“It seems, at first sight, very strange that the Government should not have taken warning in time. But it had so long been in the habit of despising the people, that its mind was incapable of entertaining any notion of danger from the oppressions heaped upon them. It was surrounded with panders and parasites, who told it nothing but flattering falsehoods; and it saw itself supported by 250,000 bayonets, which it thought irresistible.… And if you ask me how the ministers, and the noblesse, and the priesthood, who generally know pretty well how to take care of themselves; if you ask me how it came to pass that they did not take warning in time, I answer, that they did take warning, but that, seeing that the change which was coming would deprive them of a great part of their power and emoluments, they resolved to resist the change, and to destroy the country, if possible, rather than not have all its wealth and power to themselves.
“You have been represented by the Times newspaper, by the Courier, by the Morning Post, by the Morning Herald, and others, as the Scum of Society. They say that you have no business at public meetings; that you are rabble, and that you pay no taxes. These insolent hirelings, who wallow in wealth, would not be able to put their abuse of you in print, were it not for your labour. You create all that is an object of taxation; for, even the land itself would be good for nothing without your labour. But are you not taxed? Do you pay no taxes? One of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture has said that care has been taken to lay as little tax as possible on the articles used by you. One would wonder how a man could be found impudent enough to put an assertion like this upon paper. But the people of this country have so long been insulted by such men, that the insolence of the latter knows no bounds.
“The tax-gatherers do not, indeed, come to you and demand money of you; but there are few articles which you use, in the purchase of which you do not pay a tax. On your shoes, salt, beer, malt, hops, tea, sugar, candles, soap, paper, coffee, spirits, glass of your windows, bricks and tiles, tobacco. On all these, and many other articles, you pay a tax, and even on your loaf you pay a tax, because everything is taxed from which the loaf proceeds. In several cases the tax amounts to more than one-half of what you pay for the article itself; these taxes go, in part, to support sinecure placemen and pensioners; and the ruffians of the hired press call you the Scum of Society, and deny that you have any right to show your faces at any public meeting to petition for a Reform, or for the removal of any abuse whatever! Mr. Preston, whom I quoted before, and who is a member of parliament, and has a large estate, says upon this subject, ‘Every family, even of the poorest labourer, consisting of five persons, may be considered as paying in indirect taxes, at least ten pounds a year, or more than half his wages at seven shillings a week!’ And yet the insolent hirelings call you the mob, the rabble, the scum, the swinish multitude, and say that your voice is nothing; that you have no business at public meetings; and that you are, and ought to be, considered as nothing in the body politic! Shall we never see the day when these men will change their tone? Will they never cease to look upon you as brutes? I trust they will change their tone, and that the day of the change is at no great distance!
“With what feelings must you look upon the condition of your country, where the increase of the people is now looked upon as a curse! Thus, however, has it always been, in all countries, where taxes have produced excessive misery. Our countryman, Mr. Gibbon, in his history of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has the following passage:—
“‘The horrid practice of murdering their new-born infants was become every day more frequent in the provinces. It was the effect of distress, and the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerable burden of taxes, and by the vexations as well as cruel prosecutions of the officers of the Revenue against their insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of mankind, instead of rejoicing at an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release the children from the impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to support.’
“But that which took place under the base Emperor Constantine, will not take place in England. You will not murder your new-born infants, nor will you, to please the corrupt and the insolent, debar yourselves from enjoyments to which you are invited by the very first of nature’s laws. It is, however, a disgrace to the country, that men should be found in it, capable of putting ideas so insolent upon paper. So, then, a young man arm-in-arm with a rosy-cheeked girl, must be a spectacle of evil omen! What! and do they imagine that you are thus to be extinguished, because some of you are now (without any fault of yours) unable to find work? As far as you were wanted to labour, to fight, or to pay taxes, you were welcome, and they boasted of your numbers; but now that your country has been brought into a state of misery, these corrupt and insolent men are busied with schemes for getting rid of you. Just as if you had not as good a right to live, and to love, and to marry as they have! They do not purpose—far from it—to check the breeding of sinecure placemen and pensioners, who are supported in part by the taxes which you help to pay. They say not a word about the whole families who are upon the pension list. In many cases, there are sums granted in trust for the children of such a lord or such a lady. And while labourers and journeymen, who have large families too, are actually paying taxes for the support of these lords’ and ladies’ children, these cruel and insolent men propose that they shall have no relief, and their having children ought to be checked! To such a subject no words can do justice. You will feel as you ought to feel; and to the effect of your feelings I leave these cruel and insolent men.”
The following paragraph is against the republicans, of which there were many advocates, born of the troublous times:—
“I know of no enemy of reform, and of the happiness of the country, so great as that man who would persuade you that we possess nothing good, and that all must be torn to pieces. There is no principle, no precedent, no regulation (except as to mere matter of detail), favourable to freedom, which is not to be found in the laws of England or in the example of our ancestors. Therefore, I say, we may ask for, and we want, nothing new. We have great constitutional laws and principles, to which we are immovably attached. We want great alteration, but we want nothing new. Alteration, modification to suit the times and circumstances; but the great principles ought to be, and must be, the same, or else confusion will follow. It was the misfortune of the French people, that they had no great and settled principles to refer to in their laws or history. They sallied forth and inflicted vengeance on their oppressors; but, for want of settled principles to which to refer, they fell into confusion; they massacred each other; they next flew to a military chief to protect them even against themselves; and the result has been what we too well know. Let us, therefore, congratulate ourselves, that we have great constitutional principles and laws, to which we can refer, and to which we are attached.