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rolments in Jamaica; and, there who does not help to pay these ` is the Honourable Percy Chas. Wyndhams. You hit hard, Sir; Wyndham, who has, according to but you do not often hit in the the same Return, 7,000l. a-year right place. You lay on upon. as Register in Chancery in Ja- the hips and shoulders and elbows, maica. These blades are brothers, instead of touching them under I believe, of the Earl of Egrethe short ribs and behind the ear, mont. They have had these Two good hits you have made: places ever since 1763. So that that at the " So that that at the "Spiritual Persons," they have received Six hundred who have half-pay as military and forty-nine thousand pounds, and naval officers, whose halfprincipal money from these places, pay is "a retaining fee for fu without, I believe, ever having ture services," while, at the same even seen poor Jamaica. Besides time, there is a law to prevent this, the Honourable Percy Chas." Spiritual Persons" from ever Wyndham, has, ever since 1763, being officers in army or navy. been Secretary and Clerk of the This was a good hit, but not folCourts in Barbadoes! The in-lowed up. The other was in the come of this is not stated in the right place, and well laid in: I Return. It would, perhaps, go mean that at the Irish-Tithe genfar towards making up the round try. A set of Resolutions stating million! However, here we have the number of seats of a wellconfessed 649,000l. got from Ja-stocked Boroughmonger; then maica. Well, say knaves, but stating the several good things Jumaica pays it. Yes; but, we possessed by him and all his reare compelled to pay Jamaica lations, with the amount of them back in the price of our sugar, separately; and, lastly, the total and in those expenses which the amount. These Resolutions would, defence of Jamaica requires, and perhaps, give way to the "Order which expenses all the colonies of the Day;" but, only think of would gladly bear themselves, if the effect" out of doors!" There gentry of this sort were not fas- could be no mistakes here: they tened upon them. The colonies could not trip you up upon errors bear, indeed, a part of the bur- of figures. The thing would lie den, but we at home here are in a nut-shell; and, whether thin the principal sufferers; and there house or thick house, the effect is not a labouring man in England, would be the same. At last the

whole might be put together; and whose happiness they sacrifice without remorse to glut the maws of the Indian devourers.

we should then see, I believe, what has become of a great part, if not of the whole, of the money that makes that wonder of the

What, I wonder, would the American people say, if they

Merchants who

world, and that envy of surround- had to pay a tax in order to be ing nations, called the National given to their Debt! But, you can do nothing trade to India. effectual if you blink India.

India is full as

beneficial to their commerce as it

Their navigation derives benefit from it than ours Yet they have no "Honourable East India Company;" and the Congress would as soon

There was a Sir Timothy is to ours. They rival us in the Metcalfe some years ago, who trade. defended the East India Com- more pany by saying that it was a does. great benefactor to the nation in giving it so many millions a-year in the duty on tea. Posterity think of passing an act or a vote, may judge of the pass to which to cause themselves to be hangwe were come, when this could ed, as they would think of levying be listened to in the House of a tax to raise money to be given Commons without absolutely earn- to Merchants. What sense, then, ing the orator a kicking. can there be in our going on in did, however, not earn him any this manner? What sense in such thing; and there was not throwing away millions in order

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found in the House the man to narrow the limits of our trade? with a sufficiency of sense and Why keep up this voracious of spirit to remind the impu- Company? To restrain other nadent babbler that these several tions would be natural enough; millionsa-year were paid by the but why restrain a part of ourpeople of this country themselves. selves? Why give a monopoly We were then in the heyday of to one part of the traders? If glory and paper-money. Loan the public Treasury received upon loan marked the progress. payment for the monopoly, that The foolish landlords thought there never would be an end to their prosperity; and they seemed to care not a straw about the sufferings of the labouring classes, monopoly, and then raise taxes

might be something. There might then be room for dispute about the matter; but why give a part of the traders of the nation a

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upon the nation to pay them for dimensions. The system of borthat monopoly. If the goings rowing has come to an end. The on in India; if the proceedings resources are fast drying up; and in that country; if that treat all the parts of the system are ment of the inoffensive natives fast getting into the state of the which has given us such a cha-members unfed from the circularacter throughout the world and tion proceeding from the belly. which has furnished the French We are hastening into that state with so many a sarcastic observa- so prophetically described by the tion on our "humanity" with ABBE' REYNAL, who, I remember, regard to the Negroes; if this most emphatically dwelt upon yielded us profit, there would be the final effects of our system in something to say for it; very India. little, to be sure; but there would be something: as it is, there is nothing, except it be that we requires taxation levied upon the commit these dreadful deeds be- mother country itself to be given cause we like them so well, that rather than not commit them, we will give up the fruit of our labour to support us in the commission.

Upon the face of the thing it is monstrous to hold any colony that

to the owners of that colony; yet millions upon millions have been voted in this way. The concern is, therefore, manifestly an affair of patronage, and nothing more;

were

The nation, however, knows and if the thirteen hundred thoulittle or nothing of the matter. sand pounds now to be voted, It hears talk of the riches of to be directly distributed here in India, as it hears talk of the riches London, for the purposes of inof Peru and Mexico, little think-fluence in support of the present ing all the while, that it is its own system, it could not answer that earnings that make the adven-purpose more effectually than it turers shine, and that it is a full now will.

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participator in the misery which As to the figure that the thing it causes those adventurers to in- now makes before the public, flict on the unoffending inhabi- what do we need more than the tants of Asia. This branch of the statement of the Chancellor of system, however, growing on along the Exchequer himself to know, with the rest, has, at last, attained that, at the very least, a most minearly the utmost extent of its nute and strict inquiry by the

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House of Commons, ought to have] With this question I close my taken place before a farthing of letter, not without feeling as strongthis money were voted? He ly as any man in the country for begins by telling us that the East the efforts that you have made in India Company had demanded our behalf; but I cannot close it five millions, and that they had without adding that I never can agreed to take thirteen hundred admire the straining at a gnat thousand pounds? What should and the swallowing of a camel. we think of a tradesman who suffered his Bill to be pared down in this way? The Chancellor tells us that there has been a negociation, as with an independent state! For what, then, are these Boards of Controul? For what are all these offices and officers?

For

what? Why for patronage, to be sure; and so is the whole thing from the beginning to the end.

I am, Sir,

Your most obedient and
Most humble Servant,

WM. COBBETT.

TO THE

MONEY-HOARDERS.

MY FRIENDS,

Kensington, 3 July, 1822.

SINCE the date of my last Letter, the Small Note Bill has passed through a second reading.

But will the Parliament, under all these suspicious circumstances, vote this sum of money without inquiry? An arbitration has been sitting. But who was the arbitrator, by whom appointed, or how chosen ? Would such a story satisfy the Chief Justice, as a ground for judgment in his Court, were the case of a sum of ten pounds? Will the Parliament pass this vote without solemn investigation? And will you suffer such vote to pass without as great a struggle at least, as you have in many cases laudably made with a view of preventing the squan-by-and-by see. But, before I dering of five hundred pounds? come to that matter, pray let me

There was nothing that they call a debate about it; but there were some pithy remarks on the part of Mr. JAMES; which, together with my comments as published in the

Statesman of this day, you will

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have your attention to what was | tain, there being not the least said on the subject of the Debt in doubt in the mind of any rational

the Lower House of the Collective, on the 1st of July, when Mr. VAN SITTART brought forward the thing very properly denominated the Budget.

The principal object of my last

Letter was to convince you, that,

with regard to the currency and

man that the dreadful evils, described in another part of this Register, are all to be ascribed to the shifting and changing in the value of money.

I before described to you the great uncertainty, in which we now are in this respect. What I am now going to lay before you

the funds, every thing was in a state of the greatest uncertainty. will most amply confirm that deIt is an ancient maxim in legis- scription. The bringing forward lation, that, miserable are those of the budget gave occasion to the who live under uncertain laws.

Miserable, indeed, are those who

live under laws which are uncertain with regard to the money

of the country in which they live.

Without money there is, in fact,

no property. Money, is, at last,

Chancellor of the Exchequer to inform the House, that the Bank (I mean the Borough Bank,) had resolved to discount at four per cent.; and the little gentleman said that this would tend to relieve

the country. He took occasion

the measure of the value of every at the same time to observe, that

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if the value of money be uncer- "forced operation to reduce für

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