FOOTNOTES
[1] Harding was succeeded by John Budd before the year was out.
[2] Also printed in the Supplement to vol. ii. of the Register.
[3] This undertaking has long since made the name of Hansard famous; but this is the place to remind the reader, that its origin, and successful issue for a number of years, is one of the long-forgotten public services of William Cobbett. The original form is still retained.
[4] Addl. MSS. 22,906-7, in the British Museum, is a collection, formerly in the possession of the late Mr. Dawson Turner, from which some of the interesting letters in the text addressed to Mr. Wright are derived. The cause of their preservation will appear in the sequel.
[5] A curious device of Mr. Pitt’s, by which 10,000 men could be transferred, in a few hours, to any part of the coast. It provoked a good deal of current satire.
[6] In support of Mainwaring’s candidature for Middlesex.
[7] On the Irish Additional Force Bill, in Register of Sept. 29. The letter was not absolutely free from provocable matter.
[8] The first of a series of letters to Mr. Pitt, on the “Causes of the Decline of Great Britain.” Cobbett upbraids the heaven-born minister with having deserted his own principles, and thus exposed his former staunch supporters (among whom is C.) to the charge of having deserted him.
[9] One Hamlin, a tinman, who had offered Addington a large sum of money for an appointment in the Customs. He was prosecuted, fined, and imprisoned, although he solemnly declared his ignorance of the crime, having seen for years Government places publicly advertised for sale, besides having probably received money for his vote from the agents of the Government itself.
[10] After Cobbett’s first list of pensions, &c., the plan was copied by others, and the lists at last swelled, under different hands, to a volume of several hundred pages:—“The Black Book; or, Corruption Unmasked. Being an Account of Places, Pensions, and Sinecures, the Revenues of the Clergy and Landed Aristocracy; the Salaries and Emoluments in Courts of Justice and the Police Department; the Expenditure of the Civil List; the Amount and Application of the Droits of the Crown and Admiralty; the Robbery of Charitable Foundations; the Profits of the Bank of England, arising from the Issue of its Notes, Balances of Public Money, Management of the Borough Debt, and other Sources of Emolument; the Debt, Revenue, and Influence of the East India Company; the State of the Finances, Debt, and Sinking Fund. To which is added Correct Lists of Both Houses of Parliament, showing their Family Connexions, Parliamentary Influence, the Places and Pensions held by Themselves or Relations; distinguishing also those who Voted against Catholic Emancipation, and for the Seditious Meeting and Press Restriction Bills. The whole forming a Complete Exposition of the Cost, Influence, Patronage, and Corruption of the Borough Government.” (London, John Fairburn, 1820.) This interesting volume kept increasing in bulk until the æra of the Reform Bill.
END OF VOL. I.
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON PRINTERS, ST. JOHN’S SQUARE, LONDON.