“As it is the labour of those who toil which makes a country abound in resources, so it is the same class of men who must, by their arms, secure its safety, and uphold its fame. Titles and immense sums of money have been bestowed upon numerous naval and military commanders. Without calling the justice of these in question, we may assert that the victories were obtained by you and your fathers, and brothers and sons, in co-operation with those commanders, who, with your aid, have done great and wonderful things; but who, without that aid, would have been as impotent as children at the breast.
“With this correct idea of your own worth in your minds, with what indignation must you hear yourselves called the populace, the rabble, the mob, the swinish multitude; and with what greater indignation, if possible, must you hear the projects of these cool, and cruel, and insolent men, who, now that you have been, without any fault of yours, brought into a state of misery, propose to narrow the limits of parish relief, to prevent you from marrying in the days of your youth, or to thrust you out to seek your bread in foreign lands, never more to behold your parents or friends? But, suppress your indignation, until we return to this topic, after we have considered the cause of your present misery, and the measures which have produced that cause.
“The times in which we live are full of peril. The nation, as described by the very creatures of the Government, is fast advancing to that period when an important change must take place. It is the lot of mankind, that some shall labour with their limbs, and others with their minds; and, on all occasions, more especially on an occasion like the present, it is the duty of the latter to come to the assistance of the former. We are all equally interested in the peace and happiness of our common country. It is of the utmost importance, that in the seeking to obtain those objects, our endeavours should be uniform, and tend all to the same point. Such an uniformity cannot exist without an uniformity of sentiment as to public matters, and to produce this uniformity is the object of this address.
“As to the cause of our present miseries, it is the enormous amount of the taxes, which the Government compels us to pay for the support of its army, its placemen, its pensioners, &c., and for the payment of the interest of its debt. That this is the real cause has been a thousand times proved; and it is now so acknowledged by the creatures of the Government themselves. Two hundred and five of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture ascribe the ruin of the country to taxation. Numerous writers, formerly the friends of the Pitt system, now declare, that taxation has been the cause of our distress. Indeed, when we compare our present state to the state of the country previous to the wars against France, we must see that our present misery is owing to no other cause. The taxes then annually raised amounted to about fifteen millions: they amounted last year to seventy millions. The nation was then happy: it is now miserable.
“It has been attempted to puzzle you with this sort of question: ‘If taxes be the cause of the people’s misery, how comes it that they were not so miserable before the taxes were reduced as they are now?’ Here is a fallacy, which you will be careful to detect. I know that the taxes have been reduced, that is to say, nominally reduced, but not so in fact; on the contrary, they have in reality been greatly augmented. This has been done by the sleight of hand of paper-money. Suppose, for instance, that four years ago I had 100 pounds to pay in taxes, then 130 bushels of wheat would have paid my share. If I have now seventy-five pounds to pay in taxes, it will require 190 bushels of wheat to pay my share of taxes. Consequently, though my taxes are nominally reduced, they are, in reality, greatly augmented. This has been done by the legerdemain of paper-money. In 1812, the pound note was worth only thirteen shillings in silver. It is now worth twenty shillings. Therefore, when we now pay a pound note to the tax-gatherer, we really pay him twenty shillings, where we before paid him thirteen shillings; and the fund-holders who lent pound notes worth thirteen shillings each, are now paid their interest in pounds worth twenty shillings each. And the thing is come to what Sir Francis Burdett told the parliament it would come to. He told them, in 1811, that if they ever attempted to pay the interest of their debt in gold and silver, or in paper-money equal in value to gold and silver, the farmers and tradesmen must be ruined, and the journeymen and labourers reduced to the last stage of misery.
“Thus, then, it is clear that it is the weight of the taxes, under which you are sinking, which has already pressed so many of you down into the state of paupers, and which now threatens to deprive many of you of your existence. We next come to consider what have been the causes of this weight of taxes. Here we must go back a little in our history; and you will soon see that this intolerable weight has all proceeded from the want of a parliamentary Reform.
“In the year 1764, soon after the present king came to the throne, the annual interest of the debt amounted to about five millions, and the whole of the taxes to about nine millions. But, soon after this, a war was entered on to compel the Americans to submit to be taxed by the parliament, without being represented in that parliament. The Americans triumphed, and, after the war was over, the annual interest of the debt amounted to about nine millions, and the whole of the taxes to about fifteen millions. This was our situation when the French people began their Revolution. The French people had so long been the slaves of a despotic Government, that the friends of freedom in England rejoiced at their emancipation. The cause of reform, which had never ceased to have supporters in England for a great many years, now acquired new life, and the Reformers urged the parliament to grant reform, instead of going to war against the people of France. The Reformers said: ‘Give the nation reform, and you need fear no revolution.’ The parliament, instead of listening to the Reformers, crushed them, and went to war against the people of France; and the consequence of these wars is, that the annual interest of the debt now amounts to forty-five millions, and the whole of the taxes, during each of the last several years, to seventy millions. So that these wars have added thirty-six millions a year to the interest of the debt, and fifty-five millions a year to the amount of the whole of the taxes! This is the price that we have paid for having checked (for it is only checked) the progress of liberty in France; for having forced upon that people the family of Bourbon, and for having enabled another branch of that same family to restore the bloody Inquisition which Napoleon had put down.”
After a graphic sketch of the oppressions and the struggles, which obtained in France, and which produced the great Revolution, the writer proceeds:—