will, I think, begin to fear, that you have will not diminish in an exact proportion promulgated something very much like to the quantity of wheat imported?nonsense, under the name of your worthy Suppose, for instance, that candles were ta chief magistrate; but you have the conso-be allowed to be imported at 5d. a pound lation of not being singular; for your sentiments, if a set of crude self-contradictions ought to be called sentiments, are, it must be confessed, pretty general throughout this enlightened country; nor should I at all wonder if they were to become a set of axioms in those illuminating seminaries, the Lancasterian Schools. as good as Mr. RowCLIFFE's (who, for il lustration sake, I suppose to be a tallowchandler), which he sells at 1s. a pound, there being a tax of 6d. a pound, which he has to pay, do you think that Mr. RowCLIFFE would make any more candles? Do you not think, that he would withdraw his capital from such a concern? Though the We have, however, not done yet. It is worthy Mayor does not seem to understand asserted, that the Corn Bill, if passed, much about political economy, he has would 66 confirm the load of parochial surely too much sense not to see that he burdens for the relief of the distressed poor." must be ruined by continuing his trade. If I have above stated, that I disapprove of Mr. RowCLIFFE were to protest against the Bill; but, supposing it to have a ten- such importation of candles, while the tax dency to keep up the price of corn, how is remained to be imposed upon his candles, it to tend to keep up the amount of paro- would you charge him with the malicious chial burdens? The land keeps the poor; design of keeping you in the dark? Why, and, if what you said before was true, that then, do you charge the growers of wheat the wheat growers will gain by the Bill, with the design of barring the bounties of how is the Bill to add to their burdens ?- Providence, because they are compelled to That the high price do not make paupers is pay taxes, which keep their wheat at a clear from the incontrovertible fact, that higher price than foreign wheat can be imwages keep pace in price with food; and ported at? I allow, that their fears are unthat high price of corn tends to cause em- founded. I allow that importation would ployment, which, under low prices, would not have the effect which they dread; but, not, and now does not, exist. What, then, if their fears be groundless, they are justiis the foundation of this assertion, that the fied by your hopes and expectations. You Bill would "confirm the load of parochial assume, that the importation of wheat would burdens?" As it were for the express cause the wheat in England to sell at a purpose of furnishing a suitable cap to this lower price, and then you blame the English climax of absurdities, you charge the ad-wheat-growers for objecting to the importa vocates of the Bill with an endeavour "to tion, until they be relieved from the tax and "bar the bounties of Providence from a the currency which cause the necessity of a majority of his Majesty's subjects."-rise in the price of their commodity. Why did you not, at once, charge them This expression," the bounties of Prowith a design to fix a blanket between the "vidence," is mere cant. Bread is no more sun and the earth? Will the Bill, think a gift of Providence than shoes or stockyou, prevent the crop from being abundantings, or coats, or hats, or knives, or crockand the harvest fine? Will it tend to im-ery-ware, or soap, or candles; and yet you pede the showers? Good Lord! What say not a word about the laws which forbid nonsense does the belly suggest to the which wholly exclude, the importation of tongue and the pen ! Where, I pray you, such articles? Why does not the farmer is Providence to produce these bounties? complain, that the ports are not open to In England, I suppose and will the Bill bring him shoes and stockings, and his keep the wheat from the mouths of you wife gowns and linen cheaper, than those of and Mr. RowCLIFFE? If you mean, that home produce? Why is a law of " protecit will keep foreign wheat from your "tion," as it is called, to be refused to those mouths, do you suppose, that, if you were only who cultivate the earth? Mr. Waithto live upon foreign wheat, that wheat man, too, must get into a puzzle-wit about would still be grown in England? Can the landed interest and the trading interest. you possibly imagine; have your bellies so He must talk, too, about intercepting the far got the better of your brains, as to bounties of Providence; he must talk about cause you to believe, that men will grow withholding from the peopic the blessings of wheat here if you live upon foreign wheat, a plenteous harvest. What! docs he think and that the culture of wheat in England that the advocates of the Bill mean tg 66 throw the corn into the rivers? How else along with Mr. Rose and his family, in the are they to withhold these blessings? Does profits of the debt and taxation. It is not, he think, that they will not sell their wheat? therefore, very wonderful that you should What, then, does he mean? What sense shun, with great care, any reference to the is there in the greand which he took ? real causes of the high price, and seek to fix There is one more assertion in Re-the blame upon land-owners, parsons, and your solutions, which I must notice, before I farmers. proceed to shew you the real causes of the At the Portsmouth petitioning Meeting dearth of which you complain. You say there was a Mr. GRANT, who is reported that the landlords have augmented their to have repeated the old saying of "down rents since the commencement of the war, corn down horn," and who followed up and that the owners of tythes have," with this stroke of wit with gravely observing, “better reason," raised the price of their that he hoped to see the time shortly, when tythes.- As you do not condescend to meat as well as bread would be sold at the give reasons for any thing you assert, it is old prices. How far this witty gentleman, not surprising that you should have omitted whose head was manifestly affected by the to give any here. I believe it would have prospect of a full meal; how far he meant puzzled Mr. RoWCLIFFE to assign even to go back, it would be hard to say; but, the shadow of a ground for this asser-perhaps, his hopes extended no farther back tion. The clergy would, of course, raise than the peace preceding the war against their tythes in order to enable them to pay the French Republic; the war for regular their taxes, and to purchase food and raiment Government; and, as old George Rose of increased price: and pray, Mr. Mayor, called it, for "the blessed comforts of reliwhy were not the landowners to do the same?" gion!" But this Mr. GRANT seems What better reason had the parson than the to have wholly overlooked the taxes imsquire? You may be a very enlightened posed since 1792, up to which period, as and enlightening man; but if all your we have seen before, the quartern loaf candles, and all the candles in Southampton, was sold at an average of 7d. If Mr. were lighted at once, I do not believe that GRANT had looked over his shoulder at they would enable you to discover any the Dock Yard, and then turned towards ground for such an assertion as this. The Spithead, he would have seen a cause for phrase is parenthetical, and I cannot help the quartern loaf's rise, and for its contithinking that it must have been put in at nuance at its present price, at least. If the suggestion of some reverend gentleman, he had locked at the new buildings in and who was amongst the framers of these cele- about Portsmouth; if he had thought of brated Resolutions. The landlord receives the millions of which Portsmouth had been money from the land in the name of rent, the gulph, he would have hesitated before the parson, in the name of tythe. Say, he railed against the growers of wheat, and then, Worshipful Sir, why the latter had the breeders and fatters of cattle.. "better reason" than the former to add to the amount of his former receipt. During the peace from 1783 to 1792 inclusive, the quartern loaf sold at an The real causes of high price have, my average of 7d, and 5-10ths of a farthing. worthy neighbours, been sedulously hidden | Call it 7d. During this last war, it has sold from you. The causes are the taxes, and at an average of about 14d. The whole of the the depreciation of our currency. You of annual taxes, raised during the last peace, the town of Southampton, have no right, amounted to about fourteen millions. The taking you as a body, to complain of either. whole of the annual taxes, raised during You have all along been supporters of the this war, has been, upon an average, about war. You have all along supported a man forty millions. We have seen that the who has been one of the greatest of sinecure taxes, that all the taxes of every sort, paid placemen. You have supported all the mea-by the landholder and wheat-grower, must sures relative to the Bank and the paper-fall finally upon the eaters of the loaf, they money. You have decidedly approved of themselves being loaf-eaters as well as other the causes of that enormous expenditure people and, need we go any further for a and debt, which must perpetuate the taxes, cause of the average rise in price of the and continue in circulation the paper-money. You have been amongst the first to produce these high prices, of which you complain. Not a few of you have shared, loaf? Suppose that candles had (I do not know that they have not) been taxed during the war 2d. a pound, would they not have risen 2d. a pound? And, would you not look to the tar, as the cause of the rise from the loaf; and if he will be so good as in the price? And, if the wheat-grower to get the tax removed, and to cause has had to pay, and still has to pay, guineas to circulate in place of Bank notes, double, and more than double, the sum of or will put the paper at its former value, taxes that he paid before 1792, will you then I will pledge myself to sell you bread not ascribe the rise in the price of his at the prices of the last peace. But, until produce to the same cause? Or, has the then, you must expect to pay, upon an profound belly discovered any rale of rea-average, 14d. for your quartern loaf, wheson and of right, which distinguishes, in ther the prayer of your Petition be heard this respect, the farmer and his produce or not. from all other men and all other things? Mr. GRANT, the "down corn down Mr. WAITHMAN, who certainly had be-"horn" gentleman, talked of returning to stowed little reflection on this subject, got old prices; but did he not mean to include, to floundering about this matter. The powerful cause, taxation, he could not wholly get out of his head, and yet he talked about the bounties of Providence being intercepted. He observed (I wish, with all my heart, he could have held his tongue!) that 66 a great deal had been said about "protecting duties; but, when he saw, "that there was a duty, of 17 per cent. upon land from the Property Tax alone, were we to have no relief from THE "FALLING IN of that and other bur"dens?" -Yes, Sir, but let it fall in · first! Take away the wheat-grower's taxes before you expect his produce to return to the prices of 1792. You begin at the wrong end, good citizens. Would you 66 66 not begin by removing the tax from Mr. ROWCLIFFE's candles, before you called upon him to reduce the price of his candles? Would you not take off his tax, before you permitted an importation that would knock him up in his trade? The belly has no feeling for any thing but itself. It keeps crying stuff me! stuff me! with out any regard to the means or the consequences. Say anatomists what they will, Mr. WAITHMAN, the belly has no bowels. I'll show you, says CONGREVE, a soldier "with his heart in his head and his brains "in his belly." Have we not good reason to suppose, that this sort of organization is now become common throughout the country? The taxes alone are sufficient, not only to account for the late average price of bread, but for its continuance. Reason, common sense, forbids us to expect, that peace, or any political event whatever, will, upon an average of crops, reduce the price of wheat, until the taxes, with which 'that article is loaded, shall be taken off; and when they are taken off, how is the interest of the debt to be paid? So that, my worthy neighbours of Southampton, when you see Mr. Rosɛ again, pray move him to make a bustle about taking the tax in articles of price, the paper money! A good golden guinea, such as was current at 21s. in 1792, will now sell for 27s. So that the guinea has got up as well as the corn. A guinea, in 1792, would exchange for no more than 21s. in paper; it will now exchange for 27s. in paper; and paper is the thing which regulates our prices. When, therefore, the leaf is at a shilling, as it is called, it is, in reality, at no more than 9d. of the money of 1792. This fact the people of Southampton have blinked. This fact has been kept out of sight. Mr. RowCLIFFE talks about the enormous price of 86s. a quarter; but that is only about 57s. 6d. of the money of 1792! And yet this is wholly overlooked, and the landowners are abused and burnt in effigy for wanting to secure this price. They really deserve it, however, for at all interfering in a measure, the sole tendency of which is to prevent the taxes from falling off, and from leaving the interest of the debt unpaid. I have before stated it, but I will again state it to you, that the proposed Bill is A MEASURE OF THE GOVERNMENT; that its object is to keep the taxes from falling off; and that if certain gentlemen, zealous for what they think the good of agriculture, have become its advocates, they have not rightly understood what the real interests of the wheat-grower are. I shall suppose, now, that the Bill does not pass, and (though I am sure it cannot be) that wheat comes down to 5s. a bushel, or 40s. a quarter. The whole of the prices of the country must follow it. The labourer will get about 10d. a day; and this rate will run through all the trades in England. A horse, which now costs the farmer 401. will cost him from 12 to 151. consequently the taxes must come down in the same proportion, supposing none of them to be repealed (which I do not believe they will be); for, if the taxes continue the same nominally, they must fall off in amount. The pro Have you ever, upon perty tax, for instance, is 17 per centum | ing on that war. upon land. Reduce the wheat from an any occasion, moved a tongue against the average of 15s. to an average of 5s. the expensive measures of the last twenty-two rents follow the price of wheat; and the dismal years? Have you ever endeavoured Government will get only a third part of to check the enormous expenditure that has what it has lately gotten from the land. been going on? Have you ever set your Southampton "annuitants," do you begin faces against any act of profusion in the to smell your danger? Do you begin to see, public concerns? Have you ever uttered that if you will not pay the taxes in the a syllable disapproving of any of those meaprice of the loaf, and let others pay them sures which have produced the debt? quietly along with you, you will have to Never. But, on the contrary, you were look sharp for the dividends on your annui- amongst the first to pledge your lives and ties? You must be blind indeed, if you fortunes for the carrying on of the war. cannot see, without the aid of Mr. Row- You have always supported a placeman, CLIFFE's candles, that it is you, and not and a sinecure placeman, too. You have the wheatt-growers, who would be ruined been famous for the profits which many of by the fulfilment of your wishes, It has you yourselves have derived from the war; been stated in those oracular instructors of and you have been amongst the most forthe people, the London newspapers, that ward to bellow forth invectives against Sir Somebody CALL, in Cornwall, has those who were anxious to prevent the lowered his rents in proportion to the price enormous expenditure which produced the of corn; and the wise editors of these taxes and the debt. You ought, therefore, papers, by way of a hint to the landholders, to have been the last to expect, or to hope, say, that they hope the example will be gc- to be relieved from the natural and inevinerally followed. Well! now, suppose the table effects of taxation. thing done all over the country. Would not the property tax fall off immediately to the extent of one half of its amount? Who would be the losers? Not the tenants, clearly. Not the landowners; for wages, horses, food, all would come down to the reduced level. But, whence is to come the 40 millions a-year for the payment of the dividends at the Bank? I will tell you what, my good neighbours, you ought to have resolved to do. You ought to have resolved to petition the Parliament to pass a law to compel the landowners to lower their rents, and the renters to lower the price of the corn, and all of them to continue to pay the same taxes, every year to the same amount, that they now pay; for, I do positively assure you, that, if they do not continue to pay the same annual amount in taxes, the interest of the debt cannot be paid. There would have been something savouring of tyranny in this proposition; but, at any rate, it would not have been downright nonsense. No, my worthy neighbours, you have had your war; you have had your frolic; you have had an expensive rout; and you must be contented to pay the reckoning. You, who have been open-mouthed for war for so many years, ought to be amongst the last people in the country to object to continue to pay a tax upon your loaf, in order to discharge regularly the interest of the money, borrowed for the purpose of carry I disapprove of the Corn Bill, not be cause it is unjust, but because, in the end, it will do no good to the grower of corn and the landowner, while it will expose them to unfounded calumny. I dislike it more particularly (and, indeed, that is all that I really care about relating to it), because it will in case of future high prices of corn, which will assuredly come, give the public mind a wrong direction, and induce the deluded people to rail at millers, and farmers, and bakers, instead of looking to the real causes of what they complain of, and seeking a remedy in the removal of those causes by legal and constitutional means. This is my ground of dislike to the Bill, against which, upon that ground, I would gladly join in a Petition; but I cannot put my name to a mass of heterogeneous matter, the offspring of ignorance and the source of delusion. THE PRINCESS OF WALES.-It seems that this amiable and much injured female, notwithstanding the decisive proofs which have appeared of her innocence, and of the infamous conduct of her accusers, is still doomed to suffer all the contumely consequent only on guilt, and to undergo persecu tion, instead of that protection under which she would have found safety, had his Majesty's illness not suspended the exercise of the royal functions in his own person.— Whoever has been the direct adviser of that THE PRINCE REGENT. SIR-I am once more reluctantly com and to enclose for your inspection, copies of a note which I have had the honour to receive from the Queen, and of the answer which I have thought it my duty to return to her Majesty. It would be in vain for me to inquire into the reasons of the alarining declaration made by your Royal Highness, that you have taken the fixed and unalterable determination never to meet me, upon any occasion, in either public or private. Of these your Royal the disgraceful treatment which the Prin- | LETTER OF THE PRINCESS OF WALES TO cess of Wales is now suffering, will probably never be ascertained; for, after what has already passed in Parliament relativepelled to address your Royal Highness, to this subject, it would be idle to expect an interference in that quarter any way favourable to her Royal Highness's claims. This is a topic, however, which cannot be passed over slightly, and to which I mean to return in a future REGISTER. With that intention I have given below the Correspondence which has passed between the parties; and I cannot omit noticing here a circumstance which, whatever may be thought of the Princess of Wales's conduct in another quarter, clearly demon-Highness is pleased to state yourself to be the only judge. You will perceive by my strates that the public not only hold her answer to her Majesty, that I have only perfectly innocent, but deeply sympathise been restrained by motives of personal with her Royal Highness under her pre-consideration towards her Majesty, from sent unmerited appears, wrongs. It exercising my right of appearing before on the evening of the day when the Prin- her Majesty, at the public Drawing cess Charlotte was presented for the first Rooms, to be held in the ensuing month. time at Court, her Royal Mother, who had But, Sir, lest it should be by possibility been excluded from this interesting scene, supposed, that the words of your Royal endeavoured to banish all recollection of Highness can convey any insinuation from what was going on at the Drawing-room, which I shrink, I am bound to demand by the amusements of the Theatre. Here of your Royal Highness-what_circumshe was welcomed in a manner which, it stances can justify the proceeding you is hoped, compensated her in some degree have thus thought fit to adopt?-I owe for the deprivation of that parental pleasure it to myself, to my Daughter, and to the which had been so peremptorily denied her nation, to which I am deeply indebted for at Buckingham House, as appears from the the vindication of my honour, to remind following account which I have taken from your Royal Highness of what you know; the Morning Chronicle of yesterday. that after open persecution and mysteri"THEATRE ROYAL, COVENT-GARDEN.ous inquiries, upon undefined charges, "Last night her Royal Highness the Prin❝cess of Wales was present at the represen"tation of Artaxerxes. She sat in a pri❝vate box, and was not recognized till the "beginning of the Farce. The moment "that she was known, the company rose, "and she was greeted with a burst of en"thusiastic applause. The spectators called "for God save the King. Mr. Hamerton forward and said, the vocal per"formers had unfortunately left the house; "but the audience persisted. They would "have God save the King-the venera"ble King--the Protector of injured in"nocence he who desired the Princess to came come to Court he who made the Queen "receive her at Court-We will have God save the King. Mr. Hamerton soon after "came forward again, and calmed the tu"mult by announcing that the performers were sent for. Accordingly God save "the King' was sung amidst repeated "bursts of acclamations." 66 ، I the malice of my eneinies fell entirely |