficial to the working clergy of the church, and
to the religion of the church itself.
Having to maintain the proposition vvhich I have just read
to you ; having expressed my deterraination to forego any
honour that may be tendered to me, unless tbose who tender
it pledge themselves to support me in endeavouring to
accomplish the purpose described in the proposition, it is
incumbent on me to show that that vvhich I propose is just ;
that there is nothing in the proposition that is contrary to
the law and usage of the nation ; but, as a thing may not be
strictly just, though agreeable to law and usage, it is incum
bent on me to show that it is just in itself; that it is not
crael; that is to say, unnecessarily severe. But before I do
this, and in order to remove all suspicion that I have any
sectarian feeling of hostility to the church itself, I think it
right, as I have always thought upon similar occasions, to put
forward my fair and undeniable pretensions upon this score.

LECTURE IIL 61
In the first place then, I was bred and bOrn in the Church of
England as by law established ; that I have never, in word
or deed, called in question the truth of its doctrines, or the
apostolical origin of its worship ; that I have never, in any
way whatsoever, impugned any of its creeds ; and that I have
never joined, or leaned towards any dissent from it. But,
gentlemen, my orthodoxy has a far better testimony in its
favour than any professions. that I can put forth, however so
lemn ; for some years ago, it is pretty nearly twenty. Bishop
Burgess, then Bishop of St. David's, and now Bishop of Sa
lisbury, declared in a letter, published in the form of a
pamphlet, vvith his name to it, and addressed to Mr. Belsham,
that, of all the laymen ofthe Churchof England, Mr. Cobbett
appeared to be the only true son of that church.
Having thus established, as I think, my impartiality, at
least upon this subject, I proceed to maintain the legality and
justice of taking away the tithes. The whole of the tithes
collected by the clergy and lay-impropriators in England,
leaving Ireland out of the question for the present, Arthur
Young, more than forty years ago, estimated at five millions
a year. Suppose them to be worth that now, and I suppose
theni to be worth a great deal more. Alexander Baring, in
the first session of 1830, stated the revenues q^ the church
to amount to TEN MILLIONS A YEAR. It is possible
that all these estiraates may be incorrect ; but certain it is,
that the tithes amount to a very great sum. Now it never
can be believed that this large part of the produce of the land
was intended to be given to persons vvho should have the
name of being ministers of a church, and who should not
render services in some degree proportioned to the amount
of the thing given. It was property belonging to the nation,
and given for the support of the morality and religion ofthe
people. The legislators who made this disposition of the
property, must have believed that it would be employed in a
way to induce the people to go to the churches, there to have
inculcated in their minds tliose principles vvhich would tend
to make tbem good towards men, and dutiful towards God. If
this were not the motives of those who gave the tithes
to tbis church, they were hypocritical and profligate tyrants;
and if it were their motive, as it certainly must have been,
the establishment has not answered the purpose for which the
tithes vvere given to it. It has not answered the. purpose;
for do we not all know, that not one tenth part ofthe people
ever enter the doors of the churches,, while the meetingr

62 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
houses are crowded in every town and every village ? The
cause of this has been, not the fondness of the people for
strange doctrines ; not a want of piety by any means ; for in
spite of everything, the mass of the people are the most
religious in the vvorld, those of the United States not excepted^
There is scarcely a parish in the kingdom, however small, i«
which we do not find one or more chapels of some sort
or other, established by private and voluntary contributions ;
and these chapels are crowded, while the parish churches are
empty. Be the cause, however, what it may, this is the
fact, and in this fact we have the proof, that the establish
ment has failed of its object; and that some great change
with regard to it is necessary, to make it once more efficient,
if ever it be to be efficient, for the purposes of religion.
The fault is not, generally speaking, with those who do
the work of the church ; but with those who receive its re
venues. The working clergy of the Church of England, are,
perhaps, taking them as a body, as good men as any in the
world ; but those who have the benefices it is, who have
destroyed the respect and veneration for the church; it being-
quite irapossible for raen to venerate an establishment which
gives to one man the labour, and to another man the profit ;
It being quite impossible that men should remain attached
to an establishment in which the e.xaraple of the teachers
gives the lie direct to all their precepts.
Thus far as to the utility ofthe establishment, and the ac
cordance of its effects with the intention of those by whom
the establishraent was made ; but now as to the law and
justice of taking away the tithes. As to the law, we must
first look into the origin of the tithes themselves. AVhen
we talk of taking them avvay and applying them to public
purposes, we are answered by the astounding assertion, that
they are as much the property of the clergy and of the lay-
impropriators, too, observe ; that they are as much their
property as any man's farm-house is his property ; and, I
remeraber that the debut of Mr. Stanley in the House of
Commons was marked by his making this very assertion.
Now the fact is this, that the tithes, and that every other
species of church-property, if traced back to their foundation,
will be found to have been granted for purposes of charity ;
that, in every instance, the grant was made in the name of
charity ; that, in fact, they were grants for the purpose of
supplying the faithful, not only with spiritual food, but with
means for providing for their bodily wants; and that the

LECTURE III, 63^
practice of these charities vvas established from the beginning,
and the order of deacons was instituted for the purpose of
superintending the tables at which the poor were fed. We
have an Order of deacons ; in our church still; but does-
ever any one hear of any tables at which they superin
tend the feeding of the poor from the produce of the
tithes and other property of the church ? The Apostles,,
in imitating the regulations of Moses, to prevent men
dicity and misery, collected alms, in order to relieve the
poor. As the church advanced, the part that was taken by
the ministers was considered merely as the necessary
means of preserving their lives, and not even as a reraunera
tion for services, because that which they had freely re
ceived, they were freely to give ; and, accordingly, St. Paul
supplied himself with necessaries out of the fruit of his
labour. This was the foundation of all landed and other
property when it came to be bestowed upon the Christian
church in every part of the world ; but our church seems
to have wholly lost sight of this, the origin of its property :
it seems to regard it as mere worldly property, held by
law ; held by the laws of man, and by no other laws, and to
he used, as other property is, solely for the benefit of the
possessor, he being at liberty to carry it away from the
parish in which it is raised, and spend it in St. James's
street, up at London, at Bath, at Brighton, at Paris, at
Rome, or in shooting or fox-htinting.
However, since they will have it that they hold it by law ;
since they will call the church, the church by law estab
lished, that will relieve us from a great deal of the trouble
which we should have to take in order to prove that tithes of
all descriptions are the property of the public and the poor.
For, if they have it bylaw, it must be by statute-law ; and,
then, we look back to this statute law, aiid there we find
that the first statutes on the subject of tithes and all church-
property, indeed, declare in the most strong and distinct
terms, that this property belongs to Holy Church in trust
for the poor ; that this property and this trust are sacred ;
and that no law shall ever be made to alienate the property
or enfeeble the trust. When, at a later period, we find that
parochial tithes had been appropriated to ecclesiastical
communities, and vicars {yicariis) had been placed in the
parishes to supply the place of the rectors ; and when, in
Consequence of these impropriations or withdrawings, the
vicars, in some places, were left with an insuffficiency to

564 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
enable them to reheve the poor in a proper manner ; then
we find the statute law interfering, and compeUing the
impropriators to leave in such parishes a sufficiency of such
tithes for the rehef of the poor and the indigent. So that,
if they will have law for it, here is the beginning of the
statute law.
Thus things stood when the Protestant Reformation came.
Then came a series of statutes, or acts of parliament, relative
to the church-property ; and act after act, meddling with
it more and more ; these acts finally created this Church
of England as " by latv established : " and these acts, all
taken together, took avvay, in spite of Magna Charta, in
spite of the solemn ratification of it, at the beginning of
every reign of perhaps twenty kings successively ; in spite
of the canon law, which had been iu force for a thousand
years at that time or thereabouts ; in spite ofthe famous code
of Edward I. ; in spite ofthe common law, which had existed
in all its force from the time of Alfre.l ; in spite of all
these, and in defiance of the word of God itself, came the
series of acts of parliament before-mentioned, — took away
all the church-property from out of the hands of Ca
tholic priests, and out of the hands of Catholic ecclesiastical
corporations ; and gave this property partly to a Protestant
and a married clergy, and partly to mere laymen, after vvhich
last, to talk of sacrilege is a mockery such as the world has
seldom witnessed. AVell, then, since the law could handle
this property in this manner ; nay, it did a great deal more
than this, for it seized the property of private chantries or
chapels, vvhich were, to all intents and purposes, private pro
perty, and had never been other than private property ; it
seized besides, the property of guilds and fraternities , which
had been established for the purpose of protecting different
trades and callings : the law could do all this ; the King and
the two Houses of Parliament found themselves invested
with legitimate power to do all these things; not only
to take avvay all the property of the church from men
ofone religion, and give part of it to priests of another re
ligion and part of it to laymen ; but to do an act which
would be equal to the seizing ofall the Methodist and other
dissenting chapels of this day, and selling the ground on
which they stand, and seizing upon all the endowments of
such meeting-houses and chapels.
Well, then, if the King and the Parliament could do this,
and that too in those rude and unpoUshed times when the

LECTURE III. 65
sehoolmaeter had not yet been abroad, surely a King and
Parliament can now take the same property wherever it is
to be found ; surely it can take all the same church-propertj',
whether in the hands of clergy or laymen, anti. dispose of it
as it pleases. Indeed, the Parliament has always had a control
over it ever smce the church and the Parliaraent corexisted;
for tbe Parliament interfered to prevent the impropriators,
when they were ecclesiastical corporations, from withdraw
ing from the parishes so much ns not to leave a sufficiency
for the relief of the poor. The tithes vvere, according to the
ruleson which the Christian Church of England was founded,
to be divided thus: one third part of the araount of them
was to be distributed amongst the necessitous by the
priests, who were enjoined to raake the distribution with
their own hands, " in charity, mercy, and humility." They
do little of this now, certainly ; and they plead the exemption
given them by law. They say that theirs is a church different
from the church that so distributed the tithes ; and, God
knows, very different it is. When the change took place, and
this law church was established, those who had seized hold
ofthe property, which vvas before the patrimony of the poor,
very soon ceased to afford the poor any relief at all. The
short and true history ofthe thing is this : a full third part
of all the real property in England was held in. trust
by the priests, and by the abbeys, priories, and other con-
ventical establishments, for the benefit of the poor ; and
there never was, and never could be, except in extremely
extraordinary instances, anything like misery in England,
At the reformation, the King and the aristocracy, agreeing
tpgether, seized upon the whole of this property, put monied
persons and their families into the livings, reserving the
appointraent of the parsons to themselves, and dividing
amongst thera all the estates belonging to the convents, and
also a large part of the great tithes. Thus, therefore, .they
s,ay that they have these things by law. Who denies it ? We
know that they have (hem by law, and that it is our duty
to obey the law ; but has the law by which they hold.
them set aside Magna Charta, and all the laws of England
of a thousand years' standing ? Surely we may pass another
law to set aside this, their law, which is not yet of three
hundred years' standing.
With regard to the right, therefore, that the Parliament
has to pass the law which I propose, not one single syllable
more need be said. But^ in order to show that the Par-

66 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
liament do still possess the clear right of doing this, the
clear right of abolishing the tithes, and taking away the
other revenues of the church for public purjioses, let us see
what the Parliament has done in this respect, even in
Protestant times ; let us see what it has done, even with
this church as by law established. I beg to observe here,
that this is not necessary I beg to observe, that I have
already proved enough ; for the parsons must either allow
that the Parliament had the right to do what it did with
regard to the seizure and transfer of the property, or they
must confess that the act was an act of violence and tyranny;
and it would not be convenient for them to allow that their
church was built on violence and tyranny. However, by
way of surplus proof, let us see what the Parliament has
done wilh regard to this church, since it has been " by law
established." The Parliament has three tiraes altered even
the service of the church ; aud at every alteration it vvas
set forth that the persons raaking it vvere instructed so
to do by the Holy Spirit. Let that pass, however, and let
us come to the temporalities. In the first place, by three
or four separate acts of Parliament, passed at differ
ent times, they made a union of parishes, putting two,
and sometimes three or more livings into one, and giv
ing the people one vicar or rector, instead of two, three, or
more ; and in ill-treated Ireland they have, in sorae instances,
moulded ten livings into one, letting nine-tenths of the
churches fall down ; but, in all instances, taking care to keep
up the full deraand for tithes in all the parishes. Next,
the Parliament has, in several instances, and particularly
during the ministry of the heaven-born Pitt, actually taken
away part of the real property of the church. This was done
no longer ago than in the year 1798, by an act of Parliament
which was called an act for the redemption if the land-lax.
This act first imposed a perpetual land-tax, and then it pro
vided, that any land-owner might, if he chose, redeem his
land-tax ; in other words, pay the whole sum, pay the whole
of the fee-simple of the land-tax down at once ; and thus
free his land from the land-tax ; in other words, this act took
away fpart of every man's landed estate : for if you did not
redeem your land-tax, the governraent raight sell it to your
neighbour; and thus give hira a perpetual rent-charge on
your estate ; in other words, this was taking avvay a part of
every estate in the kingdom, and selling it, to raise money-
to be paid into the Exchequer. This act, which violated

LECTURE III. 67
wills, which cut off entails, which annulled marriage settle
ments, and all other settleraents on real estates, as far as
these were necessary to effect its purposes, did not spare the
cburch " as by law established ; " and it contained a provi
sion, authorising the bishops, deans, and chapters, colleges',
and other persons holding church property, to sell part of it j
and commissioners were appointed to see that the proceeds
were paid into the Exchequer. The bishops, deans and
chapters, colleges, and others, sold, in sorae cases, the lilheif
which they were entitled to receive; and thus raade lands
tithe-free vvhich were not tithe-free before. Here, then, the
Parliament meddled to sorae tune ; it forcibly took away a
part of the church property, and alienated it from the churchr
for ever, putting the raoney into the Exchequer, for the pur
pose of carrying on the war. AVhat is raeant then by those
who pretend that the Parliament has no right to meddle with
this property ? If it could thus abolish part bf the tithes, for
the purpose of carrying on a war, surely it can abolish the
rest, in order to enable the nation to pay off the debt con
tracted for the carrying on of that war !
Not only, however, wilh the ownership of this property
has the Parliament been constantly meddling, but it has
meddled also as constantly with the revenues of the property,
and particularly with the revenue, arising from tithes. In
1713, and again In 1813, acts of Parliament vvere passed tcr
compel the owners of livings to give their curates, vvhen they
had curates, certain specified sums, iu proportion to the vvortli*
of the living and the extent of the population of the parish.
These acts fixed the sums which the incurabents were to be
compelled to give. They provided also that the curate should"
occupy the parsonage-house and the glebe lands, in certain
specified cases and on certain specified terms. Now, if a
living had been private property, what acts of tyranny were
these ! AVhat should we say to the Parliament if it were to
corapel manufacturers to give certain specified wages to their
overseers and their work-people ; to corapel merchants to
pay their clerks certain specified salaries; to corapel gentle
men to pay their stewards and butlers and other servants at a
certain specified rate of wages ? Why we should call such a
Parliament a band of hare-brained tyrants, who had come,
reeling down from Bellamy's drunk, hiccuping drunk, -when-
they passed such a law. But viewing the tithes, as well as all
the other revenues of the church, as public property, and as
being corapletely under the control of the representatives of

68 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
the people and the peers, we see the legality of these acts of
Parliament; and, as far as they go, acknowledge their jus
tice. The tithes being held in trust for the benefit of the
people, and the rectors and vicars, generally pluralists and
non-resident, having given to their curates so miserable a
stipend as hardly to enable them to exist with their families ;
the Parliament seeing the establishment disgraced, and the
people alienated from it by this cause, acted wisely and justly,
as far as it went, in compelling the incumbents to make bet
ter provision for their curates; but with all these acts, med
dling vvith, and disposing of, the real property and the tithes,
whether in the fee or in the revenue, at its sole pleasure, there
cannot reraain in the raind of any sane man the smallest doubt
that this is a mass of property, the remains of which, in
whatever hands found, is now lawfully at the disposal of the
Parliament. And would 1 touch the impropriators too ; that
is to say, not the incumbents of livings, but those who own
the great tithes, and in some cases the small tithes also, with-
o.ut being bound at all to provide any one to perform the ser
vices of the church ? I can see no reason for exemption here.
No title can be shown to these impropriations higher than that
of an actsof Parliament. If an impropriator demand tithes
of rae, and I resist the payment, he has nothing to show as
title but an act of Parliaraent, which took the tithes away
from the public and the poor ; and as one act of Parliament
can always be repealed by another, this reduces itself to a
q^uestion of expediency and of policy, both of which will, I
think, decide in favour of the repeal.
AVe are to consider here what is due to the nation as a
whole; and not vvhat may affect particular individuals or
classes of men. The bishops, deans and chapters, colleges,
and other corporate bodies, some ecclesiastical, and sorae lay,
are great owners of impropriated tithes. These, of course,
would come under the general description of church-property.
The private lay-impropriators are of two descriptions; some
who have to rest their claira upon grants direct to themselves
or their predecessors; others who are becorae lay-irapropri-
ators by purchase. But even these last do not seera to have
any very valid plea of exemption from the general rule. If I
have purchased an estate which, in fact, is yours, my long oc
cupation, and my having paid money for it, does not prevent
me from being ousted. 'These owners of impropriate tithes,
may, indeed, have been in private possession beyond the
length of time within which the law would restore a private

LECTURE III, 69
estate to the right owner; but the maxim ofthe law is, that
no length of time tveakens the claim of the church; and as
these impropriators have never failed to resort to that maxim
in maintaining their pretended rights in the exaction of tithes
to the utmost extent, they cannot complain if the nation act
upon the same maxim in reclaiming the property. Besides,
coming to the equity of the thing, the title to such tithes has
always carried down vvith it the vice of the original grant ;
the property has always been tainted with the violence with
which the impropriation was raade: it was so rauch taken
from the public and the poor unjustly, by shefer violence, and
notoriously against the vvill of the people, and it is well
known that this species of property is always deemed of less
value than other property of a similar amount of rent. AVhen
a freehold farm which will let for a hundred pounds a year, is
worth three thousand pounds, and will require purchase raoney
to that amount, impropriate tithes that will bring one hundred
pounds a year, will not sell for two thousand pounds. In
short, the parties in possession know that the tenure is more
frail. In the very nature of the transaction of transfer, an
acknowledgment of risk on the part of the purchaser is
evident. He makes his bargain with that risk in contem
plation ; he bargains for higher interest on account of the
.risk ; and shall he then now turn round, and say that his title
is as clear from all taint, and his tenure as firm as those of.a
freehold estate?
They rest on an Act of Parliaraent, and on nothing else.
The Duke of Devonshiie, for instance, is the owner of the
great tithes of tweuty parishes in Ireland, These tithes, as
well as all others, were granted forthe purposes of the three
fold division above-mentioned ; but the law now gives them
all to his Grace, and leaves the wretched people of those pa
rishes to get relief how they can. If I occupied a farm]^in
one of his parishes, and were to refuse to give him tithes,
alleging that he had no claim to them, he being no priest of
the parish, he would first show me the grant from the wife-
killing Henry VIII. ; and, upon not being satisfled with that,
alleging that the grant was of no avail, without being autho
rised by law, " Ho," would exclaim his Grace, " is that all
you want ? " and down he would take the statute-book, and
show me the act of Parliament in a raoment : whereupon I
should feel joy inexpressible, knowing well, that, if an Act
of Parliament could give the tithes of twenty parishes to a

^0 MANCHESTER LECTURES,
layman, it never could be sacrilege to make another act of
Parliaraent to take those tithes away from him.
Thus, then, that the law is on our side is as clear as day
light. Still, as I said before, that all vvhich the law can do
and does, is not always strictly just ; let us now inquire into
ihajiislicc of my proposition. In the fii'st place, this diver
sion of the tithes and other revenues ofthe church, has done
enormous wrong to the nation at large, by making it neces-
.sary to provide for the wants of the indigent by a general and
compulsory tax, called the poor-rales : and also to jirovide for
the maintenance of the buildings by church-rates, assessed
and collected in the same forcible manner. I can remember
the time when I thought that these taxes had always been in
England : I knew that there always raust have been indigent
persons, and always raust have been religion ; and the ira
pression upon my mind was, that these taxes made part of
the country ; that, at any rate, they must have been nearly as
ancient as the divers and the hills. Little did I imagine that
the poor had once a great patrimony ; that the third part of
tlie whole island had been theirs, held in trust by the church,
and distributed amongst them as their wants might require.
Little did I imagine that the aristocracy and the King had
taken away this patrimony, and divided it amongst ibem-
selves; that they had stripped the poor of all means of relief,
and that they had passed laws to put iron collars round their
necks, and raake them slaves, even if they went a-begging
to save themselves from perishing. All this I found to be
stricily true however; and I found that the aristocracy, hav
ing taken lhe patrimony of the poor to themselves, and find
ing themselves, at last, in danger from the violences to be
apprehended frora the raiseries of the poor, passed, at the end
•of fifty years of strife with them, a law, not to compel them
selves to relieve the poor out ofthe estates which they bad
taken from the church ; but to compel all the people to submit
to a tax for the relief ofthe poor, and for the maintenance of
the churches. Here vve have the origin of the poor-rates and
the church-rates, which now press so heavily upon us. If,
instead of these ponr-taxes, and church-taxes, a law had been
jiassed lo compel those who had got the church-property into
their hands, to relieve the poor and maintain the churches,
there would have been some show of justice in the thing;
but as those who had divided the church-property amongst
them, were also the makers of tbe laws, they took care to

LECTURE III, 71
keep the property to themselves,- and to throw upon the peo
ple at large all the duties which the possession of the pro-
- perty enjoined. To restore things to their former and just
state, is novv become impossible. To provide for the relief
of the poor, and the repair of the churches in the ancient
fashion, cannot now be accoraplished : the poor-laws must
remain ; and the nation must be remunerated by a total abo
lition of the tithes, and a sale of the olher parts of the
property of the church. Remunerated for the past, indeed
it never can be ; but it raay thus be protected against the
continuance of this grievous and crying wrong.
And now what injustice, what wrong shall we inflict
on the clergy themselves 1 Damage we may inflict on
them i but we do damage to a traitor when we punish
him for his treason. There may be many families that
will suffer from the adoption of the raeasures which
I propose, if they be carried into execution ; but that
mere circurastance is not to prevent the measures; and
we are to consider, at the .sarae time, the millions of
families that are suffering for the want of these mea
sures. Amongst the sufferers would not be the working
¦clergy of the Church of England, for their lot would be
bettered ; and perhaps the sufferings on the part of the
swollen rectors and vicars and bishops, might, and doubtless
would, receive more than a compensation in the world to
come. It would be the parable of Dives and Lazarus
verified in this world, which is a vast deal better for their
rich reverences than the verification of it in the next. This
too is the feeling by which I am actuated with regard to the
church herself. Who that has a raother in danger of being
suffocated from her indulgences of the table, does not do his
best to restrain her; to induce her to be abstinent, and use
all the means of prolonging her life? He, who in such a
case does not do this, is an unnatural son ; and I in pro
posing these measures with regard to the church, am
evincing ray attachraent to her, and not my hostility.
At any rate, we are not to look at the damage done to the
¦clergy, the patrons, or the lay-impropriators ; we are to look
solely at the justice and the expediency of the measure. If
the bishops constantly resided in their dioceses ; if, according
to the description of St. Paul, they vvere patterns of dili
gence and huniility; if they showed no greediness of gain,
but sought all occasions of ministering comfort to the dis
ciples ; if, like Timothy, they watched carefully to see that the

72 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
deacons provided plentifully the tables at which the poor were
fed ; if the parsons resided constantly vvith their flocks, in
accordance with the solemn vow which they make at their
ordination, when they, on their knees, and with their hands
clasped together, call God to witness' that they verily believe
themselves called by thc Holy Ghost io take upon them the
care of souls, and when they soleranly promise that they vvill
tend their flocks like faithful shepherds that they will be
watchful in season and out of season, to keep the tempter
out of the fold, so that at last they raay be able to present their
flock s)iotless at the Throne of Grace ; if the rectors and
vicars acted in accordance with these vows, and did not get
four or five flocks instead of one ; if they did not, in numerous
cases, go and take possession of the fold, then turn their backs
on it, and never inquire after it again, except as to the shear
ing of the sheep ; if they did nut, casting far away from them
all recollection of their vows, go galloping all over the
World in search of pleasure, supporting their indulgences by the
means of those tithes which ought in great part to be distri
buted to the poor of their parishes wilh their own hands, in
humility and mercy ; if this were not the case, and the forraer
were the case, a proposition like that vvhich I have submitted
to you would be so manifestly unjust as to drive me from your
presence : every one would exclaira, " This must be an
" eneray of religion, seeing that he wants to root out
" those by whora it is sustained." The contrary being, how
ever, notorious, every just man must wish for some great
change ; and as the change which I propose would be both
great and effectual, we have but little raore to do to show
that it would be just.
The very narae of parson raakes him inseparable from his
church. The vow that he makes at his ordination, and the
legal conditions of his induction, iraply constant residence
-with his flock. First, then, the eleven thousand, and nearly
twelve thousand livings in England and Wales, are divided
or distributed amongst about five thousand parsons ; so, that
there are more than two livings to one parson, renderhig it
completely impossible that, in one half of the instances, they
can reside with their flocks. In the next place, it is noto
rious, that there are not more than about four thousand df
these who reside on their livings at all, their place being
supplied by miserable curates. It is equally well known
that they have violated the law, openly and scandalously
violated it, with regard to this matter of residence. In the

LECTURE III, 73
-year 1799, a transaction took place, which, if you will
jierrait me to relate it to you, will give you a correct idea
of the raanner in vvhich the clergy have fulfilled the solemn
TOWS made at their ordination and induction.
There was an act of Parliament, and here, by-the-by, you
are going to see, how easily the clergy can get acts of
Parliament repealed, when it suits their interests ; there was
an act of Parliaraent passed in the reign of Henry VIIL,
for the purpose of compelling parish parsons to reside on their
livings, in accordance with their vows. This act had been
violated for many years before 1799 ; it had been set at
nought, as much as if it had never been passed. If a parson
Vfere absent frora his parish, and even from his parsonage-
house, for a month, he was liable to a fine ; and if he were
absent, during the whole year, more than thirty-one days,
now a day and then a day, he was still liable to the fine. If
he were absent for more than a month in the year, then he
was liable to two fines, and so on. The value of money at the
time when the act was passed, was about tweuty times as
great as it was in the year 1799 ; but though the delinquents
had to pay only a shilling in the pound, in consequence of the
change of the value of money, so general had been the
non-residence, and so nuraerous the delinquents ; so daring
the violation of the law, and the violation of the eccle
siastical vows, that the sums recoverable against the clergy
amounted to something enormous. The act provided that any
one might lay an inforraation qui tam against a non-resident
parson ; and a gentleman, whose name was Williaras, who
was resolved to put the lavv in force, laid informations against
great numbers; brought them into the Court of King's
Bench ; obtained convictions upon some, and was proceeding
with the rest. Whoever has seen a shot fired into a rookery
in the month of June, when the young rooks are just begin
ning to flutter from the nest; whoever has heard the
cawing, the sort of half-squalling, and seen the fluttering and
the dashing about of the old ones among the boughs ; who
ever has witnessed this uproar amongst these feathered incum
bents of the tops bf the trees, may form some faint idea of
the bustle among the black-coats and bushwigs, at the ap
pearance of this bundle of qui-tam actions ; but no othec
man can have even a faint idea of their confusion. I have
frequently been a witness of the former ; and having just
returned from America in 1800, and not having seen enough
of the corruptions in the state of things here, being a

74 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
stout supporter of things as they were, had a very fair oppor
tunity of hearing the cawings of these clerical incumbents. I
well remeraber breakfasting in the Temple at the time with
Dr. Rennell (now Dean of Winchester), he being then raaster
ofthe Temple ; and I remember that heandhis wife (daugh
ter of Judge Blackstone) entertained me with most stre
nuous efforts to excite my indignation against the men who
had laid the qui-tam informations against the clergy. They
called hira a " Jacobin" of course, and I dare say they
added " Infidel and Atheist." I, who had been bred at the
plough-tail, had grafted the soldier upon the chopstick, and
had been pushed into politics in America by the violence
of the Americans against England, understood no more of this
matter than if I had been in China, had it all explained to me
very patiently by the Doctor, and of course thought that the
Doctor must be right, yet, somehow or other, I perceived
that the parsons had been in fault ; and my doubts, vvere
greatly augmented by the violent railing of the Doctor against
the informer. That which took place in the Templ^ was
taking place every where. Jacobin, Leveller, Infidel, At]|eist,
Traitor, were heard, even in the streets, poured out agdyist
this Mr. Williams. After a little while, I asked a person
one day why they railed so against this man ; why they
had not resided; and how they came to think of anything
else than residing upon their livings ; upon which he told
me that I vvas as bad as the informer himself. This was
a little too much, and I, in ray own raind, began to side with
the informer, especially when I found that this parson had
one living in Suffolk, and one living in Surrey, and that
he seldom showed his face at either of them.
But what did they do with the actions? For there they
were in the Court of King's Bench, all proceeding regularly
on, and convictions obtained upon some to a very considerable
amount. The Judge Kenyon did what he could to make the
progress of them slow ; but still the law with its leaden feet
and iron claws was coming towards their reverences. The
informer was active, and apparently inflexible; and, in short,
without a clear, an open, a barefaced act of judicial tyranny,
the law must take its course. What vvas to be done then }
How were these reverend gentlemen to be saved ? Now,
gentleraen, I beseech you, and particularly the young men
who are here present, to mark well that course of even-
handed justice of which our rulers so frequently boast. It
Was manifest that nothing could save the reverend delin-

LECTURE III, 75
quents but a new law ; but a nevv law ! a law to quash
actions already commenced, grounded on an Act of Parlia
ment still in full force; a law, in the face of the Bill of
Rights, and the " glorious revolution," to have an ex-post—
facto effect ! a -law to take from the creditor (as Mr. Williaras
now was) the power of proceeding against his debtor, the
debt being proved by an act of Parliament ! " Come, come,
Cobbett," you will exclaim^ " bad as they are, they never
could do that ! " Not all at once ; to do it all at once would
have argued a general headlong tumbling down from Bel
lamy's. No, nor at twice : it took them three times to do it
in ; but they did it, and that in the manner that you shall now
hear. A representation was made to the Parliaraent of the
monstrous proceedings of this enemy of the church and
king ; and the Parliament did not pass a law to quash these
cruel proceedings, but. passed an act to suspend all process in
the actions, until a certain length of time, after Parliament
should meet again. The informer might die in the me.an-
while ; hning a. jacobin anA infidel he might commit treason^
or blasphemy; at any rate, his heart might be softened.
Neither took place : the Parliament met again, and the hour
of recommencement of proceedings was approaching. A
fresh stir in the rookery : hens as well as cocks seemed to be
in motion, and the parsons began to insinuate that Mr.
Pitt's coldness towards the Esiablishment was now visible.
However, before the day actually arrived, another act was
passed, suspending the proceedings and actions for another
year, and till after the Parliament should meet again. The
informer kept hard, lived, and committed neither treason
nor blasphemy ; was proof against all emollients, and, like
a true son of the church, reraained inflexible in his intention
to enforce constant residence. Addington was novv become
Minister; the two Scotts (Oh I that pair of Scotts !) bred at
Oxford, and having bred there themselves ; one of them the
Lord Chancellor, and the other the perpetual member of the-
university ; these men now having the sway, put the extin
guisher upon poor Mr. Williams. A bill was brought into
the House of Commons by Sir William Scott (now Lord
Stowell) ; carried through both houses vvith no opposition
at all ; passed into a law with great rapidity ; at once
without further ceremony, quashing the whole of the ac
tions. Well may you, gentlemen, look at each other with
astonishment ; well may you doubt that there must be some
mistake here : if you look in the Statute Book of 1803, you
E 2

76 MANCHESTER LECTURES,
will see that there is none. The biU provided for the
quashing of all the actions which had not proceeded on to
conviction ; in the cases of conviction, the convicted party
was to pay costs, as bet-tveen attorney and client ; and no
penalty was levied even in these cases of conviction. There,
gentlemen, that act I suppose they will call one of the insti
tutions of the country. Now if I thought that a reformed
Parliament would not revise this transaction, I would turn
with scorn and contempt from the Reform Bill and all its
provisions. There is, however, one thing, one consideration
growing out of this memorable transaction, which is not
to be deeraed as nothing worth. For if the Parliament had
a right to pass a law like this, in favour of the clergy ; if it
could thrust its strong arm even into the Court of King's
Bench, and snatch these delinquents out of the grasp of the
law ; if it eould effect this by an ex-post-facio enactment, who
shall call in question its povver to do that much gentler thing
which is recommended in this my proposition ? Here was
an ancient act of Parliament set aside by an ex-post-facto
law ; here the law was abrogated for the express purjiose of
screening delinquents ; surely then the Parliament can do that
which is consonant with all the lavvs upon the Statute Book,
and vvhich is called for, for the restoration of the church re
ligion, as well as for the restoration of the happiness of the
people. But now, soraething was done, fo be sure, to cause an
-observance of this salutary act of Parliaraent in future. In
the first place, the new law repealed this salutary act of
Parliaraent. AVell, why cannot vve, now-a-days, repeal acts
of Parliament then, relative to the Church ? " But fo be
sure," you will say,- " the new act provided for the prevention
of non-residence." It did it in the raanner that you shall see.
The old act forbade them from carrying on farming on any
land but their glebe : the new act allowed them to become
renting farmers, as many of the fat ones already were. The
old act forbade them to traffic in anything : the new act
enabled them to become traffickers and dealers and jobbers
in horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs; and this they have
.generally been, from that day to this : so that the taking
away of their tithes will by no means deprive them of call
ings whereby to get their bread ; and callings too, you vvill
please to observe, gentlemen, which they petitioned the Par
liament to permit them to carry on. " Bnt, after all, they
were to reside, to be sure, upon their livings !" Oh, that

LECTURE III,

77

they were, you may be sworn. This act of Parliament took
care of that, I warrant you ; and, in order to make their
punctual residence in future quite certain, the act took away
the qui-tam action, banished the nasty comraon informers,
did not leave it for the people of the parish to see whether
their rector or vicar was resident or not ; but coramitted
him to the superintendance of my Lord the Bishop of the
diocese, omitting, however, to provide for the presence of
his Lordship himself, who raight be, as has been frequently
the case, residing for years together in London, at Bath, at
Brighton, in Paris, or at Rorae. However, to raake short of
the matter, this law, vvhich has been in force now for nearly
the last thirty years, has so effectually enforced constant
residence, that when the last return that I savv was laid before
the King in council, the eleven or twelve thousand livings
had only about four thousand resident incumbents. Look
then at all this, gentlemen, and find a man, if you can, with
impudence enough to pretend that this clergy, taken as a body,
deserve to receive the immense emoluments of this church.
If seven thousand livings out of the twelve thousand can do
without resident incumbents, why not the other four thou
sand ? The seven thousand parishes are left to poor sti
pendiary curates, while the rectors and vicars are pursuing
their pleasures all over the world ; and why not let all the
parishes be served by curates, paying them that which is
allotted by the Parliament itself? 'I'he curate's act passed in
1813 raakes the sum from 80/. to 150/. the annual stipend
for a curate. It is not you or I that fix this snm. In
certain cases, the bishop may order the sum to be still lower.
It is not you or I, however, that say that it is enough; but
the King and Parliament have declared itlo be enough. Ask
a fat rector or vicar while sitting over his turtle and cham
paign, how it is that the inculcating of the religion of
Christean require such a table and footmen and coachmen and
carriage and horses, when the apostles, who carried on the
work so prosperously, required little beyond the fruit of the
work of their own hands. He will answer you that the peo
ple are much altered since those primitive days; and that
the clergy must make a respectable figure as gentlemen, to
prevent them, and religion along vvith them, from being
held in contempt by the people. Then ask him, before he
has time to hatch an excuse, how the respect for religion is
supported by his miserable curate, who is on the spot amongst
his parishioners, vvho is the only parson that these parish-

78 , MANCHESTER LECTURES,
ioners ever see. From SO/, and less, to 1 50/. a yeir, being the
sum fixed by the King and Parliament, as the annual stipend,
of a curate, and as sufficient to uphold the dignity, and
promote the religion of the church ; the law having deemed
this sufficient for tliese purposes in seven thousand instances
out of twelve, why not take away all the tithes, and allow
these stipends, throughout the whole twelve thousand ? That,
however, is not the best mode of settling the matter; for
there are the parsonage-houses and the glebes ; and these,
you vvill please to observe, when occupied by the curate, are
valued, and make part of the stipend.
Two or three facts, relative to this non-residence, and to
the treatuient of curates, may be worthy of attention. The
late Bishop of AVinchester, Bishop North, gave to his son the
livings of St. Mary's, Southampton, of South Stoneham, of
Old Alresford, of Nevv Al resford, and of Medstead, and made
him a prebendary ofthe Cathedralof AVinchester, and master
of the hospital of St. Cross, which is a great benefice of itself.
To his son-in-lavv, Mr. De Grey, he gave three livings, a pre
bend in the Cathedral of Winchester, and made him Chan
cellor of that part of his diocese consisting of the county of
Surrey. These two men are becorae Peers now, in conse
quence of tbe death of all those that stood before them in
their line of descent. Peers as they are, they still hold all
their livings, the church duty of which is performed by
stipendiary curates; and, gentleraen, need I tell you that
both these peers voted against the Reforra Bill? But 1 will
tell you that if that Reform Bill do not immediately produce
an abolition of these abuses, I shall never blame them for
having voted against it; but shall say that they were right,
and that this people is unworthy of any parhament not chosen
by boroughmongers.
The parish of Bentley in Hampshire, yields tithes to the
araount of between seven and eight hundred pounds a year.
The whole is a lay-impropriation, great tithes and small
tithes. They are all taken away by the lay-irapropriator,
who pays a curate twenty-eight pounds a year, less money
than the wages of one of the hop-garden raen of that parish.
There is law for this, nevertheless ; and so there was, recol
lect, for the qui-tam actions, to make parsons reside ; and
why cannot this law be repealed, as well as that ? In the
parish of Lakenheath in the county of Suffolk, the great
tithes belong to the dean and chapter of Ely, and the vicarial
tithes to a vicar, who resides upon another living which he

LECTURE III, 79
has in the county of Norfolk, The dean and chapter take
about 800/. a year out of the parish ; tbe vicar takes
.probably 500/. a year, and there is a curate doing all the
duty, upon 75/. a year, wherewith to maintain himself, a
wife and nine children, which he does by his own hard toil,
by the side of the labouring man, to rear potatoes for his
family. How hard would a good able cotton-spinner think
it, if he were compelled to maintain such a family on such an
allowance, and pay the rent of a house into the bargain!
This clergyman of the church is supposed to receive not a
third part as much as the Methodist parson picks up in
the same village. Is it any wonder that the church is de
serted, and that sects rise up m every direction ? And, gen
tlemen, with cases like this staring us in the face all over
thekingdom, there are boroughmongers to be found irapudent
•enough to tell us that a reform ought not to take place, lest
it should overset this " instituiion of the country." The
church itself and its worship constitute an institution of the
country ; but these abuses have destroyed the institution : it
is necessary that it should be restored ; to restore it, these
abuses must be put an end to ; and they cannot be put an
end to without a measure such as I propose.
Besides the tithes, for the taking away of which we have
clear law and reason and justice, there are the incomes of
the bishops,' the deans and chapters, and the colleges. Of
the twenty-.six English bishops, every one has on an average
from 15,000/. to 25,000/. a year ; some of them 40,000/.-;
and one or two have more. Now then raark : during six?-
teen years, I think it was, ending about the year 1821, a
HUNDRED THOUSAND pouuds a year was granted out
ofthe taxes raised upon us " for the relief of the poor clergy
of the Church of England.'' AA'-as there ever anything so
monstrously impudent as this heard 'of in the world before !
Here were bishops with 40,000/. a year each, and here were
poor clergy, relieved out of the taxes raised on the labouring
people ! And will you send to the Parliament men who will
suffer the revenues of these bishops to remain undiminished,
and who vvill .«uffer the deans and chapters and the merabers
of the colleges to be wallowing in luxury and wealth, while
you yourselves are taxed to give relief to the starving work
ing clergy ? If you do, you deserve to be taxed till you
break down under the load. At any rate I cau answer for
myself, and I will never endure the intolerable disgrace of

80 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
being the representative of persons so lost to all sense of
justice. Gentlemen, you vvho live in these towns of the North,
and who know comparatively but little about tithes and
their pressure, may deem them a subject of much less im
portance than the CORN HILL; therefore, it is my duty to
show you, and in very plain language, that tithes is a subject
inseparable from that of the Corn Bill. Before I do this, let
me notice an argument which raay be urged against my pro
position, and may be fairly urged too. It is this ; that tiihes,
used in their present form and manner and amount, have
existed ever since vvhat is called the Reformation, which is
now pretty nearly 300 years. My argument is this, that the
tithes (along wilh the taxes) prevent ihe farmer from having
¦wherewith to pay the labourers a sufficiency of wages ; and
that, therefore, the tithes ought to be abolished. The argu
ment in answer to me is this ; that the tithes, never having
produced this effect before, never having rendered the farmer
incapable of paying sufficient wages before, cannot have pro
duced this effect novv. This is a fair argument, and it remains
-wholly unanswered by those vvho assert that tithes are a
hinderance lo improvements, and that they prevent the land
from being cultivated in the best manner-; because, if such
be their effects now, such must always have been their ef
fects ; and we know that such effects did not always exist.
Besides, I have never heard any man, however able, who
did not fail in his endeavours to show, that tiihes are more a
hinderance to agriculture, or injurious to the cultivator, than
RENT is, in proportion to their amount. I beg, therefore,
to be understood as not founding my proposition upon any
such untenable ground. My proposition is founded upoa
the ground, that vve are in a situation which compels ua
io make something give way; that vve have contracted a debt
which vve never can pay, and to pay the interest of vvhich
must, if vve proceed on, finally plunge us into confusion.
To-morrow night I am to stale to you the grounds upon
whichi propose to sweep away the debt; but, in that pro
position is included an intention to pay a part to the fundi-
holders. To obtain this part, we want the proceeds of the
church-property, olher than the tithes ; we want also the
proceeds of what is, as it were in mockery', called the crown-
lands and crown-estates, the revenues of which are novv frit
tered away, like heaps of dust, driven to and fro by the wind.

LECTURE III. 81
till they are lost. These items, when fully and fairly brought
to account, will, I ara sure, be sufficient to satisfy every just
claim that can be urged on the part of the fundholders The
tithes are quite another matter. By relieving the land of
these, the cultivators and owners of the land will not only be
able to pay sufficient wages to their labourers, but will be
able to raeet that only internal tax which will remain upon
the country, if ray proposition be adopted. The tithes are
not more burdensorae than they forraerly were, except that
they are certainly exacted with greater and greater rigour;
but we want a tax upon the land, and no other internal tax ;
because that is the simplest, the surest, the least expensive in
collection, can be augmented or diminished without any trou
ble or erabarrassraent, comes from a source as sure as the
rising and the setting of the sun ; but vvhich tax we cannot
have, and cannot abolish the excise, and all the other vil
lanous impositions, which bring swarms of taxing reptiles to
torraent us; vve cannot get rid of this everlasting torment and
oppression vvithout a tax upon the land ; that we cannot have
without an abolition ofthe tithes; and, lastly, vvithout thai;
abolition, we can never have a repeal of the Corn Bill.
The crown-lands, as they are drolly enough called, and
the crown-estates, together vvith the Duchies of Cornwall
and Lancaster, would yield several millions of pounds sterl
ing a year. Altogether, they are iraraense in extent and in an
nual value. They consist of houses, lands, forests, in some
cases covered with timber; of mines, water-courses, and every
species of property. There are sorae of them in all the coun
ties of England and Wales. The kings of England formerly
lived out of their estates ; paid all their officers of state of
every description ; paid the judges, and paid all the expenses
of the adrainistration of justice ; frequently carried on their
wars ; and, though they levied, occasionally, taxes on the
landowners, the poor were relieved out of tbe tithes, and the
people at large knew nothing of an internal tax. It being
troublsome to the king to have an estate to manage, those
who had the making of the laws took the estate away from
him, and gave him money out of the taxes to live upon, un
dertaking to manage the estate for the benefit of the people j
but they have so managed it as to have the greater part of it
in their ov/n hands ; first by grants, out and out, and next
by long leases, according to many of which they pay rents so
sraall as to make me start with surprise at the araount, I my j
self rented a house belonging to the crown estate in Pall-
r 5

82 MANCHESTER LECTURES,
Mall, London, for which I gave 300/, a year rent. Looking
into the account of the Middlesex estate, I found that my
house brought the people in a clear 15/. a year. The Duke
of Buckinghara has a house in Pail-Mall belonging to the
same estate, vvhich is a perfect palace, and is worth a thou
sand pounds a year. The Duke of Marlborough has a
house in Pall- Mall, which in the time of Queen Caroline
was occupied by our great pensioner, who is now King of
Belgium. It was proposed that the queen should give him
3,500/. a year for it. To the best of ray recollection these
two palaces put together do not yield the people 100/. a
year. Whether it be only the ground, or the ground, house,
aud all, I know not, but the bare ground on which these
palaces and their gardens stand, is worth at least 3,000/. or
4,000/. a year ; and thus it is with all the rest of this ira
mense property. These are the effects wherewith for the
nation lo pay ils debts, and I am satisfied that they would
yield quite enough to pay to the fundholders as much as they
ought to receive; and vvhat that is I shall endeavour to show
to-morrow night.
The tiihes, as I have said before, are quite another raat
ter, they must rest vvith the land, in order that the land
may be able, by its own contribution, to cause the taxes in
consumable commodities to be taken off. I am aware of the
cry against the Corn Bill. I have always been an enemy
of that bill. Singly, I petitioned against it vvhen it was
in the House of Lords ; but, gentlemen, I beg you to be as
sured that no just parliament, and that no sensible man,
however anxious he may be to favour manufactures, will ever
atterapt to cause that bill to be repealed, unless the tithes be
abolished, and unless those taxes be taken off, which make it
necessary to pay the labourer high wages, that he may be
enabled to purchase the taxed commodities. If the Corn Bill
were to to be repealed, without a previous abolition of tiihes,
and of the internal taxes, especially those of malt, hops, and
soap, the whole of the landlords, farraers, and agricultural
labourers of England and Ireland, would be plunged into
ruin; and, after all, they take more than three times as much
of the productions of your looms, as all the rest of the world
put together. Therefore, it is perfectly useless to petition
for a repeal ofthe corn-bill, as long as these burdens remain
upon the land. Join the two subjects together in your peti
tions ; pray for the abolition of the Corn Bill, and of tithes
and internal taxes ; then all the millions of England, Scotland,

LECTURE IV. 83
and Ireland, will cordially join you. This petitioning for a
repeal of the Corn Bill, without including the tithes, has
done infinite mischief: it has put a powerful argument into
the mouths of the boroughmongers : there is no doubt that
the electon in Dorsetshire was carried in favour of a foe of
the Reform Bill, merely by the enemies of the bill having
been able to persuade a majority of the voters, that, if mem
bers were given to these towns in the North, they would
cause a repeal of tbe Corn Bill, and the ruin of agriculture.
You should bear in mind, that raore than 300 petitions have,
in the last two sessions of Parliaraent, prayed for the abolition
of tithes, while you, in your petitions, have seldom alluded
to the subject, but have never failed in your petitions to
mention the Corn Bill as the greatest of grievances ; while
that bill, the present tithes and taxes existing, is absolutely
necessary to prevent the utter ruin of those millions in Eng
land and Ireland who are your most numerous, and by far
your best customers. If you permit me to offer you my ad
vice, it is that you will never again petition for the repeal of
the Corn Bill, without at the sarae tirae petitioning for the
abolition of the tiihes, and the great mass of internal taxation.
Above all things, and not longer to put your patient attention
to the test, let me beseech you, so to use the power of which
I trust you will soon be possessed, as to make such a choice
of representatives, as shall convince the world that you are
not to be induced by any flattery, addressed to your local
prejudices and passions, to pursue particular and narrow in
terests, in preference to the general and permanent good,
greatness, and happiness, of our country.

LECTURE IV, ^^th December , 1831.
Centlemen, I am, this evening, to submit to you the reasons on vvhich
I found my propositions vvith regard to the Debt, commonly
called the National Debt, and also vvith regard to an ad
justment of pecuniary contracts between man and man. And
here, gentlemen, I shall staud in need of all that indulgence
which you have hitherto so largely bestowed upon me ; foe

84 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
the subject is intricate in itself, and I have to encounter all
the obstacles that prejudice, bred and fostered by a long series
of misrepresentations and calumnies, has placed in my way.
Nevertheless, favoured by your patient and indulgent atten
tion, I believe myself able to satisfy you, not only of the
necessity, but also of the justice of the measures which I re
commend, vvith regard to this most important branch of our
national affairs. First, however, permit me to read those of
my propositions which relate to it.
6. To cease, during the first six months after June, 1832,
to pay interest on a fourth part of the debt ; second
six months, to cease to pay interest on another fourth;
and so on for the other two fourths ; so that no more
interest, or any part of the debt, would be paid after
the end of two years.
7. To divide the proceeds ofall the property mentioned in
paragraph No. 5, and also in paragr.aph No. 2, in due
proportion, on principles of equity, araongst the
owners of what is called stock, or, in other words,
the fundholders, or persons vvho lent their money
to those who borrov/ed it in virtue of acts of the late
parliaments, and to give to the fundholders, out of
the ta.xes, nothing beyond these proceeds.
8. To make an equitable adjustment vvith respect to the
pecuniary contracts between man and man, and
thereby rectify, as far as practicable, the wrongs and
ruin inflicted on thousands upon thousands of vir
tuous families by the arbitrary changes made by acts>
of the late parliaraents, in the value of the money
of the country.
These propositions, or anything amounting to the same,
or having the same object in view, have beeu called by all
manner of vile names, such as are usually applied to the most
flagitious acts of dishonesty. Robbery has never failed to be
used for this purpose ; and I have been frequently called a
rogue, for barely mooting the proposition. This, however,.
has not deterred me from repeating it, as often as occasioni
has called for it, from the year 1803 to the present day.
AVhen I was in America the first time, I was a mere zealous
prater of politics. Finding the whole of the people railing
against my own country, I espoused its cause, right or wrong ;
and the Bank having stopped payment in 1797, 1 defended

LECTURE IV, 85
bank-notes not convertible into gold, it being quite sufficient
for me that England had bank-notes. But I had not been in
England three years, before I clearly savv the wickedness and
the mischievous tendency of' the whole system of debts aud
. paper-money. So that these are no nevv notions of mine,
at any rate, I having continued to promulgate them for
twenty-eight years, in spite of all the shafts of ridicule, and
all the venom of calumny. In 1806, when the AVhigs and
the Grenvillites came into power, and in the bringing in of
whom I had a great hand, I might have been under-secretary
of state to Mr, Windham, who was then secretary of state
for the colonies ; but he having laughed at me, when I men
tioned, as a condition, that the interest of th^ debt should be
reduced, and that Freeling should not be turned out of the
Post-office, I made up my mind to have nothing to do with the
matter; being quite sure, as I told him, that the Ministry
never could remain in povver for any length of lime, unless
the undermining vermin of Pitt and Dundas were swept out
of the offices ; and that, which was still raore material,
shame and disgrace must finally fall upon all those who at
tempted to carry on the affairs of the country, loaded as it
was with the Nationat Debt ; and that debt, observe, faking
the difference in the value of money into consideration, was
not then half so great as i*^ is now. These opinions, then,
are not nevv with me — taken up for this occasion, and put
forth for the purpose of ingratiating myself with any part of
the people, who now feel themselves pressed to the earth by
that debt.
If the Reform Bill do not lighten the burdens of the people,
it is agreed, on all hands,-that the bill will be of no use. We
all agree, except Babington Macaulay perhaps, that unless
the Reform Bill lead to measures of relief; unless it lead to
a great taking off of taxes, it will be a mere mockery of the
people ; and that, like Catholic emancipation, it will make
things worse than they were before. Catholic emancipation,
instead of content and tranquillity, has already been followed
by almost a revolution in Ireland ; and such will be the case
with regard to reform in England, unless it be imraediately
followed by such a reduction of taxes as shall be sensibly felt
by every part of the community, down to the very lowest of
the labourers. When I come to speak of Ireland more par
ticularly, I shall not only show that the present state of
things was naturally to be expected to follow the Emanci
pation Bill, but that it was foreseen, and foretold by me jn

86 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
most distinct terms, even while the Emancipation Bill was
before the Parliament. I may now, then, be excused for
presuming to predict, that the Reform Bill will be followed
by similar consequences in England, unless it lead to great
changes in the management of our affairs, and especially un
less it lead to a great reduction of the taxes. This is natural;
forthe nation wants the reforra, because it is over-burdened :
it has great hopes and expectations from tbis reform ; and
we all know what are the invariable consequences of sanguine
expectation disappointed. The labourer, who is discontented
at having nothing but potatoes, when he ought to have bacon
and bread, will not feel satisfied with those potatoes, upon
merely being told that he has now got reform.
To this we come, then; vvithout a great lightening of our
burdens, the reform will be a raere mockery ; a temporary
delusion, and a permanent addition to the grounds of discon
tent. The next thing then to be considered is, how this lighten
ing of the burdens of the people is to take place ; and every
one must answer, that it cannot take place at all, and that it is
an abuse of words to talk of it, unless there be an alienation of
the debt. AA'hen you hear men talk of retrenchment and
economy, as you will hear Babington Macaulay, and others,
and all the school of Broughara, and all the Whigs them
selves, vvho are in power, and hear them at the sarae time
declare their firm resolution not to touch the interest of the
debt ; declare that national foith, as they call it, raust be
kept sacred, though, by-the-by, their national faith means a
most infamous plundering of the nation ; when you hear men
talk thus, set them down as hypocrites or madraen ; for how
is relief to come, except by a ceasing to pay interest on the
debt? Gentleraen, there are none of you, I am certain, crazy
enough to suppose that the Ministers can pay this interest
out of their own pockets ; if you wish it to be paid, you must
wish j'ourselves to pay it ; and if you wish this, tbere can be
no diminution of our burdens ; and the state vessel must go on,
blundering about among the rocks, till it goes to pieces. The
case stands thus : The total clear araount of the revenue,
after paying charges of collection and management, and all
sorts of things, is stated by the Government to be forty-seven
millions. This may be true, to be sure ; but 1 make it a
rule never to believe any of their statements or returns. It
may, however, be true, and we will take them upon their
own showing. The expenses of collection, together with

LECTURE IV, 87
other innumerable charges, direct and indirect, over and
above this clear revenue, would still bring the gross amount,
squeezed out of the people, to sixty millions ; but, at any rate,
it would bring it to fifty-six. Now, then, out of the forty-
seven millions, thirty are taken for paying the dividends upon
the debt, and paying the charges of all sorts relative to
the debt. AVe must give the debt, half a^__least, of the ex
penses and charges attending the collection and irffiiiagement
of the revenue ; and that makes its annual cost thirty-foui"
millions and one-half. This is still far from being all that it
costs ; for out of the debt grows the necessity of this thun
dering standing army in time of peace. The debt causes the
heavy taxes ; these cause distress ; distress causes discontent;
violent discontent creates threatened comraotion ; and then
it becomes the duty of the Government to have a force at
hand to put down commotion. To cry out, therefore, against
the standing army being kept up in time of peace ; to inveigh
against oppressive taxation, and to coraplain of distress and
suffering, and starvation even, is to be stupidly unjust, as
long as you keep up the idiot-like cry of national faith.
"Thus much, ttien, for the plea of necessity; and though
Milton has called thatthe tyrant's plea, it is only the tyrant's
plea when it is false. In this case it is true; and it is, in
fact, the plea of industry and want against all-devouring
usury. But, now, for the justice of the propositions, even if
vve were to leave this plea of necessity out of the question.
This robbery, as it is called, isreally no more than imitating
the practice of the wisest and most just of mankind. Many
of you, gentlemen, well know, that when Solon became law
giver of Athens, he found that ancient and famous republic in
a state of utter confusion and destitution ; he found it unable
to make war against its enemies, unable to defend itself; and
he found besides, that all the active and industrious persons
in the comraunity were ground down into a state of beggary
and ruin by the usurers, vvho had made a great part ofthe
people in a great measure their actual slaves. Rome was in
a sirailar state, and from a sirailar cause, in the time of Julius
Caesar, Both of them resorted to an adjustment, which freed
the people from the claws of the usurers, by making these
latter in some cases take a part of their deraand, and in other
cases relinquish tbe whole. But not to raention the kings
of France, vvho repeatedly paid off the debts of the state by
lopping off, directly or indirectly, the amount of the demands
of its creditors ; not to mention these, who effected their

88 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
purposes by clippings of the coins, and by other tricks, upon
an equality, in point of baseness, with the tricks that bave
been played here to lower and to raise, and to lower and to
raise again, the value of money ; not to cite the example of
these grand and shuffling monarques, let us come to our bre
thren across the Atlantic, who, having borrowed money to an
enormous extent, for the purpose of effecting that " glorious
revolution " which, until it had succeeded, we used to call
" a foul and unnatural rebellion ;" having borrowed of all
sorts of people, of all ages and all sexes, an enormous sum of
money for this holy, or, as it would have been, unholy pur
pose, and having effected that purpose, never paid one single
: farthing princijial or interest, of the borrowed money. It
would havebeen a jest, indeed, to have made a revolution in
the name of liberty, and to have ended it by making all the
people slaves to the usurers. But let us come to our own
countrymen, and hear what illustrious persons amongst them
have said upon the subject, and that our authorities may be
as high and undoubted as possible, let us go in amongst the
Ministers themselves, where, sitting with the King himself
in council ; not the Birminghara council ; but the real Lon
don council ; and not the council frora which Sir F. Burdett
absconded ; but the real King and council, who sit at White
hall, with Bathurst fur their clerk, though crararaed in by
the Tories, and kept in by the AAHiigs ; let us go into that
council, which my Lord Coke describes as " an honourable,
noble, and reverend " assembly ; let us go in among these
reverend 'persons, and clap our hand upon the shoulder of Sir
James Graham of Netherby, a member too in another place
of the " noblest assembly of freemen in the world;'' and let
us pull out his pamphlet of 1827, and therein let us read a
distinct, a most unequivocal proposition, to deduct thirty
per cent, from the interest of the fundholders. Only one-
third ; but we may ask Sir Jaraes, reverend as he is, upon
what principle it is that he would take thirty per cent., other
than that principle vvhich would apply to the taking of the
whole. 1 have another authority to quote, vvhich, though not of a
very reverend character, I must confess, is pretty nearly as
good as the last ; and that is Mr. Baines's, the editor of the
Leeds Mercury ; vvho, if he have not bestowed upon me
every term and epithet of abuse contained in the Enghsh
language, for having proposed a reduction of the interest of
this debt; if he have not. done this, it has certainly been for

LECTURE IV. 89
want of being sufficiently conversant with those terms and
epithets; and, therefore, speaking conscientiously, I take the
will for the deed. After all this abuse, however, tbis very
Mr, Baines now tells us it is " still doubtful whether the
" middle and lower classes will not find themselves oppressed
" by the weight of taxation, and whether it may not ultimately
" be necessary that persons of property, both landowners,
" merchants, fundholders, and others, as vvell in the church us
" in the state, should make a general contribution, lo ex-
" tinguish a large portion of the National Debt ; that raoun-
" tain which Mr. Pitt and his followers raised to so gigantic
" a magnitude, and which overlays and oppresses the country."
Of this scheme for Uyhlening the burdens of the landowners,
merchants, manufacturers, and others, to pay the principal
instead of the interest of the debt, 1 will speak by-and-by,
when I shall have to notice the observations of a literary
brother of Mr. Baines, who seems to have corae to the same
conclusion upon much about the sarae premises. But here,
at any rate, we have Mr, Baines, the great oracle of the
North, and as famous and for the sarae reasons as oracles
generally are ; here we have this famous Mr. Baines ac
knowledging that we cannot have relief, without a paying
off ofthe debt; and observe well, proposing at the same time,
to make the fundholders contribute towards paying off them
selves. From this oracular suggestion let us come, if it be
robbery to take the interest from the fundholders ; let us not
amuse ourselves with these small game, but let us come to
the robbers upon a grand scale ; namely, those who propose
to make nevv emissions of paper of some sort or other. Sir
Henry Parnell, and all the Scotch tribe of political econo
mists ; all the Scotch bankers, and Mr. Maberly amongst the
rest, whom theScotchhave always pointed out for raany years
past as a profound financier : all this tribe, who propose joint-
stock banking corapanies ; and who always propose to raake
the paper-money a legal tender, or, whether they be divided
as to this latter point or not, all propose to make prices higher
than they now are, by the means of this paper. Ofcourse,
then, they propose to lower the value of money ; of course,
they propose to deduct in a base and fraudulent manner, from
the interest of the debt. At any rate, they are either mad or
they must intend to give the fundholder less than, he now
receives; and if they intend to give him less than he now
receives, they intend, to use their own stupid phraseology, to
commit a breach of national faith and to rob the fundholder ;.

90 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
and if they do not intend to give him less than he now re
ceives, how can the raeasures which they propose lighten
the burdens of the tax-payer ? Supposing the act to be un
just in itself, the only difference between their proposition
and mine is, that mine is taking by open and undisguised
force, while theirs is theft or private stealing. Our different
modes of proceeding serve to mark our different motives :
mine may, at any rate, be sincere and honest; but theirs
must be in its nature Jurt ive. The sly manner in which they
are foolish enough to believe they can effect it, would in any
court of justice in the world be a proof of the furtive inten
tion ; that is to say, the thievish intention arising from a
roguish mind. Mr. Attwood's scheme, which has many par
tisans, though paper be one of its ingredients, is open and
honest; for he says, and he says truly, that owing to Peel's
bill, and the various other tricks of our at once bungling and
bragging Government, the fundholders, the mortgagees, and
other usurers, are novv receiving twice or thrice as much as
they ought to receive ; that they ought to be compelled by
law to receive less ; and a paper-money ought to be made,
and they ought to be made to receive it, which paper-money
would be worth a great deal less than the King's coin pound
for pound. In all but the remedy I perfectly agree with Mr.
Attwood, who is a man of great talent, and whose brother,
the Member of the House of Commons, has shown more
sense and raore virtue (except in his opposition to the Reform
Bill) than all the whole crew of Ministers and Ministers' un
derlings, who have been upon the stage during the whole of
the twenty-eight ye.ars that I have been knocking their heads
one against the other, and finding no sense in thera, have
finally been dragging thera in the dirt. I differ with the Att-
woods as to the remedy; because, in the first place, it would
violate all recent contracts ; because 1 know it would enable
me to rob my yearly servants of one-half of their yearly
wages ; because I know that it would give like ability to all
other employers ; because I know that it would rob Enghsh,
Scotch, and Irish merchants and manufacturers of half the
debts due to them abroad ; because I know that the mort
gagee who lent his real gold upon an estate, would be paid
off in paper not worth half the money, and so with regard to
recent marriage settlements, rent charges, annuities, and
every contract and stipulation for time ; but secondly, and of
more weight than all the other considerations put together,
because the Attwood remedy might by some chance or other,

LECTURE IV, 91
prolong the existence of the debt, and of that truly infernal
gamble carried on in London, called the S^ock Exchange ;
rather than not see the destruction of which 1 would behold,
and endure my share of any possible evil that could afflict us.
Now, then, there is no scheme for hghtening the burdens
of the country, which does not amount to what ray opponents
designate a robbery ; so that I am not singular in this respect.
All agree to take away something : vve only differ as to the
manner of the taking. But I deny that it is robbery, in
any of its shapes or forras ; I deny that the nation owes the
fundholders anything at all ; I deny their claim to a single
farthing from the nation ; and, when I propose to take the
church-property and crown estates, for the purjiose of giving
the proceeds to the fundholders, it is not a proposition
founded on an opinion of mine, that they have a right to
demand anything ; but founded in the right of the nation
to dispose of certain property that it possesses, and which is
now of no use to it, and which it in policy ought to bestow on
that part of the fundholders, who would be totally ruined,
unless this relief were afforded them ; and especially that
part of them who may have been compelled, against their
expressed will, to have their property deposited in the funds.
This is the principle upon which I would give the fund-
holders anything at all, they having, in point of right, no
claim upon the nation whatsoever.
No nation, supposing the whole nation to have been the
borrowers, has a right to burden its posterity, I might stop
here to show, and I easily could show, that it was those,
whom the present Ministers have accused of having usurped
the legislative rights ofthe people, who borrowed the money.
I might insist upon, and prove it most clearly, that it was
not tlie nation that borrowed the money; but, grant that it
was, vvhat right had your fathers to load you with this in
tolerable debt ? What would be said of a law that should
compel the children to pay the debts of the father, behaving
left them nothing wherewith to pay ? Of a law that should
make the children vvork all the days of their lives to clear off
the score, run up by a drunken and profligate father ? Of a
law, which should say to the father. Spend away, run in debt,
keep on borrowing, close your eyes in the midst of drunken
ness and gluttony ; imitate the frequenters of Bellamy's all
your life ; and j'our children, and children's children, shall be
slaves to pay Bellamy and others with whora you have run

92 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
up the score ? AVould not the makers of such a law be held
in everlasting execration ?
And, in what respect does this case differ from that of a
prodigal and borrowing nation. " Oh !" say the advocates
ofthe Jews, " the difference is very great; for the nation
borrows raoney to defend itself against an enemy, which
defence it could not effect vvithout this borrowing of money."
I might stop here, and flatly deny that one penny of this
money vvas ever borrowed for that purpose ; for it is no
torious that it vvas almost all borrowed for the purpose of
carrying on one war to force unjust taxation on the Araerican
colonies, and another war to force back the Bourbons upon
France, and thereby prevent the overthrow of borough
mongering in England. This is perfectly notorious; but I
will not disfigure ray arguraent by any reliance upon it.
Let it be adraitted that the money was borrowed for the
purpose of defending the country ; and then I ask, what right
your fathers had to purchase ease and safety, and to leave you
to pay the debt? What right should we of the present day
have to throw upon our childeren the burden of defending
ourselves? If we be in danger, we are to come forth in our
persons, or by our purses, for our own defence. By the very
argument of our opponents, the resources of the country are
the great means, if not the only means of its security; what
right have we, then, to anticipate these resources ? AA'hat
right have we to take beforehand the means of security from
our children ?
Gentleraen, not another word need be said with regard to
the right of mortgaging the strength of the child in the
cradle ; not another word need be said about the want of the^
right in a nation to burden posterity, and very little is it
necessary to say about the right of the lender to demand a
liquidation of the burden. For, if there existed no right in
the borrower to make the loan, what right can there be in the
lender to demand repayment ? This latter knew who it was
to whom he was lending, and he knew also the base and dis
honest intentions of the borrower to throw the debt upon pos
terity. If in consequence of the unjust and cruel law, which
I have before supposed, to make children pay the debts of
the father, he leaving thera nothing wherewith to pay ; if,
in that case, a lender were basely to adrainister to the father's
profligate extravagance, would not the world call hira monster
when he came to grind the children to death for repayment

LECTURE IV. 93
ofthe loan ? Yet, in what respect would he be raore detest
able than the atrocious Jews, whether caUing themselves
Christians or not, who now come and demand from us the
pound of flesh in virtue of their bond ? In the affairs of indi
viduals, the law knows of no such anticipation as this. The
law not only will not allow the children to be answerable for
the debts of the father, but will not allow them to be
answerable for their own debts, contracted before they arrive
at the age of maturity. And why is this T They are not
answerable for the debts, because the law considers them as
incapable of giving their assent to them. How then can you
be answerable for these debts, the greater part of vvhich was
contracted before scarcely ten men here asserabled were
twenty-one years of age ?
Not one farthing, therefore, of these debts is due from you
to the fundholders. The great advocate of the abominable
Jews, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, resorts to a couple
of curious arguments in defence of their claims, the first of
which is this: that the nation having "suffered" the Go
vernment to borrow the money, or rather to make the loan
(for it vvas not money); the nation having s2/^e»'erf the Govern
ment to do this, is bound to pay the debt. So that here is a
Government, with an army, with all the meansof compelling
the nation to submit to what it pleases ; to resist its will is
treason ; and the Jew, vvho comes and lends raoney to this
Governraent, is to come, vvhen the people have got the power
of altering the law vvhich enabled the Governraent to do this,
and tell them ; the blaspheming Jew is to come, and tell them
that they are bound in conscience to pay back the money
that he lent for the purpose of keeping them down, and to
threaten to have them crucified, if they hold back a farthing
of his demand. But, gentlemen, even if we were to admit
this, raonstrous as it is, it would not corae up to the purpose
of our opponents. For, if the nation ought not to have
suffered the Governraent to borrow the money, and if it
assumed responsibihty for this loan, in consequence of suffer
ing it to be raade, it must be the nation that was then alive;
and how are you, vvho were not then born, or at most were
infants, to be held responsible for payment, because you did
not prevent the Government from borrowing the money ? ;,
The other argument of this new disciple of the synagogue,
this new child and champion of the hell called the Stock
Exchange, is this • that if an invading enemy besiege a town,
and demand a ransom to spare it from being abandoned to

94 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
the soldiery, and a sum of money be borrowed to pay the
ransom, and thus save the town, the people of the town
are bound all to contribute according to their means ^ to
repay the money thus borrowed. Certainly, Rabbi, nothing
more just, but, then, it is the people then alive, that are to
repay the ransom ; and this is precisely my argument, not
only did no raan living ever hear of the repayment of such a
ransom being thrown upon the posterity of a town, but the
thing cannot be, for mankind have never yet heard of a law
to tax people for such repayment ; and if such law were to
be passed, if any lawgivers of a town were equally foolish
-with the lawgivers of this nation, the people would avoid
the tax by abandoning the tovvn, as they are now abandoning
England to the amount of ten millions a year of rents and
incorae, in order to avoid paying their share of this unjust
burden called the debt. And this is one great evil of the
thing. All the vvorld acknowledges what dreadful evils have
fallen upon Ireland in consequence of the absentees not ex
pending their revenues in the country. How many projects
have we heard, and sometiraes even in Parliaraent, for taxing
the property of absentees at a higher rate than that of other
people ! Base indeed it is, that those who live on the taxes,
and particularly those who live on the tithes, sharaeful it is
in thera to carry their revenues out ofthe country. Sorrow
ful it is to see men going off with their wealth to the United
States of America; but, while in the former instance there
are no means of prevention, in the latter instance there is
neither prevention nor ground of blame. Men flee from un
just pressure ; they flee from a lavv that compels them to pay
the debts of their fathers ; and flee they will, as long as that
law shall exist. I am, therefore, for putting an end for ever
to this unjust law, and for the doing of which I have, 1 think,
produced much more than argument sufficient. But I must
not dismiss the subject without asking a little, what after all,
would really be due to these fundholders if we were for ar
gument's sake to admit that they had a claim to anything at
all? The sum is stated in its most modest amount, at eight
hundred millions. It would not be right to have an appear
ance of boldness in addressing persons who are worth eight
hundred millions of money, but one might just ask them
WHERE THEY GOT THE MONEY ? AVhere did you
get it, gentlemen and ladies ? There are a good many of
you, to be sure, but you have lent more money here than there
now is, or ever was in the whole world, more pounds of gold

LECTURE IV. 95
and silver than ever came out of the mines. It amounts to
more thau the whole of the kingdom, lands, houses, mines,
and woods, would sell for, if put up to auction, and if foreigners
could bring gold and silver into the country, and purchase
them. There raust be some great mistake then, . It
is physically impossible that you can have lent this
money. Gentlemen, it has all been a jugglery from the beginning
to the end. A loan-monger, or the maker of a loan, has never
lent any money at all. He has written his name upon bits
of paper; these he has distributed about in sales to under
loan-mongers ; these have been turned into other bits of
paper ; and these bits of paper the Governraent have paid
away. I cannot adopt a better mode of explaining this
matter than by describing to you a transaction by the means
of which I was once likely to become a loan-raonger my
self, and which .first opened my eyes with regard to this
matter. AA'hen I came home from America, in the year 1800,
I was looked upon by the Government people as hkely to
become oue of their vigorous partisans. It was the custom
in those glorious times of Pitt and paper, to give to the
literary partisans of the Govemment what were called
^'slices" of a loan. For instance, Moses was the loan-
monger ; and, as thesmp, as it used to be called, was always
directly at a premium, a bargain was always made with the
loan-monger that he should admit certain favourites of the
Government to have certain portions of scrip, at the same
price that he gave for it ; I was offered such portion of scrip,
¦which, as I was told, would put a hundred pounds or two
into my pocket at once. I was frightened at the idea of be
coming responsible for the immense sum, upon which this
¦would be the profit. But I soon found that the scrip was
never even to be shown to me, and that I had merely to
pocket the amount of the premium. I positively refused to
have anything to do with the matter, for which I got heartily
laughed at. But this was of great utility to me ; it opened
my eyes with regard to the nature of these transactions; it
set me to work to understand all about the debt and the
funds and the scrip and the stock and everything belonging
to it. At every step I found the thing more and more black,
and more and more execrable ; and it soon brought my mind
to a conclusion, that the systera was what the accursed thing
was in the camp of the Israelites, and that the nation never
oould be happy again until it was got rid of; in which
opinion I have remained from that day to this.

96 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
Now, if I had pocketed this money, it must have come
out of the estates, skill, ai-ul labour, of the people. 1 should
have been a robber indeed ; this would have been real
robbery, and a great deal more worthy of the gallows than
the forging of a bank-note, or the stealing of a sheep. From
this, gentlemen, you may judge what loan-making was. If
I did not get the hundred pounds or two, somebody else did ;
and we have-had to pay interest, and corapound interest upon
it, frora that day to this. I should have thus taken from
the nation enough to support four or five labourers and their
families, for one year at any rate ; and, if 1 had taken it, and
had bought stock with it, as it is called, would it not have been
right to pay rae with a halter, instead of paying me in money?
If certain proprietors of newspapers, whom I could name,
were brought to a strict account, vvhat, good God ! are the
sums which they have got in this vvay ! How soon they
would corae turabling from their chariots, and lie by the
wayside, food for kites and carrion-crows, unless, out of
pure benevolence, taken up by the grave-robbers and Bark
ers, and carried "for the benefit of science," to the humane
Mr. Warburton's schools of anatomy !
AA'ell, then, wholly unable to account, upon principles of
either natural philosophy or arithmetic, how these gentlemen
and ladies came by the 800 millions to lend to the nation, let
us leave that, as a raatter for posterity to handle, we ourselves
taking care to leave them nothing else belonging to the debt,
and let us now proceed to inquire what, even according to
their own showing, is really due to these " public creditors,"
as they impudently call theraselves. The far greater part of
the raoney, if it were money, was borrowed (if a transac
tion such as I have just described can be called borrowing)
when, according to the showing of the Parliaraent itself, a
pound of the currency was not worth more than fourteen
shillings of the present money. This was the statement of
the bullion report of 1810. Vansittart made the house
negative the fact ; but the fact was revised and ratified in
1819 by that very same house. So that, upon their own
showing, we are paying interest upon a pound, instead of
interest upon fourteen shillings. That, however, is not the
true view of the matter. The bullion committee took
a wrong standard or criterion. The true standard was the
bushel of wheat ; and it is perfectly notorious that the
average price of that article, during the time that the loans
were making, was more than double what it has been, on an
average, during the last sixteen or seventeen years. So that,

LECTURE IV. 97
at the very least, we are paying in interest double the sum
that vve ought to pay. The debt, if debt it ought to be
called, was contracted in depreciated money ; and we are
compelled to pay iu money cf full value. This has been-
effected too by acts of that Parliament whose business it
was to take care of our interests ; and now, when vve demand
that this grievous wrong should be put nn end to, we are
accused of wishing for a breach of the national -faith. Faith
in such a case means honest dealing ; and has not faith been
due to the nation? Are the Jews the only people in the
world towards whom there is to be honesty of dealing?
During the time that the chief partof the money was lent,
the price of .vheat was, on an average, fifteen shillings the
bushel ; the ruinous bill of Peel brought it down, at one
time, to four shillings the bushel. Thus were all the rest of
the nation robbed for the benefit of a band of Jews and
jobbers ; thus vvere the resources of the country poured into
their laps, that they raight lend them ag.ain to Spaniards,
Portuguese, South Americans, Austrians, Prussians, and
Russians, In short, the whole thing seems to have been
invented for the purpose of reducing the people of this king
dom to beggary.
It has been surprising fo every one who has paid attention
to the raatter, that the present Ministers tolerate in Peel the
audacity which they do tolerate. AVhat ! is the possession of
a million or two of money, to raake it safe for hira to stand
up and talk in the tone of a Solon,.while every tongue ought
to exclaim, " Is this man not to be brought lo account for
the destructive bill of vvhich he vvas the author ; are those
really representatives of the people, who can sit and hear
him ojiposing a reform of that Parliament which sanctioned
his destructive bill ? " Is it possible that men can sit and hear
this Language from hira and not remind him that he has doae-
more raischief to his country than ever was inflicted Upon it
by any other man for a thousand years past ? Is it possible-
that .the jieople ean deem those their representatives, who-
have not the spirit, or who want the understanding, to place -
in a proper light the conduct of this man ?
Let us now look a little into another mattsr coanecte<b
with this debt. AVe have seen that it has no valid f'oi:.''d3lieni
as a charge against the present nation : we have seen that it
is not oiir debt at all ; and if it were, we have seen that we
are paying more than double the amount of interest duc.
Mr. Mushett, of the Mint, a great stickler for the fundholders.

98 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
at the close of his volurainous calculations, admitted that the
fundholders had sometimes lost and sometimes gained by the
changes in the value of money ; but that, up to the year
1820, they and the nation vvere even ; so that, according to
this decision of their advocate, we havebeen now for eleven
years paying them two for one ; so that, upon this view of the
matter, vve might now be free from all interest for eleven
years at any rate ; and, at the endof the eleven years, the nation
might, if it chose, begin to pay interest again. However, I
deny the claim altogether; and to strengthen, if anything
were necessary to strengthen, my argument in support of
this denial, let us look at the security, which the lenders took
when they lent the money; for, observe, this is a very ma
terial consideration, and will be found to involve results of
the greatest iraportance.
AA^hen a man lends money, he knows, or ought to know,
the sufficiency of the borrower. He ought to know what
security he has. In the case of a mortgage, rent-charge,
annuity, he has the land or house as security. In the case of
money lent on bond, in other manner, he has the goods and
chattels, and, after all, the person ofthe party ; but what se
curity did these loanmongers lake ? It is the common talk
with them, that they have a rnortgage upon all the lands and
houses and other real property in the kingdora. Let them,
then, produce the deed and the bond. They can do no such
thing. They have no deed and no bond, and they have no
mortgage upon anything. Their security consists solely of
an act of Parliament, or acts of Parliaraent, vvhich are properly
called loan-acts; and a loan act is of this nature. The Go
vernment contracts a loan with a loanmonger ; and an act of
Parliament is passed, to provide that the interest of the loan
shall be regularly paid, wilhout any deduction, out of the
proceeds of the consolidated fund. Now, then, what is this
fund ? The fundholders, and particularly the ladies, have an
idea, natural enough, that this fund consists of a monstrous
heap of gold and silver money, kept soraewhere or other,
under the guard and protection of the Government or the
bank. I beg leave to assure the ladies that there is not any
such heap of money, or any heap at all, or any chest, or box,
or receptacle for the gold and silver ; but that the consolidated
fund means the clear proceeds of the taxes that the Minis
ters are able annually lo squeeze ont of us : that these taxes
are paid into the bank vvhen collected ; that out of them the
bank pays the interest to the fundholders half-yearly ; and

LECTURE lY. 99
that, if the ta.xes in the hands of the bank be not sufficient to
pay the half- yearly interest, which is frequently the case, the
bank lends the Government enough to make up the deficiency ;
that is to say, makes some of its bank-notes, and lends them
to the Government ; and for the bank-notes thus lent, we
have io pay the interest. Now, gentlemen, did the world
ever hear of such a thing as this before ?
However, here we have a clear idea of the nature of the
security ; and a very consolatory appearance it has to the
ladies who do us the honour to lend us money ; for, though
it does not actually come up to the beautiful scriptural idea
of the " munition of rocks," it at any rate takes a very wide
spread ; and really is good as long as the loan acts shall conti
nue in full force. Consolidated fund is a very imposing phrase ;
but still it consists only of words, and conveys no idea of
anything fixed to the earth ; in short, a loan -bill is the fund-
holder's contract; it gives him a claira upon the taxes
annually collected; it gives him no other claira, and if the
taxes be not collected, he has no claim at all ; which brings
us directly to a very important matter closely connected with
the subject of parliamentary reform ; seeing that every man
in his senses deems the reform to be of no use at all unless it
produce a great diminution of the taxes, which, in other
words, seems, at the very least, a great diminution of the
security of the fundholder. And yet, is any one of you,
gentlemen, prepared to say that no taxes ought to be taken
off; and are you prepared to say that the Corn-bill ought to
continue in order to prevent this security from being dimi
nished ?
When the bank stopped payraent in gold in 1*97, one of
the arguraents urged against the raeasure, or rather one of
the complaints against Pitt, for having reduced the bank to
the necessity of stopping, was this ; that amongst other
things, it would be a fraud upon the fundholders, a robbery of
the fundholders, because it put forth a depreciated and com
pulsory paper instead ofthe King's coin, and thereby did, in
fact, violate all the loan-bills by compelling the fundholders
to take less than the loan-bills had stipulated for. The
answer of Pitt was, that it was a case of necessity, and that it
was the duty of the Government to preserve the country even
if it did cause some loss to the fundholders, Pushed hard on
the other side, the then Solicitor-General, Sir John Mitfortl,
since Lord Redesdale, rose, and, as a lawyer, said that thera
was no wrong done to the fundholder; that, he lent his
F 2

100 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
money vvith the knovvledge of the risk that he ran ; that he
received an interest proportioned to ihe risk ; that the nation
was not bound to sscure him against all risk; that many
persons in the kingdom had a claim prior to that of the fund-
holder; that the soldier and the sailor had a prior claim ;
and he asked if any one would assert that the King himself
had nota prior claim. There vvas no answer to this argu
ment then ; and who is to find an answer to it now? And
is it not as clearly a cose of necessity now as it was ihen ?
Thus, then, vve see that the interest can be lowered, and
that the whole can be withheld without any real violation of
the contract. But to come closer to our own affair; if we
cannot withhold the interest vvithout breach of national faith,
how can we wilhout breach of that faith diminish the security
for paying it ? We have seen that the source of payment is
the annual produce of vvhat is called the consolidated fund,
and that means thc taxes ; and ha.s not the security been di
minished then by the repeal ofthe salt tax, the beer tax, the
candle tax, and the nuraerous customs and taxes, which have
been recently taken off? Has not the security been di
minished by reducing the proceeds of the consolidated fund
from a clear fifty-four millions a year to a clear forty-seven
millions a year ?* And vvill the security not be further re
duced, when the malt lax shall be taken off? And do you,
gentlemen, iraagine that the raalt tax can remain on many
months after a reformed Parliament shall assemble ? I am
aware that you in the north here are not fond of ale, parti
cularly if it be strong, and require much raalt in the raaking ;
but after long und attentive observation. I can most positively
* We learn frotn the uewspapers publislied since this lecture was
delivered, that this consolidated fund, if we believe the Government
statements, bas fallen duwn to forty-two millions a year. 1 repeat,
. that 1 never place faith in any of these statements of the Government,
having so many tiraes jiroved them to be false ; bnt there must be
something- in this new story ; and I shall be very glad to find that this
Ss a true account; having always regarded that argument which de-
4luces a proof of the prosperiiy of the country from the great amount
uf money squeezed frorn it by the tax-gatherer, as ihe raost stupid ef
fusion of human folly and impudence. Jf this account be true, it shows
that we are got ta the end of the tether ; tliat taxation haa run its
race, and that a new sort of career must be adopted. I ara disposed to
belicve, however, that this is the case; namely, that Lord Grey .ha3
not found himself capable to adopt the tricks so long iu practice at tfie
treasury; that we have now a true account; aud that the truth
-would have been kept from our sight, if thc old stagers had still been
at the treasury

LECTURE IV. 101-
assure you that the thing is quite otherwise in the south, and
the west, and the east ; and that the very first thing that the
chopsticks expect, as the consequence of a reform of the
Parliament, is a repeal of that tax, which, taking the neces
sary monopoly into view, makes ale five-pence or six-pence
a pot, where it would not be more than one penny or three
halfpence. AVithout a repeal of this tax, as one of its first
consequences, the Reform Bill is not worth a straw ; and if
it be repealed, mark vvell vvhat it does: the tax itself, includ-
. ing that on the hops, which inust be repealed also, amounts;
annually to about four millions and a half. But, observe,-
this is a small part of what it does in the way of injury to the
people. Barley is at this time about 4s. a bushel, or] rather
Isss^ A bushel of barley makes a bushel of malt, and the
increase pays for the malting, and if there were no tax, gen
tlemen as well as farmers, all over the counfry, would make
the malt themselves ; and then, all things considered, the
malt would not on an average cost thern more than Ss. a
bushel at this time ; because all the marketing expenses
would be saved, and because unmarketable barley would fre
quently be turned into malt. Formerly, in every considerable
parish, there was a malt-house attached to the parsonage, and
the priest vvas maltster for the poor, as vvell as guardian of
their souls ; but this was in the dark ages ; and we who now
live in the light cannot expect to enjoy this adventitious
benefit of darkness. But, at any rate, if the malt tax were
repealed, we should now have malt at 3s. a bushel. The tax
is "Ss. 6d. on the bushel of malt, upon the increase as welt
as upon the barley, so that this brings the malt (the barley
being 4,s. a bushel) to 6s, 6d. a bushel; but 1 pay at this
time 9s. 6d. for a bushel of malt ! The maltster charges the
3s. a bushel, besides the increase, in virtue of tbe monopoly
which the tax gives him. He is obliged to have a large
building ; he is obliged to subrait to a restriction and super
intendence extreraely injurious to his business ; he is com
pelled to have a large capital to raake advances in the pay
ment of the tax, in order that he may h-.*ve a stock of malt
by him, being compelled to make in winter that which is
Ksed- in summer, the summer not being a season for the-
making of malt ; be is compelled to submit to regulations,'
•which frequently cause him losses that take avvay a great'
part of his profits ; and he is continually exposed to the risk
of severe punishment for deviating in the smallest degree
from these minute and vexatious regulations ; so that this

102- MANCHESTER LECTURES.
trade, which rarely ought to exist at all, is far from being a
trade of profit ; and the result is, that I now pay nine shil-
linys and sixpence for a bushel of malt, instead of the three
shillings and sixpence which I should pay if there were no
tax upon it. The moral effects are still more injurious. The
working people are driven from their own houses to the ale
house. And as " evil communications corrupt good man
ners," these are become, not places for taking refreshment,
but scenes of drunkenness and of profligacy ofevery descrip
tion : and all this the landowners of England have been bj^se
enough to suffer, at the same time that they have been inces
santly hardening the laws wherever they bear upon the
working people.
And shall not this enorraous evil be removed ? AA'^ill you
so use your franchise as to send raen to Parliament to support
this curse of the country? AVill you send men thitherto
prohibit the farmer andhis men from turning into drink the
produce of their fields ? If you will, a Reform of the Par
liament will be a source of sharae instead of triuraph to you.
Much better reraain as you are, in quiet subraission to this
tax, instead of sharing in the disgrace of upholding it. Yet
if this tax be taken off, what becoraes of the security for
paying the interest of fhe debt ? The tax on malt and hops
may, as I said before, be four millions and a half a year ; but,
mark well, the repeal of the malt and hop tax will virtually
repeal nine-tenths of the spirit tax ; also nine-tenths of the
tea and the coffee tax ; a large part of the sugar tax ; for it
is against all reason to believe that the tea and coffee slops
will reraain in vogue araongst the millions of working [leople,.
when they can have a pot of good ale for a penny or three
halfpence. A very great part of the w'ne tax would come
off too ; for, once at liberty to use the produce of our own,
fields, very little wine would be consumed by jiersons in the
middle rank oflife ; nine-tenths of the wine not being either
so good or so palatable as drink that can be made out of our
own barley aud our own hops. Sixteen good.round millions
would come off by tbis repeal of the malt tax- But what
would then become of the securities for the interest of the
debt? And yet will you send raen to Parliament who shall
vote for the continuance ol^ this tax, with all its disgraceful
evils ; with all the sufferings that it entails upon the millions;.
will you send men to vote for the continuance of this tax.lesti
the repeal of it should destroy the means of the payment of
the interest of the fundholder ? One more question : vvill you

LECTURE IV, 103
send men to vote against the repeal of the corn bilL ? Yes,
you will, if you send men not to vote for a repeal of the malt
TAX ; for, think what you may of the matter, the Corn Bill can
neither be repealed nor mitigated as long as the tax on malt
and hops shall continue ; and of this I beg you to be assured.
It requires but very little profundity to perceive the vast
advantages that the manufacturers would derive from a re
peal of these abominable taxes. The manufacturers are, at
the very outside, not more than two millions out of the
seventeen or eighteen millions of the people of this kingdora.
The rest, after deducting a couple of millions more for the
sea-port towns, and tbe food- consumers of the raonstrous
wen, are persons eraployed in agriculture, or in trades or
occupations subservient to the purposes of agriculture. These
millions, who must be your very best customers, first seek
their food, next their drink ; next, their clothing and their
bedding. Take, then, threepence a pot from the cost of their
drink, take away that vvhich is now wasted on the foreign
articles of tea, coffee, sugar, and wine, and vvhat will become
of the savings ? Do you think they will fling the savings into
the sea ? not they indeed. The wife and daughters will take
care that a part of these savings, and a pretty good part too,
shall go to the cotton and the riband-shop ; and the men
will, once more, get coats upon their backs ; for be you as
sured that not one penny of the money will be buried in the
garden, or under a stone in the cellar. So that you are
much more deeply interested in the repeal of the malt and
the hop-tax than you are in the repeal of the Corn Bill, even
if that could possibly be accomplished, which it cannot with
out a repeal of these taxes.
Well, then, to this point we corae at last : even admitting
tbe debt to be a valid debt, which I do not; even admitting
that the last generation had a right to burden this, which I
deny, as being- a thing abhorrent to every principle of reason
and of justice, to this point we come ; that the Reform Bill
is to produce no effect good to the people, and the working-
people especially, unless the security for the payment of the
interest of the debt be taken away. Will any one pretend to
deny that the Parliament had a right to repeal the tax on salt,
the tax on candles, the tax on beer ? Then how can any one
pretend to deny its right to repeal the tax upon malt and
upon hops ? Of what use, then, can this reforra of the Parlia
ment be, unless we acknowledge the right of a reformed
Parliament to repeal taxes ; and if vve do allow this right, on

104 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
what foundation stands the interest of the debt, other than
thatof expediency and convenience, respecting the power and
disposition of the nation to pay ? Some years ago, Alexander
Baring, the great loan-monger, said that " the nation was
bound to pay, as long as it had anything lo pay with.'' This
loan-monger chose to place the nation upon the footing of an
Individual in common life; and insisted that, like the bank
rupt, it vvas under an obligation to surrender all it had. The
bankrupt is bound to surrender all the worldly goods that he
has then in his possession ; but the bankrupt A/jwse/^has been
the borrower, or has become the debtor, from some cause or
other; it is for his own use that he has contracted the debt,
and not for the use of his successors. He surrenders his all ;
but be does not extend the surrender to his children. Besides
this, the bankrupt is not stripped of the clothes that cover his
body ; tbo tools necess.ary to earn his bread are left him ; an
act of bankruptcy or insolvency clears him of the past ; his
creditors cannot deprive him ot the use of his limbs, and of
his means of making future provision for his wants and his
safety. But these inexorable creditors of ours would make
us, and even the child in the cradle, slaves to them ; would
leave us nb part of our future earnings ; would take all from
us except our bare lives ; would leave us none of the means
of providing either for the safety, or for the upholding of the
honour of our country; would make the country subrait to
invasion, conquest, and everlasting servitude, rather than
give up their claira upon- fhe resources of the country!
If there be anything so audacious as this; if any preten
sion equal to this in cruelty, as well ns presumption and
profligate defiance of the moral sense of mankind, I should
be glad to have pointed out to 'me where I am to find it ever
was heard of.
Thus, then, in every possible view that can be taken of
the matter, it appears to me clear as day-light, that the pea
ple of these northern towns vvill be guilty of a scandalous
breach of duty if they send to Parliament any man not
pledged on the conditions which I have before stated ;
naraely, on the conditions stated last evening of payment to
the fundholders, to the extent of the amount of the property
which the nation has at its dispos.il ; guilty I say of a scan
dalous abandonment of duty, if they fail to send to the Par
liament men pledged to free the nation from this intolerable
load. It novv reiiiains for me to offer, with your permission, the

LECTURE IV. 105
observations called for in explanation of the eighth propo
sition ; naraely, an equitable adjustment, with respect to the
pecuniary contracts between man and man ; and to rectify, as
far as practicable, the wrongs and" ruin inflicted on many
thousands by the arbitrary, changes in the value of money,
which changes were made by acts of the unreformed Parlia
ment ; to extend this adjustment to every transaction be
tween raan and man ; as, vvithout this adjustment, even the
abolition ofthe claim of the fundholders would be of no
avail, and even injurious in numerous and most important
cases of money lent and money borrowed. In numerous
cases of mortgage, marriage-settlement, rent-charge, and
annuity, growing out of real property, estates have either
been taken away or almost taken away ; not by any indiscre
tion, not by any extravagance, not by any fault of any kind
in those who ought to be the owners of the property. The
wills of the deceased have been violated ; the prospects and
the just expectations and reliances of mjmerOus most vir
tuous and industrious people, have been blasted in an infinite
number of cases ; those vvho might be still opulent, are in a
state of beggary ; and all these grievances have been caused
by Acts of the Parliament in changing the value of the raoney
of the country, vvhich acts have been as corapletely acts of
confiscation as if they had borne that title, and as if the
prearables of them had set forth that it was expedient to
violate the contracts of the living and the wills of the dead,
to blast all the efforts of industry, and all the hopes of virtue ;
to render human affairs throughout the whole kingdom as
uncertain as the movement of the winds and the waves :
if the prearables of the acts had set this forth as the ground
ofthe acts, the effects could not have been other than they
have been. For what will a reformed Parliaraent assemble
then ? AV'hat will it be worth, unless it be able to do some
thing in the way of rectifying these enormous wrongs ; the
main tendency of vvhich has been to deliver over the posses
sions of the legitimate owners and the earnings of industry
to the hands of usury. In thousands upon thousands of
cases, skilful, upright, and most industrious merchants,
traders, and manufacturers, have been utterly ruined by these
arbitrary acts of this Parliament, every one of which tended
to the swelling of the wealth of the usurers, and- to
the crushing of industry and virtue. A reformed Parliament
may, and I trust will, reach the principal act.ors in these
works of ruin ; but, noj even a reformed Parliament, nor all
the wit of man can discover the means of affording anything
p5

106 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
approaching to redress in those numerous instances where
ruin has thus been inflicted on families engaged in commer
cial pursuits. But where the property is of an iraraoveable
nature, where the deeds and records can be referred to for
proof, where the parties are alive, or where there are suc
cessors entitled to redress, or sufficient to answer ; in all
these cases, justice may yet be done ; and, if justice be not
done, the reformed Parliaraent will, after ali, be a just object
ofthe scorn of mankind.
Oh ! the difficulty — the impossibility to make such an in
quiry into the mortgages, settlements, and the rest I It could
never be done I Not done, gentlemen ? This same Govern
ment and Parliaraent, though they enacted Peel's Bill, and
the panic-bill ; though they have done all this raischief,
buuglers as they have been in these matters, unhesitatingly
as they have lashed their destructive tail amongst the shoals
of the community, and with as little mercy as the whale
lashes its destructive fins amongst the shoals of the sea;
careless as they have been bere, and incompetent to every
purpose of good, they have been very efficient as to other
purposes ; and, from their proceedings wilh regard to them,
we must not decline to take a profitable exaraple. They
found no difficulty, when they had an income or property-
tax to collect; they found no difficulty then, in looking into
every raan's rent-roll, and every raan's lease, they found no
difficulty in ascertaining the amount of the profits of every
man's trade, no difficulty in ascertaining the nuraber of his
children, and in prescribing to him the extent of his annual ex
penditure ; no difficulty do they still find in ascertaining the
numberof our windows, dogs, horses, carriages, and servants;
no difficulty in ascertaining whether we be bachelors or
married raen ; not the smallest difficulty in ascertaining
whether we or our families or inmates, put powder into our
hair, or leave it unpowdered ; no difficulty do they find, in
coming at the curious fact of whether we put arms upon the
seals that hang from our watches, or upon the spoons with
which we eat our broth ; they find not the smallest difficulty
in ascertaining whether our canine property consist of grey
hounds, hounds, spaniels, pointers, setters, lurchers, mastiffs,
or lap-dogs : not the smallest difficulty, again, do they find
in ascertaining the number of sheets of paper and print which
a jiamphlet ought to contain, and even the number of square
inches in each sheet, in order to prevent such paraphlet from
having a seditious or blasphemous tendency.
What, gentlemen ! and cannot sucn clever men as these

LECTURE IV. 107
discover the me.-vns of finding out whether the reputed owner
of a piece of real property, is now held to pay, or has been held
to pay, more than is, or has been, due to the lender of the
money upon that property, whether in the way of mortgage,
or in any other way ? If they cannot discover this, a reformed
Parliament would, or that Parliament would immediately de
mand further reforraing ; for, a body of legislators, who could
not do that which was so easily doue by Solon and by Caesar^
so far frotn meriting our respect, would deserve to be trampled
under foot.
Here, again, the Corn Bill stares us in the face. Nine-
tenths of the houses and lands of England are mortgaged,
and otherwise charged for more than one -half of their
worth. To a certain extent the real property of every
countiy always was, and always raust be, thus pledged. It
is one of the great uses of real property, that it can be made
available in this vvay ; but there is a limit, beyond which
this species of pledging becomes destructive of the happi
ness and even of the peace of a country , and this limit we
have long passed. In fact, the usurers, who are also the
principal owners of the debt, have in the first place drawn
up the resources of the country in taxes ; and then they
have expended the taxes thus received by them in lending
them upon the houses and land; and thus becorae, in great
part, the real owners of the whole kingdom. Amcmgst other
things, they have become proprietors of boroughs and the
makers of laws ; and this is the true and only reason why
that great source of confiscation has not long ago been
swept away. A¥ith resjiect to the practicability of making
this adjustment, nothing in my raind, that is to say, nothing
of considerable magnitude ; nothing which has usually been
thought to demand the knowledge and talent of a states
man, could be more easy. An act of Parliament, distinctly
laying down the principle of the adjustment ; distinctly pro
viding for the rate of reduction in each year, for forty years
past, distinctly laying down the rules by which the comrais
sioners should be bound to decide ; such an act, sending
three commissioners into each county of tbe kingdom, and
these might be members of Parliaraent themselves, would
settle the whole affair in a month. For, observe, the act,
would leave the parties to make the settleraent themselves if
they chose ; if they agreed tt) the settlement, the agreement
would be merely ratified, and rendered legally binding by
the commissioners. Not one case out of one hundred >

108 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
would be left to be decided by the comraissioners, the act
being so plain as to the principle and the rule.
If this be not done, even the annihilation of the debt
would be an injury to innumerable persons, to a very con
siderable part of those vvho are, or ought to be, the posses
sors of the buildings and the land. First, the debt ought to
be swept away, and the other measures adopted which I have
subraitted to you in these propositions. Then the real value
of money, corapared with the value of the money in any
former year, would be at once and exactly ascertained : and
upon the standard thus furnished, the adjustment would be
made. Now, gentlemen, unless this be done, the affairs of
the nation cau never bs set to rights ; here are grievous
wrongs to redress, and if the redress be not afforded by a
reformed Parliament, that Parliament vvill be with me no
more an object of respect than are the guttlers and boozers
of Bellamy's,
Before I conclude, I cannot help making to you, gentle
men, an observation or two on the illustration wbich France
now affords us vvith regard to the workings of that abominable
thing called the national debt. Tho public papers inform us
that the people of Grenoble, vvhich is a large city in the
south-west of France, recently rose to impede the operations
of the tax-gatherers ; that the tax-gatherers called out the
National Guard ; that the National Guard consisted of 6,400-
men ; that only four hundred would obey the call of the
tax-gatherers ; and the probability is, that these four hun
dred were receiving ouf of the taxes more than they paid ;
that the tax-gatherers seeing themselves vvithout support,
scratched the names of nearly three thousand persons out of
the tax-book, thereby intimating that these three thousand
persons should not be called upon to pay the taxes put
against their names ; that this, however, did not satisfy the
people, who insisted upon burniny the book itself, and who
actually burnt it amidst shouts of triumph.
Such are the natural consequences of national debts. Our
profound Government thought it had achieved a great object,
¦when, by the means of our debt, it had compelled the French
people to submit fo debt; thinking that that debt would keep
the French people quiet. It answered this purpose for a
while; but that debt, which, in the course of only sixteen
years of Bourbon sway, has been pushed up to thirteen mil
lions of pounds sterling of annual interest, has already pro
duced the driving out of one king ; and, if that fund-loving

LECTURE IV. 109
gentleman, Louis-Philippe, persist in upholding the debt of
France, the consequence to him is by no means difficult to be
foreseen. It was the Breton association against the paying of
taxes vohich produced in Charles X. a jirnject for stifling
the press of France ; because it became evident, that, if that
press were left free, the Breton association would speedily be
extended all over the kingdom ; to give effect to his projectj he
brought troops into Paris; the people defeated the tloops ;
and Charles X. was expelled. To have made the throne of
his successor stable, the debt should have been expelled too.
That remaining, the people exclaim, " Wfiat have we gained
by the revolution other than a raere change of names ?'' And,
if our debt and taxes remain after the reform shall have taken
place, vvill not the people bf England exclaim, ''' What have
we gained more than the mere name of rej'orni?'
There has been a proposition made, in several of the great
parishes of London, to refuse to pay the direct taxes, unless
the Reform Bill pass. The sarae propositifm has been made
in several parts of the kingdora ; but \vh:'.t sense is there in
this, unless the parties expect that fhe Reform Bill is to pro
duce a diminution at least of taxation ? AVIint sense i.s there
in it, if this be not their expectation ? This being their ex
pectation, the proposition has clear reason on" its side: but
again, hovv is the diminution of taxes to take place, if tha
great burden of all, and the real cause of the greater part cf
the rest, remain unabolished ? There is no sense in the pro
position, unless this expectation be confidently entertained;
nor is there any sense in wishing for the Reform Bill to pass.
I have novv, gentlemen, offered my opinions with regard
to this important matter, and have endeavoured to maintain
the correctness of those opinions by arguments vvhich I deem
satisfactory. It is not for me dogmatically to assert, that all,
who do not agree vvith me, must be in the \vrong ; but sin
cerity calls upon me, openly and clearly to state itiy opinions
to you, and, here, again, to declare my determination not to
be the, representative ofany body of persons, however. gteat
might be the honour of being the object of their choiise, un
less they unequivocally pledge themselves to support me to
the utmost in giving effect to measures consonant with these
my opinions.

1 I0f MANCHESTER LECTURZS.

LECTURE V. 30th December, 1831.
Gentlemhn, I AM this evening to address you on the remaining pro
positions, all but the last. That is to say, in all the propo
sitions from 9 to 13 inclusive, which 1 will first read to you,
lest there should be some gentlemen now present who were
not here the first evening.
9. To abolish all internal taxes (except on the land),
whether direct or indirect, inclnding stamp-taxes of
every de3cri()tiou ; and to irapose such a postage-
charge for letters as to defray the real expenses of an
economical and yet efficient post-office establishment,
and no more ; so that the postage would be merely
a payment for the conveyance of letters, and not
a tax.
10. To lay just as much custom-house duty on importa
tions as shall be found conducive to the beneflt of
the navigation, commerce, and manufactures of the
kingdom, viewed as a whole, and not to lay on one
penny more.
11. To make effectual provision, in every department, for
the raaintenance of a powerful navy ; to give such
pay and such an allotraent of pnze-raoney to the
searaan as to render impressment wholly unneces
sary ; to abolish the odious innovation of naval
academies, and re-open the door of promotion to
skill and valour, whether found in the heirs of nobles,
or in the sons of the loom or of the plough ; to
abolish all military Orders, and to place the navy next
in honour to the throne itself.
12. To make a legal, a fixed, and a generous allowance
to the King, and, through him, to all the branches
and members of his faraily ; to leave to hira the
unshackled freedom of appointing all his servants,
whether of his household or of his pu'olic ministry ;
lo leave to him the full control over his palaces,
gardens, and parks, as landowners have over their
estates; to take care that he be not worried with in-

LECTURE V. Ill
trigues to purloin from him that which the people give
him for his own enjoyment ; so that he may be, in all
respects, what the chief of a free people ought to
be, his name held in the highest honour, and his
person held sacred, as the great guardian of the
people's rights.
IS. To make an accurate valuation of all the houses,.
lauds, mines, and other real property, in each county
in the whole kingdom ; to irapose a tax upon that
property, to be paid quarterly, and in every county, on
the sarae day, and iu such manner as to cost in the,
collection, or, rather, payment, not more than /oar
hundred pounds a year in any one county ; to make
the rate and amount of this tax vary with the wants
of the state, always taking care to be amply pro
vided with means in case of war, when war shall
be demanded by the safety, the interest, or the honour
of the kingdom.
The first of these propositions recommends a repeal of all
the internal taxes, except the land tax ; that is to say, all the
taxes, with tbis single exception, other than the taxes imposed
at the custom-house. There must be a charge for the carriage
of letters ; because that is not a tax, but merely a payment
for service rendered ; and this payment ought to be enforced
by law, as it is in Araerica; else there could be no responsible
officers to conduct the business. At this tirae, this is a very
heavy tax, and a most unjust and partial tax ; because the
aristocracy bear hardly any part of it ; because even the
soldiers are excused frora this tax, while the rest of the people
pay for it five times as much for the carriage of their letters,
as is necessary to cause tbat carriage to take place. It is one
of the ways indeed in which the people are stripped of their
earnings. My reasons for recommending a perraanent tax on the
land I shall fully state by-and-by. I now proceed to the
other internal taxes, except the malt and hops ; namely, the
ta.xes of excise, of stamps, the assessed taxes ; the taxes laid
on under the name of licenses ; and, in short, every tax
ofevery description (lhe county and parochial rates not being
included of course), except the tax on land and the custom
house duties and charges, of which I shall speak hereafter.
AVhat a blessing it would be to be relieved uot only from the ,
burden, but from the everlasting torment of thesei taxes, we

112 M.VNCHESTER LECTURES,
all know but too vvell. In estimating the weight of the
burden, we must by no means, however, overlook two very
gi-eat things ; first, the collecting and managing of these
taxes, which, all taken together, amount to little short of
eight or nine millions a year, if vve include the retired allow
ances to the discharged officers and clerks; also the surcharges,
the fines, the loss of time in dancing attendance upon the
tax-gatherers, the losses arising from the seizure and forcible
sale of goods; from the costs of lawsuits in the exchequer,
and various other sources of injury, and of ruin arising from
these internal taxes ; which cost, taking them altogether, forms
about a sevcnlh part of the whole of that enormous burden
under vvhich the nation is novv sinking, and, in order to
be relieved from vvhich, it is calling so loudly for a reform
of the P.iiliament.S
The other item, vvhich we must not forget, consists ofthe
monopolies, which are created entirely by the taxes. I have
mentioned fully, in the former lecture, the injury whieh the
people experience frora the monopoly arising out of the malt
ta.x. The monopoly arising: out of the hop tax is a still more
cruel raonopoly, and raore repugnant to every sense of jus
tice, because it not only throws the gro'vving of hops into
coraparatively few hands, and thereby greatly enhances the
price to the consuraer, but it intercepts that which nature
would give us for nothing. In innumerable cases all over
England, hops grow up naturally in the hedges, jioles stuck
into the hedges for the hops to run up would give you a
crop, without any other labour than that of gathering fhe
hops and drying them ; but you dare not gather them and
dry them, even for your own use, without making an entry
beforehand at the Excise Office, and without going to give
notice when you are going to gather them ; then waiting till
an exciseman comes to see the place where you dry them ; and
then not to put them by for use until he has weighed them
and assessed you to the duty upon thera. In short, in this
law, the Government forbids you to take that which God gives
you for nothing. AA'here it not for this law, every poor man
would have a few plants of hops in his garden enough for
his use; but this law comes and says he shall not have them,
because it is not worth while to go to the E.xcise Office and
enter the ground, and to put yourself under the claws of an
exciseman for a matter so sraall in araount, besides the danger
of exposing yourself to penalties and improbable imprison
ment, and without limit of time too, for the neglect of some

LECTURE V. 113
precaution, the non-observance of some petty regulation,
adopted by these tormenters of the people.
Let me stop here to observe on the [lunishments inflicted
for breaches of the taxing lavys. If you thus incur a debt, as
they call it, to the Government ; in the first place, no property
that you possess is protected against tin; claim. The process
against you is the most swift and most severe. It spares you
in no respect, whatsoever. If wholly unable fo satisfy the
debt, iraprisonment is your doora ; and, unless some friend,
some extraneous resource, be discovered for you, 'tis im
prisonment for life. The bankrupt or the insolvent, however
profligate the contracting of his debts may have been, finds a
term to his imprisonment. Two or three years thelavv deeras
sufficient as punishment for themost unprincipled of debtors :
bul the Government knows no bounds of vengeance. The
law applicable to insolvents is not applicable here ; to be a
debtor to the Government, especially in these cases of
revenue, is like being a debtor to death; the crown, which
is called the fountain of mercy as well as of honour, kuows,
when it becomes a creditor of an unfortunate man, nothing
at all of forgiveness ; and is the only creditor to whose in
exorable exactions tlie law sets no bounds.
AA'here there only this one thing belonging to the system of
internal taxation, it ought to be abolished ; it ought to be
torn up by the roots and destroyed. If a raan become a
bankrupt, and be in debt for taxes or duties, the Govern
ment comes and takes all, if its demand amount to the
whole, aud leaves the other creditors without a farthing.
But, besides this, there is alw.-iys the monopoly attendant
upon the tax. I have mentioned the case of raalt, that of
candles, soap, and every other taxed thing, is subject, from
the sarae cause, to raonopoly in a greater or less degree.
The tax upon soap, including the monopoly, amounts to
more than one- half of the price of the article. It is the re
straint under which the soap-maker is placed, the annoyance
and risk to vvhich he is exposed ; these are the causes of the
monopoly, and they fully justify his charges on account of
them ; so that the nation actually pays from seven to eight
millions a year in order to support a race of men called tax-
gatherers, whose business it is to torment the persons who
make and deal in the articles, and io augment unnecessarily
the price of those articles far beyond that occasioned by the
tax. Most of the person.s vvho are in possession of these
monopolies are but too prone to wish for their continuance.

114 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
They gain by the tax, because they make a great charge in
consequence of their exclusive right to make the things.
They are harassed and tormented by tax-gatherers ; but, at
last,' Ihey contract a fellow-feeling with tlie government;
they consult their own interest, though they know that it is
in open hostility to that of their country.
Another evil, arising out of this taxation, in detail is, the
hypocrisy, the lying, the false swearing, and the fraudulent
acts to vvhich it is constantly giving rise. Then comes the
state of dependence of all those who are engaged in the
monopoly, and who feel themselves to be, at all times, in
some degree, at the mercy of the Government and its ma
gistrates. How many hundreds of men were ruined during
the early part of the French war, for being even suspected
of vvhat was called "jacobinism!" As to those who had
the raonopoly of the retail of drink, they were the re.il per
sonal slaves of the Governraent. They were frequently
mustered by the magistrates, and compelled to give an ac
count of conversations carried on in their houses. They
were forced to obey, or the raonopoly was gone. Maltsters,
soap-boilers, and variolas others, subject to the laws of excise,
were by no raeans in a better situation. All of them were
subject to domiciliary visits, as indeed all of them are now ;
and therefore they were agents in fact of the Government,
to be spies upon the conduct of their neighbours ; and many
of them were actual spies, and carried on their work in a
manner the most effectual.
Another evil is the prodigious mass of idlers thus created,
and these drawn too from sources most villanous. There is
scarcely such a thing as an exciseman or tax-gatherer ofany
sort, down to the very doorkeepers and porters of the tax
ing offices, who does not owe his promotion to some work
at an election, or to some patronage or other arising out of
services of himself or parents, of a nature hostile to the
well-being of the community. The various causes from
which this innumerable horde of tormentors are selected, it
would require a large volume to state. Their numbers are
prodigious; and for every one in possession, there are always
two or three in expectancy ; and these, in the meanwhile,
are at best unprofitable consumers of food and wearers of
clothes. Then, as there_ is no law, either statute or in-
nature, to forbid them from producing their like, they pro
ceed, in spite of the principles, of Malthus, to add to the-
population of the country. None of them, and none of their

LECTURE v. 115-
children, ever work ; ever produce anything useful to the
community, to which they are a dead and intolerable burden,.
besides setting a constant example of laziness and of living
by trick.
Now, gentlemen, would il not be a benefit to the country
to sweep avvay this race of vermin ? I do not mean to sweep
Ihem off the face of the island, or to hurl ihem down into
wells, or down chalk-pits ; but lo make thera cease to be
what they are ; to make thera submit to the general sentence
pronounced by holy writ ; namely, to make them live by the
sweat of their brow ; lo condemn them ; in the words of the
Apostle, " those that will not work shall not eat ;" a
sentence much more lenient than that vvhich is, in fact,
pronounced on those who now labour lo support tbem ;
namely, that though they do work, they shall be lialf starved.
Those only who have looked well into the matter can
form an adequate idea of the evils which arise to a country
from its containing great hordes of persons who are not
employed to any useful purpose. It is very wisely ob
served by Lord Bacon, who indeed never said a foolish
thing, that one of the great causes of.the overthrow of
states, vvas the suffering of great numbers of idlers to exist
in a country. He instances soldiers, and particularly clergy
men who are married. These, he says, are the cause of
great numbers being born who never can be expected lo
work ; though, in his time, parsons vvere not so pampered
as lo entertain the hope that their children must all be
gentlemen and ladies. This, however, raight be borne were
there nothing but the clergy ; and did they all reside upon
their livings, and have the livings belonging to them and not
to others, their savings might provide a sufficiency for plac
ing their children beyond the necessity of resorting to manual
labour for their raaintenance ; and as they would naturally
be reared up in virtuous principles and good raanners, there
could not much evil arise from this source, from which per
sons of superior degree would arise ; but when to these are
added the children of ten or fifteen thousand military and:
naval officers, and three times as many thousands of lax-
gatherers of various sorts ; vvhen this is the case, the evil
becomes loo great to be borne ; and, if not put a stop to in
time, it must in the end produce the subversion of the state.
Therefore, one of the very first duties of a raeraber of a ,
reformed Parliament, is to use his utmost endeavours to
cause a total abolition of these internal taxes, as being the-;

116 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
grand hot-bed for the breeding of idlers, and for perpetuating
the breed. AA-ith regard to the tenth proposition, namely,
that vvhich relates to the duties .received at the Custom
house, there appears never lo have been a time when such
duties did not form a part of the revenues in England. It
would be too tedious at this time, and in this place, to enter
into a detail of the particular articles proper lo be taxed at
the Custom-house ; but it is easy to lay down the principle on
which the legislature ought to proceed in the laying of those
duties ; and that principle is this, that the duties should not
be imposed so rauch for the sake of the money proceeding
from them as for the s.ake ofthe perraanent good ; that is to
say, the perraanent povver and happiness of the nation. For
the raere pecuniary gain is a small matter indeed, corapared
with the greatness and happiness of a couutry. If by a com
mercial treaty a nation, England for instance, could obtain
an immensity of profit ; if she could make three or four
Manchesters spring up in a year; and if that treaty included
a condition (supposing the treafy to be vvith France), that
the French should occupy .the coasts of Kent and Sussex,
and build vvhat fortresses they pleased there, vvill any man
say that such a treaty ought to be entered into ? This is an
extreme case to be sure ; but it serves lo show that a nation
raay derive great gain from commerce, and ensure its own
ruin by the same means, and at the same tirae. Every wise
legislature will do all they can to add to the wealth of the
country over which it presides ; but it vvill take care, at the
same time, not to purchase this wealth at the expense of the
safety and power of the country. This ought to be the
principle to guide those who lay on custom-house duties;
and in this respect our forefathers evinced the greatest of
wisdom, by constantly foregoing all prospects of pecuniary
advantage, which vvere inconsistent with that great object,
the fostering of our own navigation, and the securing of
our dominion on the seas.
There is, at this time, a point vvhich is by no means
settled, wilh regard to our comraercial intercourse with the
United Slates of America: namely, whether a belligerent
nation have the right lo prevent the ships of a neutral nation
covering the goods of the other belligerent. For instance,
England and France being at war, and the Americans being
at peace with both, whether an American ship shall have a
right to carry French goods to Spain vvithout being liable'to
have the goods taken out of her by an English ship as being

LECTURE T. Ilt7
the goods belonging to the enemy, or whether, if the ship be
bound lo America itself with the French goods and the goods
be the property of a Frenchman, or Frenchmen, we shall haye
a right to take out the goods ; or whether, if a Frenchraan
have goods in the United States, and they be in an American
ship going to France, or any of the territories of France, we
shallliave a right to take out these goods. Now, we contend
for the affirmative of this right ; we contend, that, in all
these cases, we have a right to take out the goods ; while the
Americans contend, that, in the two latter cases at any rate,
we have no such right, and that the neutral character of the
ship ought to be coraraunicated f o the goods. Then, there ia
another ground of difference, relating to articles contraband
of war. All nations allow the right of a belligerent to seize
articles contraband of war found in a ship bound lo the port
of an eneray ; but, then, ponderous voluraes \ave been
written to settle the point of what are articles contraband of
war. The Americans raake the list very short, and we make
it very long; they confine it to arms, ammunition, warlike
accoutrements and implements ; we stretch it lo hemp, sail
cloth, pitch, tar, and to evsrything that can be iraagined,
that goes lo the making of a ship, or that can possibly be of
any use in enabling an array to take the field ; for instance,
we include leather, as being intended to be used for making
harness for horses to draw cannon vvith. But vve dp not stop
here, very far from it ; we include in our list every species of
provisions, or, as the French call them, " munitions de
louche," in which indeed we are kept in countenance by this
¦very French expression, which is a regular phrase, meaning
eatables for an army or a navy.
Now, I am for the enforcing of all these rights claimed by
us, I can offer as good arguments for them and as good
aiithorities as Jonathan can offer against them ; besides
which (and this is the great argument in discussing questions
of national law) they are all necessary to us ; we have the
power of asserting them; and the giving of them up would
be the sure and certain cause of the loss of our power. Sel
den proved, and clearly proved, in his time, that Grotius was
wrong in contending that the seas were the highway of
nalions : he proved thai England had, in all times, possessed,
asserted, and uninterruptedly enjoyed, the sovereignty of the
seas ; and this being tlie case, and the sovereignly being
still necessary to us, I am for maintaining it against cousin
Jqtjathan ; for cousin here, or cousin there, we are not to

118 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
become feeble in order lo gratify him. To talk of everlasting
peace is nonsense : it is the dream of benevolent madmen.
Jonathan manifestly dreams of no sucb thing ; for he wisely
goes on making provision for war; and, indeed, ac/wa//^
preparing for war.'" I am for preparing too ; and this brings
me to the next proposition ; namely, that for making effec
tual provision for the maintenance of a powerful navy.
Thepowerof anavy does not, anymore than that of an army,
rest on its nwrnerica/ force only, but also in the character of the
materials of which it is composed, and particularly in that of
the tnen, including those vvho coramand as vvell as those who
have to oN^y. Every Englishraan raust blush at the recollec
tion of what took place during the last vvar vvith the United
States. The noise about Waterloo came very aptly to divert
our attention, and false boast as that was, the nation seemed
glad to squander its wealth on the reputed hero, as it were, to
prove the reality of the glory, while its eyes were shut to the
deep disgrace of iheAraerican v/ar. AVhat we then experienced,
we must again experience three-fold, unless there be a com
plete renovation of the naval service. AA'^e have now a new
and most formidable rival on the seas ; and it is in vain that
we hope to avoid a contest with him, for which contest he is
preparing, and, what is more, he tells us that he is. AVe must
therefore be prepared, not only with ships and guns and am
munition, but with men and officers, and those too of a stamp
very different from that of thosevvith whom we had to carry

* I cannot send this to the press withoutobserving, that there is not
one drop of blood in my heart that has not in it friendship towards the
Americans. 1 admire their valour and the manner in which they
defended their couutry against our Government iu its unjust acts of
aggi-essiiin. 1 feel towards those, aud the memory of those, who caused
the brave Americans to be killed on Dart Moor, all the hatred that
can exist iu tlie human breast. On my own individual account, I owe
the people of that country a debt of gratitude that I can never repay ;
and, as an Englishman, I owe them still greater gratitude for having
prevented the boroughmonger Parliament from suljduing them, aod
ther**by having prevented it from everlastingly subduing us ; which
dolJole subjugation was clearly tlieir intention atthe time when Sir
Jo&HPH Yorke, then a Lord of the Admiralty, said, in his place in
Parliament, that England raust not lay down her arms till James
Madison was deposed. Had it uot been fur the vaWiur ofthe Ameri
cans in the last war, England would, in my firm couvictiou, have
presented to the world a den of miserable slaves for ages 3'et to come.
Therefore I love the Americans, and rejoice in their prosperity and
happiness ; but it was my lot to be born in England, and it is my duty
to endeavour to uphold her true greatness in preference to the great
ness ofall tbe other nations io the world.

LECTURE T. 119
on the late war, when it is notorious that, in nine cases out of
len, or more, we were beaten by an inferior force, in point of
number of guns and men. The apologist for us who vvrote
the history of that war, has the miserable excuse thai our
seamen were worn out, and were tired of fighting and of
glory. These are nearly the very words made use of by Mr.
James, in his history of that war. He says that the Araeri
cans came fresh to the combat, and vvere full of hope of ob
taining laurels. How precisely opposite this is to all the
opinions and reasoning of mankind upon the ssrae subject
every one must know ; therefore we are compelled to look
for sorae other cause of that astonishing occurren.<e ; namely,
England beaten in a war single-handed by the Araerican
states. The real cause was to be found in the great difference in
tbe characters and qualities of our officers and raen, and of
their officers and men. I remeraber my Lord Cochrane
telling me, that he believed that the crew of a small Ameri
can ship, which he took with his frigate, in virtue of some
-order in council, would, though perhaps he had twice or
thrice the number, have weighed tnore, if put into a scale,
than his whole ship's crew ; or than double their number of
his ship's crew. This was a forcible way of expressing the
vast superiority in the size and strength cff the American sea'-
men. The truth is this ; I believe thatthe pay of the Ameri
can seaman is as much for a week as the pay of an English
seaman for a month. I will not speak positively here, not
having the books at hand ; but, at any rate, I know that it
is a great deal more. Then, as to provisions and clothing,
every possible care is taken in the Ameriaan navy to provide
for the good feeding and for the health of the men : and
equal care is taken lo prevent their being plundered by
pursers, and by blaspheming Jews, both of Whom plunder our
poor dissolute creatures, who have never any ground of hope
of being able lo accumulate so much as twenty shillings,
and whose pay is given to Ihem at such times, and in such a
manner, as to render it next to impossible for them to I'cel
any encouragement lo be economical and provident. Then,
again, in the division of the prize-money, the proportion re
ceived by IheAraerican searaan is about ten tiraes as great as
that received by the English seaman, compared with that bf
the officers. I remeraber reading an account of the Deccah
array prize-money, when the portion of the General com
manding was FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS, or upwards,

120 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
and the portion of the private soldier sixteen shillings. The
payment loo of this prize-money is so difficult to be obtained
by the seaman, that great nurabers of them die in vain pur
suit of the payraent ; and those vvho have read the Register,
will recollect that the poor sailor Cashraan, who was hanged
as a traitor, for having joined a contemptible and noisy riot
in London, expired in declaring, that, sent from agent to
agent in search of his prize-money, he had been reduced to a
state nearly approaching to starvation, and had finally got
into the riot, not knowing what he did. The Americau sea
men have the most complete security as to this matter.
Their prize-money is as surely theirs as the rent of a farm is
the landlord's. That, as vvell as iheir pay, takes place regu
larly and without delay, vvithout any cost or any difficulty.
They can make over the power of receiving both, or any por
tion of both, to their parents, their wives, their children, or
their friends.
Thus, to be an American seaman, is even a profitable
calling ; and then, with regard lo promotion, that great sti
mulus to good conduct and valour, the course is always clear.
Hence it is that the Americans stand in no need of the
cruel and disgraceful practice of impressment. They stand
in no need of this, in no need of boarding merchant-ships,
tearing away the hands, and thus inflicting great injury on
the owner and the merchant ; no need of this monstrous act
<of violating the contracts between all the parties ; no need of
that, which has alvvays been a disgrace lo England, which
has always arisen from the same cause ; namely, the want of
sufficient pay, the want of good and sufficient food and
clothing ; the want of just and punctual payraent of wages and
of prize-money ; and, above all things, the want of a fair
chance in the way of promotion, the want of just rewards of
conduct and of valour, of vvhich I shall speak more fully by-
and-by. The seamen of the American navy are not profligate ami
abandoned persons, sent to sea to be gotten rid of; they are
not men running avvay from the pursuit of justice ; they are
not creatures picked up where they can be picked up, and
frequently conderaned to. serve on board ship as a punish
ment for crimes. They are young men well bred up, and of
fair prospects in the world ; the greater part of thera sons of
farmers, farming their own land ; some the sons of trades
men of respectable state in life ; and very rarely of a dissolute
character.

LECTURE V. 121
It is not, in the American navy, a difficulty to obtain men ;
for there are alvvays enough to offer ; and the service has to
choose among the best, and not to take the refuse bf merchant
ships. Hence the men are strong and well-behaved ; each
has a character to sustain as much as if he were still on,
shore on the spot where he was born. To secure obedience
amongst men of this description great severity is not required;
and hence it is that English seamen have been found so prone
to desert to Araerican ships.
Now, unless we can bring our navy to reserrible that of
America in this respect, we can never, man for man, and gun
for gun, raeet that navy, without risk of incurring disgrace.
But if we were to make the thing right in all other respects,
we should still fail, unless we made a complete change with
regard lo the principle of promotion. AVe have never been
wise In this respect, we have always given a preference to
the aristocracy and its dependents ; vve have always suffered
that villanous thing called interest to prevail against merit,
be the merit never so great. Instead of the word interest
we should make use of that of corruption. But if we have
always been unwise in this respect, what are we novv ? Till
of late years, there vvere occasionally adrairals vvho had been
coraraon sailors, we saw lieutenants and raasters and com
manders who had been before the raast. But now how
is it ? AVhy now there is a naval academy, established on the
same principle as the military academy, the expenses, the
purposes, and the effects of which, I described to you the
other night. Out of this naval academy all future officers of
the navy are to come ; and vvho they are that go into that naval
academy 1 need not say, for the faraous interest is al work
here also, and here it must be at work as long as this system
shall remain. I remember my Lord Cochrane telling the
House of Commons to its face, that a common sailor, how
ever meritorious, however skilful, however brave, never could
again be an officer in the navy ; and that this was not only
unjust, a regulation of great injustice towards the middle
and lower class ofthe people ; but that it was also the most
unwise that ever was thought of in the world ; for that great
numbers ofthe best and most efficient officers had come from
before the mast.* This is notoriously the case; this de-

* I cannot put upon paper this passage of ray speech without ob
serving that Ihave just read, in the London papers, an account of .
some grant made by that part] of our rulers who are called Surveyors
O

122 MANCHESTER LBCTCRES.
scription of men were always held in honour; but never can
we, till the system be changed, see one of them again. There
are probably two or three thousand midshipmen who served
before the close of the late war. Not a man of these, except
in virtue of interest, will ever be called into the service again.
Tihere are thousands of lieutenants, I believe, in the same
situation ; all the new officers, as in the case of tbe army,
are taken out of the academy. And, as to the promotion ;
as to the fairness and impartiality of it, a return, laid before
the Parliarae:;it a few years ago, showed that there were
persons belonging to the aristocratical families, who vvere
become post-captains over the heads of thousands upon
thousands of seniors in the service; and that some of
these post-captains, amongst whom vvere the son of Can
ning, the son of Ldrd Melville, the son of Sir Joseph
"J/^ORKE, a son of Lord Spencer, and others, who were actu
ally in the coiimiand of ships, having under them sailing-
masters, and lieutenants, who were serving at sea before these
captains were horn ! And, is it vvith stuff like this that we
are to fight Jonathan ! That disgraceful war with America
was commenced by one of these sprigs of nobility, whose
of Crown Lands to this really gallant officer, who is now become au
£akl. I do hope, from the great respect aod great regard which I
have always borne and still bear towards him, that his lordship will not
by this act, or hy ^ny other act of his life, seem to express an acqui
escence in the justice of that sentence of infamy that was passed upon
liim in 1814. Fur my own part, I have always believed, aud still be
lieve most sincerely, that he was wholly innocent of tl»e charge. If hc
had done the thing which was imputed to him, it would have been no
crime, but merely a folly, in sinking himself, for the moment, down
to a level with a loanmonger or a stock-jobber. I was perfectly well
acquainted wi-.h the whole of the transactions at the time ; the couvic
tiou in my mind was, and still is, that he was entirely innocent of the
charge. However, if he was innocent, how is he ever to forgive, until
atonement be made to hini ; how is he ever to forgive the sentence of in-
famy passed upon him and his subsequent degradation fmm the Order
of the Bath .' If it be lawful for the Surveyors of Crown Lands to make
presents of the nation's property, there are very few persons on whom
I .should like to see a hit of public land bestowed better than tbis noble
man, if he were iu a situation to make nie think tl consistent with his
lionour to receive the gift. But, seeing his present situatiou with re
gard to this Governraent, King and all, I must say, that I shall be very
much pleased to tiud that the newspapers have given « wrong informa
tion uponthe subject. Heis oneot the men to whom tbe nation ought
to look fur greai services in tbe times tbat are caming ; ajid^ again X
express my hope that he will neither say nor do anything which shall
seera to express an acquiescence in the justice of the treatment which
be received in 1814.

LECTURE V. 123
name was Dacre, and who was a relative ofthe lord of that
name. Being a captain of a frigate, and being in the West
Indies, he was dispatched to the coast of the United States.
Jlecollecting the story of Van Tromp, he hoisted a broom at
his mast-head, thereby notifying his resolution lo sweep the
seas of the ships of the eneray. Jonathan went out vvith a
frigate, beal him in ten minutes, and took hira into port as
* prisoner of war, the broora still sticking at the mast-head.
A captain, who had come frora before the mast, might have
been unable to beat the Yankee ; but sueh a captain would
have gone to the bottom ; or, at least, laid his own body
dead upon the deck. He would not have been led in at any
rale in this lady-like manner; and, if the nation had lost its
ship, it would not have lost its honour.
Now, unless all this can be changed, a reform ofthe Parlia
ment is totally useless : it can do no good ; it will only excite
false hopes and groundless expectations. If the people, and
¦especially in these towns in the north, have not a new raind and
a new soul upon this occasion ; if they do not cast aside all the
motives by whieh electors have been hitherto actuated ; if they,
not from corrupt motives, but from half-selfish, half-childish
considerations, return raen to Parliaraent vvho are accessible
to the blandishraents qf those whose interest it is that the
sjslem should still be supported iu its present form and effects,
all that the reform will do, is to proclaim to the world that
Englishmen richly deserve their degradation and their misery.
If there be thai new soul, there will be a total change of
the system; and amongst other changes will come that
which is expressed in the twelfth proposition ; naraely, lo
place the King in a situation becoraing his exalted rank, bis
most important functions, and the greatness of the country
of which he is the chief. I propose that the money granted
fpr the use of his Majesty, and for the use of all the members
of his family through him, should be at his own absolute
disposal ; and that he should have the real, and not the no
minal, appointraent of all his officers and servants of every
description. Il is greatly disadvantageous to the King that
the nation do not know what part of ils resources it is that
re^Uy goes to his use. More than a million of money is
voted yearly for what is called the Civil List ; and then the
people, lookiug upon the King as the sole cause of this
enormous expenditure, and comparing it with the salary of
the President ofthe Uniied Stales, conclude that kingly go
vernment is essentially dear, and that republican government
g2

124- MANCHESTER LECTURES.
is essentially cheap ; and, no longer ago than yesterday, I
read in the Morning Chronicle, in a set of reraarks on llie
complaints relative to the weight ofthe French debt, that the
interest of the debt ought to be duly paid ; and that if the
French could not pay it wilh a costly kingly government,
they ought to try a republic, which I thought a rather ugly
hint ! Hswever, ugly as it is, it is a hint which, in conver
sation, is very often given in England ; and it is impossible
to disguise tlie fact, that an opinion of the injurious costli
ness of kingly government has long been gaining ground in
this.country : to cherish such an opinion, the mode of stating
the accounts of the expenditure is extremely well calculated.
The people, therefore, should know the truth ; they shoidd
know what the King really has for his use ; they shoulcC
know that a very sraall portion of the money is expended ora.
his account, or frora any wish of his; that it is voted for
him, but, in fact, taken away and applied to the use of others
in the far greater part. If the allowance was fixed, and.
clearly specified, the people would know what the King^-
really had. It has been the policy of the boroughmongers
to keep the King at a distance from the people ; lo forbid or
prevent all approach lo him. This has gone on by degrees
till at last our right lo petition the King is completely taken
away. This is attended, as it naturally must be, by great
and innumerable evils ; and it is certain to produce this evil,,
namely, that the people vvill inevitably deem the office and'
functions of King as being of little use to them.
A remarkable instance of the effect of preventing petitions
frora being presented to the King vvas exhibited in Harap
shire in the fall of last year. A considerable nuraber of
sraall farmers and labourers met together in the norlh of
Hampshire, in the centre of a little bunch of parishes, about
eight miles from Vl^inchester ; they drew up a petition lo ther
King, stating all the grievances that afflicted Ihem, and pray
ing the King to give his assent to a reform of the Parliament,.
the want of which they deeraed the great cause of all those
grievances. The petition was signed by about two hundred
persons, and Joseph Mason, a labourer in the parish of
BuUinglon, undertook lo carry the petition to the King, who
was then at Brighton, the distance between which and Bul-
lington is about sixty miles. Mason faithfully carried the
petition, was kept outside the door while the petition was
carried in, and vvas soon informed by Sir Herbert Taylor
that the King would not receive the petition unless it came

LECTURE V. 125
through a Secretary of State in London. Mason tramped
back again wilh his petition, and of course rendered an ac
count of his mission. Soon after this the rioting began in
Hampshire, and this bunch of parishes vvas more conspicuous
than any other part of the couniy for those acts which finally
led lo the Special Commission, of vvhich Wilde and Denman
were two of the members, at the same time that they were
the chief advocates against the accused. At the close of that
commission, that county, containing two hundred and ninety-
eight parishes, presented the following dreadful list : —
135 transported, mostly for life.
3 hanged, one for being engaged in the riots, and the
other for hitting Bingham Baring, without doing
hira bodily harm.
73 wives deprived of their husbands.
243 children bereft of their fathers.
210 parents lo bewail the loss of their sons.

663

Making more than two sufferers to every parish in the
county. I do not pretend, gentlemen, to believe that the
rejection of the petition at Brighton was at all the cause of
these lamentable occurrences ; but I do believe, and most
firmly believe, that if the petition had been graciously re
ceived, and if only a civil word had been uttered to Joseph
Mason, there would have been no violences in that part of
Hampshire. It is surprising with vvhat rapidity intelligence
flies from one end lo the other of a thinly-settled country.
The rejection of this petition vvas heard of, in every part of
Hampshire, in the course of three days ; and, of course, a
gracious reception of it would have been he.nrd of in the
-same space of time ; and it is possible, at any rate, that in
stead of a county the people of vvhich must be brooding over
feelings vvhich raust suggest themselves lo every intelligent
mind, this might have been a county wholly unconscious of
any such feelings.
This is an instance, and only one out of ten thousand, of
¦cutting off all direct communication between the King and
his people : the measures that I recoraraend vvill restore that
comraunication. Soon after I returned from America, in the
year ISOO, being at Ascot-heath races, vvhat was my astonish-
¦ment to see the then King having in the race-box two noto-
i-ious police-officers, one on his right-hand and one on his

126 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
left, and standing nearer his person than anybody else ! It-
is useless to comment on such a fact : it speaks for itself;
and no one who has any wish to see the kingly government
maintained can fail to desire to see an end to a system that
could possibly render such pi ecau tions necessary. I may
deceive myself; I raay be a bad judge of the matter; but,
according to my judgment, the vvay to cause the King to be
held in honour by all his subjects, and lo receive from Ihem
a willing obedience, is to place him in the situation described-
in the proposition, the measures pointed out in which I have
been endeavouring to defend.
But, gentlemen, in order to have the means of defraying
the expense of a navy, such as I have described, and to have
at the same tirae a sufficiency fo meet the expenses occa
sioned by the King, the officers of state, the judges, rainisters
at foreign courts, and sorae other establishments necessary to
the good government of the country, there must be a revenue^
The pensions, and olher things of that sort, the standing
army, and all its monstrous expenses ; the taxing establish
ments : all these my propositions sweep away. But they
leave a powerful navy lo be provided for, and also the ex«-
penses belonging to the King and his court. They give him
the absolute control over his parks, gardens, and palaces j
and in speaking of these latter, one would wonder what he
could do with them all ; and I dare say people in general are
afraid that they must be rotting and mouldering into decay;
for though an abundance of money is granted for the keeping
them up, and keeping them in good order, still, as he never
lives at Hampton-court or Kensington, for instance, the walls
must become damp, and the place not fit to live in. If you-
were to go to those palaces you would be most agreeably dis
appointed ; for they are always full of raost excellent com
pany ; and you would see brass-plates on the doors of the
suits of apartments, informing you that this lord, that lady,.
this honourable miss, and thai honourable gentleman, were
the inhabitants of the place ; and at Kensington-palace yoa
would see, araongst others, the name of that Mr. Croker,
who now so boldly arr.aigns the Ministers for their intention
to raake a reform of the Parliament ! I dare say, that if it,
were proposed to put these peuple out of the palaces, they
would insist upon it that they, had a " vested" right of ])os-
session ; and if the King himself were to think proper to go
in lo look at the apartments, it would excite surprise in no
body that knows them, if they were to regard hira as a tres-

LECTURE v. 127
passer, and ask him what the devil he was doing there.
Where there is a vesting there can be a divesting.; and I
should have little hope of a reformed Parliament, that should
sit a month without sending these gentry to hire lodgings for
themselves, and restoring the King to the possession of his
own palaces.*
To return lo the expenses ofthe counfry, vve must first ob
serve, thoug'h it seems to be always overlooked, that the country
governs itself, and pays for its own governraent, wholly inde
pendently of the government up at London. This part ofthe
institutions of the country still exists in forra at any rate.
Each county has a coraplete government in itself; it has a
lord-lifeutenant, a sheriff, justices of the peace, and all inferior
officers ; it has a militia, when the posse ofthe sheriff is found
insufficient for the purpose of keeping the peace. It provides
for all these by a tax called the county- rate. Il has no need
ofany interference of the Governraent up in London, except
•that it wants the King to appoint its sheriff and its justices
and its lord-lieutenant ; to give his coramissions to the officers
¦of its militia, and lo send his judges twice a year, to cause
justice to be executed, and to decide, in conjunction with the
-juries, on matters relative to the differences between man and
man. The counties pay, and pay well, for the governing of
themselves, just as the .'several States of Araerica dp; and
this one county of Lancaster pays raore for this purpose than
any four or five of the American States. When the tax-eaters
tell us, therefore, and when good foolish people adopt the
tale, that Government must be supported, the proper answer
is, that the Government is supported in the counties, and in
the several cities and towns ; but vvhat they mean by Govern
ment are, the fundholders, the dead-weight, the pensioners,
and sinecure-people, the haunters of the club-houses, and all
the swarms of idlers that devour the substance of the nation.
The county- rate, that is to say, the money that is raised to
support the Government in the county, to keep peace and

* There is a personage, particularly dear to the inhabitants of Man-
phester, whose narae is Henry Addington, and whose title is Lord
Viscount Sidmouth; amidst lofty and beautiful trees, and surrounded
by herds of fat fallow-deer, lives this noble viscount, in a palace, in the
•ndddle.of Richnmnd-park, surrounded with a high wall, ten iniles in
lei)g;l.h. How he came there, not being yet a member of a reformed
Parliament, I have no means of discovering. But having a great desire
to know how it was, I shall certainly, if 1 become such member, not
fail to ascertain to the greatest nicety.

128 MANCUESTBR LECTURES.
order, and to cause property to be protected and justice tobe
done, is raised in the countv ; but then it is expended in the
county, as il ought lo be, and not carried away out of it, to
be expended in London, in Paris, or in Rorae.
What, then, is required to support the kingly governmeni?
It would be quite ample lo leave al the sole disposal of the
King, about one hundreil or one hundred and fifty thousand
pounds a year; quite sufficient to allow three hundred thou
sand pounds more for officers of state, judges, ambassadors,
and contingent expenses appertaining to this general govern
ment ; for as to colonies, it is raere hypocrisy, if not perfidy,
to pretend that it can be beneficial to hold a colony that calls
-upon the nation for one single farthing of expense, beyond
that vvhich is incurred by keeping up a navy to proiect those
colonies against the hostility of foreign states. The whole of
the navy, during the last peace, cost little more than a rail
lion of pounds sterling a year. Lei it now cost three raillions
and a half, and then it would bring the whole expenditure of
the kingdora, exclusive of. the governraent of the counties,
down to four millions a year, or lo five at the very utmost.
I defy any man lo point out the necessity of any expenditure
beyond this. The whole of the government expenses of the
United States; the general government, wilh its army, navy,
arabassadors, custom-house officers, and all put together ;
and adding thereto the government expenses of the twenty
States, ofwhich the Union now consists : all these put to
gether do not amount to three millions of pounds sterling a
year. Why should vve want more ; and if vve do not want
more, vvhy should we raise more ?
However, I am for raaking a large provision for the navy,
because I would have the sailors well paid, and have them
able and faithful. We have now three generals to every
regiraent of foot and every regiment of horse, and two ad
mirals to every ship of the line. 1 should be afraid to state
this fact, if it did not stand recorded in books published by
the Government, or persons acting with the approbation of
the Government. Tlie fact is so monstrous, that it seems to
-call in question, not only the spirit, but also the sanity that
permits an abuse so outrageous. If, because we have so long
been paying sixty raillions a year to the divers sorts of tax-
gatherers, you think you cannot be safe in your houses
if we pay only four or five millions a ye.ar, then indeed
you must continue to pay the sixty; but observe, al the same
time, that a parliamentary reforra is a thing neither wanted

LECTURE V, 129
nor to be rationally desired. It is for the express purpose of
lightening the burdens of the people : it is for the express
purpose of making cheap government, and, if it do not
answer this purpose, it vvill be a great deal better for it never
to take place.
Now, gentlemen, for the means of raising, in a cheap, easy,
and sure manner, these four or five millions a year ; for, if the
sum be not reduced to that, in lime of peace ; if a reformed
Parliament will not cause it to be reduced to that, it shall be
but for a very short time that I will have anything lo do
avitli thai parliament. These means are, in the first place,
custom-house duties; these now amount to about seventeen
millions of pounds sterling a year. They might, wilh great
advantage to coraraerce and mijnufactures, be reduced to
ihree or four, and still leave sufficient protection to navigation,
and lo certain raanufactures. But I would have a general,
uniform, and cheaply-collected tax on real property. I
would have all the hou.ses, lands, mines, and other real pro
perty, valued ; the amount of tax on each parcel of property
should be fixed, and be paid quarterly by the person in occu
pation ; and the payraent should take place on the same day
in every county, and at different places in the county, in order
to make the. matter as little inconvenient as possible. The
payment should be enforced by a process at once speedy and
effectual, and the parties liable to pay should bring the
money to the appointed place, and not have it deraanded of
them at their several places of abode. There would be no
need of any expense of collection beyond a mere trifle to the
person appointed to receive the money from the county ; be
cause the county should take care to have the money brought
and paid at the several places appointed for the payment.
Some people will say, that it is unjust lo tax real property,
and nothing else ; while others have said, I dare say, that lo
take off the tithes, is only giving their amount lo the land
lords. These are very narrow views taken ofthe matter. A
tax upon land is a tax upon everything which the land pro
duces. If you lay a pound of tax upon a landlord, he lays it
on upon the tenant in rent ; and the tenant lays it upon his
wheat and his meat and other produce. All of us are con
sumers, according to our several raeans of consuraption. In
this the landlord and the farmer would pay their share of
the land-tax, which, like every other tax, spreads its influence
in the way of privation over -the whole community ; but a
direct tax on real propertv is the best, because it is so certain
g5

130 MANCH-KSTER LECTURES.
in amount and so cheap in the collection. A pound of tax,
laid upon the landlord of a house is charged by him lo hi»
tenant ; the tenant, if he be in any business, divides it among
his customers ; and if he be not in any business, he deducts
it in sorae shape or other from his servants, or from those
with whom he is accustomed to deal.
A tax of this sort, like the air, reaches everything ; but It
is at the same tirae free from all the vexation, all that annoy
ance, all that endless torment, and those acts of merciless
tyranny, whicb alvvays did, and always must, grow out of a
tax on consumable comraodities. It is just the same with
rsgard to tithes. The tithes would not be given to the land
lord any more than to the rest of the community; nor are
they in their nature al all oppressive any more than rent is.
The farmer has two landlords in place of one, that is all ; and
the taking away of the benefices of the clergy is only, in fact,
the putting an end lo so many small proprietors of land. But,
in lhe first place, the property belongs to the public and the
poor ; in the next place, it is consumed by those who do no
thing for it. The tithe taken away from the parsons, the
benefit is diffused amongst the whole of the community ;
and this is the ground for taking il away, and not because it
is a hinderance to agriculture. A lax upon real property, at
4 per cent, upon the rental, would yield about four raillions
a year in Great Britain; and extended to Ireland, it might
yield four and a half or five. Il would be varied ofcourse,
according to the w an's of the state ; and of these wants the
representatives of the people would be the judge.
One conspicuous benefitwhieh must inevitably arise from the
change is this : that nine-tenths of the time which is now spent
by theParliament in discussing the details of taxation ; and in
discussing the merits of petitions, containing complaints on
the score of thc divers taxes, would all be saved. That
enormous volume of laws which each session now produces,
equal in bulk to all the statutes of any ten kings before the
reign of the House of Hanover, would be reduced to the size
of one of those paraphlets which the boroughmongers' Par
liament allowed us to publish, at a price not less than six
pence ; and the reforraed House of Coramons, driving Bel
lamy's boozing-ken from beneath its roof, would bave lime
by day-light soberly lo consider the measures necessary lo
provide for the happiness of the people, to preserve the power
and uphold the honour of the kingdom.

LECTUBE TI. 131
LECTURE M.
3\st December, 1831.
Gbntlemen, Ir remains for me to submit to you -the reasons on which
1 found the fourteenth and last proposition, which is ex-'
p^ressed in these words : —
14. To cause the Protestant Hierarchy to be legEilly
repealed and abolished in Ireland ; and to cause the
Parliament of the whole kingdom to hold its sessions,
and the King to hold his Court, in Iueland once in
every three years ; and to cause the same to take'
place in the city of York once in every three years,
and also in the city of Salisbury once in every three
years.
If all or any part of the former propositions were " wild
and visionary ; " if these epithets were justly applicable to
them, where wiU you be able lo find epithets descriptive of
the wildness of this proposition? Iam, however, fortunately
circumstanced here : I have to do with a patient that the
doctors have given up ; vvith that sort of patient of which
the sons of the healing art say, " Nothing more can be done
for him : let him have just what he fancies." In short, such
is the slate of Ireland, according even to the confessions of
the Government itself, that no suggestion relative to mea
sures for making it better off than it is can be deemed pre
sumptuous, be they what they may, and corae from what
6ourx:e they may. Every one says that some great change ia
tbe affairs of Ireland is necessary; bul no one attempts to
Sfty what change. Those who pour forth complaints in the
name of Ireland, however just those complaints may be, and
however able the organ of putting them forth, invariably
confi-ne themselves to raakiiig the complaints, to describiiig-
tbeiinjuries and the sufferings of Ireland, to suggesting evils
to be remedied, but seldom or never do they suggest thet
remedy. As to the Government, it acknowledges, both in its words
and its deeds, that the state of that part of the kingdom has

132 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
become, in iheir hands, as bad as it can possibly be ; that
nothing can make that stale worse ; that any change may be
for the better ; that no change can be for the worse ; so that,
as that which I propose is a very great change, it cannot be
deemed presuraption in me to propose its adoption.
Besides, gentlemen, I have this further pretension to be
listened to, in this case, that I have been right, in several in
stances, in predicting the coming of these evils to Ireland,
when the Government, and when even the strictest partisans
of Ireland, have been wrong. It is novv much about ten
years ago since I insisted that prosperity and tranquillity
never could be known to Ireland until the Protestant hier
archy were repealed, and until poor-laws were established
in that country. I should give you no pleasure by describ
ing, even if my raeraory would enable rae lo do it, the ridi-
-cule and censure vvhich were so unsparingly poured out upon
me for entertaining and proraulgating this opinion. Atthe
time when the measure of Catholic emancipation was
pressed upon the attention of the Parliament and indeed
at every time when it was so pressed, from the year 1819 to
the time vvhen it was finally granted, I always contended for
it, as an act of justice due lo Ireland ; but at the same time
I never omitted lo contend that that alone would neither
tranquillize nor benefit Ireland ; and I could refer lo a hun
dred passages in my writings in proof of this fact, " When the
grand meeting took place upon Penenden Heath, in Kent,
4n the month of October 182S, for the purpose of petitioning
the Parliament to grant Catholic emancipation ; and when
the Tories, as Ihey were called, ranged themselves in oppo
sition to that pelition, I ranged myself in opposition to it
also, though il was brought forward by a gentleman of that
couniy for whom I had the greatest respect, and seconded
by a nobleman whom I respected perhaps more than any
other man in the world. I did not, indeed, join the Tories in
their pelition ; but presented a petition of my ovvn, praying
the Parliaraent lo grant Catholic emancipation ; but not
to grant it unaccompanied by a repeal of the Protestant
hierarchy. As we approached the passing of the Emancipation Bill,
I became more zealous in my endeavours to show that that
bill would be of no use unless accompanied by poor- laws, and
a repeal of the Protestant hierarchy, I was perfectly inde
fatigable in my endeavours lo inculcate this belief. In oppo
sition to my opinion was almost the whole of the press, as ,

LECTURE VI, 133
8oon as the Duke of Wellington and Peel had been con*
verted, by that miracle which so surprisingly operated upoA
their souls. While the bill was before the Houses of Parlia*
ment, I did my best to cause it to be passed ; but never did
I mention the subject without, at the same time, urging upon
my readers the truth, that the bill would do nothing without
an abolition of the Protestant hierarchy, and an introduc
tion of tbe poor-laws.'* The very next year the discontents
of Ireland were greater, and their consequences more dread
ful than ever. The Eraancipation Bill gave rise to new feuds.
and placed the Government in a more perilous situation than
it had ever been in before. The Government became a party
in the feuds ; and the country, from one end to the other,
became divided, and that too upon grounds which gave no
hope of any future change for the belter, unless something
-very much like revolution took place. The state of Ireland
was bad enough before the measure of emancipation was
adopted ; but vvhen that raeasure had been adopted the
people of Ireland saw that the ground of quarrel had been,
not between Catholic and Protestant ; when the law had put
Catholics upon a level with Protestants, as to all civil mat
ters and powers, the quarrel became clearly one between
Irishmen and the descendants of Englishmen ; all the old
-wounds were torn open ; and the Catholic Emancipation
Bill held forth the supremacy in Church and State, as a prize
for the two hostile parties lo contend for. Indeed il is per
fectly notorious that the situation of Ireland has been gtow-
ing worse and worse, and more and more replete with
danger, ever since the passing of that famous bill.
Now, as I so repeatedly and so fully and so distinctly re
peated, all these consequences of that bill ; and as the Duke
of Wellington and Peel, joining with Lords Grey and Al
thorp ; as both the parties in Parliament most cordially
joined in expressing their confident expectations of tranquil
lity and prosperity to Ireland, being amongst the conse
quences of that measure ; as Mr. O'Connell and Mr. Sheil,
• I beg leave to refer the readers to the Register of the 26th of
August, 1829 ; anal also to the petition presented by me at I'enenden
Heath, which be will find in the last Register of the month of October,
1828 ; also to the divers Registers written during the time that the'
¦Catholic Emancipation Bill was before the two Houses of Parliaraent.
In these writings tbe reader will be so good as to look for the ground
of my pretensions to offer advice vrith regard to Ireland at this
-moment. -

Xi4 MANCHESTER 'LECTURES.
and the whole of the Catholic Association, expressed the
same expectations, as they consented to dissolvetheir Associ
ation ujion the bare bringing in of the Emancipation Bill|-
and as upon the same ground they assented to lhe disfran*
chisement of the forty-shilling-freeholders of Ireland, ,de*
daring that the bill was so great a good, was so high a -priee«
that it could not be purchased at too dear a rate : describing
it as the bond of peace and of union, as the riv etter of ever*
lasting affection between England and Iceland, as this was
the language of all these persons and parties ; and as my
language and my sentiments, as fully laid before the public^
were precisely the opposite of these ; and as the event has
now proved that I was right, and that they were all wrongs
these facts being notoriously true, I trust, gentlemen, that
you will not deem it presumption that 1 now submit to you
propositions which these sarae persons and parties will, in
all probability, be as much (Usposed lo censure as they wera
my opinions of 1828 and 18'<59.
I now come (thus sanctioned by experience) to the mea*
sures mentioned in the proposition which 1 have just had tha
honour to read to you. The repeal of the Pratestaut
hierarchy in Ireland I have always, since I undenstood any
thing of the matter, regarded as absolutely necessary, as a
heginning to make Ireland other than a burden to England,
as it now is, and as it has been for the last forty years, or
thereabouts. Even that would not do without an introdue*
tion of the poor-laws ; but as one would naturaUy lead to
the other, I only think it necessary to show that thehieramshy
ought to be repealed, and lo be repealed at once and com'
pletely. In order to do this, and to show that it would in
clude nothing unjust towards anybody, I must go into a'
sortof history of the connexion of Ireland with England,
which I trust you will indulge me in doing, when you shall
consider the vast importance of the subject. If Ireland
were indeed a bunch of rocks like the Scilly Islands, .or a
pitiful province hke one of the Cantons of Switzerland, the
inhabitants of which are suffered to exist in their present
state in order to breed butchers to be hired by those
despots to be watchmen for the persons of the despots,
and to cut, when need be, the throats of their subjects : if i*!
were a beggarly bunch of rocks, with here and there a
valley, affording just food enough to rear up wretches who
go and sell theraselves to flght, brother against brother, and
father against son, in the armies of the contending despots j

LECTURE VI. 135
if Ireland vvere a thing of this sort, I should think it ex
tremely unreasonable to waste a moment of your time in
listening to observations respecting it. But Ireland is a really
great aud fertile country, though its fertility has been, in
sorae measure, rendered useless by misgovernment. At any
.rale, it is a country separated from England by nothing
more than what the .Americans vyould call a river ; in do
minion and resources it is inseparable from England ; il is,
in fact, a part. of the very same country, and a pari of it it
must alvvays remain, though it appears lo have been the
policy of the greater part of our rulers, for a series of ages,
to consider it and treal it as a colony. Such being the im
portance of this part of the kingdom, and such its close con
nexion withEngland, no man of common sense will talk of
anything lo promote the greatness and prosperity of the
kingdom, wilhout including Ireland in every measure which
he has lo recommend. Let me now briefly state the history
of this connexion.
There was a time, to be sure, before the nations of the
eontiaent extended their views in this western direction, that
Ireland was wholly separate from England, in point of sway.
The King of England had nothing to do with it, and il was
governed by ils petty princes, in conjunction with the Catho
lic bishops and priests, who, amidst all the wars that occa
sionally took place, had influence enough lo uphold the
Catholic religion. Ireland was looked upon by the Pope, as
belonging to him as supreme sovereign. God knows how
many popes there have been, frora the days of St. Peter down
to the present time ; but I know that there never was but
one Englishraan a Pope. He was a very old raan when he
was made Pope ; and, having Ireland to give away, he would
have been an unnatural dog indeed if he had forgotten his
own country. In short, he made England a present of
Ireland ; and upon that ground the King of England,
Henry II., claimed it, and sent as great a ruffian as ever the
lyorld theretofore had seen to take possession of il in his name.
For several ages the possession was but partial ; and though
the kings of England squeezed Ireland now and then pretty
smartly, and caused it to suffer great cruelties frora their
myrmidons, called governors and comraanders, there was no
ground for general and bitter hostility and deadly persecu
tion, until the Protestant Reformation had taken place, and
until the reign of the savage Queen Elizabeth. Ireland had
frequently been severely punished by the English before : it had

136 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
long been a country occasionally given up to be robbed and
sacked by the rapacious courtiers of England ; but the Ca
tholic religion existing in both countries, there was no vahd
excuse for the general and blood-thirsty persecution which
"Coraraenced in the reign of Ehzabeth, who sent her Protestant
parsons, as Mahomet sent myrmidons, to force themselves
into the Irish churches, sword in hand, and to drag the peopl6
to hear in those churches that which they deemed heresy and
blasphemy. To give an adequate description of the scenes in
Ireland at the lime here referred to sets defiance to all elo
quence, even if I had any at my command.
It was clearly seen that the Protestant parsons and bishops
never could receive tithes, or be suffered to live in Ireland
¦without a transfer of property from Catholics to Protestants.
¦Hence a system of plundering, the raost barefaced, the raost
atrocious, and raost extensive, that ever was beheld in the
world, was invented and acted upon. First, the people were
goaded on to what were called acts of rebellion ; these were
ibllowed by forfeitures, extending over whole counties and
provinces; these forfeitures were fo the crown, in virtue of
the law of high treason ; the crown then granted away or
sold tbe estates thus forfeited ; and thus the thing went on,
until vviihin the last hundred years : hence the estates of the
Irish becarae the properly of the English. But lo the ever
lasting praise of the Irish people, nothing could drive them
from the religion of their fathers. Their sufferings on this
score exceed those of any other people upon the face of
the earth. However, in proportion as the estates were taken
from them, the bodily persecutions diminished in severity.
The Protestant hierarchy, which had been established by
force, has continued lo collect its revenues, always detested
by the vast majority of the people, but enjoying a compulsory
obedience : it existed in comparative safety under the pro
tection of laws which excluded the Cathohcs from all share
of civil and political power. But this exclusion having been
removed by the Emancipation Bill, which, while il repealed
all the penallaws against the Catholics, declared
as corapetent and as fit to enjoy civil, military, naval, and
political power, as the Protestants were; in fact, declared
that a Catholic was as fit lo be a general, an admiral, a
sheriff, a judge, .or lo sit in council with the King, as a
Protestant was. This wholly changed the face of things,
and it amounted lo an imphed declaration that the Protestant
Reformation had been unnecessary to the upholding the

LECTURE VI. 137
kingly power and promoting the prosperity of the kingdom ;
and this declaration having been raade, with what feelings
were Catholics to look back on the persecutions and the
plunderings which they had endured for the sake of introduc
ing the Protestant religion instead of the Catholic? Aye,
but this was not all ; this was a mere trifle corapared to the
<leclaration to which the Emancipation Act amounted, that
the Protestant hierarchy vvas now no longer necessary, to
Ireland at theleast, whatever it might be to England.
The consequences of the great and natural revolution pro
duced in men's minds by this measure we have had con
stantly before us, from the lime of the passing of tbe bill to
this very hour. For my own part, I so clearly foresaw the
consequences, and was so desirous of making a soleran de
claration upon the subject, that, in a very little while after
the bill was passed, I presented to the House of Commons a
petition, dated ou the 20th of April 1829, concluding wilh a
prayer, that the House would be pleased to pass a law " to
" repeal, abrogate, abolish, and render utterly frustrate and
" of no effect the Protestant Church, now established by law
" in Ireland ; " and that it would be pleased "to cause to be
" in that part of the kingdom, effectual provision for the
" relief of the poor."* Thus, then, gentlemen; that which
* The petition, which was presented by Mr. Denison, one of the
Members for the county of Surrey, who, according to a note which he
had previously addressed lo rae, expressed his disagreement in opinion
with the petitioner ; the petition was in the following words :
To the Honourable the Commons ofthe United Kingdom of Great Br'i
tain and Ireland, in Parliament assetnbled.
THE PRTITION OF WILLIAM COBBETT, OF BARNES, IN THE COUNTV
OF SUBREV,
Most humbly showeth,
That your petitioner prays your Honourable House, that the Pro-
Xestant Church of Ireland, as by law established, may be, by law,
repealed and utterly abrogated aud abolished ; and that this prayer he
founds on the facts which he, with the greatest respect, will nosv pro
ceed to submit to your Honourable House.
That, until the year 1547, the Catholic religion was the only religion
known in Ireland : that, after the Protestant religion was introduced
'into England, it was, by law, made to be the religion taught in the
-churches in Ireland ; that a Protestant clergy werc raade to supplant
tlie Clergy of the ancient religion ; that the latter were turned out of
lhe livings and the churches ; thatthe altars were pulled down and
the Mass abolished, and the Protestant Table and Common Prayer
forcibly introduced in their stead.
Thatthe people of Ireland saw with great indignation this attempt
to force upon thera a new -and strange religion, aud to corapel them to

138 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
I now propose to you, with reg-ard to the Protestant hierarchy
of Ireland, is by no raeans a new project got up tor this oc
casion. It is in accordance with my long-entertained and fixed
abandun and bccume apostates to that religion in wbich they had been
boru and bred, that religion which had beeu tbe religiou of fheir
lathers for mauy centuries, aud the truth, purity, aud wisdom of which
were so clearly proved by its happy effects
Tbat, therefore, the people rejected tliis new religion, of the origin
of which, or uf the authority by wliich it w-as imposed on ihem, they
had, aud could have, no idea; but that the Goveruinent of Eng-land
persisted in compelling the Irish to submit lo an abandonmeut of the
ancient and to an adoption of the new religion.
That, iu order to effect this purijose, clergymen to officiate in the
churches of Ireland were sent from Eugland,audthat to these the tithes
and other Church-revenues were all tiansfoi-red, leaving the Catholic
clergy to begorstarve; but that, such was the abliorrence which the
Jrish people enter.taiued at the thought of apostatixin-g from their
religion, tbat they shunned as they would have sliunntd deposits of
deailly pestilence those churches, to which they had before resorteid
vrith punctuality and zeal surpassed by rhe people of no nation on the
earth ; and that, still .clinging to their faithful pastors, they secretly
sought in houses, in barns, in woods, in caves, amongst roclcs, or in
fastnesses of some sort, the comforts of that commuuion to which l^ey
no longer dared to resort in open day.
The Government, irritated at this contumacy, as it was called, but
fidelity, as it ought to have been called, resorted to means the most
tyrannical, the most cruel, and even the most ferocious, in order to
subdue this pious£delity ; that it inflicted fiue, imprisonment, torture,
«r death, a-id sometimes two or three of these all upon the same
person; that it co.nfiscated not ouly innumerable estates belonging to
Catholics, but whole counties at once, on the plea thiit this was neces
sary iu order to plant the Protestant religion ; that the lands thus
confiscated were given to Protestants ; an(i that, in reality, thc former
owners were extirpated, or made little belter than slaves to the in
truders. Thtit, however, in spite of acts of tyranny, at the thought of which Nero
and Caligula would have startled with horror, which acts continued to be
enforced with uiiahate<l rigour for more than 200 years; that in spite
of these acts of fining, confiscating, plundering, racking, aud killin|f,
.all having iu view one single object, that of compelling the people to
conform to the Church us bylaw esiidjliihej ; that, in spite of all
these atrocious acts, these matchless barbarilies of two Imndred years,
the people of Ireland, though their country was frequently almost
literally strewed with mangled bodies, and made red with blood, adt
heied n ith unshaken fidelity to the religion of their:and of our fathers 5
that in spite of deatli coutinually lookiug them in the face ; in spite of
prisons, racks, halters, axes, and the bowel-ripping knife ; dn spite of
all these, tbeir faithful ,priests have uever deserted them ; and that
the priests now iu iieland are the successors of thousands ilf heroic
martyrs, many of whom were actually ripped up and cut into quarters.
That, nevertheless, the new Church, by law established, got safely
into her j50sse,%sion alltbe property that had belonged to the ancient

LECTURE VI. 139-
opinions upon the subject. And I trust, that very little need
be said to convince you that it is impossible to make Ireland
tranquil and happy, to make it any other than a grievous
Church ; and that she took all the tithes, all the parsonage-hou«e&,
all the glebes, all the lauded estates, which in Ireland are of im
mense extent and value; so that Ireland, for nearly three hundred
years, continued to exhibit, aud still exhibits, the strange sight of
au enormously rich established Church nearly without flocks, aud oa
the other hand, an almost mendicant priesthood with flocks comprising
the main part of thepeople; it exhibits a religious system, which takes
the use of the churches Irom the millions, and gives it to the Ihou^
sands; that takes tbe churches from that religion by the followers ot
which they were founded and endowed, and gives thera to that religioft
the followers of which protest against the faith of the fouijders and
endowers, and brand tlieir religion as idolatrous and damnable.
That your petitioner can form an idea of no being short of a fiend,
in point of malignity and cruelty, capable of viewing such a scene
without feelings of horror ; and, therefore he is confident, that your
Honourable House, still, as he hopes, animated with the benevolant
spirit which led to the recent enactment iu favour of the persecuted
Catholics, will hasten to put an end to a scene so digraceful, and tP
Injustice so flagrantly outrageous.
Tbat it must be manifest to every one, that there could be, for
^ving the vast revenues of the Church of Ireland to a Protestant
Clergy, no ground other than that those revenues might be applied ia
such raanner as to cause the main body of the people to become and
reraain Protestants, and that, too, of the coraraunion established by
law : that those revenues, on the most moderate estimate, amount to
three millions of pouuds sterling a year; that several of the Irish
hishops have, of late years, left, at their death, personal property ex
ceeding, fur each, two hundred thousand pounds; that the deaneries
and prebends, and other beneficts iu the Church of Ireland, as by law
established, are of great value ; and that your humble petitioner is
sure that your Honourable House will not deem him presuoiptuous, if
he take it for granted, that your Hoiiuurable House will allow, that i|t
is impossible that any Government in its senses, that auy but tyrants,
and mad tyrants, too, would have givea these imniense revenues to the
Protestant clergy, unless with a view, aud in the confident expectar
tion, of seeing the people, or a large part of them at any rate, con
verted to tlie Protestant faith, and joining in the Protestant commu-
nion; fur, that, otherwise, it must have been evident, that those im
mense revenues could only serve to create division, and to perpetuate
all the passions hostile to the peace and prosperity of a country.
That, however, at the end of two hundred and seveuty-six years,.
tbere are, in Ireland, even a less nuraber of Church Prutestants tliau^
as your humble petiiioner finds good historical reason for believing,
there were au huudred and eighty years ago; aud that it is a fact
generally admitted, that the Church Protestants in that country have
long been, and still are, decreasing in uumber, compared with that of
the Catholics, and also compared with that of those Protestant sects
who stand aloof from her Conimon Prayer and Coramunion ; that it is
an undoubted fact, that, in mauy parishes, there are scarcely any

l40 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
burden to England, unless this, the prayer of my petition,
be acted upon. What do we behold in Ireland at this mo
ment ? For years past we have seen the tiihes collected by
Protestants at all ; that, in some parishes there is not one ; that
throughout the whole country, there is not, on an average, more
than one Cburcb-Pi-otestant to every six Catholics or Dissenters;
and that, while the Catholics are shut out of the churches founded and
endowed by their forefathers of the same faith, and while these
churches are empty, or at best echo to the solitary voice of the sti-
jiendi-ary agent of the opulent and luxurious non-residing incumbent,
the Catholics are compelled, either to abandon the public practice of
their worship, to build chapels at their own expense, or, which they are
frequently compelled lo do, kneel down on the ground and in the
open air.
That, if your Honourable House will hardly be able to refrain from
expressing deep indignation at the thought of a scene like Ihis (exist
ing, apparently, with your approbation), it would be presumption, in
deed, in your humble petitioner, to attempt to estimate the feelings
-with which you must contemplate the present state of the Irish Church,
as by law established, and the present application of its prodigious
revenues.
_ That there are in Ireland 3,403 parishes ; that these are moulded
into 515 livings, and that therefore each person has on an average
the tithes and glebes of more than nine parishes ; that this is not the
Worst, however, for that many of the livings are united, aud that the
whole 3,403 parishes are divided amongst less than 350 parsons ; that
of the 3,403 parishes there are only 139 that have parsonage-houses,
so that there is uow remaining only one parsonage-house to every 24
parishes, and only 465 that have any churches, or one church to seven
parishes ; and that even in these, residence of the incumbent, or even
a curate, seldom takes place for any length of tirae; that the Church,
as by law established, would seem to be merely the means of making
out of the public resources, provision for certain families and persons;
that of the four archbishops and eighteen bishops ofthe Irish Church,
as by lav/ establisbeil, there are, as your petitioner believes, fourteen
who are, by blood or raarriage, related to Peers-; that a similar prin
ciple appears to your humble petitioner to prevail in the filling ofthe
other dignities aud the livings; and that therefore the Irish Church,
as by law established, really does seem to your humble petiiioner to
exist for no purpose other than that of furnishing the Government with
the means of bestowing largesses on the aristocracy.
That, though this must, as your petiiioner presumes your Honoura
ble Huuse will believe, be a great evil, it is attended with evils still
greater than itself; that to expect, in such a state of things, a willing
payment of tithes and clerical dues, would be next to a trait of mad
ness ; that the tithes are often collected by the aid of a inilitary force,
«nd that bloodshed is not unfrequently a circumstance iu the enter-
-prise ; that it is manifest that, if there were no military force kept up,
there could be no tithes collected; and that, therefore, to the evil of
•the present ajiplication ofthe Irish Church revenues, is to be added the
-cost and all the other evils arising from the keeping up of a great
standing army in Ireland; that, besides this army, there is kept on

LECTURE VI. 141
military force ; we have seen the ministers of this Christian
church compelled to forego their claims, or to see those
claims enforced by the sword of the law, at least : frequently
by the literal sword of the policeman or soldier ; and though
these have hitherto triuraphed in the horrible combat carried
on for the purpose of upholding that, the legitimate object of
which is lo promote peace on earth and good wilt amongst
foot an armed, and sometimes, mounted police establishment, costing
an immense sum annually ; that it is clear that neither army nor po
lice would be wanted iu Ireland, were it not for the existence of the
Church Establishment, which the Catholics and Dissenters, who form
six parts out of seven of thepeople, must naturally, and notoriously do,,
detest and abhor ; that, therefore, while the Irish Church, as bylaw
established, appears to your humble'petitioner to be kept up as a source
for supplying Government with the means of bestowing largesses on
the aristocracy, the array and police appear to bim to be required solely
for the purpose of giving efficiency and permanence to that supply.
That, hence arise, as your humble petitioner firmly believes, aU the
discontents, all the troubles, all the poverty, nakedness, hunger, all
the human degradation io Ireland; and this belief he founds upon
facts which are undeniable.
That, when the Reformation laid its raerciless hand on Ireland, that
country, blessed wilh a soil and cliraate as good as any in the world,
had 649 monasteries and other foundations of that nature ; that it had
a cburch in every parish, instead of having, as now, one church, on aa
average, to seven parishes; that it had then a priest in every parish,
who relieved the poor and repaired the church out of the tithes; that
it had, in the monasteries and in the bishops' palaces, so raany points
whence the poor, the widow, the orphan, anil the stranger, received
relief; and that it had (greater than all the rest) U7dly of faith, glory
to God with one voice, peace on earth, and good will towards men.
That, alas ! your hurable petitioner need not tell your Honourable
House, that these have all, yea all, been swept away by the means
made use of to introduce, establish, and uphold the Protestant hierar
chy ; that these means are still in practice, and are, in productiveness
of turmoil and misery, as active and efficientas ever; and that, as long^
as this hierarchy sball continue to exist, these same means must, your
petitioner is convinced, be employed constantly and with unabated
vigour. That, therefore, your humble petitioner prays tbat your Honourable
House, proceeding upon ihe clear precedents sel by former Parlia
ments, will be pleased to pass a law to repeal, abrogate, abolish, and
render utterly frustrate and of no effect, the Protestant Church now-
established by law in Ireland ; that you will be pleased to cause a just
distribution, in future, of the tithes and other revenues now received
by that Cburch ; that, in this distribution, you will be pleased to cause
to be made effectual provision for the relief of the poor; and that yoti
will be pleased to adopt, relative to the premises, such other measures
as, in your wisdom, you shall deem to be meet.
And your petitioner will ever pray,
Barn-Elm, April 20, 1829. Wm, COBBETT,

1.42 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
men, victory seems at last lo begin to change sides ; the
tithe-payers seem now to be becoming tlie victors, and we
almost vvish to call the parsons of the days of the savage
Elizabeth up from their graves, that they may hear the cry of
-" persecution" now ringing through Ireland, from the lips
of the Protestant parsons ! And, gentlemen, will you send
to a reformed Parliament men vvho will suffer these scenes
to continue ; men who, in order still to Uphold this establish
ment, will consent to keep up an army in Ireland, costing
three or four millions a year ; men who vvill consent lo
suffer this state of half-rebellion continually to exist, and who
will suffer this one of the limbs of the kingdora to becorae
paralyzed for all good, while it is rendered doubly strong for
all sorts of evil • if you will consent ; if, either from llstless
ness, or from any motive or cause whatsoever, you can be
prevailed upon to do this, the reform of the Parliament will
be of no more use to you than any other empty and even inr-
articulate sound.
In England, we want only an abolition of the tithes, and
an appropriation to public uses of the other revenues of the
church ; because, here, the Protestant religion according to
lhe riles and cereraonies of the church, is not only dominant
in law, but in the hearts and tastes and habits of the people,
vvho, for the far greater part, have been estranged from the
church, only, by the gross neglect, of the clergy. In many
great towns Ihis is not the case ; but vvhen we are talking of
measures to affect the whole nation, we must take the whole
nation into view. Here, at any rate, the churches are still
standing, and 'also the parsonage-houses, with the exception
of a comparative few. Here there is a Protestant parson of
some degree or other, wbo pretty constantly makes his ap
pearance in every parish church ; but, in Ireland, five or six
parishes, and sometimes nine or ten, have been moulded intp
one living ; and in some cases even these livings have been
united under one rector or vicar. There, there has been such
a, shameful uniting and amalgamating, that scarcely any
such thing as Protestant church service is lo be seen, in many
parts of the country ; there, in some parishes at least, scarce^
ly a Protestant is to be found ; and, taking the whole island
together, the best estiraates stale that there is bul one Church
Protestant toseven Catholics andDissenters. This, therefore, is
a very different affair from the Established Church in England.
Genllemen,ybr ic/ia<pM»7)ose was this hierarchy established
in Ireland J Must il not have been for the purpose of causing

LECTURE VI. 143
the people of Ireland to be Church Protestants 1 It is im
possible that any government, in its senses, that any but
tyrants, and raad tyrants too, would have given the immense
revenuesofthechurch of Ireland to the clergy of that church,
unless in the confident expectation of seeing a large part of
tbe people at least converted to the Protestant faith, and
joining in the Prolestcmt communion. Upon what other
ground could any men but ruthless tyrants have bestowed
upon Protestant parsons and bishops those enormous revenues,
which have of late years enabled sorae ofthe bishops to leave
at their death, each of them, upwards of 200,000?. sterling ?
Yet at the end of about 250 years, this work of conversion
has proceeded so slowly, that this church has not now to
nuraber in its flocks a seventh part of the inhabitants of the
people at most; and, what is raore, according to accounts
which I have seen, and which I believe to be correct, its
flocks are less numerous now than they vvere one hundred years
ago. What pretence, therefore, is there for the upholding of
this church, even if it could be upheld without any expense to
the nation, withoiit the assistance of any army or armed po
lice, without any danger to the peace and safety of the king
dom, without any violence of any sort, and even without
discontent, amongst any part of the people ? Even in that
case, to uphold it would be an act of gross folly, as well as
of crying injustice, but, under the present circumstances, lo
uphold it, and by the means now resorted to, for the purpose,
is an act vvhich posterity will certainly ascribe to nothing
short of madness.
In England the case is very different ; but even here,
whatever is done must be done at once : there must be no
attemi>t at doing the thing bit by bit, such as suffering, for
instance, the incumbents to enjoy their benefices lo the
end of their lives ; and I vvas very much surprised, the
other day, to read in the report of a speech of Mr. O'Connell,
a proposition to leave the benefices in the hands of seve
ral incurabents, as a " vested interest " lo tbe end of their
lives respectively. Iu the first place, this is consonant wilh
no principle; because on the same ground that this would
be adopted, the Cburch has a right, or the patron has a right,
to appoint successors lo the present incumbents. There is no
principle upon which you can talie away the right of the
patron, which is not equally good for taking away the right
ofthe present incumbent. Besides which, the thing is wholly
impracticable ; for lo suppose that one parish will pay tithes,

144 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
while the neighbouring parish is exempted, and that too in
virtue of the same lavv, is lo suppose that which is morally,
and almost physically impossible. Figure to yourselves (such
a lavv having been passed) one parish having no tithes fo
pay, and all the parishes adjoining it constantly beseeching
God to deliver them from their rector or vicar.
This, therefore, is what cannot be. Happen what else
raay, this is vvhat cannot be. And, as to the injustice of at
once ousting the present possessor of a living ; what injustice
is there that goes much beyond the injustice of taking all
possibility of church preferment from those who have been
educated for the purpose of becoming parsons? They, too,
have a vested interest to a certain extent ; but as in the case of
the beer-bill, the expectations created by the laws and usages
of the country, must be made to yield to thai which is found
to be the general good of the nation. But besides this, the
working clergy of England would by no means be divested
of anything that they can call their right. From the doctor
who lives at Rome, vvith three livings and a prebend in Eng
land, and reraains there for ten years, learning the Protestant
religion from the Pope, and drawing avvay the tithes of three
parishes, and a prebend lo be spent in Italy ; from such a
one, certainly, all his revenues would be taken ; but there.
would be three working clergymen, who would al least have
parsonage-houses and glebes, and the fees of their several
churches, besides that, vvhich would never fail in England,
competent and even generous contributions frora their pa
rishioners. In Ireland, the case would be different, but can
the clergy of Ireland reasonably demand belter treatment than
that which was experienced by those whora Ihey ousted at
the Reforraation ? In defence of the Reformation people,
it has recently been asserted that the secular Catholic clergy
had the option of turning out, or becoming Protestant par
sons ; and what objection is there to giving the Protestant
parsons of Ireland the same option now ? You will say that
this would be dangerous ; but there would be very little
danger if you took the tithes away from the parish. However,
all the difficulties would be got rid of, without any one
having lo coraplain of injustice, if annuities for life were
provided out of the land-tax for every man ousted from
a living ; and it would be to libel their reverences to
suppose that they would ask for more, or accept of more,
than vvas granted to the Catholic ecclesiastics, regular
as well as secular, when they were ousted from the monas-

LECTURE VI. 14S
teries and the parishes. The Government guaranteed to
thera, provided they reraained quiet, and in the kingdom,
forty shillings a year for life ; that is to say, forty pounds a
year of the present money, money being then just about
twenty limes as valuable as it is now. A very large part .
of these persons, and almost the whole of thera, have estates
inland, houses or otherwise ; for, though they cling to the
lavv of Moses, as far as tithes is concerned, they by no means
imitate the Levites, in abstaining from all share of inherit
ance in the land. In short they are a great body of private
land-owners, and owners of all sorts of property; and in
dealings in the funds, and other such matters, there is scarcely
a body of persons in the kingdom that exceed them in
eagerness and acuteness. Loss they would experience, to be
sure ; but that loss would not be ruinous, in one case out
of a hundred; and, besides, a man who has forty pounds a
year sterling cannot be said to be ruined. He may be
forced to take to work, to be sure, and bring up his children
to vvorl< ; but it is very far from being certain, tbat the
family would not be the happier for this, without its being
possible to deny that it would be a great benefit to the
naiion present and future.
But, without poor-Zait-s, even this abolition of the hierarchy
in Ireland would not produce tranquiUity in the country ; and
what is more, it ought nottn produce it, unless there be per
sons lo contend that such an application ought to be made of
the produce of a country, as to cause those vvho raise the
produce, who create thfe produce, to experience periodical
returns of hunger and starvation. There has been great talk
ofthe evils of absenteeism, as it is culled, and cettainly very
great are these evils ; but it is perfect nonsense to talk of
putting an end to thera, until the owners and occupiers of
the land and the houses be compelled by law to leave,a suffi
ciency of the produce for the destitute labourers. It is a
natural process, and quite consistent with the happiness and
prosperity of Ireland, that she should send lo England and
elsewhere thai part of her produce which is necessary lo ob
tain her clothing and other necessaries in exchange ; but it is
mortally injurious to her, that a large part of her produce
should be sent out of the country, and its araount paid to
absentees, who expend that amount out of Ireland. This is a
monstrous evil ; it is the great source of the raisery of the
Irish people ; and there is no remedy for it, but that of intro
ducing and establishing the English poor-law, which would

146' MANCHESTER LECTURES.
withhold from the absentees that part which they now taRe
away to the injury of the country.*
The right of the poor to receive relief, in case of need, haS
been so clearly established, that there needs no argument^
upon this occasion, in support of it. The origin and intention
of tithes vvere precisely the sarae in Ireland as in England;
In a former lecture I had to show that the poor-laws in Eng
land were adopted lo supply the place of that patrimony of
the people which consisted of the revenues ofthe church.
The act of Elizabeth was not passed lill every other means
bad been tried in vain ; and that last resort was not adopted
till it became raanifest that rebellion would never cease till a
regular, a legal, and a certain provision for the indigent poor
had been made ; and if that provision had been extended to
Ireland, it is very far from being certain that the cburcfi
religion might not have become the religion of that country
as well as of this. I say this, without any imputation against
the sincerity of the Irish people, because the distribution of
relief to the indigent constitutes a great pari of this praclice
of the Catholic religion, and of all Christian religion ; and,
as the clergy always, have had a great hand in this distribu
tion, it is natural to suppose that it must have given great
weight to their teachings.
But the poor-law of Elizabeth was not extended lo Ireland,
and it never has been extended to Ireland ; and this has been
one great cause, first, of all the sufferings which the Irish
people have had to endure, and of all the discontents, dis
turbances, and rebellions, that have arisen out of those suf
ferings. If I be asked why the poor-laws were not extended
to Ireland, my answer is, that they were not established in
England till the forty-third year of the reign of Elizabeth ;.
and that they then arose out of the fear of those who had be-»
come possessed of the church-property, that the people would,
in the end, lake that property from them, unless a never-
failing source of relief were established. Then, if it be asked,
bow the people of Ireland came not to make the sarae de-
mandy the answer is, that in all probability Ihey did make

, * I have just read, with great surprise) a speech of Mr. O'Connell,
recently delivered in Dublin, upon this vecy important subject. I cuulid
hardly believe my eyes as I read it. I have looked over the subse-
<iuent papers narrowly, aud regret to observe, thut it has not been
disowned by him. I think it my duty to address a l-etter to him upon
the subject, which letter- 1 shall subjuiu. to these lectures.

LECTURE VL 147
the demand, but tbat the Governrtient of England had' the
means of stifling their discontents, and of compelling them
to live wilhout poor-laws.
This is the true history of the raatter : the want of poor-
laws has been the great source, of all the troubles and miseries
-of Ireland ; and therefore il is reasonable lo conclude, that, do
¦what we will besides, Ireland never will becorae other than
a burden to England, until this act of justice be done to its
novv miserable people. Authentic statements have repeat-
edly^represented a part at least of the people of Ireland as
jn a state of perfect nakedness. This excessive misery
may, indeed, be very rare ; and I hope lo God il is, but,
about three years ago, an Irish member, a Mr. O'Brien, made
a stateinent in the House of Commons, representing, not
only children and men, but young women, as frequently seen
in a stale of actual nakedness ; and, when the House seemed
shocked at the description, he added to the feelings of horror,
by asserting that the thing was so common as to excite
neither wonder nor disgust. We have undoubted proof of
many thousands of human beings in that country, who are
frequently, at least once in a year or two, in such a state of
misery, as to resort to that species of food which neither dog
nor hog will accept of. We know that this could not be the
ease if poor-laws were established and enforced ; and is it
not the duty of the Government to adopt and enforce this
remedy? Is it not a shame for any body of men lo acknow
ledge, that they are the rulers of people reduced to such a
state ? Talk of allegiance, and talk of obedience to the
laws ! Allegiance is not due, where protection is not given ;
and wbo will say that these wretched people are under the
protection of the Government ? It is the interest, to be sure,
in the end, for the rich of every comraunity to take care that
the poor be relieved ; but men are sometimes blind to their
¦own interest, when, lo promote it, the performance of a bur-
'densorae duly is required. And, wbat is a Government for;
for what reason does it exist j of what use is it lo the nation ;
•and, what right, in short, has it to be ; unless it, in such
cases, interfere, for the purpose of putting things to rights ?
It appears, upon the face of it, the interest ofthe poor, to
take away the property of the rich, which, by a little com
bination, they are always able lo effect. No one disputes
that it is the duty of the Governinent to interfere, in this
case: and why then is it not to interfere in compelling the
rich to render to the poor that which is so clearly their
H 2

14S MANCHESTER LECTURES.
due ? Upon the squirearchy of Ireland these arguraents will,
I am aware, be all thrown avvay ; but, as the rest of the king
dom has alvvays had the power to protect the squirearchy
against the violences of the people, so I trust it will be able
to protect the people against the graspings of that body of
inexorable oppressors.
It remains for me to speak of that part of my proposition
which contains, I must confess, a suggestion perfectly novel:
I mean that part which proposes that the Parliament of the
whole kingdom should hold its sessions, and the King hold
his Court, in Ireland, once in every three years ; in York,
once in every three years ; and in the city of Salisbury, once
in every three years. With regard lo this reraoval of the
Court from London to York and lo Salisbury, the object
simply is, to put a stop to the swellings of the enorraous
Wen, and to place it under the process of gradual dispersion.
When it is considered that that Wi-.n and its environs now
<!ravv up to theraselves, to be expended uselessly, more sub
sistence than is expended in the nine counties of England
which stand first in the alphabet; when it is considered that
there is raore huraan food actually wasted in and about the
Wen, actually sent down lhe coramon sewers, flung into
the dust-holes, and otherwise destroyed, than would support
all the people in one of tlie considerable counties ; when I
assure you that a very-well-informed and very great dealer
in cheese and in bacon has assured me, that there is more
cheese suffered to rot and more bacon sent to be melted down
by the soap-boilers than, as he believes, is consumed in a
county equal in population to Wiltshire ; when you consider
these things, and look at the people of the Wen, as use
less consumers of food and of clotliing, brought together by
the unnatural means of taxation, you must agree vvith me,
thai a dispersion of this monstrous mass raust take place,
before the naiion can again know anything worthy of the-
narae of prosperity.
And vve are by no means to leave the injury to morals and
to public liberty, occasioned by this unnatural collection of
human beings. Peel's gendarmerie police is a thing enough
to make our grandfathers turn in their graves. Yet the
prodigious creation of thieves and of prostitutes, coming from
this collection, deraands these frightful means to repress the
disorders vvhich are its natural consequence. Vices, at which
our fathers would have shuddered vvith horror, are rendered
familiar to the mind, by their frequency in this grand scene of

LfeCTURE VL 149
everything that is villanous. A great military force becomes
necessary, in such a case, to prevent the destruction of life
and the devastation of property. The raurdering of human
beings, as objects of sale ; and the raurdering others, for the
purpose of obtaining the teeth as a vendible commodity ; the
receiving of the carcases, and of the teeth, with as little cere
mony, and without any more horror, than the cutting-up
butcher receives the carcase of a sheep, or than the toyman
receives the bits of bone, obtained frora the butcher or the
skinner ; these things, which, related in fabulous stories,
woukl have filled our fathers vvith horror, now excite not the
wonder of a day, in that scene of laziness and of all sorts of
villany, vvhich, through a thousand channels, daily sends forth
its corruptions, bodily as vvell as raental, lo every part of this
kingdom. And where is the man, then, who vvill hesitate
a moment to applaud any measure which has a tendency,
without any act of cruelty or injustice, lo disperse this diabo
lical collection of infamy ?
Il has been the policy of all wise legislators to prevent, as
far as possible, the unnatural increase of the population of
towns. The American Congress removed from the greatest
tities in the Union lo a place comparatively a village, and
which it knew could not, from the nature of things, become
much other than a village. It saw the injury that must arise
from drawing- to a great commercial city the taxes vvhich
¦would naturally be brought to it, by its being the seat of
the Governmeni. The separate States themselves, which
have great cities in them, have long ago removed the seat of
government far avvay from those great cities. From the
cily of New York it has been removed to Albany, a distance
of 150 miles; from the city of Philadelphia the seal of
government was, long ago, removed to a mere village,
about 200 miles further to the west. A great part of the
business of the legislature, in both these cases, might have
-some connexion with these great cities ; but, sober men,
"who do their work by day-light, and have no Bellamy's
boozing shop under their roof, Ihought it much better to
put themselves out of the reach of those debaucheries, and
of that bustle and hubbub, and of those temptations of all
sorts, which great and opulent cities could not fail to cause
to be of sorae degree of influence.
And why should the King not see the North of England,
a.nd the West of it? Salisbury is in about the raiddle between
Dover and Penzance ; and York may be very well considered

150 MANCHESTER LECTURES.
as the centre of the North of Great Britain. I should see no
harm, for my part, in holding the court sometimes at Exeter
also, and soraetimes at Norwich. This used to be the fashion.
Parliaraents have been held al Northampton, and why should
they not again ) The presence of the King makes a court,.
and, as to the trouble tbat this would give the King, il must
be a strange king indeed, and he must be very different
from all other human beings, if the variety would not give
him pleasure instead of harm. This is sheer nonsense,
however ; and as to the expense, suppose it lo be fifty thou
sand pounds a year, in consequence of this moveable court,
what is that, vvhen compared to the iraraense advantages of
il ? araongst which advantages we raust by no means omit
the great addition of respect which it would bring to the
kingly oflSce, when the king carae to be known to all his
people, instead of being merely heard of, as running back
ward and forward between Windsor and St. Jaraes's, except
when occasionally posted down to Brighton, and there
lodged in a sort of guinguette, surrounded by swarms of keen-
looking stock-jobbers, and their flaunting wives. When
Cardinal Pole landed at Dover, on returning to England,
after the persecution of Henry VIII. and his son, the histo
rian of his life says that he was preceded by two thousand
gentlemen of the county of Kent, who went before him on
horseback. Ten thousand will ride before the King into
York. And has any kingof England, since the time of Eli
zabeth, experienced an honour like this? The very circum
stance of his going to a particular place for the purpose of
making the laws would add weight to those lavvs ? and how
much better would it be, and how much more honourable to
the King, to be escorted to his parliament in this way, than to
be drawn along, surrounded by guards, araongst the shout
ings, though of hundreds of thousands, of people !
With regard to England, this which I here recommend
would be greatly useful ; it would be beneficial in all sorts
of ways, besides that of dissipating the WEN. But, with
regard to Ireland, the raeasure is absolutely necessary.
Burke talked of orders of nobility being " the chief defence
of nations ; " and if he had lived to witness the hundreds of
thousands of our money bestowed upon Wellington, he
would, I dare say, have said that we had made a monstrous
good bargain. This measure that I propo.se is, however, the
chief defence of Ireland ; the chief quieter of Ireland ; the
chief means of effecting, in reahty, tljat union which now

LECTURE VI. larl
exists only in name. The act of union was a most miserably
.bundling job, quite worthy of a pack of pettyfogging
politicians. Any raan of sense would at once have swept
away the. names of Great Britain and Irelaml ; have called the
whole the Kingdom of England ; have put all the counties in
the whole kingdom upou the same footing ; have made onq
and the same law prevail every-where, and would have made
all conform to precisely the same authorities, in all civil and
political affairs. Instead of this, a totally new name was
..given to the kingdora, and the sensible parliament graciously
bestowed .upon their sovereign a new and riginavole title,
taking from him al the same tirae one of bis titles worn by
llis ancestors, and worn by them for four hundred years j
making him cast beliind hira (from the raotive of the hunted
beaver) the litle of the King of France ; and raaking him
at the same time, in quality 1 suppose of head of the Pror
testant Church, retain the title of "Defender of the Faith"
x)f the Pope.
Never was so clumsy an affair as this ; but it is not too
late now to make a real union wilh Ireland. The meeting
ofthe Parliament in Ireland would occasion twenty thousand
English noblemen and gentlemen to go to Ireland, some
one or other of whom would have his foot upon every square
yard of the country in the course of six months. Let any
;one imagine the inevitable effects of this species of
communication. The impudent Castlereagh, when he pro
posed to bring Irish militia to England, and send English
militia to Ireland, pretended to believe that this interchangn
of bayonets would cause an interchange of kindly feelings
between the people of the two countries. The kind fellow
deserved a blow on the mouth when he uttered that at once
erapty and insolent sentiraent ; but, in the measure which I
propose, we see the wise means of an interchange of kindly
sentiments. Endless acts of benevolence would and must
arise from the holding of the Court and the sitting of Parlia
ment in Ireland. Ireland, with, all ils resources, wouldi be
come well known to numerous persons of vvealih goin^
•froin England : and this is the way to introduce capital and
improvement into Ireland ; and not the raising of mouey ia
England by taxation, or by subscription, to be sent over to
be pocketed by the agents, or to be doled out in gallons ef
potatoes and pounds of oatmeal. The presence of the Court
and the Parliament would overawe petty tyranny. The ^
King's Ministers would be there, to see the condition and

152 JIANCHEbTER LECTURES.
hear the grievances of his people; and the King and the
Parliament would be there upon the spot to redress those
grievances : then the two countries would become one
in deed as well as in name : until then sorae one or other
will always be able to stir up, in a great part of the people
at any rate, a disposition to effect a separation frora England ;
which, though il can never succeed, raust always be attended
-with infinite raischief. Until this course be adopted, the
Jrish people, and not without some show of reason, will
always be hankering after a distinct legislature. The adop
tion of this measure would put an end for ever lo even the
thought of such a thing ; and as lo the expense of holding
a Court and a Parliament in Ireland, this is a pretty objec
tion to start, when it now costs us four millions of pounds
Stirling a year to compel our fellow-subjects of Ireland lo
submit lo vvhat they, but too justly, deem our unjust pre
dominance. This measure would almost instantly produce
a total change in the raanners of the people : the behaviour
of English gentlemen would shame out of fashion the
brutal treatment of the working people bj' the squirearchy :
it would introduce English agriculture, English plantations,
English orchards and gardens ; and the making of breatl
and the cooking of meat, and the brewing of beer, and the
wearing of clean and decent clothes, would very soon sup
plant the use of the wretched potatoes, the whiskey can, and
the rags half-sufficient to cover their nakedness.
Thus, gentlemen, I conclude the stateraents and the
reasonings to which you have been .so indulgent during these
six evenings, to lend an ear in support of the fourteen propo
sitions which I have had the honour to subrait to the in
habitants, and particularly to the future electors of this town,
so faraed throughout all the vvorld for the productions of
its ingenuity and industry. As I observed once before, I am
not here for the purposes of election canvassing ; I ara not
here fur the purpose of asking any raan or any body of
men for their votes ; but having been invited to become a
candidate for this great town, I thought it my duty to come
and fully to express, in the presence of its inhabitants, the
conditions upon vvhich alone I would consent lo stand in
that capacity. Having no right to [irescribe to you, gentle
men, or to any other body of electors, that vvhich you ought
to do, I have not, I trust, shown rayself disposed to be guilty
of that arrogance. But baving a right to prescribe to my
self the line of conduct that I am to pursue ; and being

LECTURE VI. 153
thoroughly convinced that, unless the measures which you
have permitted me to describe to you be adopted, a reformed
Parliament will be no better than a boroughmonger Parlia-
- ment, I am resolved not lo be a raember of sucb Parliament
unless those who send me thither pledge theraselves dis
tinctly to support me to their utmost in my endeavours to
cause those measures to be adopted. If you do this, gentle
men, great indeed will be the glory which you will confer
upon me ; and, on the other hand, if neither you nor any
olher body of electors do this, much greater satisfaction
shall I derive from remaining engaged in the humble pur-
jsuits which have hitherto been the delight of my life.

u 5

TO MR. O'CONNELL,
ON HIS SPEECH AGAINST THE PROPOSITION FOR
ESTABLISHING POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND.

At Mr. Johnson's, Lime Place, Manchester, \4tk January, if32.
Sir, With very great surprise (to give the mildest term to my
feeling on the occasion) I have read, in the Morning Chro
nicle of the Vth instant, a publication purporting to be the
report of a speech made by you at a meeting of the National
Political Union, held in Dublin on the 4th of this same
month. The speech is stated to have been made in consequence
of a motion by Mr. .Iohn Reynolds, for the appointment of a
committee lo deliberate on the subject of Poor Laws foe.
Ireland. Having long been convinced that the withholding
from Ireland of these laws, at the time when they were given
to England, was the original sin in tbe misrule of Ireland,
and that it has been the greatest of all the causes of the im
measurable distance between the manners, the habits, and the
condition, of the working classes of the two countries; having
seen that that Catholic Emancipation, which was, accordlngto
your expectations, so frequently, so eloquently, and so confi
dently expressed, to restore harmony and happiness lo Ireland,
has been far indeed from producing any such effects ; being
more fully than ever convinced that there never can be peace in
Ireland, and that there never can be any security, or chance of
security, against those periodical returns of starvation in Ire
land, the bare thought of which ought lo make an English, and

TO MR. o'cONNELL. 155
more especially an Irish legislator ashamed to show his face
amongst mortals of common humanity ; remembering that Mr.
'Grattan, that Dr. Doyle, and that you yourself, have
.been the advocates of this remedy for the sufferings of your un
happy country, you, I am sure, will not wonder that, in reading
the report of the speech to which I have alluded, my feeling was
such as to be very inadequately described bythe word surprise;
but you would wondir, I trust, and I am sure that my readers
would wonder, if I were not to give an answer to ihat speech:
This I shall now do vvith all that respect towards you which is
due to you on account of your laudable and able exertions during
the two last sessions of Parliament ; and, in order that the public
may have the arguments and facts of both sides of the question
fairly before them, I will first insert the above-mentioned report
of your speech :
Mr. O'Connell rose amid loud cheers. I rise, hesaid, to second the
motion for a Committee. With many of the principles laid down by
Mr. Reynolds 1 entirely concur. I believe he has exaggerated the
wealth of the Established Church — but then it is enormously great,
and almost defies exaggeration. The claim which the poor bave upon
that wealth is obvious. One-third of it originally belonged to the poor,
aod they have been filching from tbe poor by having kept from them
that one-third. (Hear.) I concur also with Mr. Reynolds in what he
has said of the generosity of the English /jco/>/e. (Hear.) Their gene
rosity towards this country in money gifts has been most laudable, and
I only wish that they had equally distinguished themselves for their
political charity.' (Hear.) We have got from tke7n three or four hun
dred thousand pounds for our beggars, and tbey have been three orfout
centuries making beggars of us. Jack-the-Giant-Killt-r was distin
guished for making giants first and then slaying them ; it is thus the
£nglisl] have acted towards the Irish — they have made beggars of then*
first, and then relieved them. {Hear, hear, hear.) Though I concur
in the expression of my gratitude to those who have subscribed to the
relief of the Irish poor, so raust 1 also give expression to my abhorrence
of those who have made a rich country poor, and have placed a starving
population in the midst of abundance. (Hear, and cheers.) Though 1
am most ready to second the motion for a Committee upon this subject,
1 cannot but start back with horror at the proposal of poor-laws being
introduced into Ireland. I know that a great case is made for them in
the misery of the people, aud I was myself e\en ready to plunge into tbe-
Curtian gulf, where eventually we might be swallowed up, in the hope
that we could for the time be able to relieve the distresses of the poor.
I have thought upon this subiect by day — I have mused upon it by night
— it has been the last thouglit that visited my pillow before I closed my
eyes to sleep — and jt has been the benefit of my morning meditations s
and the result to wbich I have come is this, that it would be impossible
to introduce the poor-laws here without enslaving and degrading tite
poor. The poor themselves, I think, would suffer most from a poor-law.
When people talk of an amelioration of the English system, I ask of
them to point it out, fori never yet met a man who was able to discover

156 TO MR. O CONNBLL,
it. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) I abhor any intei-ference with the rate of
U'nges, especiaUy in ao agricultural country, and this is one of those-
things which frighten me about tbe introduction of the poor-laws here.
What kind of poor-law is it that is wanting ? If it be one for the sup
port of the sick and the maimed, I go to the full extent with those who
support such a poor-law. I say that the state is bound to make pro
vision for those who are afflicted with sickness or disease ; but there
it is our duty to stop. There is no danger of encouraging sickness to
enable a man lo get iuto an infirmary, nor will any man break bis leg
in order that he may have a claim upon the charity of his neighbour.
Let me be understood — all claims arising from disease, sickness, or
.casualty, should be provided for by the state, and to that extent 1 go
vvith those who are advocates for poor-laws. One-third of that which
¦is now in tbe hands of the clergy, being given to its legal destination,
-would be fully sufficient to defray all such demands upon charity.
(Hear.) Even at present thera is scarcely a village in Ireland thdit has
not a dispensary , uor any county town without ils hospital, and if these
be not sufficient, the legislature is hound to make provision for them.
(Hear.) Go beyond that, and what do you do ? Are you to take care
oi the aged ? Uo you not, by doing so, remove from the individual the
necessity of providing for old iige — iiu you not encourage him to go to
the dram-shop, and lay out his sixpence upon bis animal gratification,
rather than of hoarding for the day of want ? Do you not take from
industry its hicentive, and from providence its best guard } (Hear.) If
I were, as my enemies represent me to be, one who was looking solely
to popularity, and not to serve my country, what more fitting theme
could 1 select than that of the poor-laws .' What more popular topic
could I possibly adopt .' (Hear.) 1 feel, however, that it is the duty of
a humane and a conscientious man to exjiress candidly his opinion
¦upon a topic so deeply interesting and important to his fellow-country
men. (Hear.) I say, that if you makea provision /or oW ag-e, you take
away the great stimulant to industry and economy in youth. Vou do
another thing — what is to become of the aged father and mofher^they
lose the solace and the aff'ectionate care of thc son, and the tender atten-.
-tions ofthe daughter, the moment you say to them that a legal provision
for their support is procured. Vou turn the father and the mother out
to the parish, or you thrust them into the solitary, the cold, anil the
wretched poor-house — there, in the naked cell, sufficient to chill the
human breast, you leave the expiring victims of your mistaken hu
manity. (Hear, hear.) But think not tbat you have a compulsory
provision for the aged alone ,- if you go thus far, you are bound also to
provide for the hardy workman, who cannot procure labour, and who
must not be left to starve. The man wilh a good appetite and wiUing
hands, but who has no work, you must include him also. It was not
at first intended, I believe, to include this class amongst those to be
provided for by the poor-laws ; but it was found that they could not be
included, and the moment that principle is adopted, the rich parish
would be obliged to provide for all the poor who might claim relief from
it, and in a short time that parish would be swamped with the numberof
claimants upon it. You cannot say to the cily of Dublin that it should
have a mendicity one-fourth the size ofthe metropolis — that every man
who sought relief there should obtain it, and the citizens be obliged to
pay the expense of supporting them. And yet, how are you to discri
minate, unless you raake a law of seulement, oue great instriimenl of

ON POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND. 1.57
oppression against the EngUsh poor. One of the means of settlement
in England is by birth ; there is none less likely to be subject to impo
sition, and yet none is made a greater instrument of oppression. The
moment that it appears apoor woman is in a state of pregnancy, she is
immediately made an object for persecution, and a notice lo quit is
iserved by the landlord on thc wretched hovel that the prolific mother
inhabits. The landlord, in fact, is compelled by the vestry to be guilty
-of this persecution. Another nieans of settlement in a parish is by
living there for one year; and the consequence is, that engageraents
are made with -labourers for only eleven months, and they are obliged
to be one month idle before they can expect a renewal of work in the
same parish. Another bad consequence of that law is, that it prevents
the circulation of free labour, and obliges everi/ 7nan to stick to his parish.
The poor-laws, too, take from a man a direct interest in being indus
trious. The motives to labour are present subsistence and future sup
port. Take these two away, and you deprive a man of two great
stimulants to labour. (Hear, hear, hear.) Besides, the poor-lasvs
compel those dependent upon them for support to work — but
in what manner? The labourers are let out by the pa7-isk at half
wages, and then these half-vvoikmen come iu competition with the
regular labourers. The farmer will tell the regular labourer, who
demands three shillings a day, that he will give him but two shillings ;
for if he does not choose to take that, be will get thosc who he is ready
to admit are inferior workmen fur one shilling, and thus the good la
bourer is necessarily made poor. (Hear, bear.) Have I not seen, in
Shrewsbury, for instance, placards on which were inscribed, *' F'agrants
and Irish labourers whipped out of the town?" Mr. Sturges Bourne
made an improvement in the law in this respect, for he provided that after
the Irish labourer was whipped, he should be sent home. (Hear.)
These laws are necessarily called cruel laws, for tliey make charity
itself the subject of taxation. They create in a man's mind something
of the sensation that is felt upon paying the wide-street or grand-jury
cess. (Laughter.) They make, too, one man abundantly cbaritable,
hy putting his hand into the pockets of another — andto do what? to keep
the poor at the lowest rate uf maintenance. It is well knowu that in
many parishes in England the poor are farmed out to be provided for at
the lowest possible expense. The man who takes the care of them
underfeeds them, in order that he may make a profit on them. Not
only is the providing of food for them hired out, but apothecaries to
supply them with medicines are hired also — men whose interest it is
that the sick poor should die as soon as possible, in order that they may
heat the less expense for medicines for them. (Hear.) For an obvious
reason 1 do not enter into the horrors of this demoralising system re
specting females ; it is sufficient for me to say, that the more vicious a.
female is, the more objects has she to tnake her selection from , either to
jiay forty pounds, or to marry her. (Hear, bear.) It is sufficient to say
of the systera, that clergymen of the Established Church of England
have .«M»j-n, that, amongst the poorer classes, out of every twenty women
they married, nineteen were in a state of pregnancy. (Hear, hear.)
What do we see as the consequence of thc poor-laws in England ? The
country is m a blaze from notth to south; the agricultural labourers
there are destroying the property of their employers. (Hear.) I have
DOW sat in three parliaments, and 1 have heard in each of these mem
bers state that these laws created a great deal of misery and distress.

158 TO MR. OCONNBLL,
But then it may be said that these laws can be ameliorated. How
' -will you ameliorate them ? What partof the English poor-laws wUl
you shut out ? How will Mr. Reynolds improve these laws ? All tbe
.ingenuity of Committee after Committee that has sat respecting these
laws has been exercised iu vain, and has been unable to discover any
¦ effective ameliaratixm, (Hear, hear.) One feature of the poor-laws is,
Vbaiit makes slaves of-the poorer classes; it makes tbem the slaves "of
the overseers, and destroys completely their character (or independenee,
I prefer the wild merriment of the Irishman to the half-sulky, half-
miserable tones of the English slave to poor laws. The Irishman cer
tainly has his distresses, but then be has to Aope* ; he endures much
_mi8ery ; but then he entertains expectations of redress. (Hear, hear, and
cheers.) Let the question of poor-laws staud over, till we see if justice
will be done to us by England, upon the question of reform. 1 have
often said, that if a just reform bill were given to Ireland, I would try
the .expej'iment with it ; but if they do not give a just reform bill, then
I shall want to introduce a poor-law for Ireland Ay repealing the Union,
(Hear, aud loud cheers.) Mr. O'Connell concluded by requestiugtbat
their exertions should not heinterf ered with by the poor-law question, -in
looking for a substantial plan ofi'eform, and if that were refused, in
seeking for a resource and a remedy for a bad reform bill. The lion.
Gentleman sat down amid loud cheers.
Sir, I do not overlook the great cheering which this speech
appears to have called forth from your Dublin audience ; bul
when I recollect the still more noi.sy cheering drawn forth in
another place by the Dawsons and others, when they so un
justly, and in a manner so senseless, assailed you, I am by no
means disheartened by this vast quantity of cheering ; which I
am disposed lo ascribe, not lo any folly, and still less to any per
verseness, but rather to that " wild merriment," which, towards
the close of your speech, you are pleased to describe as charac
teristic of your countrymen, and on which you appear to set so
high a value.
Upon a careful perusal of this speech, I have no hesitation in
saying, that the far greater part of your facts, as they stand
here, are founded in error ; and that the whole of your argu
ments are fallacious ; and these assertions I think myself bound
to prove; not by any general statement or reasoning; but, in
the first place, point by point, as your facts and arguments lie
•before me. I might, if I chose to pursue that course, insist, that
with regard to your opinions, they ought to be viewed in con
junction with, and estimated according to, the tried value of
many of your former opinions. I might, if I chose that course,
meet the imposing assurance, that you " have thought of this
" subject by day, have mused upon it by night, and have given
" it the benefit of your morning meditations ;" 1 might, if I
chose, and witb perfect fairness, meet this formidable preamble

ON POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND. 1S9
by asking you, whether you had not thoughi by day, mused by
night, and meditated in the morning, on the measure for dis
franchising the furty-shilling freeholders, before you became
the very first man io suggest that measure to the two Houses of
.Psirliament, as being a measure necessary to the fair represen-
. tation of Ireland ; and whether, in less than twenty-four
jnonths frem the date ofthe suggestion, you did not, before the
-face of these fQrty»shilling freeholders, beg their pardon, and
the pardon of Almighty God, fi^ having entertained a thought
(Pf their disfranchisement? Passing over fhe "golden chain,'"
(by which y«u proposed to bind the Catholic priests to the Pro-
(testant Government and hierarchy ; passing over this and niany
.other suph errors, and. confining myself within the forty.shilling^
freeholder, error, might I not if I chose, express a confident
hope; nay, presume and almost conclude, that you are not less
.in error no.w, when you so boldly call Englishmen, in direct
¦-terms., and, by inference, the Americans, the slaves of tbe
poor-laws ?
I might, with perfect fairness, do this, and perhaps to the
entire satisfaction of the greater part of my readers ; but I will
evade nothing ; will consider nothing coming frora you as un
worthy af serious notice ,¦ and v.'ill, therefore, agreeably to my
proniise, answer your speech point by point.
Deferring, till by-and-by, my holiee of your charge against
the Protestant hierarchy, of having "flched " from the poor of
Ireland the amount of th«ir third'vof the tithes, I begin with your
charge against the " English people'.' of baving ''made the
Irish people poor," We will cast aside your " gratitude " to-
-wards the former, as a fit companion for the mutual good-will
between the two countries, which this charge of yours is so
manifestly intended to inspire and keep alive ; we-willcast these
aside; but., since you so positively assert that we, the many-
headed Jaek-the-Gianl-Killer, have made your countrymen
poor, we may surely be allowed the liberty to ask you lo name
the time when they were rich. When A is accused of having
stolen the property of B, it is incumbent on B to prove that he
^ver had the property. Yours being, as to this matter, bare alle
gation without proof of previous possession, we need not remind
you, how you, being in such a case counsel for the accused,
would -scoff the accuser out of court. We will not scoff you
out of court; we will give you further lime for " thought,
mttsing, and meditation ;" and will even aid these cool and
candid operations of your mind by suggestions of our own.
You say that the "EngUsh people " have been three or f owr

¦160 TO MR. o'cONNELL,
centuries engaged in the work of making the Irish people beg
gars. You doubtless use the words Enghsh people instead of
English Government, not only from a love of justice, but from
an amiable desire to promote the good-will and harmony be
tween the English and the Irish. But, granted that it is the
English people, what have they done lo make the Irish people
poor ? Three or four centuries ! " An inch is a trifle in a
man's nose;" and vvith you orators a century, more or less, is
not worth stopping about; it is a mere splitting of straws.
These " centuries" could, however, hardly have fairly begun
above thirty- two years ago; for then you had a " domestic
legislature," and a right good one it was without doubt, for yon
want it back again! What, however, even going back to the
<;onquest, have the English people done to make the Irish poor ?
Conquered the country, and parcelled out ils lands amongst
Englishmen. There! Take il in its fullest extent: and what
have they done to the Iri.sh,toa tenth part ofthe amount of what
the Nonnans did to themi Yet they have survived it; they
have overcome conquest by their industry and love of country :
they soon made the conquerors proud to be considered part of
themselves; and they never sat brooding in sloth and filth over
the fabulous dignities aud splendour and possessions of their
forefathers. It is, therefore, not perverseness, but sheer non
sense, to talk of wrongs which the Irish experienced from that
cause. The English imposed the Protestant hierarchy upon
the Irish. Very unjust, bul having no tendency to make them
poor, any more than the same imposition upon themselves ;
and it has been heavier upon themselves ; for they have always
had to yield greater tithes than the Irish. They_/br6ctc?e the
open profession of their religion, on pain of exclusion from
civil and political power. Unjust as well as foolish ; but the
same is done lo the Quakers every-where ; and that does not
make them poor and ragged; and now, when the Irish have
civil and political povver, they are poorer than ever! Have the
English people ever taxed the Irish ? We will see about that
by-and-by, when we come to talk of tbe reform that you are
seeking. How then have the " English people " made the
Irish people poor'? They have, indeed, suffered them to be
made poor, by not compelling the owners of the land in Ire
land to pay poor-rates. This is their great sin towards ths
Irish peaple; and now, when they seem resolved to do right in
this respect, and fo mAke reparation for the wrong, as far
as they can, you step iA wilh erroneous facts and fallacious
arguments to induce the Irish to believe that that long- withheld

ON POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND. I6l
good is aw evil! The fact is, however, that the English people
have never had any hand in causing the wrongs and misery
endured by the Irish people. The wrongs and this misery, as
far as they have been caused by misrule, have been inflicted
by that " band of oligarchs," to vvhom you have so often, so
recently, and so justly ascribed them, and amongst whom your
native oligarchs have been the very, very worst. The English
people have always commiserated the sufferings of the Irish;
and this feeling has always been most conspicuous, too, amongst
the Chur ch-of-England people. Thepeople of England have
been wrongetl by the injustice of the oligarchs as much as, or
more than, the Irish have ; for they have had to pay for keep
ing the Irish people in submission to those who refused to give
them poor-laws, and who thereby reduced thera to starvation.
If this be not the true .state of the matter, you have the means
of proving the contrary ; and if this be the true state of the
matter, let the reader characterize your charge against the
English people of having made the Irish people poor.
From this general charge against the people of England,
-which it was necessary to place in its true light, I come to
your several charges against " English poor-laws," which
niight, perhaps, have experienced from you some little mitiga
tion of censure, if j'ou had, by any accident, happened to know
that they were, too, American poor-laws, as you vvill (to your
indignant surprise, I dare say) learn more circumstantially by-
and-by. The first thing that you urge against our poor-laws
is, that they" interfere with wages,'' and that this is one of
the things that " frightens" yovi. As an Irish lawyer, you
might be excused for ignorance of these laws, but not for a
¦misrepresentation of thern ; and here we have a mere fact lo
-deal with, and have the written proof at hand. To the original
poor-law ofthe 4.3rd of Elizabeth, many acts have' been added,
relating to the relief and management of the poor ; and, in no
•one of the.se acts, is there any authority given to anybody to
interfere with the wages of la.houT, nor is therein any of them,
uor in the original law itself, any countenance given to any such
interference. So'that it appears that you have been frightened
by the workings of your own imagination. That, in many cases,
the magistrates in settling the araount of relief, have taken the
amount of the wages of the party into view ; and that they
have, in most cases, made the relief loo small in proportion lo
the wages ; and that, in many cases, the employers of farm-
labourers have, in order to ease theraselves at the expense of
gentlemen and tradespeople, given the labourers less in wages

363 TO MR. O'CONN-ELL,
and more in poor-rates ; all this is true enough, and it cer
tainly involves a misapplication of the powers of the poor-
laws ; but what charge does this imply against the poor-laws
themselves^ And, after all, what is this evil? what does this
crooking-working of selfrinterest amount to, compared with the
frightful evil of leaving thousands lo perish with bunger and
cold for want of legal and sure relief?
For" sick and maimed," however, you would, it seems, have
relief provided by " the Stat^." It is impossible to know what
you raean by the State ; but at any rate, you would have them
provided for by a compulsory assessment of ;Soine sort ; but not
the aged, nor the hale, though these latter be without work,
and without the means of obtaining food or raiment ; and, you
add, that you " fieiiewe " that " it was not, a<_/f)-s^ intended
by the poor-laws to provide for the wants of this class." When
a lawyer is speaking of an act of Parliament, and especiaUy
when its tendency is the subject matter of his discourse, h.e
should not " believe " anything about its provisions ; and, beforp
you pronounced so decided a condemnation of thia, the greatest
,of all our acta of Parliament, which, in fact, furnishes a great
part of the machinery for carrying on all our internal affairs,
and which raia3s and disposes of more than seven millions of
pounds sterling in a year in England and Wales ; before you so
boldly condemned this great act, your mind ought to have had
left in it not the smallest ground for ieZt'e/'respecting the provi-
.sions. This belief is, however, erroneous; for the act does
provide, and it clearly intends to provide, for this class of per
sons ; and, if it had not provided for them, it would have been
nugatory at the time ; and if they were not provided for now,
an army of five hundred thousand men would not uphold the
Government of England for a month I I thank God, that it
does provide for their wants ; I thank God, that it gives them
a right to rehef, and that they know and feel it. It is the
.bond of peace; it, is the cement of English societfy; and
accursed be all those who would enfeeble it !
But, "the sick and maimed," you would have the state
provide for these ; but not for the aged ; aid if there be, in
'^almost every village of Ireland, a dispensary, and in every
county town an hospital," there is provision already made
for the " sick aud maimed ; " so that the Irish poor have all
that you want them to have ! Glad to know it ! It c;ertainly
is news tome. I wish it may be true.' Yet there must want
a " dispensary " of food and clothing, or else we have been
told most monstrous lies about the people eating stinking

ON EOOR-LAWS LM- IR'ELAND. 1€S-
shell-fish, sea-weed, and nettles, and about whole parishes re-
.ceiving the extreme nnction preparatory to death from starva
tion, and about whole farailies of females being in a state of
Wmplete nakedness ; and our own eyes must deceive us, an4
inioe .especially raust deceive me, when I think I see, every
jnODth of my life, hundreds of squalid creatures tramping inta
London, by my door, without shoes, stockings, or shirts, with
inolhingon the head worthy of the name of hat, and' with rags
hardly sufficient to hide the nakedness of tbeir bodies.! How-
lever, for the aged you will have no provision. And wkyt
What is your reason for this? For, upon the face of the
proposition, it does seem to be dictated by anything but that
tenderness which j'ou are constantly expressing towards the
Irish people. Your reasons are these: I. That, by making
provision for the destitute in old age, you take away the great
inducement to industry and frugality in the days of youth-;
.and, 2. That you deprive the age'd parents of the aid of their
children, who, seeing a provision for them in the poor-house,
¦will leave them to go to perish in its " naked cells." As to the
first o£ these reasons, it would be equally good agaihsta pro-
.TisioB for the " sick and maimed," if they happened to ke
.old, 'But are all i^ie labouring people able, in youth, to lay 1^
.something for old ageT It is the decree of God that the
ihuman race shall be sustained by labour ; nine-tenths of labour
is painful in some degree; very few of the huraan race will
encounter pain, but from necessity; and none will, therefore,
seldom encounter more of this pain than is demanded by their
present wants. To call upon men who are engaged in pursuits-
not bodily painful, to lay by, in their youth, for tbe days of old
.age, is reasonable and just ; bul to call upon the hard-working
man to do this is neither. If he doit (and, in England, he, to
.a great extent, does it, in five, cases out of six, after all) ; if he
do it, where is the tongue or pen to speak the praise that is
his due I • But if he have not, frora whatever cause, been able
•to do il, or have not done it, he has a clear right to a provi
sion in old age ; he. has -spent his life and worn out his strength
in the service of the community ; and that reluctance which
every man naturally feels to ask another for something, is a
'jsufficient security against his be;ng lany and prodigal in his
youth, iupon^a cooZ calculation of the , benefit of parochial
provision in his old age. With regard to your second objection;
Jiamely, that by m?iking a proyigion for old age, you deprive
the indigent parents of the aid of their children, who, seeing
'the"»ayfeed Qell" provided for them, will let them go to it ;

164 TO MR. O CONNELL,
with regard to this matter, you appear to regard the Irish people
as being capable of setting at defiance, and as hkely to set at
defiance, not only the laws of nature, but also the express and a
hundred-tiraes-iepeated laws of God. No very high compli
ment to your countryraen ! No very strong proof of the sin
cerity of your belief in that " generosity," that " active and
practical compassion for the poor" and that " deep sense of
religion " which we shall presently see you ascribing lo them !
But you, as a lawyer, might have told them one thing, and
since you did not do it, 1 will; and that is, that if neither the
laws of nature nor those of God could induce them so far to
honour their father and their mother as to keep thera from the
poor-house, ihe poor-laws would- compel ihem to do ii, they
having the ability ; and if they /mue Kof the ability, how can
poor-laws deprive the parents of their aid? As a lawyer, you
ought to have known tbat those poor-laws which j'ou so vehe
mently decr,y, compel all persons, being able to do it, to
.maintain their indigent fathers, mothers, grandfathers,
grandmothers, children, and grand-children. This is what
you ought to have told your Dublin audience, though il might
have cost you the loss of some of those valuable cheers, which
you obtained by this suppression of the truth, and by sup
plying its place with the " naked cell" existing no-where but
in your imagination. Either you did not know ihe law as to
this matter, or you did know it. If the former, you ought to
have known il before you made this speech ; and if ihe latter,
I decline to characterize your conduct.
But, Sir, in your anxious haste to narrow the effect of poor-
laws, you forgot thai, besides the sick, the maimed, and the
aged, there were some other parties who are, however, by no
means overlooked in tbat Holy Writ, for not believing in
which we shall presently find yon condemning the " infidel " to
be dealt vvith in a vvay " to supersede all legal punishment ";
namely, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger. In your
comprehensive scheme of " active and practical compassion
for the poor," you will make no provision for these ! The
English poor-laws, which do not cry, " Lord ! Lord ! " but
which do his will, raake provision for thera all ; and well,
indeed, is it that they do, or thousands upon thousands of
Irishmen would, at this very raoment, be dying and lying dead
from starvation ; and that, too, if your doctrine be sound, without
-having the sraallest ground for accusing the English of injus-
J:ice or cruelty.
The laiv of settlement you represent as an instrument of

ON POOK-LA-WS IN IRELAND. 165
oppression. Your story about yearly servants beirig obliged
to be one month out of employ, in order to prevent thenl
from gaining a settlement, is raere rotnance, the thing being
impossible ; because the whole of the business in all the
farm-houses in the country must, in that case, be suspended
for a montli ; and, to believe that this can take place, you
must know about Enghsh farming as little as, for your
sake, I hope you know about our poor-laws. In some
cases, for the reason here assigned, the master will hire
the servant for some days less than a year; but it much
oftener happens that this sort of bargain is from the wish
of the servant, who does not, in general, wish to " lose his pa
rish;" and, at this moment I have a country-boy living wilh
me, whose mother would not consent to his coraing unless
the bargain was sucb as not lo cause him " to lose his pa
rish.'' This, at once, shows the light in vvhich the working
people view the poor-laws. Instead of deeming them a
bond of ¦' slavery," as you choose to represent thera, they
deem thera tbe title of their right to their patrimony. And
with regard to the compelling of married people to stick to
their parishes, it is a great good, instead of being an evil ;
it being evident that people in that state of life will be, in
all respects, more careful of their characters, and will be
more likely to be of better behaviour, if resident amongst
those who know them, than if wandering abbut from place
to place. If they quit their parishes, and become chargeable
to another, or manifestly likely to be so, the poor-laws
expose them not to oppression, but consider them in the light
of " the stranger," relieve them if necessary, and take
them horae to their parish. Well would it have been. Sir, for
the thousands of poor forty-shilling freeholders of Ire
land, whom the "Liberatou," saw driven off the estates,
as the price of that " Emancipation " which gave him a seat
in Parliament ; well would it have been for these poor
sacrificed creatures, if there had been an English law of
settlement to compel the savage landlords to keep them ; and
in that case, indeed, they would never have been driven off
the estates, and, finally, as they were, exposed to all the
horrors of famine and pestilence.
We now come to two assertions, whicb, from their character,
and from one and the same term being applicable to both,
ought not, for a moment, to be separated ; naraely, t. That,
inthe town of Shrewsbury, you saw placards, on which
were inscribed the words, "Vagrants awd/ris/t Labour-

T[66 TO MR. O'CONNBLL,
-" ERS whipped/ out of the town; " and, 2. That " Mr.
** Sturges Bourne made an improvemejU in the law r,
"for HE provided that, after fhe Irish labourer was
'* whipped, he should be sent home." As you positivelyr
assert that you saw these placard-s al Shrewsbury, I' musC
suppose that Shrewsbury is in Ireland; for I am sure yoa
never saw such a placard in England, This town is cer-^
tainly in Tipperary or Connaught, or something: at any rate».
I assert that you never, saw it in an English town. As to>
the second of this- couple of assertions; first, in no bill
ever brought in by Sturges Bourne is there one single word
about " h'ish labourers," and in no law that is now in exists
ence, or that ever was in existence, is there any-ptovision for, or
one word about, the whipping of Irish labourers. Therefore
had you not said that the matter of this speech was the fruit
of your " daily thoughts, nightly musings, and morning
meditations," I shouldi have concluded that it was the subject
of a dream, or an effusion, emanating from an exhilarating
draught at Bellamy's.
But suppose we were to disregard the sufferings of the Irish
here; were tolet them die inthe streets, instead of sending
ihem home, we should only be acting upon your own prin
ciple'; for you propose to leave the stranger, even in his
own country, without any relief at all. But how can you.
Sir, reconcile with your profession of a desire to see the two
countries cordially united-; how can you reconcile with this
profession- this assertion, that there is a law, in England, au
thorising the whipping of Irish labourers before they be sent
komel i bope that sorae one has told you the story, and that
wa-nl of time prevented you from looking after this law. The
falsehood being so entire, il not having a shadow of truth
"to give it countenance, I cannot help hoping tbat this is
Ube case. I see, in the course of the year, many hundreds of
*hem going off to Bristol in very commodious caravans, drawn
'by good horses, smoking their pipes, and full of your admired
•" wild merriment." Never are they whipped, and there is no
law for whipping them, in any case, in vvhich in Englishman
would not be whipped,.
Equally destitute of truth is the assertion, that " clergymen
¦" of the Church of Englaind have sworn, that, out of every
" twenty women of the poorer classes, that were married
" by them, nineteen were pregnant." No clergyman in
England ever swore this, and no one ever said it. The tale is
a gross misrepresentation of evidence given before a committee

ON POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND. 167
of the House of Commons in 1828, when the overseer of Pet-
HAM, in H.ERTFORBSHIRE, lold the Committee, that nearly
the whole of the young women were pregnant before they
were married ; because, being too poor to pay fhe expenses of
the wedding, they generally put it off, till the parish wa,s
glad to. pay for it.,. But was this the fault of the poor-laws I
No ; . but,, as was shown by the same evidence, the fault
€f the taxes,, which made the farmers unable to pay the
labourers a sufficiency of wages, and that this latter made
the labourers so poor, tbat they were unable la get married
brfore the pregnancy became obvious to the parish- officers.
Thus the poor-laws, instead of being the cause of this shame
to the young people, actually came in and prevented the.
<dialdren from being born out of wedlock.
The same may be said of your statements relative lo the letting
outof the English labourers to hire to the highest bidder, and of
all the other degrading measures adopted b-y overseers. They
are aiuses of the poor-liaws, and not evils created by the poor-
laws : they liave arisen out of recent alterations in those laws,
and not out of those laws themselves, as is clear frora the fact,
that those laws existed for about two hundred years before any
qf these evils- and oppressions were ever heard of.
- As to the farjning ofthe poor, supposing it to be done upon
just principles, what is it more than putting chUdren to be
beardedby the year 1 If care be taken tbat the contractor do
Tfrhat he ought to do, tbere is notbing either unjust or degrading
in this ; and if he do not do his duty, and the poor people com
plain, the payers of the rates have no interest, and can have no
ittclination lo uphold him in bis wrong-doing. So that this is a
perfectly futile objection to poor-laws, of which, however, this
species of contract forms no essential part.
Your next statement is, that " in consequence of the poor-
*f laws, the fires are now blazing in England, from north
'f to south,'' The cause of these fires is well known ; it is openly
avoiwed, it is specific ; and it isj that the farmers do not give the
labourers so much wages as they say they ought to have,
This is- notoriously the cause. In many cases the fires have
slapped when the wages have been raised ; and have begun
%ain when the wages -have been /oloereii. This has>- indeed j
heeu the case all over the country : and, in the fe-ce of these
VBell-kmjwn facts, GonsideriDg also thatthe poor-laws have existed
about two hundred and forty years, and never produced stich
eflfects before, it required, certainly, nothing short of a Dublin
mixUienee to emboidje-n you to describe the fires as " o conse-

168 TO MR. O CONNELL,
quence ofthe poor-laws;" after which, who need to wonder if
you were to asciibe the national debt and the cholera morbus to
the poor-laws J
You have known " committee after committee sit in vain, to
" discover sorae way of making an effective amelioration in
" the poor-laws." Have you, indeed ! and so have I too. But
tbat maybe an arguraent ire _/at;our of the poor-laws. Lord
Coke said, that " Magna Charta was too strong a fellow
to be overcome by puny acts of Parliament :" and the same may
be said of Old Betsy's poor-law. But, do you know what they
mean by "amelioration " ? I will tell you : taking away the
relief. This is what they have been trying at for about twenty
years. But they find the law " too strong a fellow " for them.
It is the Magna Charta of the working people ; it is written in
their hearts ; the writing descends from the heart of the father
to that of the son ; and God forbid that it should ever be effaced ;
for, if ever that day come, English society and English manners
and English happiness vvill all be effaced along with it, and the
¦world will lose the example of a working-people, sucb as it never
had in any olher country upon earth.
Now, Sir, before I come lo your general and sweeping de
nunciations against the English poor-laws, let me, in finishing
these particular assertions and arguments, just put under your
eyes one remaining assertion ; it is this : " Apothecaries lo supply
" the poor wilh medicines are hired, whose interest it is, that
" the sick poor should die as sooti as possible, in order tbat
" they may be at the less expense for medicines." This, too,
was the result of your " thoughts by day, your musings by night,
and your morning meditations," was it? If you. Sir, can now
again see this your insinuation upon paper, and not change colour,
anything addressed to you, thotigh by a pen a milUon times as
eloquent as mine, must be wholly thrown away.
Leaving you to consider of, to think, muse, and meditate on,
the figure you make before Englishmen, with this insinuation on
your lips, 1 now come to your sweeping assertions relative lo the
effects of the poor-laws, and to the picture which you give us of
the people of the two countries so much in favour ofthe Irish.
You told your cheering audience, that the poor-laws made slaves
of the English working-people ; that it completely destroyed
their character for independence ; that you preferred the wild
merriment of the Irishraan lo the half-sulky, half-miserable
tones of the English slave to the poor-laws ; that the Irishman
certainly had his distresses [indeed !], but then he had his
hopes [of what?] ; he endured much misery, but then he enter-

ON POOR-LAWS .IN IRELAND. 169
•tainad expectation af redress ! Here, it seems, there was
" gixeet cfieering ;" and well there might, if the matter cou
veyed surprise as agreeable to your audience as it does to me.
Well, then, here you wipe away the heavy charge of our poor
" balf-aulky, half-miserable," slaves having -made the Irish
poor! And if this -really he the -state of the Irish people (and
-who can doubt it since you &ay it is),; if they have those cheering
hofits and ;floweiy -expectations ; if they .save in youth where-
-witbal to -support them in age; ifithey have dispensaries in all
the (Villages, and hnspitak in all ithe county towns ; and if they
be (as under -such happy circumstances they naturally must be,)
viil&in merriment.; this'being (as we now know it is,) their state,
then, upon my word, if they stiU corae here to mock with their
mirth pur poor, " ¦half.snlky " souls, I fihall he forgiving their
hides a .little firkii^, ^ /a jSAreriw,6«r^ ; for" Uniied Kingdom"
here, or " United Kingdom " there, they are not to corae here
with their " wild merriment," and taunt us with our " half-
miserable " tones ! However, when I get upon the same floor
with you, vve will soon make an equitable adjustment as to this
matter, at any rate. You shall move and I will second a bill,
which, when it become a law, shall be called the Act of Re
ciprocity, giving you power to whip all the " half-miserable "
English slaves that go to Ireland, and me power to whip all the
youths of " wild merriment" that come to England. This
would set all to rights in a trice : you would preserve your
" gireem island " from the contagion of tbe sulks ; and if I did not
clear ours of the " wild raerriraent," there should be neither
whalebone nor whipcord .left in England.
But now let us (and soberly, if it be possible) take a more
minute look at ihese genei-til assertions made by you. They,
taken fairly and without exaggeration, amount to this : that
the English poor-laws degrade a people, destroy all indepenr-
dence cf spinit^ and, in f&ct,make them slaves. Before I come
to ask you how these assertions are sustained by the compara
tive condition and character and manners ofthe English and
the Irish, you will perhaps permit me to ask you how Moses
came to jnake such ample provision for the indigent poor ; how
th-e Apostles came to do the same, and to establish the order
of DEACtJNS for the express purpose of superintending the
tables at which the poor were relieved; how the Catholic
Church came to receive , all lands and other real property, as
well as gifts in mouey, in the name of the poor, and in no
other name; how that church came to allot one-third part
af the tithes to the poor, which in Ireland, you say, the Pro»
I

170 TO MR. o'cONNELL,
testant parsons "filched " from them : you will, perhaps, permit
me to ask you how all this came lo be, if poor-laws, that is
to ^ay, regular relief to the indigent, have a natural tendency
todegrade, breakdown the spirit, and enslave men ; for, mind,
the act of Old Betsy only came to supply the place of the cer
tain and regular parochial relief, before secured to the people
by the statute as well as the common and the canon law. You
will, I dare say, answer, by saying, that if Moses, the Apostles,
St. Austin, Pope Gregory, and the raakers of Magna Charta,
had been aware of the manifold blessings of stinking shell-fish,
sea-weed, nettles, and agitation, they would have made an
exception as to the " green island." Well, but the mere colour
cannot signify much in such a case ; and then let me ask you,
¦whether you deem the people of the United States of America
to he degraded, destitute of independent spirit, and slaves ?
' Now, Sir, to be serious for a little ; though a lavjyer, it
¦was no duty incumbent on you to know- the lavvs ofthe United
States of America; but, as a genlleman and man of learning,
it might he expected of you, that you understood something of
the laws of a country of so much importance ; and, as a legis
lator of this kingdom, so very extensively, in various ways,
connected with that republic, give me leave to think thai it
was your duty to know something of the principal laws in
force in a country, the freedom and prosperity of whicb, have
become subjects of so much admiration throughout the civilized
world Yet, that you know nothing of those laws, more than
you do of the lavvs of the Cherokee nation of savages, is cer
tain; otherwise it is impossible that you could have put forth,
even in Dublin, this sweeping reprobation ofthe English poor-
laws; seeing that the famous act of the 43rd year of Eliza
beth is in fidl force in every state of that republic, and that il
is acted upon in the most kind and attentive manner. I cannot
speak positively, but I think, that we could not pay less than
fifty thousand dollars a year, in poor-rates, in the city of
Philadelphia, thirty-two years ago. I dare say, that the poor-
rates of the city of New York now araount lo more than a hun
dred thousand dollars a year. Both cities have poor-houses
of prodigious dimensions ; and, wbicb will doubtless fill you
with indignation, the youths of "wild-merriment" are the
most numerous and most permanent inmates of the " naked
cells" of those poor-houses! Many a score dohars have I
myself paid for lhe relief of th^ merry lads and lasses, in both
those humane cities, and never grudged so to do ; and nsany a
pound have I paid for the relief of similar merry persons at

ON POOR-LAWS IN :IREL.AND. 171
Kensington; but not without grudging, knowing well, that
what I pay, in this way, is, in reality, given to the crafty and
hard-hearted landlords of Ireland. I never lived in any place
in America without paying poor-rate. And it even happened,
when I lived in Long Island, the overseer of our township
(North Hempstead) came and took a servant girl away to her
township (Flushing), she being in a state which the delicacy
demanded by Irish ears forbids me to name. We being greatly
in want of the services of the girl, I begged hard for a respite
for a few days ; but the ex-officio guardian of the morals and
the money of the township vvas inexorable ; "Mr, Cawbut
" comes from old England ; Mr. Cawbut must know the taw,
" and Mr. Cawbut must know that the law must be obeyed; "
and, with that, he put her into his cart, and away he took her
and married her, 1 hope, lo a very good husband. So, you see,
Sir, that you have, in this memorable piece of intense elo
quence, wasted a great deal of very fine indignation upon a
very common-phice subject.
However, to give you something beyond these assertions of
mine, let me first inforra you, that, some 'years ago, several
parishes, in the east of Sussex, sent out, at their expense, to
Neiu York, divers families, who, from their nuraerousness, were
greatly burdensome to those parishes; and, sorae years before
that, some farmers went out, from the same neighbourhood,
also to New York. They sent home letters to their relations,
giving an account of the country, and of their situation, and,
generally, beseeching their fathers and mothers and brethren
and friends to follow them. I, hearing of this, and wishing to
dissuade English people from going, if they did go abroad,
from going to any other country but the United States, went
¦down into Sussex, saw the parties who had received the letters,
got them from them (I have them now), and published thera in
my little work called "The Emigr.vnt's Guide," which
every member of both Houses of Parliament, and especially my
Lord Grey, ought to read, and particularly the letters of these
excellent people ike labourers of Sussex. If I had never cared
about English labourers before, these letters would have rivelted
them to my heart. Affectionate parents, d«liful children,
lovers of their country : there are all the virtues here ! And
these are the people whom the garret-lodged prigs of the London
newspapers call " ignorant peasantry," and Mr. Sheil called
"Kentish boors"\ But, the interesting thing at present is,
what did these people say aboutpoor-laws in America 1
Now, Sir, do, pray, look at the little book. If I were at

172 TO MR, OCONKBLL,
hon^e, I would send you a copy. Look first, in page- 92, at a
letterfrora farmerBeN j amin Fowle, addressed; to his cousin,
Daniel Fowle, of Smarden, in, Kent,, and dated from
Utica, in the State of New York. He is describing, to his
cousin the happy state of the country ; and he thus speaks of the
poor-laws : " I have been poor-master of this town for raany
" years, and I find it a rare thing for a resident to become an
" annual town-charge." But, strangers and temporary poor,
he had frequently. Then he adds, that he knows of no one
who takes the trouble to lock his doors by night. So, you
see, honesty and virtue can co exist vvith old Betty's law,
which, you say, degrades people and destroys their character
and makes them slaves ! But what the labourers say on the
subject, in their letters, is still more interesting, and more lo
the point. Look at pages 55 and 58.. The writer is Stephen
Watson, jun., of Seddlescomb, near Battle, in Sussex ; and
I got the letter from his father, who now lives al Seddlescomb,
and whose narae is also Stephen W.^tson. In his letter, dated
at Albany, 5th Oct., 1823, he tells his father this ; " Do not
" make yourselves uneasy about us ; for if we cannot get a
" living here, here is a poor-house, just the same as in
" England." Oh ! " the slave of the poor-laws ! " Then, on
the 29th of March, he, beginning his letter with " Honoured
father and mother," writes thus : " The laws of tbis country
" are as good as in England : the poor are well taken care of:
" there is a large house in this place for the accommodation
" of the old and infirm that are not able to vvork." The hale
wanted none, for the work was always plenty.
How different, Sir the .American patriots and legislators are
firom you ! You will, by no means, have a provision for the
aged, lest it should cause laziness and improvidence in youth,
and lest it should deprive parents of the aid and the affec
tionate attachment of their children ! How wide tbe difference
between the American and tbe Irish philosophy! Stephen
Watson, who calls his father and mother " honoured," and
who, I'll be bound for him never said " your hanner '' to
any man in all his life, does not, you see, seem to think that
poor-laws make " slaves." He says, " the laws of this country
are as good as in England." And why ? Because the poor
are well taken care of, and because there is a poor-house.
Now, Sir, will you acknowledge that you have done wrong
to English poor-laws and EngHsh labourers? You will not?
Very well, then, I will proceed, and go right forward into your
comparative estimate of the character and condition of the

ON poor-laws in' IRELAND. 173
English ahd the Irish working people. And, in the way of
preface, let us have your own description of Ireland, arid of
ils people, as published in your address to tbe Irish nation,
dated at Dublin, on the 6lh of this month.
I begin vrith calling your attention to these truths: —
' First, That there is not on the face of the globe a more fertile
country than ours, nor any one that produces, for its extent, such a
superabundatice of nil the prime necessaries for the food, clothing, and
jiom/ort of its inhabitants.
Secondly, Tbat no country is so well circumstanced for general
commerce as ours ; weare at tbe western extreme of Europe, vvith a
direct navigation to every maritime state in Europe, whilst our con
nexion with Asia aud Africa is by open ocean space ; and vvitb the
free American republics our intercourse raay be the most direct,
rapid, aud uucooflned.
Thirdly, Our green island is indented by spacious roadsteads,
magnificent bays ami estuaries, and capacious harbours— harbours
open at evei-y .hov.r of eve^-y tide, aod sheltered from every wind, and
secure from every tempest.
Fourthly, Our fertile island, too, is extensively intersected by
havig-dble rivers; and the hard and durable materials of which our
roads are, or may be formed, would casily afford the means of ready
commuuication aud sj>eedy intercourse witli every part of our pro
ductive soil-
FiFTHLY, The streams tbat rush from our majest'ic mouyitains, or
sweep witb abundant and rapid course throngh our green and glori
ous vaWeys, ^'ive a superabundant multitude of mi// sites, and afford
the cheapest and most healthful powci' for the working of nianufac-
tories ia the knowu world.
.Sixthly, Our climate is genial and conducive to long life and
manly vigour. No parching sous scorch our plains iuto aridity, or
our people into decrepitude. No chilliog frosts destroy the power of
vegetation, or thin our population by the pinching blight of excessive
cold. Seventhly, This lovely land is inhabited by a people brave as they
are patient, generous as tliey are hardy, good-humoured as tbey are
laborious, intelligent, numerous almost beyond tbe uumber of- tbe
oppressions they are made to endure. Suffering woes themselves, they
are full of active and practical compassion for the poor and the needy ;
and, above all, they are a people deeply impressed with all the sin
cerity of religious belief, and with the incalculable value of religious
practices. J>iffering aa many of them do vvith each otber upon
various points of faith, they one and all scorn and detest infidelity;
aud tbe infidel or the atheist, if he were to rear bis detested head
amongst us, would find that speedy punishment from universal
opinion which would render the inflictions of law needless, and
would anticipate and su/)crserfe all legal punishment.
My countrymen, these truths are undeniable. Such is a faint
sketch of Ireland and her population. Why are the blessings o£
God perverted .' How are the generous and noble impulses of man
hlighted ! Wby is Ireland in a state of decrepitude and decay T
Why are her towns in generaldwrnt/rtng- ifito villages? Why are
I 3

174 ro MR. OCONNBLL,
her villages so frequently disappearing I Wby are her farmers emi
grating, or sinking into labourers ? Why are her labourers almost
unemployed, or wholly starviHg ?
Well, then, as far as the seven heads of description go, here
is a heaven upon earth ; and these are all " truths unde
niable." So that, if we do not find the Irish labourers better
in character and condition than the English, we shall here
find no arguraent against the poor laws. But before I enter on
the comparison, I ftel my attention forcibly arrested by a se«-
timent in the 7th paragraph, and by an assertion in the last of
all; and on these I must remark before I go an inch further*
In the 7th paragraph, you, in the excess of your religious zeal,
condemn the " infidel" to a popular punishment, superseding
the operations of the law (that is to say, to knocking on the
head), if he dare to raise that " detested head" in the "green
island ; " and yet, only about two years ago, you were per
fectly clamorous for putting the worst of all infidels, the
Jews, upon the bench and in the King's Council; infidels who
not only raise their " detested head," but who raise their
horrible voices also, to declare Jesus Christ to have been
" an impostor," and who, amongst the blasphemous rites of
their synagogues, are said to crucify him in effigy twice in
the year ! In short, two years ago, you were for unchris-
tianizing the country by law, and now you are for knocking
the ivfidel on the head, wilhoul judge or jury ! Now, could
this subject have had your " daily thoughts, nightly musings,
and morning meditations," in both cases ?
The assertion to whicb I have alluded, and which is in the
last paragraph, is this : " that the towns of Ireland are
" dwindling into villages, and that its villages are frequently
" disappearing ," Compare this assertion with the oaih that
you made before the committees of the House ofLords in 1825 ;
namely, that the population of Ireland had been, and still
was, prodigiously increasing, and that a surplus population
was one of the causes of the misery of the people ! That
was your oath, or words, I pledge myself, fully to ihat effect.
Which statement are we, then, lo believe ? Will you say
that this dismal decay of towns and villages has taken place
since 1825? Hardly; for, then, we shall ask you what are
become of your splendid promises of prosperity to Ireland
which Emancipation was to give 1 And (more serious still !)
where are those "wMe millions," and that "growing im
portance," which you put forward as the" ground of Ireland's
claim to an equality with England ?

ON POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND. 175
And now. Sir, let-your Dublin audience remain to clap handa
ftnd huzza, while you and I enter on that comparison which
you have provoked) of the relative character and condition
and manners- of the Irish lads of " wild merriment," and the
"Enghsh sulky slaves ofthe poor-laws."
First of all, it is of importance to observe that, as to the
means which are the gift pf God, the Irish have, from your
own account, greatly the advantage over the English. For,
while you - assert that there is not on the face of the globe, a
country more fertile than Ireland, it is well known that thera
are many more fertile than England ; for, though, by incessantly;
scratching and tumbling it about, we do make it produce a
good deal ; still; when you come to your " majestic mountains*,"
pouring down streams into " glorious valleys, there to set
endless mills and manufactories " into motion, and that, too,-
in promoting of" health" at the same lime ; when you come to
these, you make us feel our inferiority ; and, above all, on the
score of greenness, in which respect you appear to surpass us
beyond all comparison. There are, indeed, persons not so de
votedly and exclusively attached to this particular colour ; and,
for instance, I have no objection, nay, I like, to see a part and
a great part of a conatry brawn ; and, at one time of the year,
white. You, however, deem greenness tbe mark of perfection ;
and you have it ; the " English people " have not robbed the
Irish of that, at any rale. Again, we have indeed " harbours"
too ; but not, like you, harbours " open at every hour of every^
" tide, and sheltered from every wind, and secure from every
" tempest," We are obliged to wail for the tides, whether
coniing in or going out ; and, with all our moorings and donble
moorings, our ships are frequently driven on the beach, or out to
sea. These toils and dangers are, it seems, unknown to Ireland,
to the people of which " lovely land" the proverb of " time and
tide waiting for no raan " must be wholly without a meaning.
But, Sir, now comes your great dif&culty ; for, if these, which
you have given us here, be " truly undeniable ; " if such be the
natural resources and adv-autages of Ireland ; if no spot ofthe
globe exceed herin fertility; if she be favoured in tbe raanner
tbat you describe : and yet, if, as you say is the case, " the
" blessings of God are there so perverted, that she is in a state
" of decrepitude and decay, ber towns dwindling into
" villages, her villages disappearing, and her labourers
" alraost unemployed, or wholly starving;" and if, as we
know to be the case, her people are seen wandering over this
our country (not so blessed by God) in search of food, and

176 TO MR. O CONNELL,
in a state nearly approaching to that of actual nakedness ;
and if, as you insist, poor-laws, to secure them food and
clothing al home would not better iheir lot : if all this be
so; or rather, if all this were so, we sbould, hke the English
Grenadier of the Guards, when he landed in Virginia, be
tempted to exclaim, " The Adam and Eve of this people
surely came out of Newgate."
It will not do for you in this case to say that the " blessings
of God have been perverted" by the English, until, at least,
you have replied to my answer to your charge against us on
that score ; and besides, the public have not already forgotten
that you represented that " emancipation," which you ob
tained even beyond the extent of your petitions, as all thai
Ireland wanted to raake her contented and happy and everlast
ingly grateful to England : and that you pledged yourself that
the adoption of tbat measure would enable the Government to
draw additional millions of revenue from Ireland. We have
not so soon forgotten those your a-thousand-tiraes-repeated
declarations; and, therefore, vve deny you the right to impute
to us this " perversion ofthe blessings of God."
You must, then, impute it to yoursielves; or you must confess
that your country calls for that very institution ; that great
English institution, vvhich we are now about to tender you,
and which you are endeavouring to prepare your miserable
countrymen to reject as a scourge. Look at the difference in
the working people of the two countries. You have, if you do
speak the truth, tbe advantage over us in cliraate and soil ; and
you have, you say, a people " brave, patient, generous, hardy,
good-humoured, laborious, and intelligent." Yet look at the
difference in the people, and particularly the working people,
of the two countries ! Look at it : consider it well : here, indeed,
is matter for an Ii'ish legislator to think, muse, and meditate
upon. When did you, or anybody else, ever see or hear of En
glishmen prowling about, in bands of half-naked beggars, in any
country upon earth: when did you ever hear of the necessity
of taking them up by force, and carrying them like malefactors
and tossing them back upon their native shores : when did you
ever hear of them being an incumbrance to any people amongst
whom they went : when, since you talk of their hovels, did you
see or hear of English labourers being in hovels, in company
with the pig, the flesh of vvhich they were destined never to
taste, both feeding on the same root, atthe same board, warmed
by the same chimneyless fire, and both blackened by the same
smoke : when, since you talk of the " naked cells " of the poor-

ON POOR-LAWS LN IRELAND. 177
house,, did you ever hear of thousands of /ftem living on stinking
shell-fish,. sea^weed, and nettles, and of thousands at a time re
ceiving the last offices of religion as preparatory to death from
starvation:, when, since you call them slaves, did you ever see
or hear of one of them applying the cringing and fawning appel-
ation of " your hanner " to any human being, much less to any
thing, though groom or footman, frora whora they expected to
coax a^ farthing, or a mouthful of bread : when did you ever
hear of English labourers who needed, or who would contentr
edly suffer, an employer to stand over them at their work : when
did you ever hear of their dwellings being destitu te of every mark
of cleanliness and of decent reserve, having about them no traces
of human existence wilhin, except the feculent heap at the door,
which nature herself would call upon them to hide : when did you
ever see or ever hear talk of one of their rural habitations, not
having about it (unless rendered, impossible by local circum
stances) gooseberry and currant bushes, beds of parsley and other
herbs, plants of wall-flower and biennial stock, clumps of poly
anthuses, daisies, and bulbs, and other flowers, and, where possi
ble, plants of roses and honey-suckles, trained round their
windows, or over their doors, vvith the greatest care and tbe
greatest laste, of all which, together with apple-trees grafted
by their own hands, and together also with stalls of bees, the
result of their own care ; there are more in a circuit, embracing
ten- rural parishes of England, tban there are lo be found in pos
session of all the millions of labourers tbat inhabit the " lovely
land;" when, lastly (not to suffer the provocation to urge me
further), did you ever see or hear of an " English slave " dis
owning the country of his birth, and wherever found, and
under whatever circumstances, not forward lo proclaim himself
a,n Englishman, and to boast of the honour of the name ?
Now, Sir, avoiding, as something too painful to encounter,
a detailed exhibition of the other side, do I ascribe the differ^-
ence lo the nature of the Irish people, to any inherent vice in
them? By no means. I ascribe it to the difference in the
treatm-ent received by the two people from their rulers. Not to
anything done by England to Ireland ; but to the former not
-having compelled the domestic rulers of the latter to treat
the Irish working people as the English working people have beea
treated,, during the last two centuries and a half; and particu,-
larly to its. not having compelled the owners of the land in Ire
land to leave enough of its produce in the several parishes, to
provide for the wants of the destitute ; as is effectually done in

178 TO MR. O'cONNELL,
England and Americaby those famous poor-laws, vvhich Black
stone truly says, are " founded in the very principles of civil
society;" but the unspeakable benefit of which you are now
labouring, though I trust in vain, to prevent your ill-treated,
unhappy, and ever-troubled country from receiving. I allo-iv,
that, as to this matter, your efforts have received but too much
countenance from those of persons in this country, who have long,
and particularly since the publication of the book of the foolish
and unfeeling M.vLTnus, been endeavouring to chip away the
-meaning, intention, and effect of the poor-laws. Sturges
Bourn e's Bills were a bold stroke ; but, the inventors, when
they look at the awful consequences, will find little reason lo
congratulate themselves on their success. Those bills have al
ready cost them ten thousand times more than the bills would
have saved them in a hundred years. In 1819, the present Lord
Chancellor said, that he was " prepared to defend, to their utmost
extent, the principles of Malthus." He has pledged himself
to bring in a poor-law bill this session, to supplant, I suppose,
the bill of Lord Teynham, which would in effect have re
pealed the hated bills of Sturges Bourne, and have restored
peace lo the villages and hamlets. If the Lord Chancellor's
Bill do not lessen the extent of the claijn on the poor-rates,
it will be a tacit giving up of M.-\lthus ; and, if it do, a bill
to alter the succession to the crown would not be more wild !
Oh, no ! This law is immortal; it has lived under all changes
of dynasty, and changes of forms of government, in England
and in America ; it is written in the hearts of the people, it is
" founded in the first principles of civil societ)';" it makes, if
duly administered, even the poorest man feel that he has an in
terest in all the property around him ; it is the ground, the good
ground, the solid ground, but the sole ground, upon whicb the
poorman is called upon to take up arms in defence ofthe rich ;
it is, as I said before, the bond of peace, and the cement of
society; woe be unto those who shall attempt to destroy or en
feeble it in England, and the just reproach of mankind will in
the end, be the inevitable lot of all who shall attempt to prevent
its adoption in Ireland.
It vvas my intention to make some remarks on that part of your
speech where you speak of the sort of reform which you de
mand for Ireland, and where you clearly enough hint at tbe
attempts which you shall make to cause a separation, if the
intended reform be not such as you shall deem "just;" but,
not having tirae to do justice to this subject now, and extremely

ON POOR-LAWS IN IRELAND. 179
anxious to act juslly towards you, I must defer it till another
opportunity ; and, in the meanwhile, offering you, if you deem
it worth your while to use them for the purpose, the columns of
my Register as a vehicle for any reply that you may choose lo
give to this letter, I remain, Sir,
Your most humble
and most obedient servant,
Wm. COBBETT.

THE END.

LONDON :
TRINTED BY MITjLS, JOWETT, AND MILLS,
E0LT-COUB.T, FLBE r-STHEBT.

Date Due
-All books are subject to recall after two weeks.

00978 8606