8971

Justice gives sentence, many times,
On one man for another's crimes.
Our Brethren of New-England use
Choice Malefactors to excuse,

And hang the Guiltless in their steat
Of whom the Churches have less need;
As lately 't happen'd in a town
There liv'd a Cobbler and but one,
That out f Doctrine could cut use,
And mend men's lives as well as shoes.
This precious brother, having slain,
In times of peace an Indian,
Not out of malice but mere zeal,
(Because he was an infidel,)
The mighty Tottipottymoy
Sent to our Elders an envoy,

In the printing there was an error of £2,000, under the head of Commander-inChief, which, as appears from the total, as stated in print, should have been eight thousand; and not ten thousand.———— În contradiction to this statement, which the Morning Post, I think it was, charged upon me as greatly exaggerated, another statement has appeared. I have not the paper now at hand, but, the substance of it is as follows: That the profits of the three battalions of Guards, of which the Duke of York is Colonel, do not exceed £3,000 a year; that his pay and allowances as Commander-in-Chief do not exceed £3,300 a year; that, for being Colonel of the 60th Regiment (four or five battalions, I believe) he receives only about 227 a year for paper, pens, and ink; that, as to the grant of lands, which I valued so highly, Oatlands was bought with his own money; and that, with respect to the Forest appointments, he received not one farthing, and that all he was entitled to, upon this core was, a portion of the venison, killed

Complaining sorely of the breach

Of league, held forth by Brother Patch,
Against the articles in force

Between both Churches, his and ours,

For which he cray'd the Saints to render
Into his hands, or hang, th' offender;
But they, maturely having weigh'd
They had no more but him o' th' trade,
(A man that serv'd them in a double
Capacity, to teach and cobble)
Resolv'd to spare him; yet to do
The Indian Hoghan Meghan too
Impartial Justice, in his stead did

HANG AN OLD WEAVER that was bedrid.

in the New Forest, of which he is the Ranger, or Warden, I forget which.Now, as to the profits of the Colonelship, though this writer talks of a Report upon the subject before the House of Commons, it would puzzle him, I believe, to point out that report.. Thirty years ago, the profits of a battalion of 400 men, were considered worth £700 a year; and, I ask the reader if there be the slightest probability, that, taking the depreciation of money into view, the profits of 3,000 men should not now exceed £6,000 a year? The mere pay of the Commander-in-Chief is not the thing to be locked at. We must include the houses, the firing, the candles, the equipage of every description; because all these are paid for in consequence of there being a Commander-in Chief, who is benefitted by the use of them all, and who, while he is using them, cannot use his own. I reckon nothing for patronage, because I proceed upon the supposition, that no money, or pecuniary advantage, in any way whatever, is derived from it; but, it must be evident to every one, that, supposing all appointments and promotions to be made without improper motives, such immense patronage must, in any mind of moderate munificence, supply the place of many of the purposes, for which a great pecuniary income might be. wished for. It is not to purchase eatables and drinkables that a nobleman, and espe cially a prince, can want, or wish for, money. Such a person naturally wishes to have power; power consists in the goodwill, or obedience to your wishes, of other men; and, one or the other of these the almost unlimited power of advancing others in life cannot fail to insure you. With respect to the Forest offices, the reader will

ment is stated in a subsequent list, 1 had not seen that when I made the statement at Winchester; and this you will readily sup pose must have been the case, when you consider, that the statement was made, if not in the presence of Lord Fitzharris himself, in the presence of many of his friends, and particularly of Mr. Sturges Bourne, from whom I had naturally to look for a contradiction as to any mistatement of fact.

-With this explanation I should content myself, had not your correspondent thought proper to make an assertion, that the public purse has been relieved by the appointment of Lord Fitzharris, as Governor of the Isle of Wight, for life, with a salary of £1,379 a year. To make this assertion good, he must first prove, that there was an absolute necessity of keeping alive this sinecure place of £1,379 a year; and, next, he must prove, that it was absolutely impossible to give it to some military or naval officer, as a compensation for real services; for, un. til he can do this, it will appear to me, and so, I trust, it will appear to your readers, that a pension of £1,200 to cominence after the death of Lord Malmsbury, would cost less than a sinecure salary, which has begun before Lord Malmsbury's death, and which is tolast as long as the pension would have lasted. The exchange was one of very plain calculafion. It was a simple question of whether 5 Lord Fitzharris should receive, from the public purse, £1,200 a year, for life, after the death of his father; or whether he should receive, from the same source, ₤1.379 a year, for life, to begin in 1807; to decide which question in favour of the latter there required only a very ordinary degree of the influence of self-interest, totally unassisted by that public-spirit, that desire to spare tho poor public purse, which your correspondent would fain have you attribate to his Lordship. "Oh, but the ministers! Thing took this opportunity of relieving the public from the reversionary pension. Yes, S.r, but then, they must show us the anspinte necessity of giving this sincoure of £1,379 a year to somebody or other; and, for my part, I can perceive the existence of no such necessity. The phoc is, in fact, a mere nominal thing, serving as an excuse for the payment of so much mores, amier another name than that of pension. If there really be any little duties of foru attacked to it; if it have a lule patronage, and if in give a little of honommable distinction in the land; if this be the case, should not this post be bestowed upon some meritorious ilitary or naval commander ? Would not ach a compensation be peculiarly appro

61

priate to such a purpose? Ought such posts to be given to persons, who have never, in any way, rendered even the most trifling service to the state, while those who have spent the best part of their lives in honourable toil, danger, and service, are by being pensioned off (if provided for at all), put upon a level with the swarm of court dependents, who are maintained as it were out of charity? -To you, Sir, and to your readers, I may safely leave the task of answering these questions, while I remain, with great respect, your most humble and most obedient servant, -WM COBBETT.

EDINBURGH REVIEWERS.

In the COURIER, the head ministerial newspaper, of the 2d instant, an article" appeared, entitled " APOSTACY OF THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW." The writer, who is evidently a downright hireling, and who no more dares put his name to what he writes, than he dares, within the doors of Whitehall, to say that his soul is his own, accuses the Editors of the above-named celebrated work of having, since their attack upon me, changed their sentiments as to the state of things in this country. He charges them with having now, and especially in certain passages, which he quotes, and which (because I think the public will be much obliged to me for it) I shall copy from him; he charges them with having, in these passages in particular, "scanded the

terested in the uninterrupted, unchecked course of corruption and peculatin; every such man will regard as an assassin every que who wishes for reform. Indeed the public plunderer has no idea of any thing being good, which does not protect him in his plunder. When he talks of the Constitution, he means not the laws, which were mnade to preserve to the people the enjoyment of their rights and liberties; but that state of things, which favours his villainous views of pelf and power.I shall now insert the extracts above-spoken of, and then leave the reader to judge, whether the writers of them deserve to be compared to "Merat "and Robespierre." WM. COLBETT.

Botley, Dec. 6, 1808. EXTRACTS FROM THE REVIEW OF CEVALLOS, IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR OCTOBER LAST.

We are rather disposed at present to contemplate the effects of the Spanish struggle in the cause of civil liberty. The resistance to France has been entirely begun and carried on by the people of Spain. Their kings betrayed them, fled, and rushed with the whole of their base courtiers, into the hands of the enemy. Those who had so little of what is commonly termed, interest in the country, those who had no stake in the community (to speak the technical language of the aristocracy),-the persons of no consideration in the state,-they who could not pledge their fortunes, having only lives and liberties to lose, -the bulk- the mass of the people,-way, the very odious, manyheaded beast, the multitude, the nib itself -- alone, uncalled, unaided by the higher classes.--in despite of these higher classes, and in direct opposition to them.

as

well as to the enemy whom they so vilely joined, raised up the standard of insurrection,--bore it through massacre and through victory, until it chased the usurper away, and waved over his deserted, courts. Happen what will in the sequel, here is a grand and permanent success,—a lesson to all governments, a warning to all oligarchies, -a cheering example to every people Suppose for an instant that the Spaniards succeed, will that gallaut people quietly open the doors of the Escurial to the same herd of crowned or titled intriguers who brought them to ruin? Will they be such fools as to restore those poltroons and traitors to their former posts, and renew a confidence so universally abused? The people who have reconquered the state have a right to a fair salvage-a large share in its future management. - And if all considerations of justice and of prudence were out of the

Discounts, 4

question, the Spanish court may be assured of this, that the feelings of our common. nature the universal sentiments of right and of pride which must prevail among people capable of such gallant deeds, will prevent the repetition of the former abuses, and carry reform-change-revolution (we dread not the use of this word, so popular in England before the late reign of terror), salutary, just, and necessary revolution, over all the departments of the state.-Such will be the consequences of the Spaniards' ultimately triumphing. Whether Ferdinand or Charles be the monarch, we care not; or whether a new stock be brought from Germany for a breed. That they should have a king every one must admit who believes that an hereditary monarch, well fettered by the constitution, is the best guardian of civil liberty. Whatever may be the form of the checks imposed upon him, we shall be satisfied, provided the basis of a free constitution is laid deep and steady, in a popular representation. Let us further recollect, that this system of liberty will grow up with the full assent, and, indeed, the active assistance of the English government ;—and,. what is of infinitely greater importance, with the warm and unanimous approbation of the English people. And who then shall ever more presume to cry down popular rights, or tell us that the people have no thing to do with the laws but to obey them, --with the taxes, but to pay them,-and with the blunders of their rulers, but to suffer from them? What man will now dare to brand his political adversary with the name of revolutionist-or try to hunt those down, as enemies of order, who expose the follies and corruptions of an unprincipled and intriguing administration ?-We antici pate, then, a most salutary change in public opinion, from the example of Spain, should her efforts prove successful, and from the part which this country so wisely and generously takes in her affairs. The mea

sures of our government will be more freely canvassed, the voice of the country will no longer be stilled; and, when it raises itsdf, it must be heard. Reforms in the administration of our affairs must be adopted, to prevent more violent changes; and some radical improvements in our constitution will no longer be viewed with horror, because they will be found essential to the permanence of any reformation in the ma nagement of the national concerns.-The alarin which the atrocities of the French revolution had raised in this country having now spent itself, the Spanish revolution places the cause of freedom and reform on

much better footing than it had even at the beginning of the French revolution. Therefore we must admit that there is now a much better prospect of reform in England than that which the French revolution seemed for a moment to hold out to us.-The plain and broad fact is this-that every Englishman who has, for the last six months, heartily wished that the Spaniards should succeed, has knowingly and wilfully wished for a radical reform of abuses in the regular monarchy of Spain, and for such a change of the government, as might permanently secure a better administration of its affairs. He has, moreover, wished to see that change adopted by the Spanish people themselves, and has admitted most amply the right of the people to call their rulers account, and choose their own constitution. If these happy effects have al ready flowed from the Spanish revolution, and are sure to spread far and wide over this great country the blessings of free discussion, watchful jealousy of the government, and unsparing reform of existing abuses; it is equally manifest, that the force of the example of Spain will not be spent here, but must reach over the other states of the Continent.

to

The following passages are extracted from the Review of MR. LECKIE's Book in the last number:-" There is nothing, indeed, in political science which stands more in want of a philosophical investigation, than L the influence of aristocracy in human society. So great a tendency has it to predominate, that, with the exception of those cases in which a military leader or chief swallows up the power both of aristocracy and people, there is perhaps no instance of a government, in the history of mankind, in which the power of the aristocracy did not exceed the proper limits, in which it was not more than a mitch for the power of the people, and enabled the rich and leading men to shift the burthens of the state from

themselves upon the inferior orders.--Notwithstanding the belps provided for the people to protect their interests are, in our bap Py constitution, the strongest ever actually admitted in any government, all the changes which bave taken place in the texture of our common affairs, have been in favour of the aristocratical interest. Our system of taxation, which is now so enormous a machine, decidedly, and, to a degree, infinitely greater than is generally supposed, favours the higher orders, and throws the mighty burden upon the middling and the lower. The composition of the commons house of parliament has become, confessedly, less dependent upon the

voice of the people. The enormous revenue of the government, which is chiefly taken from the pockets of the people, is chiefly returned into the pockets of the higher ranks, by whom so great a proportion of the lu crative places are engrossed."

BREWERIES.

SIR-In writing the letter on the Breweries, inserted in your Register of the 12th November, my view was to rescue the intelligent part of the trade from the aspersions thrown on all of them, through the ignorant practices of many (therein described) who are engaged in that business; and this chiefly by shewing that there could be no temptation to a man of understanding to substitute any articles for malt and hops, because the latter are not only the most suitable, but undeniably the cheapest, that can be procured. I am so desirous to avoid obtruding on your valuable paper, that it is with no small degree of reluctance I once more, and, as I hope and intend, for the last time on this subject, solicit your indul gence to notice, as concisely as in my power, the remarks of a gentleman who signs himself" Candidus" in your Register of the 26th ult. He wishes I had stated the grounds and the methods, whereby I formed the ratio of the value of malt, compared with sugar and with treacle. My answer is by hydrostatics, as he supposes. He doubis the competency of any instrument to shew the exact difference between the saccharine matter extracted from malt, and that which is afforded by a solution of sugar, o of treacle, in pure water, on account of the mucilage in the first, which, he concludes, affects the accuracy of the rule. This is the (now fully exploded) objection which was urged against the hydrometer so long ago as in the year 1770, by the then principal brewer in London in a conference which I obtained with him, on the subject; but who changed his opinion a few years afterwards, and adopted the constant use of the instru ment, in which he was gradually followed by the other considerable brewers. But the proof of this, and also the following question bet ween us rests in distillation, of which I shall speak hereafter. I stated that malt was 20 per cent superior to sugar, on a comparison of the produce of each with their respective costs. This gentleman thinks there must be an advantage of 40 per cent in favour of sugar; without, however, offering any other grounds for this opinion than his doubts before-mentioned, as the effect of the mu cilage combined with the sweet of the malt on the different gravities of the two musts.