whole of their bedding; weavers ever accursed be the name of the for else they are manufacturers too; man, who invented the system and, the American farmer buys that swept away the small farmers very little indeed. I do not of England! know that I ever saw an EngWhy should any landlord, be lish blanket in an American farmhe ever so great, think it be-house; and how many scores of neath him to attend to the means them have I slept in! They of teaching his tenants how to be make, at the farm-houses, the happy, when, in their happiness, he must see the surest foundation going from house to house. Nine of his own wealth and of his coun-tenths of their clothing, the farmtry's greatness? How much er's coat not excepted. And, inmight be done by showing the deed, who can suppose that the folly, the wastefulness, the in-clothing and bedding of ten miljury to health, the abridgment lions of people are carried across of life, which arise from the eating the sea in ships! The farmer is or drinking of any thing, which his own carpenter nine times out a man's own farm, in England, of ten. Mends, if not makes, his cannot produce, and that, too, own ploughs and harrows. Kills with the greatest facility? Lord his own meat, makes his own MILTON Some time ago, ob-grain into bread. And, in short, served, that where the husband- the maxim is to buy nothing if he men lived most within themselves, can, by any means, avoid it. they were the most miserable. And the very best livers upon But, he may be assured, that the face of this earth are the this misery arises from some American Farmers. Theirs is a life of moderate labour and great abundance of good things, allTM things, to use the words of the Old Chancellor Fortescue, that make life easy and pleasant, other cause. "Look," said he, “ at Agricultural Poland." But, look at Agricultural America, say. The Poles must buy cloths, Here, too, is the sure and cheap | all. I dare say it will be all defence of Nations. Here are very accurately stated in Rumen always able and ready to de-pees, and those turned into sterlfend the country; and that done, ing to a fraction of a thousandth to return to their homes. A Mr. part of a farthing. But, how STANHOPE, apparently from the comes it, that this immense tenor of his speech, at the India- " Empire in the East is not House, a very worthy man, talk-able to do without part of the ed, there, the other day, of the rents of English landlords, and hundred millions of his fellow- of the labour of English tradessubjects in India! I wish they men, farmers, labourers, and arwere all in-No, God for-tizans? How comes it, that we give me, I do not wish any such must pay taxes on our own Malt thing. But, they, poor crea- and Salt to be given towards the tures, are no fellow-subjects of support of this glorious Empire mine nor of Mr. Stanhope neither. in the East? Pitt and Dundas They are swarms of meek, harmless human beings, that would be, I dare say, very well if left to themselves, but who are rendered miserable by our foolish greedi 1 ness and false ambition, for which made a treaty with the East India Company, which became an Act of Parliament, according to which act the Company was to pay to the nation half a million a year for 20 years, I think it was. The Company paid one half million (or, at least, they said so), we are repaid in the taxation and slavery that they bring upon ourselves. We have, it seems, af and from that day to this the nacouple of millions to pay pre- tion has been paying money to the sently to the thing called the East Company! India Company. And for what? Doubtless we shall have papers enough to show for it, if that is said to have got money in India It is high time to inquire into these things. When a man is the truth is, he has got it out of we shall soon see, that there will English taxes! However, the be no more immense fortunes: thing is all of a piece, from the brought from India; and, I ven-very top to the very bottom. ture to predict, that the Nabob of Only think of "Westminster's Arcot's Debts will be settled in a Pride," No. Q's father, and trice. 66 two or three more, receiving Nothing does India afford us, 1,2001. a year each for settling that is of any use to us, But, if ̃ something about the Nabob of it did, the Americans, who pay Arcot's Debts! These salaries nothing towards the support of come, mind you, out of English that vain-glorious concern, have Taxes; and they have been going all things that it produces for half on, in different hands, for, I believe, nearly, or quite, thirty the price that we have them at. There was a man, in parliament, some years ago, named Metcalf, who was a something in the India. affairs, who had the impudence, or folly, perhaps both, to reckon amongst our gains by India the years! Was ever such a settling of accounts heard of before? However, it is nonsense to talk about it. The whole thing altogether is so wild, so monstrous, and appears so romantic and fabu- revenue arising from tea; that is lous,that one cannot have patience to say, our gains consisted of to speak of it in sober language. taxes paid by ourselves! Now, But (and now we return from this long ramble aside), let prices keep down; let farmers fling up their farms; let the landlords come up with empty purses; let the labourers of England get their belly full; let the Salt Tax and the Malt Tax be taken off; and adopting the gross, the beastly, supposition, that this was ‹ gain, would it not have been better to have had the gain upon Malt?' The Agriculturasses would have discovered some sense, if they had petitioned against the importation of tea; or, at any rate, against being taxed to pay money design. They prospered, the to maintain a foreign country in very mark of prosperity struck order that that country might send the eye, the labourers perished, hither a parcel of stuff to lessen the consumption of barley. the little farmers became paupers, and the cause was hidden from the eyes of landlords, government, and even from the paper-money makers themselves. But, now This Company has got a debt too, and not a small one by any means; and for this also the nation, is, in the end, answerable! that it is discovered, it would be But, O, lord! It is such a mess; criminal indeed, not to tear it up such a hodge-podge altogether, by the roots; not to apply a that it half turns one's brain but radical cure! TO MR. BAINES, Proprietor of the Leeds Mercury. SIR, Kensington, 11. July, ¡821. The last number of the Re to think of it. The truth is, however, that the monstrous thing has swelled up during the delirium of war and paper-money; and, it will and must now all sink down again. It is a true bubble, which is just now beginning to burst. The whole thing has changed its gister contains a letter from me character since Pitt took posses- to Mr. Birkbeck of the Illinois sion of it. It has gone on in its Territory. It quotes from the own monstrous way. The paper- paper of our "unassailable" mill ground the millions out of the and "incorrupible" Scotch-polibones of the labouring classes, tician, three paragraphs, purportwithout their knowing it, and ing to be part of a letter written without the landlords or even the by Mr. Birkbeck to “ a friend in government knowing it. I will" Yorkshire." These paragraphs do these two the justice to say. contain some very spiteful rethat they did the thing without marks on me; and I said, or 66 1067 AGRICULTUR-ASSES' EVIDENCE. 1063 letter. I am, in spite of all provocation, loath to impute a bad motive to that gentleman. I can meant to say, that our unassail-, this application on my own acable and incorruptible gentleman count so much as on account of was guilty of one of his native those, who are liable to have tricks in handing the slander been misled by Mr. Birkbeck's about. I now find, from what is reported to me, that the whole letter, or, at least, a much larger part of it, was published in your make great allowances for his paper, from which the inscrutable mortification. But, when we being made the extract in ques-consider the fatal effects of his tion, selecting that part which delusive statements; when we contained aspersions on me, as consider that the gratification of being, in his mind, best calculated his ambition (for I would fain be-. to afford useful information to his lieve it not to be avarice) has already produced so much ruin and misery amongst those who 1 readers, and particularly to a little junto of taylors and coppersmiths and stock-jobbers, become had all the means of leading easy would-be financiers, of whose Jucubrations the inscrutable being is the promulgator, and with whose friendship and he is honoured. company and happy lives in the settled parts of America, we are partakers in the cause of this evil, if we abet him in propagating his delusions. I am, Your most obedient Servant, Now, Sir, I think I have a right to call upon you to insert, in your paper, my answer to Mr. Birkbeck's reflections on me; or, to expect, that you be pleased to furnish me with the name and place of abode of " the friend in It is curious enough that this is "Yorkshire," I do not make not out yet! The Committee AGRICULTUR-ASSES' EVIDEnce. |