business, (v) I need not observe to you how essential it is that this kind of negociation should be carried on in such a manner that you do not commit yourself, and in this I reckon entirely upon your prudence.-I have the honour to be, &c.-LE COMTE NICOLAS DE ROMANZOFF.- -St. Petersburg, Feb. 5, 1808. No. VI. SIR-I sent you, in due course, copies of the two notes which I caused to be transmitted on the 24th September, and 18th November, to the Swedish ambassador, as well as his reply to the first. Herewith I transmit to you the one which he addressed to me on the 9th of January, also the second. You will see, Sir, that the contents of his note in no ways answers the immediate demands which our master has made to engage the king of Sweden to take measures in common with the three other northern powers, to defend the Baltic (u) against the attempts of England; his imperial majesty has, therefore, determined to make a declaration, in order to assure himself of the real disposition of his neighbour, the king of Sweden; you will receive, herewith, a copy of this declaration; I will not send it to baron de Stedingk until some days after the departure of this courier. In the mean time I will confidentially make it known to M. Le Baron de Blome; you will also communicate it to the minister of his Danish false that he has either been ill-treated or discontented. "He is no subject of the king, since he is a native of Swedish Finland." What an inference, even before the war!" To gain him over will be an important acquisition: flatter his ambition" -(such is the language). You, Springporten, Knoring, Haselstrom-traitors of every description, now speak. Was it ever in the power of the emperor to alleviate your remorse by offices and emoluments? Could these protect you from the contempt and execration of every honest man, even in Russia itself? (v) It is this very experience that justifies the measures of the king with regard to M. Alopeus. (u) In all these places the guarantee of the Baltic has no sense, unless it means to secure Cronstadt and Revel from the fate of Copenhagen. Russia, the ally of England, is alone to have the privilege of summoning fleets into the Baltic, without a word being said of closing the passage; but no sooner does she quarrel with England, than she cries out for help to shut it. majesty, and also the last note of the Swedish ambassador. You will observe, on this occasion, to M. Le Count de Bernstorff, that the emperor will take every measure ip his power eventually to defend Denmark and to serve her cause. His imperial majesty rests in the firm hope, that this monarch will, on his part, press the king of Sweden to unite with them, and if he will not, that be will take part openly against him; that he will pursue, with activity, the preparations for war, proceed without loss of time in all the measures necessary relative to it, and that he will cordially join all his efforts to those of Russia. (w)-I have the honour to be. The COUNT NICOLAS DE ROMANZOFF.-St. Petersburg, Feb. 5, 1808.-Tø Mr. De Lisakewitsch, Copenhagen. LOCAL MILITIA.- Abstract of Lord Castlereagh's Local Militia Bill. The 1st enacting clause, empowers his Majesty to establish a local force for the defence of the realm. The 2d, enacts, that the number of men enrolled under the act, shall not exceed such number as will, including the effective Yeo❤ manry and Volunteers amount to times (six times was the amount suggested by Lord Castlereagh,) the Militia quotas of such counties. The 3d, that the deficiencies in the effective Volunteers shall be supplied by the Militia under the act. The 4th, that the counties may be divided into divisions, in any case in which more than one regiment of Local Militia is ordered to be raised. The 5th, extends the powers of Militia Acts to this Act. The Oth, that men to be raised under this Act, shall be ballotted from persons between the ages of-and-, returned on the lists now existing, (from 18 to 35 years of age.) The 7th, excuses persons of bodily inability. Printed by Cox and Baylis, No. 75, Great Queen Street, and published by R. Bagshaw, Brydges Street, Covent Garden, where former Numbers may be had; sold also by J. Budd, Crown and Mitre, Pall-M«J] お VOL. XIII. No. 18.] LONDON,.SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1808. PRICE 10D "Were the countries, which have usually supplied us, in a state of independence and security, the prospect "would be for trom pleasing; but when we cast an anxious eye to the Baltic, the view becomes dreary **ind. .1. Who can contemplate the consequences of a short crop, a mildew, or a wet harvest without horror?". POLITICAL REGISTER. 673] SUMMARY OF POLITICS. "CORN AGAINST SUGAR (continued from page 648).- -When I wrote the article, here referred to, which was on Wednesday last, I had not seen any of the advertisements, which I have since seen, for meetings in several of the counties to agree upon -petitions against the bill, which is about to be brought into parliament for the purpose of causing Sugar to be used in the distilleries instead of Corn. It was not till after my Register was gone to the press that I saw any of these advertisements; and, as I could easily perceive, that, against the effect of publications, flowing through so many channels, and at a rate so rapid, the Register would stand no chance of success, I thought it would be useful to write an address to the Freeholders of Hampshire upon the subject, which I did on Friday, and which address, as it applied to every part of the country, I caused to be inserted in as many newspapers as I could, giving it a fair chance against the advertisements and paragraphs, which those newspapers were circulating upon the other side of the question This Address I shall now insert here, and shall then submit to the reader such additional observations as appear to me likely to assist in the removing of that mist of error, whence the alarin of the land-owners and tithe-owners, aud farmers seem to have proceeded. TO THE FREeholders of HAMPSHIRE. "GENTLEMEN,-As one of yourselves, I take the liberty to address you upon the subject of a bill intended to be shortly brought before parliament, the object of which is, to cause SUGAR to be used in the Distilleries of England and Scotland, instead of the CORN which is now therein used.For many months past, gentlemen, there has existed a general alarm at the shutting of the foreign corn-ports. The argument has been this: we have long been in the habit of importing annually a large quantity of corn; this importation was necessary, otherwise it would not have been made; and the enemy having succeeded in closing the ports of the [674 Baltic against us, at the same time that the unjust and insolent demands of America leave us no ground whereon to depend upon a supply of corn from that country, it is evident, that, unless we can, in some way or other, add to the quantity of corn produced at home, we must, in proportion to the quantity of corn now imported, experience additional distress, if a year of scarcity should unhappily arrive. The truth of this conclusion every man admits, and the nation, with voice unanimous, exclaim, Let us, as we love our lives and hate the yoke of a conqueror, add to the quantity of the corn produced at home.Now, gentlemen, one way of adding, in effect, to the quantity of any thing, is, to obtain some other thing capable of be ing made use of in its stead. Thus, if a man's turnips run short, he gives some cab-. bages to his cattle, and does thereby, in fact, add to his quantity of turnips. Upon this plain principle the king's ministers have the intention of bringing forward the bill above described; and, it must, I should think, be evident to every man, that, if we bring sugar from our colonies to supply the place of the corn now used in the distilleries, there will be in the country so much more corn to be used in the way of food, which is the very effect that we are all so anxious to see produced, and to produce which effect the situa tion of our colonies and our commerce is, at this moment, acknowledged, on all hands, to be peculiarly favourable.-Evident, however, as these truths appear to me, and, as I think they will appear to you, a great clamqur has, by some of the land-owners and corn-dealers, been raised against the intended bill; the alarm of these gentlemen having, all of a sudden, changed its pature; from a dread of a scarcity of corn, they have, in the twinkling of an eye, failen into a dread of too great a plenty of corn; and some of them assert, that, if the intended bill. should become a law, the furmers will be come bankrupts, because, having lost one of the markets for their corp, their corn will fall in price, and they will not be able to pay their rents. -Gentlemen, any thing more groundless than this alarm, more unsound Y clearly, is this, that, for a long series of years. they have seen corn brought into England and Scotland from foreign countries, without having, in any one instance, complained against it, as likely to ruin the farmers. Now there is no foreign country that can send us any corn; but our lands in the West Indies are able to send us sugar that will supply the place of the corn that we used to get from foreign countries; and, observe, that we buy this sugar of our own countrymen, and pay them in flax and wool and iron and tin and copper, all the natural produce of our own soil, while the corn which we drew from foreign countries was, for the greater part, paid for in gold and silver; and yet, Gentlemen, strange it is to say, that the persons who oppose the intended Bill, who call themselves the friends of the farmers, who quietly suffered eight hundred thousand quarters of corn to be brought every year from foreign countries, would now fain persuade those same farmers, that they will be ruined by the bringing in of that which will supply the place of, at most, three hundred thousand quarters of corn, that being the full amount of what is used yearly in the distilleries. Nay, gentlemen, these same persons have no scru than this reasoning, I do not remember to have met with in the course of my life. What! is plenty the farmer's ruin? Is ubundance to be a source of national danger? Is cheapness of corn the people's curse? The farmer has poor-rates to pay as well as rent; and, you all well know, gentlemen, that he has more to pay in poor-rates when com is dear than when corn is cheap; you know, in fact, that the amount of his poor-rates keeps in exact proportion to the price of corn; you know, also, that what is not given in times of scarcity to the labourer in increased poor-rates must be given him in increased wages; you know further, that, if the farmer sells his corn cheap, he fats his hogs cheap, he feeds his horses and cattle cheap, he keeps his servants cheap; and, indeed, you, who are farmers, well know, from bitter experience, that the greatest evil of your lives were the high prices of the years 1800 and 1801, an evil which you feel to this hour, and which you will feel for many years yet to come.— -But, gentlemen, I beg you to consider the sweeping tendency of the principle, upon which the intended bill is objected to, which principle applies to all cases wherein an increase in the produce of corn takes place. According to this principle to express their sorrow that the supply ple, to improve the land already enclosed is an evil, because such improvement will certainly add to the produce of the land; that increased produce will as certainly lower the price of corn (unless more mouths are found to cat it); to lower the price of corn is, ac cording to the opposers of this bill, to rain the farmer; and, therefore, if we admit this principle, to improve the land already enclosed is an evil. And, gentlemen, what shail, then, be said, of new enclosures? It is the general opinion, that new enclosures cause an addition to the quantity of corn produced; it is the opinion of many of those who oppose the bill, that the way to prevent scarcity in England and Scotland is to bring large tracts of waste lands into cultivation, because, they say, that the.quantity of corn produced would thereby be made greater than it now is. Supposing this to be the case (and that no new mouths are created to eat such addition to the produce) the price of corn will certainly be lowered by the new enclosures; the lowering of the price of corn will here again, according to the opposers of the bill, ruin the farmer; and, therefore, upon their principle, those new enclosures, which they themselves represent as being necessary to the salvation of the country, would be a great national evil. The light, however, in which the inconsistency of these gentlemen's conduct appears the most of foreign corn is cut off by the enemy, and It was not until after this letter was written, that I was informed, that Mr. Arthur YOUNG was one of the persons, who had been examined by the committee that reported in favour of the intended bill, and that he expressed his decided opinion against the suffering of sugar to be made use of in the distilleries. MR. WAKEFIELD, I understand, was also examined before the committee, and gave his opinion on the same side. The readers of the Register will recollect, that my columns have, of late, been a good deal devoted to Mr. Young. To both these gentlemen, indecd; but, first to Mr. Young. I had given it as my opinion, that England (meaning the whole of the kingdom) might exist, in safety and greatness, independent of commerce. Amongst those who were of a different opinion, there were some who maintained, that we were unable to grow corn enough for our own consumption. I replied, that, if commerce ceased, there would be more hands to cultivate the land, and not more mouths to eat the corp.--Mr. Young, who was the most formidable of my opponents, took great pains to convince me, that, for years to come, we could not raise corn enough to feed ourselves. He showed, that we had been importing for many years last past, to the average amount of 2,000,000 of pounds sterling a year; he insisted, that there was no remedy but that of bringing the waste lands into cultivation by the means of a General Enclosure bill; and, he acknowledged that this must necessarily be a work of time. In short, this was what he said: importation is now necessary; to put a stop to the necessity of importation you must augment your domestic produce; to augment your. domestic produce you must enclose new lands, but this will be a work of time of corn. Now, as Mr. Young desired to see more corn produced, and an importation, until more corn could be produced, I wonder (for I have not yet seen his evidence) what objection he could possibly have stated against the importation of sugar to supply the place Mr. Young tells us; indeed he proves to us, that our average import of corn, for the last twenty-six years has amounted to two millions sterling; what objection, then, could he have made against the importation of sugar, to supply the place of corn, to the amount of about half a million a year? He was alarmed at the shutting of all the foreign corn ports against us; and he is now alarmed, apparently in a greater degree, at the opening of a port in our own colonies for something that will supply the place of part of our corn.- -Mr. WAKEFIELD (see page, 501) took the pains to furnish me with a statement of the importation of corn for many years past. "From 1800 to 1801," says he, we have, on an average imported "the enormous quantity of 1,447,500 quar"ters yearly," of wheat only, I believe, he Then he proceeds to a description means. unfrequently heard it remarked; wheat "is only about 70s. a quarter." So much "the worse on every account the price is 66 66 too low to stimulate an increasing and "productive tillage; this low price deceives us into a dangerous security. Even suppose it to arise wholly from a bountiful season, and in nothing to result from the present corn laws, still by next August or Sept. it will be all consumed, and then a "month's hard rain, or should mildew blight our crops in one week, what will "be our prospect? how general will be the "distress and pressure of scarcity? To what country can we look for aid? Upon import from America we cannot depend, even if we continue at peace with the "United States. Thus, then, it appears to me, that a due consideration of the subject brings the painful conviction, that we rely upon foreign import to an alırming and dangerous extent; that from an export of six hundred thousand quarters "of corn annually, we have gradually come 66 66 66 to require an import of nearly a million "and a half of quarters; that in years of "scarcity we depend upon foreign supply "for nearly a fifth of our consumption, and "that in ordinary seasons we depend upon importation for a seventh part of our sub"sistence." Now, what practical purpose could this gentleman possibly have in view, but that of impressing our minds with the persuasion, that we should be in great danger from the cutting off of the foreign supply of corn, and of stimulating us to an increase of our domestic production? And yet, he is now alarmed, he now feels additional alarm, because a measure is about to be adopted, that will introduce from ors own colonies, annually, about a fifth part as much corn, in the shape of sugar, as was be fore introduced, from foreign states, in the shape of corn! In my address, above inserted, I took the average annual importation at 800,000 quarters; but, it appears from Mr. Wakefield's statement, that it has been 1,447,500. of wheat only, during the last 6 years. Have the farmers been" ruined" thereby? Have they found any want of a market? Has not their corn borne a good price? Do they not drink wine? Do not their wives have their partics? Do not their daughters make a villaiuous ncise upon the piano? Well, then, if they have survived and even become luxurious in their living, under this importation of 1,447 500 quarters of corn annually, can Mr. Wakefield really fr that they will be ruined now that 300,000 quarters are to be imported, in the shape of sugar, all the other channels of im portation being completely stopped up?-Mr. Wakefield has another letter, which will be found inserted in the present number. When I saw his name at the bottom of it, I expected to meet with some satisfactory explanation upon the principal points of the subject; but, I must confess that I met with nothing but disappointment. He divides his matter under three heads. He considers the proposed bill, 1st, as to the claims which the planter has to its benefits, at the expence of the farmier, upon the score of right; 2ndly, as it will affect the revenue, in which he apprehends that it will produce a defalcation; 3dly, as it will operate with respect to the general interests of the nation. The question of right is of no importance, until we have settled the point, that the bill will be injurious to the farmer, and which point, I think, must be settled in the negative. As to the revenue, if Mr. Wakefield will but suffer the sugar to be distilled, I will venture to answer for the government's taking care that the distillation shall cost enough in the way of taxes. It is, indeed, a subject of serious alarm, that a thousand or two of gallons of gin should reach, the lips of hackney-coasbanen, unhallowed by the touch of an exciseman's rule. Let Mr. Wakefield look at the body of taxgatherers that this county supports. Would that Buonaparte could see them all, gentle and simple, noble and plebeian, drawn out upon 3.lbury plain (for no other place could exhibit them at one view); for he must be something more than mortal not to be dismayed at the sight. What! his seal, at the sight of which the owner trembles as if it were the seal of the Holy Inquisition. When this is the case; when every man's neighbour, servant, and child is invited to be a spy upon his actions, as far as relates to the evasion of taxes, is it possible, that a man like Mr. Wakefield should object to a measure, upon the ground of its being likely to relax the rigours of taxation? There is one objection coupled with this, which, however, is worthy of particular notice. The houses, &c. for distilling corn, Mr. Wakefield says, cost a large sum of money; the trade, as now carried on, requires a large capital; but, that a distillery for sugar will cost, comparatively, nothing; that, therefore, the introduction of sugar will ren. der large capitals useless in the trade, and rivalship will reduce the profits to a bare subsistance. This would be an excellent objection for a great distiller to make in his counting-house, or in a whisper to his partner; but, I think, he would take special care to disguise it from the public, and more particularly from those who have to legislate for the general good, to whom, supposing them to have even a small share of very common sense, it must be evident, that the smaller the capital required to carry on a trade of any given magnitude, the greater the benefit to the state, in which that trade is carried on; and that, if the trade, which now gives opulence to a few, can be made to provide subsistence for many, it is, I think, a thing most ardently to be wished.-I now come to Mr. Wakefield's third head, under which I did expect to find something to the point; something in the way of direct answer to what the "learned" call the argumentum ad hominem, contained in my last Register and in my separate address; something to explan the apparent inconsistency of earnestly recommending an augmentation of produce one day, and the very next day expressing alarm at a measure that must, in effect, augment the produce; something to explain why no remonstrance was made against the importation of 1,447,500 quarters of corn annu ally, if the importation of the means of saving 300,000 quarters is to ruin the farmer; something to explain why Messrs. Wakefield and Young were so alarmed at the shutting of the foreign cora ports, if it be true that the importation of what will supply the place of corn ought not, upon any account, to be imported; something to explain why these gentlemen recommended new enclosures as the means of adding to the quantity of our corn, if it be true that the trifling addition of 300,000 quarters a year take away the |