to time to decide between us. Yet, if either of us can find a strong corroboration of our opinion, drawn from respectable authority, it seems in nowise improper to bring it forward. received in the official report of the United States, which report you will 150 inclusive of this work.

Such a corroboration I have just Secretary of the Treasury of the find by referring to pages 141 to

In my Letters to Mr. Addington, above alluded to, I remarked that, according to the parliamentary statement of Lord Hawkesbury, our exports (always speaking of British manufactures) to the United States had doubled since the year 1793, and that his lordship seemed, with you, to imagine, that an increase, instead of a diminution, in these exports, would be produced by the peace. In refuting this error, I observed, that the increase in our manufactures exported to the United States had arisen from four causes: 1. from the regular increase of population and consequent wealth of the United States; 2. from the decline in the manufactures of Holland, and the suspension of those of France and the countries now annexed to her empire; 3. from the emigration to the United States, occasioned by the war; 4. from the re-exportation of our manufactures from the United States to the colonies of France, Holland, and Spain. I next stated that till our connection with America should be interrupted by the rivalship of France, or by the hostility of the American government, we should retain all the increase in our exports which had arisen from the regular increase in the population and consequent wealth of the United States, and that we should lose whatever had arisen from the other three temporary causes. Having laid down this as a basis for calculation, I showed that there had since 1790 been an increase of little more than one-fifth in the population (excluding emigrants) and permanent wealth of the United States; whence I concluded that there would, even in 1802, be a diminution of one-fourth in our exports to that country, on the correctness of which opinion I expressed my readiness to stake my life.

Now, Sir, by turning to the report of the secretary of the treasury, you will doubtless be astonished to see how exactly his statements concur with this opinion. In speaking of the imports on merchandise and tonnage, he proceeds in his calculations upon the position," that the permanent wealth of the United States has, during the war, increased in no greater proportion than their population," and that, therefore, all the increase in the imposts, during the same period, beyond this proportion, will now cease. The imposts of 1801 amounted, he says, to dollars 10,500,000, and he calculates, that the annual amount of those imposts for the next eight years will be 9,500,000; and, by compartng the imposts of 1792 with those of 1801, and determining the ratio of increase, you will find, that he calculates upon a diminution of nearly one-third in the impost of the year 1802. The positions of this part of his report, the reasoning thereon, the conclusion he draws therefrom, and even the words he makes use of, so exactly correspond with my own, that, were

7,517,5307.; while the same in 1802 was 5,329,4907. By which it appears, that the actual falling off in our trade for the stated year was to an amount of more than 300,000l. beyond Mr. COBBETT's prediction. To this Table of Mr. MARSHALL there is a note, in which he says:-"The increase of both export to, and import "from, the foreign West Indies after 1795, arose from several islands successively "falling into the possession of England; and their being given up to their pre"vious possessors at the Peace of Amiens in 1801-2, accounts for the sudden and "great reduction in 1802-5," &c.-ED.

his report not dated at the very time that my letters were in the press, you might be tempted to believe, that the statements of the latter were borrowed from those of the former. He, indeed, speaks of American imposts and I of British exports, but if there be a decrease in the former, it must arise from a previous decrease in the latter, which always have been, and yet are, the principal source of American imposts.

To my opinion, Sir, I could not suppose, that either you or the ministry, or the people, would pay much attention; and, even backed with such authority as that which I have here cited, I have very little hope of producing much effect. Peace is the word. Peace and plenty is, and will be, the cry till our manufacturers are starving for bread, and till our merchantmen are rotten in our ports.

I am aware, Sir, that you are not singular in your notion respecting an increase of commerce to be produced by the peace. A right hon. gentleman, whose opinion has for many years past been a law with the people of this country, concurred with you in sentiment on this point; whether he concurs with you now, I do not know; for, he has already had occasion to hear of the stagnation of trade, in all its branches, and of the alarming falling off in the receipts of the customs. There is no longer that crowd and bustle at the Custom-house, which prevailed previously to the peace and plenty. Merchants may now get their business dispatched with great ease and comfort to their clerks; nor will there be any occasion to tear down houses to build wharfs, and erect iron bridges, for the purpose of "enlarging the port of London." There are men, Sir, who imagine that this stagnation of trade is but temporary; that it will be done away by the definitive treaty; and, upon this presumption it is, that the minister has been teased with the anxious inquiries of merchants and manufacturers respecting the concluding of that compact. This is, however, a gross error. That the present state of uncertainty adds to the diminution, which has already commenced, I can readily believe; but that trade has begun to depart from us, and the definitive treaty, though it will unfurl a few yards of canvass, which are now reefed up in the port of London, will, in the course of two years, reduce our two millions of tonnage to less than a million and a half, every particle of which loss will go to aggrandize our already too powerful rival and

enemy.

You begin to feel the force of these truths; I know you do; but your reply will be: "Would you then have continued the war for ever to prevent this loss of trade?" No, Sir; but I would, had I been minister, have continued the war till I could have brought the enemy to such terms of peace as would have enabled me with safety to diminish the expenses of the country in proportion to the diminution of our commerce. Without effecting this object, peace is not only as bad, but it is worse than war. If it shall be found that, contrary to my opinion, this object is effected, there are few people who will rejoice more sincerely than I shall; but if time should confirm my apprehensions, I shall think myself fully justified in complaining of the conduct of those who, by their ill-timed and indecent manifestations of public joy, furnished the ignorant admirers of peace with an excuse for demolishing my house, because I refused to join in their swinish exultation. I am, Sir,

Your most humble,

and most obedient Servant,
WM. COBBETT.

FRENCH MORALS.

THE following statement of the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths, in Paris, during the year 1801, is taken from the Moniteur of Feb. 18, 1802:

The births in Paris, for the year 1784, were estimated at 20,500, and the population at 680,000 souls. They are, then, diminished only 800 in number, and we may therefore conclude that the population is now 650,000. The divorces and bastards exhibit a horrid total; and when we perceive that more than one-third of the whole of the persons who die, expire in poor-houses and hospitals, we may form some judgment of the prosperity and happiness of the people. Another item in the above statement will convey a tolerably correct notion of the degree of personal safety enjoyed in the metropolis of Jacobinism, that is, the number of persons found dead in the streets; during the year this number is 201, to which if we add all the deaths arising from the acts of assassination and suicide, committed in the houses, the picture is enough to make the stoutest heart tremble. This is the scene of gayety, and the emporium of the fine arts, to which English fools are flocking for pleasure and refinement! Feeling, as we do, that it is the bounden duty of every one (who has it in his power) to expose such facts as those above stated, we cannot refrain from expressing our indignation at the attempt, which has lately been made, by persons high in office here, to stifle every inquiry,

* Mr. BURKE states, that during the three first months of the year 1793 the number of divorces in Paris alone amounted to 562, while the marriages, for the same period, were 1785; the proportion of divorces to marriages being not much less than that of one to three! When BUONAPARTE became lawgiver, he made a new law of divorce, the principle of which was as bad as were the practices of his wild predecessors in government. BUONAPARTE'S enactment has since been expunged from the Cinque Codes; and the French are now, we believe, in this respect, just as they stood before the Revolution.-ED.

and to suppress every exposure, respecting the wickedness of persons in France. Such attempts are so flagrantly immoral, so detestably base, and of a tendency so baneful to our own country, that we would fain hope the authors of them will desist. Should they not, however, they may be assured, that we shall not fail to discharge our duty, in contrasting their present conduct with their former public and written professions, and in exposing the motives from which they now act.

BULL-BAITING.

LETTER TO THE REV. MESSRS. NARES AND BELOE,

NOTE BY THE EDITORS.]-Mr. COBBETT was always an advocate for such sports as tend to exercise bodily strength among the country people. Probably he derived some of his opinions on this matter from Mr. WINDHAM, Who, though a person of great gentleness in his own manners, advised the encouraging of such things. When Mr. COBBETT went to live at Botley, in 1806, he, together with some gentlemen of the neighbourhood, established prizes for players in the game of singlestick. The play used to take place in the village of Botley, and it continued, with great spirit, until the time when Mr. COBBETT was sent to his two years of imprisonment in Newgate. How singular has been the degeneracy of our best national games! Witness our boxing-matches, the foremost patrons of which, persons in the higher and richer orders, have brought them into their present infamy by making them mere gambling transactions.

GENTLEMEN,-I have long observed, and not without great mortification, that the British Critic has abandoned the principles upon which it set out, and that it has, in many instances, favoured the cause of the PURITANS.

On two articles, in your last number, I think it my duty to make some remarks. The first is your review (if, indeed, it can be so called) of a sermon on bull-baiting, preached by the Rev. Edward Barry, in the parish church of Wokingham, Berks, on the 20th of Dec. 1801, being the day previous to the annual bull-bait in that town. After bestowing some commendation on the sermon, you say: "We find with regret, that, even "in Parliament, this SAVAGE SPORT has been again defended. But we "learn with astonishment, that, in the parish of Wokingham, not only one bull is provided by the charitable donation of Geo. Staverton, in "1661, but a second bull is purchased annually out of the poor-rates ;" for which you censure the parish officers and the justices for allowing "such an unwarrantable article in the overseers' accounts." You conclude by asking this question: "After all, is not every bull-baiting indictable at common law, as a public nuisance ?"

"

That you should think bull-baiting a "savage sport" would not be at all astonishing, had you not had an opportunity of perusing the late debate in Parliament; but having had that opportunity, and having, as evidently

LETTER TO THE REV. MESSRS. NARES AND Beloe.

259

appears from your own reflections, actually perused that debate, your observations may be fairly ascribed to perverseness.

As to the conduct of the parish officers of Wokingham, I can, for my part, perceive nothing censurable in it, though so loudly condemned by Mr. Barry and the British critics. It is the duty of those officers to provide meat for the poor; bull-beef is the cheapest, and I see no harm, no "misapplying of the money intrusted to them," if the overseers can find the means of at once providing the poor with food and with sport at the festive season of the year. Nor is there any thing "savage" in the practice. The poor at Wokingham first bait the bull, and afterwards slaughter him and eat him, with just as little ferocity as the lord of the manor first hunts the hare to death, worries her, and breaks her heart, and then devours her, broken heart and all. The magistrates are guilty of no "negligence in allowing the charge in the overseers' accounts. The Court of King's Bench would compel them to allow it. It is a charge for the price of a bull purchased for and given to the poor with the manner of treating that bull, previous to the killing of him, neither the magistrates nor the Court of King's Bench have any right of inquiry.

No, no, gentlemen, be assured that bull-baiting is not "indictable at common law, as a public nuisance." The common law, on the contrary, fully sanctions the baiting of bulls, and, I believe, that to sell the flesh of a bull, which has not been baited, is an offence, which is punishable by that very law to which you appeal. You have echoed the puritanical denunciation which has rung, and which is yet ringing, through every part of the country. In the hands of the busy sect which has undertaken to reform the manners of the people, the law would become a most dreadful scourge; a curse instead of a blessing. The life of a poor man would be ten million times worse than that of a negro slave. Every assemblage of persons, except at a club or conventicle, would be embraced in the vague denomination of " a public nuisance." The " ungodly games and antichristian sports," against which the murderers of the martyr Charles so furiously inveighed, would be totally suppressed, as a prelude to the ulterior views of the "gospel-preaching ministry," who have already created a schism in that church, which it is your duty to defend, but which you have shamefully deserted. No, no, gentlemen, the law is not yet to be twisted to the purposes of this gloomy and intolerant sect. For those, who assemble to commit acts of violence on the persons or the property of his Majesty's subjects; for the base villains who, under the cover of night, lead an ignorant rabble to demolish a man's house, the law has, indeed, provided a punishment; but none has it ever contemplated for those who, without injuring the person or property of their neighbour, choose to enjoy the contest between two of those animals, from which, though man is their sovereign lord, he derives the most noble example of courage and of fortitude.

I am, Gentlemen, &c.,

* See our Note, p. 254.-ED.

WM. COBBETT.