must enlarge them-that the country reaps vast profits from the giving away of its trade to foreign ones and that individual and general loss and hunger produce individual and general gain and abundance.

Of course the monkish priesthood of this press replies not to those who dissent from it, by argument and fact: it cannot bestow these on heretics. It destroys their character, public and private, and insists that they do not possess a vestige of knowledge and understanding. Refute it by decisive facts, and its answer is that you are a monster, a knave, or a lunatic; overthrow its creed and legends by convincing proof, and it proclaims you an outlaw and consigns you to perdition. Its weapons naturally are the anathema and excommunication; that they are not also transportation and the gallows, is clearly owing to the state of the law.

One great cause of this appalling state of things is to be found in the degeneracy of the Aristocracy. Heretofore this body combined much patriotism with its party spirit, but it is now the degraded slave of personal politics. Only a few years ago, county and other public meetings were held to petition for Reform or against the property tax, to vote addresses in favour of the Ministry, or to promote other subjects of still smaller comparative importance. But now when the community is strug gling with unexampled suffering, and the empire is threatened with ruin, no such meetings can be mentioned. The country gentleman could risk person and fortune in the cause of party and faction; but he can risk nothing in that of his country: he could exhaust effort in creating convulsion, deranging the finances, and labouring to give office to one knot of public men, or preserve it to another; but he cannot stir a finger in endeavouring to arrest the progress of general insolvency, give bread to the millions of his starving countrymen, and place public affairs under the direction of honesty and right principle. He sees his tenants in ruin, and their labourers without necessaries; he feels that his rents are departing, and his property is undergoing practical confiscation; but he is still mute and motionless. There is no ministry to

please, no party to serve, no faction to benefit, by exertion; the cause is that of patriotism and humanity against them, therefore the spiritless, cringing, grovelling bondsman puts the yoke on his neck, hangs the chains on his limbs, and, even to the sacrifice of his own estate, submits to be made an instrument in protecting and enlarging the fearful evils. I ́ make no distinction between Whig and Tory. While agriculture is distressed as it is, not even a petition to Parliament has been spoken of in any quarter!

Looking in Parliament, what are those who still, though most unworthily, bear the name of country gentlemen? One part are the humble tools of this minister, and another of that; a third must servilely follow their whig connexions; and a fourth, though they profess hostility to both the ministry and the whigs, cannot on any account oppose them. With them, persons are every thing, and principles nothing; the selfsame measures, they will oppose in one ministry or party, and support in another. Looking out of Parliament, it is still person, and person only, which must be regarded. This batch of Peers, for weighty personal reasons, goes with the ministry; that, for similar reasons, sanctions the present system of policy; and the gentlemen of the county cannot be so refractory as to refuse to imitate them. Principles are of course out of the question.

It naturally follows, that the ministry is above the influence of the country gentlemen; it knows their abject servility, and despises them; all it has to do is to buy up the leading Peers. These Peers know that they can drag their abject followers to any thing, therefore they go to the extreme of corruption.

Another great cause is to be found in the conduct of too many of those who oppose the present system. These worthy people, with trembling humility, protest in every third sentence against imputing motives, condemning conduct, and the use of strong language. Let one minister deceive his friends, betray his cause, and exhibit the darkest specimen of apostasy on record-he is still a most pure and honourable person. Let another minister trample on the

constitution, and outrage popular rights and privileges-he is still a most upright public servant. Let this party, for the sake of private gain, reverse its principles-it still acts from the best intentions. Let that party, in order to obtain possession of power, labour to overthrow all the institutions of the countryits motives are still most praiseworthy. With these people, you must call vice virtue, and crime innocence; if the cabinet traitor confess his guilt, you must insist that he has committed none; if the cabinet despot perpetrate his iniquity before the whole world, you must attest his purity in despite of the evidence of your senses; you must declare it impossible for a minister to feel interested motives, and for a party of public men to be actuated by any thing but patriotism. Should Mr Peel sell his country to a foreign one, or the Duke of Wellington seize on the crown by force of arms, or the Lord Chancellor advise the Sovereign to annul the constitutionshould one party of public men offer to surrender public freedom, or another unfurl the banner of rebellion, such people would see in all this nothing beyond a little venial error of judgment.

In conformity with this, if the public mind be excited in their favour, they make it matter of regret; if petitions be prepared, they solemnly disavow all participation in it: they wash their hands of the strong language used in one quarter, and the strong proceedings resorted to in another each must dissent about as much from his brethren, as from his opponents. They fight the battle in friendship and love, therefore they must employ neither weapons nor blows.

Then, although they dissent from the principles of their opponents, they dissent equally from opposite ones. They do not approve of the new system, but they do not wish to return to the old one-free trade in silks is not to their mind, but they are opposed to prohibition-theirs is some middle course-some moderate system equally distant from both extremes. In reality they have no principles; they surrender just as much as makes what they retain

worthless; they advise that truth and protection shall be compounded with sufficient error and destruction to deprive them of all efficacy. To crown the whole, they admit that their opponents may be right in the abstract, and are unquestionably men who combine the highest talents and acquirements with the first virtues.

What are the fruits of all this? To the prevailing faction of public men, official, and otherwise, all distinctions between right and wrong, purity and guilt, are destroyed. The Minister may range round the whole circle of iniquity-the party may sell both the crown and the people-and the faction may openly plunge to the lowest depths of crime, in perfect certainty that their opponents will spontaneously testify to their unsullied honour and incorruptible patriotism.

The effects would not be so pernicious as they are, if it were initated by the opposite side; but the latter is sagacious enough to avoid the folly. The Holy Fathers and their press, in return for the meek and honied compliments, load the public and private character of the Duke of Cumberland with the most horrible charges-represent the Eldons and Newcastles to be equally imbecile and corrupt-and assert the Sadlers to be wholly destitute of both ability and integrity. If in Parliament the Broughams and Burdetts cease for a moment to vituperate the bigotry and dishonesty of those who differ from them, it is only to compassionate their lamentable ignorance and want of understanding. Huskissons, on being lauded by their opponents for their great talents and spotless intentions, charge these opponents with being egregious simpletons, who are actuated by the worst motives. All who dissent from them are in the mass held up to public derision for incapacity, and to public hatred for want of principle.

The

Thus then in effect the testimony of both sides is, that the Holy Fathers and their followers can do no wrong, and that they monopolize all the talents and virtues; while their opponents can never be right, and are utterly destitute of intellect and honesty. The right side practically joins the other in destroying its own

character and power. The public man cannot be profligate, without obtaining honours and rewards; and he cannot be consistent and upright without covering himself with disgrace and punishment.

To this may be, in some degree, ascribed the infatuation which prevails amidst the less exalted classes. The landowner assents in Parliament to the most absurd doctrines touching agriculture, which his own eyes have again and again proved to him are utterly false. The farmer agrees to doctrines which he knows from ample trial will be ruinous to him. The merchant and manufacturer applaud doctrines which they know from daily experience to be wholly erroneous. And the working classes support doctrines which are confessedly to take away their wages, and which they know from sad experiment must plunge them into want and wretchedness.

I say, in some degree, because the infatuation is too extraordinary to be accounted for on natural causes.

If the charge be cast on me, that I speak from party feelings, I shake it from me with scorn: the public man lives not whom I follow; the party has no existence which can give me opinion. If the accusation be made, that I speak from prejudice and bigotry, I spurn it from me into the teeth of my accusers.

As to in

terest, I scarcely need mention it; those who know any thing must be aware, that he who takes the path which I do must look for his reward solely to his own conscience.

Am I, that I may escape being called a party-man, to follow the profligate and traitor, and assist in destroying the constitution; propagating error and delusion; sacrificing the public weal to party cupidity; and filling the empire with loss and wretchedness? Am I to tell my country to trust in those who have betrayed her; to hope in those who have overwhelmed her with calamity; and to follow those who are leading her to destruction? Am I to be silent when faction is preying on her vitals, and every thing dear to her is in jeopardy?

Iam-boast though it be too much a patriot.

Am I, that I may not be charged with prejudice and bigotry, to re

verse the definitions of right and wrong-to laud insincerity, treachery, and apostasy-to war against honour and consistency-to assert that black is white, and light is darkness-and to make sordid enmity to public interests, and utter disregard for principle, the first of virtues in the public man? While the swindler is still punished by law, am I to hold the wretch innocent who plunders his country, by obtaining office or party power under false pretences? While the murderer still forfeits his life by his guilt, am I to be the eulogist of the public men and parties who, for personal profit, continually strike at the existence of the empire?

I am too much the friend of honour and morals.

Or, for the same cause, am I to substitute names for things, and to judge from empty appellations, instead of actual nature and consequences? Am I to be the blind worshipper of abstract doctrines, in utter contempt of what their application produces? When I see that Catholic Emancipation has converted that which was merely a question of internal regulation into one of rebellion and civil war-has changed that which made the influential part of the Irish people the firm friends of England, into a matter of deadly contention between the latter and Ireland, as separate nations-has practically severed Ireland from England, and dismembered the empire, am I to be its panegyrist, because the principles from which it emanated are called liberal and enlightened? Am I to applaud that which has sacrificed the foreign interests of my country, and destroyed her influence amidst other nations, merely because it is called liberal and enlightened policy? Am I to support laws which demonstrably have plunged half my countrymen into ruin and misery, because it is said, they are founded on liberal and enlightened principles? Is it, because the doctrines on which the empire is governed, are called liberal and enlightened, that I am to embrace them, when the evidence of my senses shews that they have destroyed its power, stripped it of its supremacy, dissolved the union of its parts, and given it, for prosperity

and happiness, bankruptcy, hunger, and suffering? Am I to be the champion of what are called liberal opinions, because they are so called, when I have demonstration before me that their application, in every instance, both at home and abroad, has yielded only calamity and wretch edness?

I am not sufficiently afflicted with madness.

Or, am I to abjure principles, and vituperate systems, merely because they are called bigoted, antiquated, and obsolete? Am I to abandon the maxims and policy of my fathers, because they are covered with vulgar calumny, when I am surrounded by proofs that they made my country the first of nations-that they gave her as much happiness as grandeur -that, while they filled the coffers of the capitalist, they blessed the labourer with comfort and abundance -that they poured their benefits impartially on all ranks and callingsand that they were not more productive of riches and plenty than of religion, morals, honour, patriotism, and all the virtues?

I-even I—have too much understanding.

Or, am I to forsake proved truth, and embrace self-evident falsehood? Am I to believe that the landlord's rent, and the farmer's profits, will be increased, in proportion as the prices of agricultural produce are reduced that the manufacturer's gains and trade will be enlarged in proportion as his prices are lowered, his markets are glutted, and his protection against foreign competition is taken away--and that the labourer's command over necessaries and comforts will be extended in proportion as his wages are diminished and his employment is destroyed? Am I to believe that the general rate of profit will be the highest, when the distress of the agricultural half of my countrymen is the greatest that the ruin of the home-trade will benefit the foreign one-that losing prices will yield the best profits that the trade of this country will be increased by the surrender of it to foreigners-and that the consumption of agricultural produce, manufactures, and merchandise, will be the greatest, when the means of consumers for obtaining them are the

smallest? Am I to believe, that if this country buy abroad, it can give nothing but goods in payment-that if France sell to this country for money, it will cause other nations to buy a proportionately greater quantity of British goods-that if America refuse to take such goods in payment for her commodities, this will compel foreign Europe to take the whole quantity she refuses in addition to its usual purchases-that capital and labour can never want employment-that the destruction of their employment is the best means of preserving them from idlenessand that the more deeply and comprehensively the population is sunk in penury and barbarism, the greater will be the measure of national trade, wealth, and prosperity? And am Í to believe ten thousand similar fictions, equally gross and monstrous? I cannot so far unman myself.

Or, am I to insist that agriculture ought to be sacrificed to manufactures and commerce-that the shipowners ought to be ruined to increase the profits of the cotton and woollen manufacturers-that protection ought to be given to one trade, and denied to another-and that the great majority ought to be stripped of property and bread, for the benefit of the contemptible minority?

I am too much an Englishman to advocate the atrocious robbery and confiscation, the inhuman tyranny and oppression.

Or, am I to maintain that it is the object of trade to ruin and hunger my fellow-creatures, that it ought to be extended by creating general bankruptcy, and depriving the working classes of food and raiment, intelligence, morals, and virtue-and that every thing which distinguishes man from the beast of the field ought to be sacrificed to it? Am I to teach that the labourer ought to starve that his employer may become rich, and that the vast mass of my countrymen ought to be bound to indigence, want, and misery, for the benefit of the few individual exceptions? Must I lie and slander that public suffering may be concealed and preserved from remedy-swear that the insolvent trade is flourishing, and the destitute workmen are in employment -protest that loss is profit, and want is abundance-and blast the charac