The United States were never longer.-All that we have heard more happy, and, perhaps, never upon the subject has been a gross so prosperous. There has been lie from the beginning to the end. no distress; not a single petition I state this upon the best poshas been thought of, either to the sible authority; and I call upon Congress or to one of the State the manifold liars and impostors Legislatures. There have been to contradict the statement if they no complaints except amongst the have yet the impudence left to do vagabonds that had inundated the country with their worthless pro- country, when, to keep the peomissory notes, and base paper-ple quiet, such enormous lies are money; and they have complain- deemed necessary! Who can ever ed only because they could not believe these liars again? carry on their rogueries any

it.-What must be the state of a

COBBETT'S WEEKLY REGISTER.

VOL. 43.-No. 2.] LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1822. [Price 6d. Published every Saturday Morning, at Six o'clock.

ΤΟ

LAWYER SCARLETT.

On his Poor Law Project, as illustrasted by the Famine in Ireland.

Kensington, 10 July, 1822.

LAWYER SCARLETT,

Now I think I have you on the

hip, and I will endeavour to make the most of you. I made a good deal of you before. It was surely

your evil genius that induced you

to lay hold of a project relating

is to use that talent in behalf of the labouring classes, whenever he perceives an attempt to do any thing which he deems injurious to those classes. This is a duty, due not only to them, but to the nation at large, and to the King on the throne; for, at last, the strength of the nation, its capacity to maintain its honour and even its independence, must depend upon the state of the common people. If they be well off, the nation is safe if they be in misery, the nation never can be safe for one moment.

*

From a conviction of these truths I was induced (stimulated

to a subject, which of all others was most interesting to every reflecting man in the nation; be-partly, also, by my dislike of the cause it was intimately connected with the well-being of the most numerous and most defenceless class of the community. first duty of every man of talent,

The

man), to oppose and expose your project for altering, or, rather, for abolishing, the laws relative to the poor, enacted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I am not taking

C

Printed and published by C. CLEMENT, No. 183, Fleet Street.

to myself the whole of the merit the intended Governor General, due to the baffling of that project; does subtract a little from the for I must say, that you were weight of Mr. COURTENAY's opmanfully met, at the outset, or position, while, however, I am equally" free to confess” that it subtracts nothing from its justice;

nearly at the outset, by Lord MILTON, by Mr. T. P. or P. T. or something of that sort, COURTE- for the first principle is to do as NAY, by Sir ROBERT WILSON, one would be done by; and it and by my particular friend Mr. would have been monstrous, inJOHN CALCRAFT, representative deed, therefore, for a man who of the Borough of Wareham, was making such additions to the and, as he says, my brother free population of the country, and holder, in the County of Kent. enjoying such abundant portions Mr. CANNING has lately told us, of the blessings of matrimony, in the House, that Mr. T. P. or not to oppose with all his might, P.T. COURTENAY has a wife and

ten children; or, I believe, the

Right Hon. Personage said, that

he had nine children, and that

small, indeed, though that might be, a project for checking the practice of marriage amongst the labouring classes.

Stout and efficient, however,

the Lady was about to be as well as could be expected with as was the opposition which your the tenth. Now, though I by project received; great as was no means wish to insinuate that the laughter that it excited before Mr. P. T. or T. P. COURTENAY it was finally dropped, there was was not, upon this occasion, ac- yet wanting something experimentuated by public motives; still, 1 tal and striking, as elucidatory of am, in the affected verbiage of that project. The example of the day, "free to confess," that America, where Queen Elizabeth's these circumstances, stated with Act has always been in full force, so much propriety and dignity by was not sufficient; because Ame

These things were pretty strik

rica is in a peculiar situation; and does not, in other respects, at all ing, and, as arguments of exresemble England. We had long perience, were brought to bear had dinned in our ears the bless-upon your project with great ings which a want of the Poor force and effect; but still, in orLaws showered upon Scotland; der to overset projects so deeply and, in answer to this, there was, laid as those of Malthus, and esfresh in our recollection, the ap- poused by so many persons of plication to the Minister for a great weight in the country, there grant of money to relieve the wanted an illustration, such as starving Scotch Manufacturers in that which we now have before 1819, and Lord Liverpool's ex- our eyes. In support of your cellent answer; "Ask for Poor project, you cited the authority "Laws, if you please; but if you of Doctor FRANKLIN, as cunning "ask not for them, ask not for "relief to be sent you from the a man as ever existed. He "landlords, farmers, tradesmen was a private letter man, if you and even labourers, of En- recollect. "land." There was, besides, to trumpeted throughout the world sew up the mouths of bawling as a second Solomon; but I defy Scotch Lawyers and Economists, any man to bring me from his the notorious fact, that enormous writings one single proof of his grants of public money had been having entertained enlarged or for the last five-and-twenty years,

and pretty nearly as unprincipled

He contrived to get

liberal views on any subject. He

sent to Scotland yearly, to be laid was a huxtering philosopher; alout in public works, for the ex-ways dealt in small wares; alpress purpose; for the distinctly, ways made the most of them; literally declared purpose of en-had no scruple to steal from any abling the poor people in Scot-body; had all the prudence of a land to live in their own country. Scotchman; but none of the