popular obloquy. The decision |nistry, unaccompanied with a of to-day, I have always dis- change of the system. Indeed, regarded; and what I have al-it is necessary to believe this, in ways desired to have said of me order to take from the opposiwas, "he foresaw these things tion a presumption of complete "when nobody else foresaw worthlessness of character. For, "them; he understood these it is notorious that there is "things when nobody else un-every reason in the world for derstood them; the evils, the removal of the present Miwhich have now fallen upon nisters, upon the supposition his country, would never have that a mere change of men taken place if his advice had would not be absurd and even been followed." I am too mischievous. The feeling with well aware of the workings of regard to her Majesty, is wholly envy in some, and of false pride without a parallel, whether conin others, to expect ever to see sidered as to its ardour or its this acknowledgment in print, extent. In 1814, when Napoor to hear it from the lips; but, leon had been subdued, when a at the same time, I know that twenty-two years war had been men must say it in their hearts; brought to what was regarded a and even in their reluctance to most glorious termination; give utterance to their thoughts, when, though for various reaI find additional gratification; sons, all parties joined in rejoicwhile I know, with as much cer-ing, when the government, the tainty as I

T

Tuesday, how that this is aristocracy, the Church; when

Tuesday, the the wisdom of these took the lead; when the -my principles and proposed army and even the fleet were measures, of fourteen years called forth to join in the shouts; ago, must be acknowledged, when nearly three hundred and that in acts of Parliament thousand pounds of the public too, or, that this country must money was expended in tritake its chance on the boisterous umphal exhibitions and entersea of revolution. tainments; even at that time

A

As I had the honour to ob- the demonstrations of joy, and serve to your Lordship in my the expressions of congratulafirst letter, the people can see tion were nothing in comparino use of a change of the Mi-son to what they have been in

consequence of the triumph off thing against the Queen, to her Majesty. At that time the whose applications those Miniscities and towns inhabited in ters turn a deaf ear; that the part, at least, by the opulent, people do and must wish these and acting under the urgings of Ministers to be dismissed, is a the constituted authorities, dis-thing not to be denied. played signs of joy; but now What, then, can be the cause these signs have shewn them- of their stubborn silence upon selves in the very villages, and the subject of that dismission? that, too, where the principal You have the cause very satisperson has frequently been no factorily explained in the petimore than a common farmer. tion of Middlesex, and in that So far from waiting to be urged of the Common-Hall of London, by persons in authority, the peo- and also in that of the City of ple have acted in almost every Westminster. "Give us a case contrary to the well known" Change of the Ministry," wishes of such persons; and, in say the people; bat "give us numerous instances, in open de-" no change that will not sefiance of them.

"cure to us a reform." In the county of Durham, I perceive, nothing was said about a change

Now, my Lord, it is not to be believed that those who have thus rejoiced at her Majesty's in the Ministry; and nothing is triumph, must not hold in re-proposed to be said, I perceive, probation the conduct of the in the county of Berks. Why is Ministers; and that they must this; because if the proposition not wish to see those Ministers to dismiss the Ministers had disgraced by being at any rate been made, some one (the deprived of their power. They meeting being a public one) do not, perhaps, think with a would have proposed, as was certain Member of Parliament, done at Leeds, to make Reform that the Ministers ought to be a condition for the change of hanged, or, at any rate, that Ministry, and would thereby they ought to be hanged while have defeated the purpose of it is improper or unnecessary to those who had brought forward impeach them; but that the the proposition for praying for people, who still suspect that the change, which actually took the Ministers meditate some-place in Middlesex, to the utter

confusion of those by whom the it once more worthy of its meeting had been called.

name.

What is the principal cause of that ruin and misery which now pervades the land, and which makes the life of the industrious man hardly worth preserving? What is the principal cause of the discontents which have furnished us with the best possible means of urging on the cause of Reform? This cause is the existence of

It is manifest, therefore, my Lord, that the only obstacle to the supplanting of the Ministers by their rivals for power, is, that those rivals will make no pledge to procure for the people a Reform in the Commons, House of Parliament. In my last letter to your Lordship, I thought it unnecessary to go at any length into matter to shew a paper system, by the means the necessity of this Reform. of which the incomes of the Neither shall I do this upon this land-owners, and earnings of occasion; but I will endeavour the industrious, are taken from to describe, as fully as my space will allow, the present dangers of the country; and if I should succeed in doing justice to that part of my subject, I shall, think, have little difficulty in convincing you, that these dangers are to be obviated; or, in other and more pointed terms, that a dreadful convulsion is to be prevented solely by that Reform, which would conciliate

the people, hush all animosities;

make England once more like England, make us all join heart and hand with the King, his

Ministers and the Parliament, to

rescue our country from, peril

and degradation, and to make

them in proportions so large as to leave to the farmer, the trader, the journeyman, and the labourer, so perfect an inadequacy of means, as to deprive the two former classes of the possibility of making suitable provision for their children; and as to produce, with regard to the two latter classes, that monster in civil society, starvation in the midst of abundance.

My lord, is it to be arrogant or presumptuous, to differ in opinion with, or to call in question the wisdom of, those who one year ascribed the distresses of the country to a superabundance of food, and the very next year ascribed it to a superabundance of mouths? Is it to

But, in justice to myself as

well as in justice to the subject, I must first trace the cause from its root to the extremity of the branches. It was in the year 1797 that the first step was taken towards our present state of ruin and misery. It was then that that memorable Order of Council was issued, out of which

be presumptuous, my lord, to passing in the United States of assert that there must be some- America relative to the subject thing radically wrong in a sys-in question; and I shall, by and tem under which good harvests bye, have to notice the recent as well as bad harvests are an speech of the President, and affliction to a nation? Is it to be again to avail myself of it in the presumptuous to discard as un-way of illustration. worthy of attention the opinions of men, who declared the distress to have arisen from a sudden transition from war to peace, and who, at the end of six years of peace, have seen nothing but a constant increase of distress, and have then avowed that they have no remedy to administer, and remedy even to suggest? Is it to be presumptuous to venture to set forward one's opinions in opposition to those of men, who tax one part of the people to furnish another part with the means of emigrating, at the very same time that they pass laws to prevent the importation of food, and, of course, the ex-pended cash payments at the portation of manufactures in Bank; the last of them has exchange? enacted, that cash payments

no

have grown twelve acts of Parliament, the last of which goes

by the name of Mr. Peel's Bill; to which acts we have to ascribe a long train of suffering and a hideous mass of present danger.

The first of theso acts sus

I think it is not to be pre-shall be resumed; and has prosumptuous to do this. I have vided for the adoption of certain all along disapproved of the measures preliminary to that measures which have been resumption. Here is the great adopted with respect to this cause of the distress; and now, great matter. In my last letter in justice to myself, I will simply I took the liberty to call your set down a very short account. lordship's attention to what was of my endeavours to prevent the

mity and of danger.

existence of this cause of cala-1 was to turn, assumed a more regular and official form. The party to which your lordship belonged, took the matter up,

At a very early period after my return to England in 1800, I clearly perceived the dangers on the motion of the late Mr. of this paper system; and I per- Horner, and obtained a comceived not less clearly that pay-mittee of enquiry, which comments in cash could never be mittee was called the Bullion resumed, without a destruction Committee, and which Commitof a great part of the debt, or, tee reported, that an act ought without producing, first, general to be passed to compel the Bank ruin and misery; and last, a con- to resume cash payments at the vulsive revolution. During the end of two years from that time. years from 1803 to 1810, it was The Ministerial party contended very seldom that a month passed that the Bank was able at any over my head without an endea-time to resume cash payments; vour to inculcate these opinions, but that it would be inexpedient for the inculcation of which that it should do this until peace. opinions I was repaid, in speech, Thus stood, in 1810, the opiin print, and in conversation, by nions, declarations, and propoevery species of abuse, and in sitions of the two parties in Parcertain other ways, by the se- liament. Each party had its verest of persecution and pu- partizans out of doors. More nishment short of absolute kil- than two hundred pamphlets ling. If ever man was martyr were published on the subject; to any thing, I was a martyr to I stood alone, and, in my work these opinions, which are now written at that time, entitled put forth as their own by thou-Paper against Gold, I asserted, sands upon thousands of men, and I think I proved to demon❤ who then persecuted me, or who stration, this position: "that heartily applauded the persecu-" cash payments never could be tors, "resumed, without a large re

I now come to the memorable" duction of the interest of the epoch of 1810, when the discus-" debt, or, without the utter sion upon this grand subject," ruin of all persons actively upon the decision as to which I" engaged in trade of every de well knew the fate of England" scription, and in agriculture.'.