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COBBETT'S

POLITICAL REGISTER.

VOLUME LXXVI.

FROM APRIL 7, TO JUNE 30, 1832,

INCLUSIVE.

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Printed and Published by the Author at 11, Bolt Court, Fleet Street.

Bi120.3

NOV 11 1881

Sumner fund.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME LXXVI.

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COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER.

VOL.76.-No. 1.]

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 7TH, 1832.

TO DOCTOR BLACK,
On the Consequences of rejecting the
Reform Bill.

Достов,

Kensington, 4th April, 1832.

IN my last Register I observed, that those who hugged themselves in the hope, that, if the bill were rejected, the people, after a mutual cutting of throats, would gladly return to the old state of things, and that the Lords would, all the while, have snugly kept their estates; I observed, that those who cherished this kind and just hope might be deceived; for that, as in America, the reformers might say, "stand fast;" that is to say, let every one keep, as his own, the house and land that he may occupy Now, Doctor, you (lest, I suppose, the Lords should be alarmed at this) hasten to express your opinion, that there is no such danger as this, let the Lords do what they may; but you gave us reasons for this opinion, and these show that the opinion is not worth a straw; and this, when I have quoted your words, I shall, I think, clearly prove.

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[Price is. 2d.

of the Protestant Reformation" PIG'S MEAT;" and after having seen its prodigious effects all over the kingdom; after having seen it shake the tithesystem to the very centre; and after having lived at the trough yourself for now about two years: after all this, you might have been a little more cautious how you talked in such a dogmatical, style upon any subject in opposition to any expressed opinion of mine. It was not for this that I made you a Doctor; and, by if you go on at this rate, I will un-doctor you, and reduce you again to your very kilt. I will now insert your commentary, and show how little comfort it ought to give to those whom it is manifestly intended to embolden to reject the bill! I say this quite advisedly; because, I defy you to assign any other motive for your commentary, which I shall now take, paragraph by paragraph, and show how incompetent you are to write upon such a subject.

The account of the means by which the tenants of Pennsylvania were made such warm friends of the revolution, is, no doubt, exhad divided the church-lands among the peaceedingly instructive. If the Cortes of Spain santry, the revolution in that country would not have been so easily overturned. It happened fortunately for the new order of things in France, that the provinces in which there were most church-lands were the provinces bordering upon the most powerful of the enemies of France, and the distribution of these lands made the people of Alsace, Burgundy, Lorraine, &c., the most stanch sup

porters of the revolution.

But, DOCTOR, one might, after all The phrase "exceedingly instructive” that has passed, have expected a little is a little piece of Scotch sorcosm, mon! more modesty from you, though aScotch-A " spacamen of antaliuct." I tell you man, in speaking of a thing, no matter what, Doctor; the Scotch sorcosm and what, put forth by me. After speaking, in 1822, with the utmost reprobation and contempt, at the same time, of my proposition to give poor-laws to Ireland, and after becoming yourself the most strenuous of all the advocates for those -poor-laws, you might, though a pert Scotch feelosofer, have shown a little more modesty in speaking of any opinion tempt, when GREY had the of mine. After having called the History sense and decency to perck up BROUG

antalluct are got out of vogue.__ I have
trampled them under foot, and English-
men laugh at the insolence, except it be
those few base fools who affect superiority
of mind, and who are the real two-legged
jackasses of the kingdom The Scorch
sorcosm and antalluct were fast
ing objects of general ridicule

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HAM upon the woolsack. That gave a of the poor, was pledged for the payfinisher to the Scotch antalluct; that suc-ment of that debt; and thus, in reality, cessor of THOMAS à BECKET, FORTESQUE, taking the borrowed money, and divid and Sir THOMAS MORE, standing before ing it amongst their unprincipled selves; me in the Court of King's Bench, in the not selling the property and bringing manner that he did in the month of July the money into the treasury, as the last; laying down, from the woolsack, much-abused Jacobins had done. the doctrine that the tithe-owner was a Doctor, let me here again remind you sleeping partner with the land-owner in how right I was upon this subject; and the proprietorship of the land; pledging how wrong the Scotch antalluct was uphimself, from that same woolsack, to on the same subject. Long before the bring in a new code of poor-laws; these French marched into Spain, I said that things, Doctor, have given the finishing the Spanish people would receive them stroke to Scotch sorcosm and antalluct; with open arms; and I said that the and the people in all the more than fifty Spanish bonds would not be worth one towns in which I have recently been, farthing. You, Doctor, said just the and in which I have addressed the peo-contrary: your antalluct discovered that ple, Scotch sorcosm and antalluct are a the people would fight for the "free subject of laughter and of scorn. Therefore, Doctor, if you will be ruled by me, you will avoid all attempts at sorcosm in future, until, at least, your prime Scotch cock has brought in, and caused to be passed, his new code of poor-laws.

Now, as to the Cortes of Spain, pray what has their overthrow to do with the observations and facts that you were commenting on? Why, their overthrow has a great deal to do with the matter; for it furnishes a strong additional argument to those that I made use of: for what does it say? Why, that the revolution was easily overturned, and the old order of things easily re-established, only because the Cortes did not divide the church lands amongst the country people. If this were the case in Spain; if a division of the lands amongst the people would have rendered the revolution successful there, why should not our nobility be upon their guard lest the nation should be tempted to resort to similar means? aye, to those very means which you blame the Cortes for not resorting to. Nothing can be truer than what you say here, Doctor: nothing can be truer than that the Cortes were overturned because they did not divide the lands amongst the people; but, instead of that, like a set of base rogues or of grovelling fools, they began to borrow money of our infamous Jews and jobbers to make a national debt, pretending that the church property, which was, in fact, the patrimony

constitution" that they had got; I told you that the people saw clearly that they were about to be robbed, and that, if they fought against the French, they would be fighting for a national debt, and for a gendarmerie. Upon this memorable occasion I stood absolutely alone; both of the greedy factions, and the whole of the nation, friends as well as foes, were against me; every one said I was wrong, but results proved that I was right; and, if you read that little Spanish book that I am publishing, Doctor, you will see that the people of Spain were sensible to stifle in its birth that monster, a national debt, which the stupid or rogueish Cortes were nursing up to devour them.

If, indeed, the Cortes had divided the lands amongst the people, the French would never have dared to enter Spain; but this not having been done, the new order of things fell at once. But, Doctor, what inference do you mean to draw from the fact, that the church of France had most riches in Alsace, Burgundy, and Lorraine, and that this made those próvinces the most staunch supporters of the revolution? Both facts are false. The church had the greatest riches in the richest provinces, and the richest of all was in the north, and in Normandy. The most staunch supporters of the revolutions were in Provence and in Normandy; so that both the facts are false; and if they were both true, they make directly against your own posi

tion; for they only show that the peo-most distant idea of the relationships

ple were zealous for the revolution in an! which exist between them, and of the

exact proportion to the quantity of pro-ties that bind them to one another. If perty distributed amongst them. This you take a village of five or six hundred paragraph, therefore, contains a string persons, you will find above fifty or of statements, which, whether true or sixty heads of families who are renters; false, make against your argument and and, if you had any knowledge at all of in support of mine. But we now ap- the matter, you would know, that if you proach a little nearer to close quarters. were to take all the little renters, and offer each of them a palace to reside in, and a coach-and-six to ride in, not one of the whole would accept of your offer; and that, if they were left to cut and carve for themselves, nineteen out of every twenty would choose the cottages and gardens in which they reside.

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But though we believe that the first to repeat any attempt to involve the country in confusion would be the anti-reform nobles, we do not think they are likely to be much alarmed with the possibility of their being supplanted by their tenants. It was very easy for the tenants of the great proprietors of Pennsylvania (the descendants of PENN) to stand fast, because the yeomanry of America were then nearly the whole of the people. But a The truth is, that in a country so thickly tenant would not find it so easy to stand fast in peopled us England, and with so large a portion England. Every man on his farm would think of the population without property, the dread he had as good a right to stand fast as the te- of anything like a scramble is always uppernant, and there might be a good deal of shov-most in the minds of all who possess property, ing before any one could stand fast. and will always lead them to make every efThis is the first time that I ever heard there would be no justice in giving the farm fort to preserve a respect for justice. about " yeomanry of America; and to the occupying tenant. If the landlord misyou know nothing about the then situa- conduct himself, his property ought to become tion of Pennsylvania, if you imagine public, and the proceeds be applied to the rethat the descendants of the Penns were lief of the public wants. the only proprietors of the land. The The thick population I have answered. proprietors were then very numerous, No question, that all who possess proand the occupiers were all tenants in perty must most anxiously wish it resome way or another. Your notion of spected; must most anxiously wish for the farm-labourers contending with the the preservation of the laws of profarmer for the proprietorship of the farm, perty; and it is my great anxiety not argues as complete a state of ignorance to see these laws shaken, that makes of the rural community of England as me so desirous to prevent the pretence if you had been born but yesterday. for shaking them from arising. You You do not know, then, that the farm-say that there would be no "justice" labourers are renters also! You do not in giving the farm to the occupying know this, and that their sons and tenant. To be sure there would be no daughters, as well as themselves, would justice, but most monstrous injustice; think themselves in heaven to become but I was supposing that direful state of the owners of their cottages and gardens. things, in which, as in America and And, observe, these are the only people that the farmers would have to care a straw about. You seem to think that the Irish labourers would pour out from St. Giles's, and from Kensington, and take the bands of pickpockets along with them, and go and scramble for the farm houses and the fields! This only shows that you are totally ignorant of the state of the country and the people; that you know nothing at all of the manners, tastes or dispositions of the country people; that you have not the

France, law and justice were made to give way to the necessity of making blood cease to flow. I am as sensible as you are, that such a distribution would be contrary to all justice; and it was to prevent the possibility of it that I was and am labouring.

Besides, in this country, there are few estates which belong absolutely to individuals. Estates are often mortgaged to their full value, and it would be hard indeed if an unoffending estates are carved out of estates in a hundred mortgagee should be ousted by a tenant. These different ways, well known to conveyancers ;

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