Offices. To hear this talk, one would suppose that “ Government” was a very rich and generous thing, having an immense estate of its own, instead of being what it is, the collector of enormous sums drawn away from the people at large. If Government, therefore, were to purchase the corn, the taxes must be augmented before the purchase could be made; and Squire JOLTERHEAD, who, I dare say, is a great advocate for this scheme, would look very foolish to be called upon for his share of this tax. But, Government would sell the corn again! And what then? If it sold the corn for less than it gave for it, Squire Jolterhead would have to pay more tax next year. If it sold it for more than it gave for it, then Squire Jolterhead would have to make up the difference to his labourers and tradespeople in an additional price for their goods and labour, or else, in the shape of poor-rates. As to the encouraging of distilleries; in what way is it proposed to do this? A very excellent friend of mine, a native of the sister kingdom," which we treat in such an unsisterlike manner, calls spirituous liquors concentrated bread; and he insisted, during one of his kind visits to me while I was in prison, that, when I saw a fishwoman come reeling out of a gin-shop that happened to be opposite my windows, I ought not to say that she was drunk, but that she had over-eaten herself. Little did he imagine, I dare say, that the solemn-faced correspondents of the Board of Agriculture would so far adopt his notion as to recommend this species of concentration with a view of relieving the national distress. To be sure a glass of gin requires less room for stowage than a quartern loaf; and as a very large portion of the people are now without house or home, stowage may be a matter of consequence. But that the farmer would obtain a better market for his corn in consequence of the same money being laid out in barley made into gin, than would otherwise be laid out in barley made into beer or into bacon, it is a proposition not to be believed for a moment, and, indeed, is an idea never to find a place in the mind of any one who is not either an inhabitant of Bedlam, or a correspondent of the Board of Agriculture.

The sixth, twelfth, and twenty-fourth remedies may be classed together, as they all have in view to restore to, and to keep in circulation, a greater quantity of paper-money than now is in circulation. To be sure this would stave off the evil. As I have all along been saying, and as every man of sense well knew, it is impossible to pay the taxes to the amount of sixty or seventy millions a year without the aid of a depreciated paper-money, and this is precisely what you said during the debate on the Bullion question. It is now seen how empty were the heads of those, who proposed to restore gold and silver to circulation, without, at the same time, taking off onehalf of the taxes. But, in fact, to follow the advice of these gentlemen, that is to say, to continue the Bank Restriction in peace, and to increase the quantity of paper-money by the means of branch Banks, would be neither more nor less than an issue of assignats. It would be, what probably will be, a paying of the creditors of the Government in depreciated paper made for the express purpose. When during the year 1815, I was spreading about my opinions upon this subject; when I was insisting that the interest of the debt must in part, at least, go unpaid, or that the quantity of paper-money must be augmented; when I was spreading about these opinions, I knew they were correct, but I did not expect to see the Board of Agriculture giving their sanction to them in so solemn a manner. This remedy, however, would appear now to be impracticable. For, if the mi

nisters could have done it, they would have done it long ago. It seems, that they thought, that you were wrong; that they could glide by degrees into gold and silver payments, without depriving themselves of the means of paying the interest on their debt. I had told them a thousand times over, that they never could restore gold and silver to circulation without blowing up the funding system But, they were foolish enough not to believe me; and they called me Jacobin and Leveller; very good names but very bad arguments. Now they are told by their own creatures, that this doctrine was perfectly sound. them, however, now do what they will, they cannot escape out of the mire into which they are plunged. If they could discover any means of sending forth new bales of paper-money, they would only stop the ruin which is pressing upon one part of the community, to force it upon another part of the community, while their paper-money and their funds would become the scorn of the world.

Let

The fifteenth remedy, which is, "to reduce the interest of money," has indeed some sense in it, and if the gentlemen mean to reduce the interest of the debt from five per cent. to two per cent., and the interest on all other sums due since the year 1812 in the same proportion, and if to this be added a proportionate reduction in all the other expenses of the Government, including a total abolition of all sinecure places and unmerited pensions and grants; if this be the meaning of these gentlemen, then I am of opinion, that their remedy would be a real one. There would then remain (for the sinking fund must be dropt) about twenty-four millions a year to be collected, which sum might possibly be raised without a fictitious currency. But if they mean any thing short of this, they may as well hold their tongues; and if they do mean this, or if they mean to take any part of the interest of the debt off, they recommend that which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was pleased to denominate a breach of national faith. Breach it may be on the part of those who have borrowed the money; that is to say, those who have had a majority of the Boroughs; but, breach or breach not this measure must be resorted to, or the estates of the landowners will all be transferred from them. It is useless to endeavour to blink this question; it must be brought forward. The loyal gentlemen in the country may feel great pain at making the proposition; but made it must be, as I believe, in less than six months' time. The effect that will be produced by the making of such a proposition is not easy to imagine, much less to describe. When the time of making it comes, we shall see who will still have the courage, or rather the impudence, to extol the wisdom of Pitt and Perceval, and Canning and Castlereagh.

The seventeenth, the eighteenth, and the nineteenth remedies relate to the poor-laws, upon which subject I dwelt pretty fully in my last letter. As to the ninth remedy, namely, to establish corn rents; the twentieth remedy, to repeal the game-laws; the twenty-first remedy, which is to lessen the quantity of land sown; and the twenty-third remedy, which is to take the tax off from draining-brick; these are really too childish to merit attention. If they serve any purpose at all, it is to show that the heads of the people have been turned by the bewildering distresses in which they are involved. But as to the poor-laws, there remains a good deal yet to be said; for, this is the most terrific object in the eyes of these gentlemen; and so it ought to be in the eyes of the Boroughmongers; for to this point it comes] at last; the people are suffering for want of food, and they remember the old adage, that "hunger will break through

stone walls." One gentleman says, "the poor-rates are the greatest of our "evils; an evil to the growth of which no bound is fixed, and which un"less some timely check be given, will, forty years hence, render the nominal landowner of an estate only a trustee to manage it for the "benefit of the poor."

I remarked, in my last letter, on the baseness of thus railing against the poor, while the railer said not a word against the sinecure places and pensions; but we will see presently what sort of benefit the poor actually derive from the Poor-laws. To hear these gentlemen railing, one would suppose, that the poor people were at least, comfortably fed and lodged and clothed. Let us, therefore, take Sir RICHARD BROOKE's account of this matter. This gentlemam, who lives in Northamptonshire, tells us that the poor men, whom the overseers are compelled to relieve, or to find work for, are let out to the highest bidder, perhaps from twopence to eightpence a day, the parish paying the labourer the difference between what is offered for him and the sum ordered by the magistrates. After this Sir RICHARD BROOKE gives a statement of the several allowances to paupers, to which statement I beg leave to implore your attention. The statement is this: "" That the magistrates order all overseers to support, or allow, men who apply to them, per week, as follows: A single man. 5s.

"A man and wife, 6s.

A family, 5s. for the two parents, and 2s. for each child.

"If the overseers can show, that the family earn any thing, their earnings form a part of the allowance."

་་

Thus, Sir, we have under their own hands; we thus possess, under the hands and seals of a Government Board, the scale according to which the labourers of England are now fed. We have here the money amount of their food; and we will now see what is the amount of the quantity of that food. Let us first take the allowance to the single man. Bread is now, at Botley, 114d. the quartern loaf, weighing 4lbs. 5oz. So that a pound and a half of bread a day, 24 ounces (leaving out a fraction), will amount to 2s. 43d. a week. Bacon is 11d. per pound; and, six-and-ahalf ounces of bacon a day will amount to 2s. 74d. a week. Thus are the five shillings disposed of.

Now, Sir, let us see the man seated at his meals. In 24 ounces of bread there are about 63 mouthfuls; and, in 6 ounces of bacon, after allowing for boiling and bone, there are about 15 mouthfuls. So that there are 21 mouthfuls of bread and 5 mouthfuls of bacon for each meal! This is the diet of the single man; and, as the man and wife are allowed 6s. between them, their meal will consist of about 14 mouthfuls of bread and 3 mouthfuls of bacon each. A child (and some children require food equal to a man) will have about 9 mouthfuls of bread and 2 mouthfuls of bacon. And you will please to observe, that they will none of them have anything for drink, clothing, fuel, or lodging!

This is, I think, the very lowest degree in the scale of human misery and degradation. We have here an account of the smallest quantity of sustenance that can be given to man, woman, and child, without exposing them to immediate death by hunger. And, the Book contains ample proof, that millions of our countrymen are now reduced to this wretched state, with a prospect of a very large addition to their numbers.

If, Sir, this state of misery had been the consequence of any of those calamities, which no Government could have prevented, our feelings,

upon the occasion, would be different from what they now ought to be. But, not only might this misery have been prevented by the Government, by its abstaining from all interference in behalf of the despots of the Continent; not only might the great cause of this misery have been wholly avoided, but even at this time the Government, by reducing the taxes, has it in its power to alleviate this terrible misery.

Is it possible, Sir, to contemplate, without the utmost indignation, the quantity of food allowed to English labourers, contrasted with the "Grand Dinners," of those who wallow in wealth drawn from the fruit of the toil of those labourers? And, is it possible, that this state of things can long be endured? How a man like Sir RICHARD BROOKE could put his dismal account upon paper without, at the same time, expressing his indignation against those who have brought the country into this state, is to me most wonderful.

We are often told by those who live upon the taxes, and who are therefore enemies to all reform, that the sinecures, for instance, are of no amount; that they are a mere trifle; and that the pensions, grants, &c., are the same. But, if we place the amount of a few of these in comparison with the allowances to our wretched labourers and their families, we shall find, that every thousand pounds, which is expended in sinecures and pensions, would maintain 76 labourers on the Northamptonshire scale. Therefore, the twelve thousand pounds a year, allowed to CANNING, while he was at Lisbon, would have kept 912 labourers during each of those years. The two sinecures of WILLIAM GIFFORD, who is now the editor of that servile publication, the Quarterly Review, and who was understrapper to CANNING, in the conducting of the Anti-jacobin newspaper; this man's two sinecures, which he has possessed for several years, would maintain 46 labourers, and this man has never in his whole lifetime performed any sort of service for the public. He was the son of a shoemaker at Ashburton, was bred up and educated out of charity by a clergyman, became tutor to Lord Belgrave, now the rich Earl Grosvenor, afterwards became the literary hack of Canning, as before mentioned, and is now in possession of two sinecures, amounting to upwards of six hundred pounds a year. Will the gentlemen of the Board of Agriculture pretend that this Gifford is not as much a burthen to them as 46 unfortunate labourers are? Yet, not a word do they say upon this score; not a whisper of complaint that the landowners are the trustees and managers of their estates for the benefit of such men as GIFFORD and CAN

NING.

The two sinecures of Lord ELLENBOROUGH would maintain 1064 poor labourers, and the sinecure of his son as Marshal, would maintain 61 poor labourers. The sinecure of the MARQUIS CAMDEN would maintain about 3000 poor labourers; and thus I might go on until I had discovered the means of supporting a very considerable part of all the paupers in England.

Must it not now be manifest, Sir, to every man in England, that whatever is taken from the public at large for such purposes, whether it be collected in the shape of taxes or fees, must finally come out of the pockets of the people, and, in proportion to its amount, take from the farmer and the tradesman the means of giving employment and of paying sufficient wages? I think that this fact is now become evident to every body; and, I am also persuaded, that, encouraged by your exertions and the exertions of others, who will, at last, I hope, co-operate with you, the

whole country, following the example of London and Westminster, will now call aloud for the redress of those intolerable grievances.

The town of Nottingham, always amongst the first to give proofs of its good sense and public spirit, has already obeyed the call of the citizens of Westminster, and has agreed to a petition for a redress of grievances, and particularly for a reform of the Commons' House of Parliament. This town, to belong to which is an honour worth all the stars and garters in the kingdom, is not only distinguished for its hearty detestation of tyranny in all its shapes, but, it has always discovered a perfectly correct judgment in the objects of its detestation, a remarkable instance of which was the implacable hatred which it bore towards PERCEVAL, who, though he deceived a great part of the nation, was unable to deceive the people of Nottingham. If political pilgrimage were in fashion, or if I had leisure to perform a pilgrimage to such a distance, I certainly would go for the express purpose of taking by the hand some score or two of the peo. ple of this excellent town.

I have not room at present, to insert the account of the proc eeding at Nottingham upon this occasion, which I shall do at some future opportunity; but I cannot refrain from observing, that through the whole of the speeches, the resolutions, and the petition, there is a degree of intelligence, eloquence, force of argument, and evidence of talent, such as I have rarely met with; and I think it impossible that the effect upon the public mind in that part of the country should not be very great. There is no charge of Jacobinism to be brought against this meeting, which was legally assembled, and at which the Mayor of the town presided, giving, greatly to his honour, all his support to the propositions which were brought forward.

But, we shall see, I trust, a great many more Nottinghams in our country. The people have long been deceived; terror and a corrupt press have long kept the people in the dark. The time is now come, I trust, when they will speak boldly, and if they do that, redress will follow.

There is yet one remedy to notice, and it comes from Mr. Edward MOOR, who, it appears, is a Magistrate in the County of Suffolk. This remedy is, to encourage emigration! to encourage emigration! to do that which the hired newspapers have falsely accused me of doing; and upon that false accusation have most grossly abused me.

You must have perceived, Sir, in several of the Ministerial prints, pretended letters from America, representing the English and Irish emigrants as being in a state of great distress; and they have gone so far as to assert, that thousands of these emigrants have applied to the English Consul to be sent home, with a view, I suppose, of obtaining some small portion of the 63 mouthfuls of bread and the 15 mouthfuls of bacon, which the labourers in Northamptonshire are allowed per day. I have always observed, Sir, when I have been writing upon this subject, that America was an unfit place for any persons, who did not go thither with the ability and with the resolution to labour, and that too in some trade, in some handicraft business, or in agriculture. For persons, not thus qualified, I have always said, that the change would hardly be for the better, and might possibly be for the worse. Upon the breaking up of commerce and shop-keeping, and speculating pursuits in this country, which breaking up began to take place about two years ago, thousands of petty clerks, and others who wished to live without labour, hastened away to America,