have all been the fast friends of the public creditor cannot be kept | was, in Canning's language, "to if the Bill be not repealed. He tranquillize the country and to has said that it is unjust, and that" settle the question for ever.” it leads to confusion and revolu- But, Mr. ATTWOOD went on, and tion. Mr. ATTWOOD: and, be- said that if this " system were fore I proceed to what he has " persevered in, it must produce said, let me observe that this Mr." the destruction of the present ATTWOOD is the Birmingham" generation of farmers, traders, ATTWOOD, and is a banker con- " and landlords." All very true, nected with the SPOONERS, who Mr. ATTWOOD; and Amen! say are very well known, for other I; for, the present generation of things besides being relations of farmers, traders and landlords WILBERFORCE. This Mr. ATT-have all most zealously supported WOOD wrote a pamphlet in 1817 the system of paper money; and to urge the necessity of thrusting out the paper again. He succeeded; and that produced the prosperity of 1817 and 1818. This Mr. ATTWOOD, who is a keen and clever man, made a speech in support of the petition, but, by destruction, here used, we which your father presented a-speak, of course, in a mitigated gainst his son's Bill. This Mr. sense. We only mean that the ATTWOOD, who is now become a big farmer is to have the Wellingmember of the Honourable, Ho- ton boots stripped from his legs, nourable, Honourable House, the flashy party-coloured clothes made, on the 9th instant, a stout torn from his back, the insolent dig at the Bill. He called it, helmet knocked off his head, and "the dangerous experiment of to have the smock-frock pulled "1819, which had already in- down over his neck and shoulders. "volved the people in deeper and We only mean that the traders 66 more widely spread distress, than are to be traders: are to walk on "the acts of any government re-foot and not roll about in their "corded in the history of any carriages. We only mean that "other people." This was pretty the landlords are to have enough well, as giving your Bill a charac- to keep them decently in the ter: your infallible Bill, which country; and to make them feel by experience that he who tills present time. Mr. ATTWOOD the land is a man as well as the is, like the Ministers with whom landlord. I am speaking, how we are now blessed, a man for the time present. A man that does not think at all about the ever, of new landlords; and also of new farmers and new traders; for the present generation of all time to come as far as the Nation of them, will, if your Bill be push-is concerned. He wants " proed on into complete effect, become" sperity;" that is to say, plenty servants, or beggars, or will ac- of Bank notes; plenty of trade; tually be destroyed by starvation, plenty of new houses, plenty of unless they come to the poor book; taxes for the county Collectors to and, in that case the haughty land- have to collect; plenty of Scrip lord of the famous year 1819, will Castles rising up; and, he thinks have reason to bless the poor that this can go on for ever. r! He laws, instead of devising schemes has not the least idea, that " the for their alleviation.-Mr. ATT-" last end of such a system must WOOD was for "giving back"" be worse than the first." Oh, the paper to the country! Aye, no! your Bill is the thing. It I dare say he was! All would will, indeed, destroy the present prosper then, he said! But Mr. generation of enjoyers; but if ATTWOOD was deceived. The the Ministers will make a proper Bankers would prosper, indeed. appeal to the people; if these or The bluff Yeomanry Cavalry any other Ministry, will give us men, the merchants and manu- a Reform and will drive your Bill facturers and landlords. would pro- through into complete execution, sper. But the husbandman, the England will once more be Engartizan, the working manufac- land; the King will have his coin turer, would not prosper. All and the people will have their those who labour are bettered by rights. Mr. ATTWOOD does not a fall in the necessaries of life, think of these things. He does and particularly the husbandman; not perhaps care much about them. and Mr. ATTWOOD's doctrine, as He does not know probably the to this point, is grossly erroneous. real motives which led to your However, as to the effects of your Bill; and, therefore, one is less Bill he is perfectly correct; and, surprised at his proposition for in this respect, he has been per- putting out the paper again. Of fectly consistent from 1817 to the that real motive I will speak by and by, and will, therefore, Mr. ALDERMAN HEYGATE, leave Mr. ATTWOOD for the pre-another child of the system, and a Banker into the bargain, said sent! on this same ninth of April," that the measure (Mr. PEEL'S Bill) Mr. IRVING has declared that in consequence of your Bill and of your Bill alone, one Com-" which the country had so much mercial House had sunk its Ca-"reason to deplore, was carried, pital from three hundred and two years ago, by clamour in sixty thousand pounds, to a hun-" that House; that measure was dred and forty two thousand the cause of increasing the pounds; and that this had been" public Debt; of adding to the the general effect of your Bill as" Agricultural and Commercial to all Merchants; he added that, “distress, and of heaping every “he must be a bold Minister, in-" species of misery upon this once "deed, who would have pro-" great and flourishing country." "posed such a measure to Par- -Now is not this a fine charac"liament, if he had known that ter to be given of the measure "it would produce such conse-bearing your name? Would it <6 quences." This is the charac- not have been better to listen to ter given of your Bill by a bluff Merchant; a colleague of Wilberforce for the Borough of Bramber; a staunch supporter of every Minister from PITT to LIVERPOOL, even PERCEVAL not excepted. It is right that these men should suffer. It is right that they should be pulled down; and what so pleasing as to see them pulled down by a Bill bearing the name of one of the favourite children of PITT, which child, too, has been marked out from all the" other famous six hundred and that if the Bank notes were withfifty eight as the fit representa- drawn, the prosperity would be tive of the University of Ox-at an end; and that men in future ford. must get rich, if they got rich the voice of your own father than to that of Dr. COPLESTONE; who supposed, I dare say, that he was going to get twenty shillings in gold for tythes for every twenty shillings in paper that he was then getting? Your father, who spoke against your measure, knew what was what a little better than Dr. Coplestone. He knew what the power of Bank notes was. He knew what had been the cause of the " prosperity ;” and he very well knew, at all, by industry, economy and case, only proceeding upon skill; and not by trick and the doctrine of the resolugambling. He knew that the tions of the " lamented Horner," vision would vanish the moment who was a mere tool in the hands the Bank notes were withdrawn. of others; but who, because he Thus, then, Sir, we have the is dead, those others can safely character of your Bill, as given praise. Seeing the old gentleto it by the staunch advocates of man upon this track, I was sure the system; by those who have that there was some scheme on enriched themselves by the means foot for coming to cash payments of the system; and who even now by degrees; and, accordingly, support the Ministers who brought as it has since appeared, in the Bill. To record this cha-" Ricardo," or Bullion plan apracter is necessary as well as just. pears to have been at this very I foresaw all the consequences of time preparing for that press, the Bill. I foretold them even the which, God knows, had been sufficiently disgraced by loads of Stock exchange gibberish before. Alarmed least the hellish system should die and steal a march upon me, I sat instantly down, as soon as the newspaper reached me, and wrote, on the hottest day I ever knew (the eleventh of July, 1818), that " LETTER TO 1818 I saw, in my delightful retreat on Long Island, that the thing was working towards some such measure. Mr. Tierney (a staunch old lover of office) had made a speech, in which he urged the necessity of resuming cash payments by degrees. I saw that some scheme was in agitation!" TIERNEY," which contains a Some deep and cunning scheme statement of my opinions as to for the outwitting of reason, the the effects of any attempt to reover-reaching of nature and turn to cash payments without a playing the pettifogger with her reduction of the interest of the laws. But, in fact, this ancient Debt. At the very outset of representative of the Borough of that letter I tell Tierney that Southwark, who formerly said put my opinions upon paper bethat he held a retaining fee to op-fore the event; in order, that if pose PITT, and who has long I am right, I may have the crebeen endeavouring to uphold dit of having been right; and the PITT system, was in this that, if I am wrong, those who 1 cel have hitherto placed confidence Το say that I enjoy these conin me, as to such matters, may fessions; to say that I enjoy the place confidence in me no longer. howlings of the big and bluff far1 tell him that I prefix his name mers, merchants and landlords is to the letter, in order that it may very feebly to describe that which have a name of some sort, to dis- I feel. I remember too well their tinguish it from other essays of insolent exultation at the time mine on the subject, and to cause when the absolute-power-of-imit to be more easily referred to. prisonment Bill was passed. I reIn the course of this letter, all member their chuckling when the that BARING, all that Lock-funds rose upon the passing of HART, all that IRVING, all that that Bill. And, remembering CURWEN, all that HEYGATE, all these, I feel, at viewing their disthat ATTWOOD; all that the whole tress, that which I hope I ought of them now declare to be FACT, to feel; but which it is altogether is to be found in the shape of impossible for me to describe ; prediction! I anticipated, not especially when I reflect, that only the sufferings in gross, but the thing which causes their disin detail. The farmer, the land-tress gives to the oppressed lord, the trader; the case of classes a chance of revival and of every one is there described be- restoration to freedom. This safore-hand. That letter was writ- tisfaction is produced by numeten in great haste, and the point rous concurrent circumstances; of the labourer was not suffici- and amongst these, one is, that ently considered and dwelt upon; the pulling-down Bill bears the but every other case was hit to a name of the man who has been nicety; and the facts now stated picked out and adopted as the in the "Grand Council of the favourite Statesman by the Uni"Nation" are nothing more versity of Oxford. This body, than illustrations of the arguments in that letter, which was written just one year before your Bill was passed. which pretends to a monoply of learning; this body, which is admitted to the presence of the King, while those who form the Therefore, the moment I found strength of his throne are not perthat the Bill was passed, home Imitted to approach him; this came to enjoy these very confes sions which I knew would be body, which pretends to be the dragged forth. wisest of all his Majesty's sub |