for me to say how that party stands with regard to England; for, from some cause or other, it does so happen, that in every country where there is a description of persons professing a strong and enthusiastic attachment to public liberty, they are sure to regard England as their enemy, We are told, that these are all sham patriots; that they are demagogues, jacobins, levellers, and men who delight in confusion and bloodshed. But, Sir, the misfortune is, that these persons, in all the countries that we meddle with, do invariably succeed in the end. Their side, proves, at last, to be the strongest. They do, in fact, finally prove to form almost the whole of the people; and, when we discover this, we generally quit their country in disgust, and, since they "will not be true to themselves," we e'en leave them to be punished by their revolutions and reforms. In America, however, it will, I think, be very difficult for any one to persuade your Royal Highness that those who are opposed to us are sham patriots, and men who wish for confusion. Every man in that country has enough to eat; every man has something to call his own. There are no baits for sham patriots; no fat places to scramble for; no sinecures where a single lazy possessor snorts away in the course of the year the fruit of the labour of hundreds of toiling and starving wretches; none of those things, in short, for the sake of gaining which it is worth while to make hypocritical professions of patriotism. As an instance of the sentiments of the people of America with regard to political parties, I beg leave to point out to your Royal Highness the circumstance of Mr. Pickering (who is held forth as the great champion of our cause in America) haying, at the last election, been put out of the Senate of the United States, of which he had long been a member, being one of the Senators for Massachussetts, his native state. The people of the State first elect the two Houses and the Governor of the State, and these elect the persons to serve them in the Senate of the Union. Thus Mr. Pickering was, then, rejected, not merely by the people; not merely at a popular election; but by the deliberate voice of the whole legislature of the State. And this, too, in that part of the Union called New England; in the State of Massachussetts too, which State it is well known takes the lead in the Northern part of the country, and which State has always been represented as disposed to divide from the States of the South. If we had friends any where in America, it was in this State; and, yet, even in this State, we see the most unequivocal proof of disaffection to our cause. It is useless, Sir, for us to reproach the people of America with this disaffection. They must be left to follow their own taste. In common life, if we find any one that does not like us, we generally endeavour, if we wish to gain his liking, to win him to it by kindness and by benefits of some sort or other. We go thus to work with animals of every description. In cases where we have the power, we but too often make use of that to subdue the disinclined party to our will. But, where we have not the power, we are seldom so very foolish as to deal out reproaches against those whose good will we do not take the pains to gain. It is, therefore, the height of folly in us to complain that the Americans do not like our government, and prefer to it that of Napoleon. The friends of England accuse them of giving support to a despot. They do not love despot, Sir, you may be assured; and, if they like Napoleon better than they do our government, it is because they think him less inimical to their freedom and their property. This is the ground of their judgment. They

are not carried away by words: they look at the acts that affect them and, upon such grounds, they might, under some circumstances, justly prefer the Dey of Algiers to the ruler of any other state.

I am, &c. &c.

State Prison, Newgate, Thursday, 5th September, 1811.

WM. COBBETT.

SIR,

TO THE PRINCE REGENT:

ON THE DISPUTE WITH AMERICA.

(Political Register, September, 1811.)

LETTER III.

Before I enter upon the affair of the American Frigate and the Little Belt, permit me to call your Royal Highness's attention, for a moment, to the servility of the English press, and to offer you some remarks thereon. Towards the end of last week a Council having been held, and an Order relative to American commerce having been agreed upon, it was, by those who merely knew that some order of this kind was about to come forth, taken for granted, that it contained a prohibition against future imports from the American States into this country, by way of retaliation for the American Non-importation Act. There needed no more. The busy slaves of the press, who endeavour even to anticipate the acts of government, be they what they may, with their approbation, lost not a moment. This "measure of retaliation," as they call it, was then an instance of perfect wisdom in your Royal Highness's ministers: it was a measure become absolutely necessary to our safety as well as our honour; and, indeed, if it had not been adopted, we are told, that the ministers would have been highly criminal. Alas! It was all a mistake: there was no such measure adopted: and, oh! most scandalous to relate! These same writers discovered, all in a moment, that it would have been premature to adopt such a measure at present!

I have mentioned this fact with a view of putting your Royal Highness upon your guard against the parasites of the press, who (though it may be a bold assertion to make) are the worst of parasites, even in England. "Hang them, scurvy jades, they would have done no less if Cæsar had murdered their mothers," said Casca of the strumpets of Rome, who affected to weep, when Cæsar fainted, and who shouted when he came to again. And, be your Royal Highness well assured, that these same writers would have applauded your ministers, if, instead of an Order in Council to prohibit the importation of American produce, they had issued an order to strip the skin over the ears of the Roman Catholics, or to do any other thing, however tyrannical, however monstrous, it might have

been.

Suffer yourself not, then, Sir, to be persuaded to act, in any case, from what is presented to you in the writings of these parasites. Reflect, Sir,

upon the past. During the whole of the last twenty years, these same writers have praised all the measures of the government. All these measures were, according to them, the fruit of consummate wisdom. Yet, these measures have, at last, produced a state of things exactly the contrary of what was wished for and expected. All the measures which have led to the victories and conquests of France, that have led to her exaltation, that have produced all that we now behold in our own situation, the paper-money not excepted; all these measures have received, in their turn, the unqualified approbation of the parasites of the press. To know and bear in mind this fact, will be, I am certain, sufficient to guard your Royal Highness against forming your opinion of measures from what may be said of them by this tribe of time-serving writers, who have been one of the principal causes of that state of things in Europe, which is, even with themselves, the burden of incessant and unavailing lamentation. Buonaparté! "The Corsican Tyrant"! The "towering despot," Buonaparté! Alas! Sir, the fault is none of his, and all the abuse bestowed upon him should go in another direction. The fault is in those, who contrived and who encouraged the war against the Republicans of France; and, amongst them, there are in all the world none to equal the parasites of the English press.

In returning, now, to the affair of the American frigate and the Little Belt, the first thing would be to ascertain, which vessel fired the first shot. The Commanders on both sides deny having fired first; and, if their words are thus at variance, the decisions of Courts of Inquiry will do little in the way of settling the point. This fact, therefore, appears to me not capable of being decided. There is no court wherein to try it. We do not acknowledge a court in America, and the Americans do not acknowledge a court here. Each government believes its own officer, or its own courts of inquiry; and, if the belief of the American government is opposed to what ours believe, there is no decision but by an appeal to arms. But, there is a much better way of settling the matter; and that is to say no more about it, which may be done without any stain upon the honour of either party. And this is the more desirable, if the supposed attack upon the Little Belt can possibly be made, in some general settlement of disputes, to form a set-off against the affair of the Chesapeake. Yet, may it please your Royal Highness, there is a view of this matter which it is very necessary for you to take, and which will never be taken by any of the political parasites in this country. We are accustomed to speak of this supposed attack upon the Little Belt, as if it had taken place out at sea, and as if there had been no alieyed provocation ever given to the American ships of war. But, Sir, the Americans allege, that the Little Belt was found in their waters; that she was one of a squadron that formed sort of blockade of their coast; that this squadron stopped, rummaged, and insulted their merchantmen; and, that in many cases, it seized and carried away their own people out of their own ships within sight of their own shores. The way for us to judge of the feelings that such acts were calculated to inspire in the bosoms of the Americans, is, to make the case our own for a moment; to suppose an American squadron off our coast, stopping, rummaging and insulting our colliers, and, in many cases, taking away their sailors to serve them; to be exposed to the loss of life in that service; and, at the very least, to be taken from their calling and their families and friends.

Your Royal Highness would, I trust, risk even your life rather than

suffer this with impunity; and you would, I am sure, look upon your people as unworthy of existence, if they were not ready to bleed in such a cause. Your Royal Highness sees, I am fully persuaded, but one side of the question, with regard to America. The venal prints present you with publications made by the enemies of the men at present in power in America; that is to say, by the opposition of that country. But, the fact is, that all parties agree in their complaints against our seizure of their seamen, with instances of which their public prints abound. This is a thing so completely without a parallel, that one can hardly bring oneself to look upon it as a reality. For an American vessel to meet a packet between Cork and Bristol and take out some of her sailors and carry them away to the East or West Indies to die or be killed, is something so monstrous that one cannot bring ourself to feel as if it were real. Yet, this is no more than what the Americans complain of; and, if there be good ground, or only slight ground; if there be any ground at all, for such complaint, the affair between the American Frigate and the Little Belt is by no means a matter to be wondered at. I beg your Royal Highness to consider how many families in the American States have been made unliappy by the impressment of American seamen; how many parents have been thus deprived of their sons, wives of their husbands, and children of their fathers; and, when you have so considered, you will not, I am sure, be surprised at the exultation that appears to have been felt in America at the result of the affair with the Little Belt.

As a specimen of the complaints of individuals upon this score, I here insert a letter from an unfortunate impressed American, which letter I take from the New York Public Advertiser of the 31st of July.

"Port Royal, Jamaica, 30th June, 1811. "Mr. Snowden, I hope you will be so good as to publish these few lines.-I, "Edwin Bouldin, was impressed out of the barque Columbus, of Elizabeth City, Captain Traftor, and carried on board his Britannic Majesty's brig Rhodian, in Montego Bay, commanded by Capt. Mobary.-He told me my protection was of "no consequence, he would have me whether or not. I was born in Baltimore "and served my time with Messrs. Smith and Buchanan. I hope my friends will "do something for me to get my clearance, for I do not like to serve any other "country but my own, which I am willing to serve. I am now captain of the "forecastle and stationed captain of a gun in the waist.-I am treated very ill "because I will not enter.-They request of me to go on board my country's ships "to list men, which I refused to do, and was threatened to be punished for it. "I remain a true citizen of the United States of America,

"EDWIN BOULDIN."

This, may it please your Royal Highness, is merely a specimen. The public prints in America abound with documents of a similar description; and thus the resentment of the whole nation is kept alive, and wound up to a pitch hardly to be described.

Astonishment is expressed, by some persons, in this country, that the Americans appear to like the Emperor Napoleon better than our government; but, if it be considered, that the Emperor Napoleon does not give rise to complaints such as those just quoted, this astonishment will cease. Men dislike those who do them injury, and they dislike those most who do them most injury. In settling the point, which is most the friend of real freedom, Napoleon or our Government; there might, however, be some difference of opinion in America, where the people are free to speak and write as well as to think, and where there are no persons whose trade it is to publish falsehoods. But, whatever error any persons might

be led into upon this subject, the consequence to us would be trifling, were it not for the real solid grounds of complaint that are incessantly staring the American people in the face. There may be a very harsh despotism in France for any thing that they know to the contrary; though they are not a people to be carried away by mere names. They are a people likely to sit down coolly and compare the present state of France with its state under the Bourbons; likely to compare the present situation of the great mass of the people with their former situation; and extremely likely not to think any the worse of Napoleon for his having sprung from parents as humble as those of their Jefferson or Madison. But, if they should make up their minds to a settled conviction of there being a military despotism in France, they will, though they regret its existence, dislike it less than they will any other system, from which they receive more annoyance; and in this they do no more than follow the dictates of human nature, which, in spite of all the wishes of man, will still continue the same.

The disposition of the American people towards England and towards France is a matter of the greatest importance, and should, therefore, be rightly understood by your Royal Highness, who has it in your power to restore between America and England that harmony, which has so long been disturbed, and which is so necessary to save the remains of freedom in the world. I here present to you, Sir, some remarks of a recent date (25 July), published in an American print, called the "BALTIMORE AMERICA." You will see, Sir, that the writer deprecates a war with England; he does not deceive himself or his readers as to its dangers; he makes a just estimate of the relative means of the two nations; and, I think your Royal Highness will allow, that he is not ignorant of the real situation of England. I cannot help being earnest in my wishes that your Royal Highness would be pleased to bestow some attention upon these remarks. They are, as a composition, not unworthy of the honour; but, what renders them valuable is, that they do really express the sentiments of all the moderate part of the people in America; they express the sentiments which predominate in the community, and upon which your Royal Highness may be assured the American government will act :

"God forbid that we should have war with England, or any other nation, if "we can avoid it. For I am not of the temper of that furious federalist, who "would have unfurled the American colours long ago against a less offender. "I had rather see her starry flag floating in the serenity of a calm atmosphere "than agitated and obscured in the clouds, the smoke and flashes of war. But if "Britain's unchangeable jealousy of the prosperity of others, her obdurate pride "and enmity to us, should proceed upon pretence of retaliating upon what she "has forced, to more violent and avowed attacks, I trust that your older and "younger Americans will meet her with equal spirit, and give her blow for blow. "I have never expected her to abstain from injury while our merchants had a "ship or our country a seaman upon the ocean, by any sense of justice-but have "trusted only to the adverse circumstances of her state, to restrain her violence "and continue our peace. Heaven grant that it may be preserved, and if pos"sible without the distress of her own partly innocent people. But if her crimes "will not allow it; if urged by the malignant passions she has long indulged, "and now heightened by revenge, she throws off all restraint, and loosens war "in all its rage upon us, then, as she has shed blood like water, give her blood "to drink in righteous judgment.-I know too well, that we must suffer with her. "Dreadful necessity only justifies the contest. I call you not, young Americans, to false glory, to spoil and triumph. You must lay down your lives, en"dure defeat, loss and captivity, as the varying fate of war ordains. But this