resource whatever, besides that of begging; he knows of no instance of a widow being provided for by the landlord under whom her husband lived. The landlord seldom loses any time in getting them off his ground, as fast as he can."

One witness, a widow with five children, says: "I sleep on the ground, which is almost constantly wet, and often have not so much straw to lie on as would fill a hat. On a wet night, I must go to a neighbour's house with my infant child born after my husband's death. I have but a single fold of a blanket to cover my whole family; I have had it for eight years; my children are almost naked."

This woman had been a widow for two years; her husband held two acres of ground, for which she continued to pay a rent of 11. 78. 6d. ; and the report admits, that she affords illustration of a widow sinking into begging, and the struggle she makes to hold herself above it.

Another widow says: "That she and her children often lived on one meal of dry potatoes in a day."

Another, "That she and her family have often not tasted food more than once in twenty-four hours, and then not a full meal.”

Another 66 says: I have not always enough potatoes, I often go to bed supperless and rise but to one meal the next day, and that a few potatoes, roasted in the ashes."

A bailiff on a landed proprietor's estate, says: "I have deprived a great number of widows, myself, of their holdings; I canted all they had in the world, except, I did not meddle with the blanket, that was not worth putting keepers on.'

With respect to orphan children, they always find an asylum in the house of some one or other of the lower classes, and generally in the cabins of the poorest; "If," says the report, "some retreat of this kind be not open to them, they must starve on the road side, for there is no legal provision whatever for them."

We conclude these extracts in relation to widows by stating the fact, that horrorstruck as the Irish people were at the very name of the cholera, when that disease appeared in the county of Cork, three widows feigned sickness, that they might get into the hospital; and when detected, refused to go out until they were turned out by force. The following are answers to the inquiry, "Are any persons known to have died of actual destitution in your parish within the last three years?”

By J. Moore, Esq. I. P. Bohermoor, Galway: "Not to my knowledge, but I have no doubt, many do die for want of the common necessaries of life."

By Rev. L. O'Donnell, St. Nicholas: "Many poor creatures have pined away for want of sufficient sustenance, and have died or pined away in fever, in consequence of want and destitution."

By the Rev. B. I. Roche: "A great many from exhaustion, consequent on distress!"

By the Rev. Peter Ward, Anghena: "In the year 1841, six persons died of actual want; since that period I take upon myself to say, that of every five persons who have died, three always die of inanition, brought on by bad food, bad clothing, and bad or no bedding."

From the parish of Castletown, Delvin, Westmeath: "From absolute destitution, from 25 to 30; from disease incurred by extreme want, from 60 to 70. A Physician says: "A few sticks placed against a mud wall and covered with furze or clods have sometimes formed the only protection of a man in fever." Another says: "Last December, a poor woman, who was ill of the fever, lay for three nights under a hedge for want of a house. The labourer cannot lay anything by for sickness, and the small farmers and cotters are even worse off."

Dr. Evans had frequently known a respectable family reduced to begging, and ruined by sickness. Mr. Barry says: "The state of some of the sick is beyond anything wretched; I have met cases where, being unable to procure straw, they had a sort of hard knotted fern for bedding, and I have frequently found this, as well as grass, wet under them."

As Mr. Lyons says: "According to the census which I made two years ago, there were then in this parish 751 men, who had no shoes, and were unable to procure them; and of a population of 9,000, 3,136, male and female, had not within five years purchased any important article of clothing, as a coat, a gown, or so forth." Here is a picture of human suffering, almost beyond credibility; the writer of this article was born in the state of Kentucky, a slave-holding state, and resided there for near thirty years. There were a few persons, who from age or discease were incapable of providing for themselves; these were maintained at the public expense,

but he never, during the whole period that he resided in that state, as he now recollects, saw a beggar. The slaves have animal food once, and many twice or three times per day; there is scarce an exception. What could have produced so much wretchedness in Ireland? Let the report answer this question.

One witness says: "The small farmers have no motive to industry; they are afraid to improve either the land or houses; the moment they do, the rent will be raised."

Another: “ They all attribute their misfortunes to high rents and low prices for produce, and the consequent want of employment."

Another: "The misfortune of every one of them is owing to the high rents and heavy charges on the lands."

Another: "The small farmers, holding four or five acres, are by far the most numerous class, and are reduced by high rent and taxes. I know farms in which five or six persons, sets of tenants, were broke and turned off in five or six years; I could name them."

Another: "That when requested to mend the by-roads leading to their own cabins, the peasants refused, saying, 'The agent can then drive his gig up to the door, and raise the rent.""

Another: "That his servant counted 120 beggars that called at his door in one day; vagrants are ejected tenants from the absentee estates. These ejected tenants come in and burrow in hovels in the town, and God only knows how they live." One says: "Our misfortunes were caused by having a rent put upon our lands, which we could not bear, it being raised from 50l. to 1241.; all were sold and we were ruined."

Another: "They pay high rents for holdings, which if they had them for nothing would not support them."

Another: When you ask them why they beg, they will answer,- We were turned out into bogs and swamps, and when we had reclaimed our little spots, we were sent in further, till we were beggared at last, else we would now be comfortable.'

The Rev. Andrew Phelim says: "Within the last four or six years 190 families have been ejected from the estates of the landed proprietors of East Idrone, amounting in the whole to 626; of whom 152 are widows and orphans. I recollect, in one instance, of ten or eleven families who were driven off one town-land; three or four persons perished in most melancholy destitution."

This tells the tale: this is what British philanthropy has done and is doing for Ireland; this is reducing free-labour below the cost of slave-labour; this is the British mode of relieving themselves from dead weight, from the expense of maintaining the old, the sick, the infirm, the mothers of infants, and the children,-by compelling those who are able, to work; and leaving those who cannot work-to starve. This is is their mode of "beating Cuba and Brazil out of the market." Does any one believe, that England has more sympathy for the East Indian or African than for the Irishman? And is not that a strange infatuation, which can persuade a great people, in the face of facts like these, that her movements upon the slave-trade are prompted by benevolence? Does not every one see, that it is an effort of those who govern England to transfer from the people of Great Britain to other nations, the weight of that taxation, which threatens to overthrow their system of monopoly?

Blackwood's Magazine in January 1842, says, Bishop Butler, on one occasion, remarked, "I was considering whether, as individuals go mad, whole nations may not also go mad," and adds:

"It will be seen that men may act en masse as much in contradiction to common sense, to common interest and experience, as if they were mistaking crowns of straw for crowns of jewels; and that millions of men may be as easily duped, chicaned and plundered, as the simplest dreamer of waking dreams, who takes counters for guineas, and canvass for cloth of gold."

Is it not manifest that upon this question of "benevolence," the British public are "mad?" Have not their millions been "duped and plundered?" Why is it, that the cries, the tears, the agony, the mute despair and the eloquent appeals of her own perishing poor are unheard or else unheeded by the government, which spends millions under pretence of a benevolent regard for the rights of Africa? Is it not the first duty of every government to provide for the interests and prosperity of its own people? Can any one believe that England, neglecting the poor of England, would send her sympathies to Africa on a voyage of discovery, if she did not believe

it was her interest to do so; if she did not believe her schemes of foreign benevolence are the best means of relieving her domestic suffering?

Let us pause for a moment and see how these schemes of benevolence connect themselves with the personal and selfish ends of England. We have seen that India pays to England an annual tribute of twenty millions of dollars, for which England makes no return to India; that is, England compels India to send over to England twenty millions of dollars annually, for which England sends nothing in return.

The Edinburgh Review tells us, that India has a right to demand, that the means of rendering this payment should be as much facilitated as possible; and that she cannot pay in cotton, because her cotton is inferior to that of America; nor in silk, because India silk is inferior to the silks of Italy and of China; nor can she pay in sugar, because India cannot compete with Cuba and Brazil. The same authority tells us, that if the slave-trade be abolished, then India can "beat Cuba and Brazil out of the market." Here then is the great secret. This explains how it is, that the abolition of the slave-trade has become the philosopher's stone, which is to renew the exhausted wealth of India and convert the labour of their own suffering poor into gold!! It is thus, that the delusions of hope mislead the judgment and enable those who have personal ends in view, to enlist the national sympathies; and hence, no theory in relation to the slave-trade, or of its consequences, is too preposterous for British credulity. Hence, England believes that Cuba and Brazil are annually importing slaves, which, if the estimates of those upon whose authority the charges rest are to be believed, costs Cuba upwards of twenty-seven millions per annum more than the whole amount of her exports! Is not this proof of national lunacy? Again, India cannot compete with the United States in the culture of cotton. is well known that no African slaves are imported into the United States, and yet, the American planter undersells the East Indian. Is it not a strange infatuation which in the face of this fact persuades England to believe, that the slave-trade enables Cuba and Brazil to undersell India? Why is it, that India cannot compete with the United States, Cuba, and Brazil? Let the Reviewer tell us; He says:"The proximate cause is palpable to the most superficial observation. India is miserably poor! The poverty of India must be cured by the attraction of British capital to its fields of production. United as it happily is with England, it can never become a manufacturing country. . . Being happily disabled by their relative position from levying contributions upon each other by domestic industryprotecting tariffs, the people of India may employ themselves profitably for a period, to which it is impossible to fix a limit, in raising raw produce to exchange for the manufactures of Great Britain."

It

India is miserably poor! And why so poor? It is because India has paid an annual tribute of twenty millions to England, which in fifty years has transferred one thousand millions of dollars from India to England! Who does not know that the richest soils are exhausted by such constant and remorseless tillage? Is it not time that India should rest? Her gold and silver are exhausted and her manufactures destroyed, and now we are told that she must "raise raw products to be exchanged for British manufactures!" But why not revive the manufactures of India? It is said that British capital and British skill must go to India; why may it not be employed in manufactures? Why must the raw products of India be carried to England, to be carried back to India in the shape of manufactures, while British capital and British skill in India, and India labour, are idle, and India water powers run waste? We ask why it is, that India, so long as it is united to England, never can become a manufacturing country? Is it not because the same British land-owner, who legislates for the British manufacturer, and forbids him to exchange his labour for American bread, legislates also for India and forbids India to manufacture? And does he not forbid the British manufacturer to purchase American bread, because, when he eats British bread, he must pay a British price, and thus enable the tenant to pay this same land-owner a British rent? And is it not manifest, that this same land-owner, who legislates alike for England and for India, prevents India from manufacturing, because by compelling India to purchase British goods, he increases the number of British manufactures, and thereby increases the number of those who are compelled to eat British bread at British prices? Is not this so plain, that he who runs may read? And does not this tell the tale of British benevolence?

But India can no longer pay her tribute, nor raise raw products to exchange for British manufactures, unless the poverty of India be cured by transferring British capital and intelligence to India; and this cannot be done unless British capital and

British intelligence be better paid in India than in America. Hence, so much has been said and written and acted against America. Hence, the Royal Consort sanctioned by his presence, meetings to discourage the consumption of the products of slave labour ! Hence, the British press teems with the grossest calumnies in relation to America, and especially in relation to the character of the American people and of the American government. A systematic war has been waged on American credit. Let us pause and see the effect of this on the prosperity of England.

The

It is admitted that the exports of any country through a series of years must pay for her imports, and that the excess, deducting therefrom the commercial profit, shews the indebtedness. If we compare the imports with the exports from the United States for eleven years ending with the year 1830, we shall find that the imports were $37,662,958 more than the exports. While the imports for the next ten years were $208,626,577 more than the exports during the same period. whole imports during that period of twenty-one years were $1,862,138,844. If we deduct five per cent. on this sum as the commercial profit, it will leave a balance of $153,192,594 against the United States, as the whole amount of their commercial and public debt. More than one hundred millions of this sum have been transferred to the United States in British goods, (her iron and other products of her manufacturing labour,) in exchange for the bonds of the American states, by whom it was applied to the construction of rail-roads and canals. The effect of this was, that American labour, employed on American rail-roads and canals, was paid in the product of British labour employed in British manufactures. Thus, in fact, the British labourer employed at home, was employed in the construction of the American rail-roads and canals, and received payment in the bonds of the American states. But the Bank of England refused to discount the bills of commercial houses connected with the American trade.* The American states were discredited in London, large sums of American bonds were thrown back on the American market, a great depreciation followed, and the states being no longer able to purchase British goods, the British labourer is idle and starving!! The truth of this is most forcibly illustrated by the fact, that although the imports into the United States in 1839 were $41,063,716 more than the exports, the exports of the next year were greater than the imports by the sum of $26,766,059, making a comparative difference of $67,829,775 between the years 1839 and 1840.

And why are the American states discredited? Is it because they are unable to pay? No one believes this,-it is because those who are interested in attracting British capital to India have created an apprehension that these states will not pay. How else can we account for the fact that the bonds of New York bearing six per cent. interest, cannot be sold in London for more than eighty per cent., while the British consols, bearing but three per cent. interest, are sold at 89. It is well known that England never can pay her debt, and it is as well known that New York derives a current revenue from her public works, which will of itself, in ten years, more than extinguish her debt, principal and interest. Again, America is the only example of ancient or modern times, in which a nation has paid off its national debt. Why then is it that America has been discredited in England? Why is it that the British capitalist invests his money in Spanish funds never to be repaid, rather than employ it in producing manufactures to be exchanged for American bonds? If by lending twenty millions of dollars per annum to the American states, the British manufacturers gave full employment to their labourers, and produced twenty millions of dollars' worth more of manufactures, then the loans to the United States have enabled the British manufacturers to create that much capital. It has added so much to the resources of Great Britain for that year. This proposition is proved by the fact, that so long as the bonds of the American states bore a fair price in London, there was a full demand for British manufactures, and at fair prices, and that when the Bank of England discredited the commercial houses connected with the American trade, and thus for the time discredited the American states, the demand for British manufactures diminished, and British labour was idle. The refusal to continue the American credit was therefore a refusal to permit the British manufacturer to earn the amount which would have been required to meet the demand for the American market. It was equivalent to an order to suspend manufactures-and the consequence has been that the labourers in the manufacturing districts have been idle and starving.

* We are aware, that it will be said that this was because so large a sum was abstracted to pay for foreign corn; but why not let in American corn in exchange for manufactures?

What we have said of the operation of American credit on British manufactures is equally applicable to a free trade between America and England. Great Britain has a population of 18,664,761; that of the United States is 17,068,666. Great Britain has but 38,813,144 acres of land; there are in the United States 2,300,000,000 acres. The population of Great Britain is more than can be employed in agriculture. The United States have more land than they can cultivate. In Great Britain, bread is too dear; in the United States it is too cheap; on the other hand, for the want of land to cultivate, a large part of the population of England must be employed in manufactures; and the consequence is, that while manufactures are too cheap in England, they are too dear in the United States. The natural inquiry is, why is not the cheap bread of the United States exchanged for the cheap manufactures of England? The answer is given by Sir E. Knatchbull. The labouring classes of England must eat dear bread, because, thereby the aristocracy of England retain their position in society!!! It is in vain to argue that the American can earn more cloth by raising wheat than by manufacturing the reply is, the English labourer must eat British bread at British prices. It follows, that the American, unable to purchase British goods with American wheat, produces less wheat and manufactures American goods; and thus England compels America to become the manufacturing rival of England.

England believes that America and Cuba and Brazil, cannot produce cotton and sugar but by slave-labour, and argues that if she can abolish slavery in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil, then all nations will depend upon her for a supply of these raw products; that then the cotton manufacturers of France and Austria and Prussia must pay for the dear bread consumed by the British labourer, because the price of it will have been first taxed on the manufactures given in exchange for the India cotton; and Russia must then pay for the dear bread consumed by the British labourer in producing the British manufactures exchanged for the India sugar; because when India cotton and India sugar can be sold cheaper than the cotton and sugar of the United States, Cuba, and Brazil, then France and Austria and Prussia must go to England for cotton, and Russia must also go there for sugar.

Let us not be misunderstood. What we have written, is dictated by no hostility to England. It is to expose to England and to Europe, the interests and purposes which govern the movement of England. England has laboured to render the slavetrade more odious, because her purpose is to abolish slavery; not that England has any sympathy for the slave; but because England believes that, but for slave-labour in the United States, in Cuba, and Brazil she could produce cotton, rice, coffee, and sugar cheaper in India than it can be produced in the United States, Cuba, or Brazil. Her, war upon the slave-trade, is one of her movements against slavery, not for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the slave, nor yet of bettering the condition of mankind; but it is a movement to compel the whole world to pay her tribute. She hopes to mislead the sympathies of Europe, and believes that having abolished the slave-trade, she can easily accomplish the abolition of slavery in Cuba and Brazil, and that then the United States and Texas being the only slave-holding states, abolition must follow there; and then, as cotton cannot be advantageously cultivated in the United States, but by slave-labour, the monopoly which it is her purpose to accomplish through her East India colonies will be achieved.

Having concluded treaties, as she supposed, with four other great powers declaring the slave trade piracy, she insists on searching American ships under the pretence that her own subjects engaged in the slave-trade may escape punishment by hoisting the American flag, and that her cruisers cannot capture British subjects engaged in the slave-trade, unless they be permitted to search American ships. This claim the American government resists on the ground that no treaty to which she is not a party can bind her; for, if these five powers can amend the law of nations as to the right of search, then five other powers may amend it as to other things. This refusal of America to permit British cruisers to search American ships, is used by England to create a belief, that America is engaged in the slave-trade. We again repeat, that America was the first of civilized powers to abolish it, and that she has continued her opposition to it. America opposes the right of search, because the American ship is American territory, and wherever it may sail, claims the protection of the American government. If the British cruiser captures every slaver who hoists an American flag, that flag is no protection, nor do the United States wish it to be-what the United States assert, and what they will maintain as against England and against all the world is, that the American ship shall protect the persons and property on board of it from all molestation.

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