My Excellent Friends,

54. In the foregoing Numbers, I have shown, that men can never be so poor as to have no rights at all: and that, in England, they have a legal, as well as a natural, right to be maintained, if they be destitute of other means, out of the lands, or other property, of the rich. But, it is an interesting question, HOW THERE CAME TO BE SO MUCH POVERTY AND MISERY IN ENGLAND. This is a very interesting question; for, though it is the doom of man, that he shall never be certain of any-thing, and that he shall never be beyond the reach of calamity; though there always has been, and always will be, poor people in every nation; though this circumstance of poverty is inseparable from the means which uphold communities of men; though, without poverty, there could be no charity, and none of those feelings, those offices, those acts, and those relationships, which are connected with charity, and which form a considerable portion of the cement of civil society: yet, notwithstanding these things, there are bounds beyond which the poverty of the people cannot go, without becoming a thing to complain of, and to trace to the Government as a fault. Those bounds have been passed, in England, long and long ago. England was always famed for many things; but especially for its good living; that is to say, for the plenty in which the whole of the people lived; for the abundance of good clothing and good food which they had. It was always, ever since it bore the name of England, the richest and most powerful and most admired country in Europe; but, its good living, its superiority in this particular respect, was proverbial amongst all who knew, or who had heard talk of, the English nation. Good God! How changed! Now, the very worst fed and worst clad people upon the face of the earth, those of Ireland only excepted. How, then, did this horrible, this disgraceful, this cruel poverty come upon this once happy nation? This, my good friends of Preston, is, to us all, a most important question; and, now let us endeavour to obtain a full and complete answer to it.

55. POVERTY is, after all, the great badge, the never-failing badge, of slavery. Bare bones and rags are the true marks of the real slave. What is the object of Government? To cause men to live happily. They cannot be happy without a sufficiency of food and of raiment. Good government means a state of things in which the main body are well fed and well clothed. It is the chief business of a government to take care, that one part of the people do not cause the other part to lead miserable lives. There can be no morality, no virtue, no sincerity, no honesty, amongst a people continually suffering from want; and, it is cruel, in the last degree, to punish such people for almost any sort of crime, which is, in fact, not crime of the heart, not crime of the perpetrator, but the crime of his all-controlling necessities.—To what degree the main body of the people, in England, are now poor and miserable; how deplorably wretched they now are; this we know but too well; and now, we will see what was their state before this vaunted “Reformation.” I shall be very particular to cite my authorities here. I will infer nothing; I will give no “estimate;” but refer to authorities, such as no man can call in question, such as no man can deny to be proofs more complete than if founded on oaths of credible witnesses, taken before a judge and jury. I shall begin with the account which Fortescue gives of the state and manner of living of the English, in the reign of Henry VI.; that is, in the 15th century, when the Catholic Church was in the height of its glory. Fortescue was Lord Chief Justice of England for nearly twenty years; he was appointed Lord High Chancellor by Henry VI. Being in exile, in France, in consequence of the wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and the King’s son, Prince Edward, being also in exile with him, the Chancellor wrote a series of Letters, addressed to the Prince, to explain to him the nature and effects of the Laws of England, and to induce him to study them and uphold them. This work, which was written in Latin, is called De Laudibus Legum Angliæ; or, Praise of the Laws of England. This book was, many years ago, translated into English, and it is a book of Law-Authority, quoted frequently in our courts of this day. No man can doubt the truth of facts related in such a work. It was a work written by a famous lawyer for a prince; it was intended to be read by other contemporary lawyers, and also by all lawyers in future. The passage that I am about to quote, relating to the state of the English, was purely incidental; it was not intended to answer any temporary purpose. It must have been a true account.—The Chancellor, after speaking generally of the nature of the laws of England, and of the difference between them and the laws of France, proceeds to show the difference in their effects, by a description of the state of the French people, and then by a description of the state of the English. His words, words that, as I transcribe them, make my cheeks burn with shame, are as follows: “Besides all this, the inhabitants of France give every year to their King the fourth part of all their wines, the growth of that year, every vintner gives the fourth penny of what he makes of his wine by sale. And all the towns and boroughs pay to the King yearly great sums of money, which are assessed upon them, for the expenses of his men at arms. So that the King’s troops, which are always considerable, are substituted and paid yearly by those common people, who live in the villages, boroughs, and cities. Another grievance is, every village constantly finds and maintains two cross-bow-men, at the least; some find more, well arrayed in all their accoutrements, to serve the King in his wars, as often as he pleaseth to call them out, which is frequently done. Without any consideration had of these things, other very heavy taxes are assessed yearly upon every village within the kingdom, for the King’s service; neither is there ever any intermission or abatement of taxes. Exposed to these and other calamities, the peasants live in great hardship and misery. Their constant drink is water, neither do they taste, throughout the year, any other liquor, unless upon some extraordinary times, or festival days. Their clothing consists of frocks, or little short jerkins, made of canvass, no better than common sackcloth; they do not wear any woollens, except of the coarsest sort; and that only in the garment under their frocks; nor do they wear any trowse, but from the knees upwards; their legs being exposed and naked. The women go barefoot, except on holidays. They do not eat flesh, except it be the fat of bacon, and that in very small quantities, with which they make a soup. Of other sorts, either boiled or roasted, they do not so much as taste, unless it be of the inwards and offals of sheep and bullocks, and the like which are killed, for the use of the better sort of people, and the merchants; for whom also quails, partridges, hares, and the like, are reserved, upon pain of the gallies; as for their poultry, the soldiers consume them, so that scarce the eggs, slight as they are, are indulged them, by way of a dainty. And if it happen that a man is observed to thrive in the world, and become rich, he is presently assessed to the King’s tax, proportionably more than his poorer neighbours, whereby he is soon reduced to a level with the rest.” Then comes his description of the English, at the same time; those “priest-ridden” English, whom Chalmers and Hume, and the rest of that tribe, would fain have us believe, were a mere band of wretched beggars.—“The King of England cannot alter the laws, or make new ones, without the express consent of the whole kingdom in Parliament assembled. Every inhabitant is at his liberty fully to use and enjoy whatever his farm produceth, the fruits of the earth, the increase of his flock, and the like: all the improvements he makes, whether by his own proper industry, or of those he retains in his service, are his own, to use and enjoy, without the let, interruption, or denial of any. If he be in anywise injured or oppressed, he shall have his amends and satisfactions against the party offending. Hence it is that the inhabitants are rich in gold, silver, and in all the necessaries and conveniences of life. They drink no water, unless at certain times, upon a religious score, and by way of doing penance. They are fed, in great abundance, with all sorts of flesh and fish, of which they have plenty every-where; they are clothed throughout in good woollens; their bedding and other furniture in their houses are of wool, and that in great store. They are also well provided with all other sorts of household goods and necessary implements for husbandry. Every one, according to his rank, hath all things which conduce to make life easy and happy.”—Go, and read this to the poor souls, who are now eating sea-weed in Ireland; who are detected in robbing the pig-troughs in Yorkshire; who are eating horse-flesh and grains (draff) in Lancashire and Cheshire; who are harnessed like horses, and drawing gravel in Hampshire and Sussex; who have 3d. a day allowed them by the magistrates in Norfolk; who are, all over England, worse fed than the felons in the jails. Go, and tell them, when they raise their hands from the pig-trough, or from the grains-tub, and, with their dirty tongues, cry “No Popery;” go, read to the degraded and deluded wretches, this account of the state of their Catholic forefathers, who lived under what is impudently called “Popish superstition and tyranny,” and in those times which we have the audacity to call “the dark ages.”—Look at the then picture of the French; and, Protestant Englishmen, if you have the capacity of blushing left, blush at the thought of how precisely that picture fits the English now! Look at all the parts of the picture; the food, the raiment, the game! Good God! If any one had told the old Chancellor, that the day would come, when this picture, and even a picture more degrading to human nature, would fit his own boasted country, what would he have said? What would he have said, if he had been told, that the time was to come, when the soldier, in England, would have more than twice, nay, more than thrice, the sum allowed to the day-labouring man; when potatoes would be carried to the field as the only food of the ploughman; when soup-shops would be open to feed the English; and when the Judges, sitting on that very Bench on which he himself had sitten for twenty years, would (as in the case of last year of the complaints against Magistrates at Northallerton) declare that BREAD AND WATER were the general food of working people in England? What would he have said? Why, if he had been told, that there was to be a “Reformation,” accompanied by a total devastation of Church and Poor property, upheld by wars, creating an enormous Debt and enormous taxes, and requiring a constantly standing army; if he had been told this, he would have foreseen our present state, and would have wept for his country; but, if he had, in addition, been told, that, even in the midst of all this suffering, we should still have the ingratitude and the baseness to cry “No Popery,” and the injustice and the cruelty to persecute those Englishmen and Irishmen, who adhered to the faith of their pious, moral, brave, free and happy fathers, he would have said, “God’s will be done: let them suffer.”—But, it may be said, that it was not, then, the Catholic Church, but the Laws, that made the English so happy; for, the French had that Church as well as the English. Aye! But, in England, the Church was the very basis of the laws. The very first clause of Magna Charta provided for the stability of its property and rights. A provision for the indigent, an effectual provision, was made by the laws that related to the Church and its property; and this was not the case in France; and never was the case in any country but this: so that the English people lost more by a “Reformation” than any other people could have lost.—Fortescue’s authority would, of itself, be enough; but, I am not to stop with it. White, the late Rector of Selbourne, in Hampshire, gives, in his History of that once-famous village, an extract from a record, stating that for disorderly conduct, men were punished by being “compelled to fast a fortnight on bread and beer!” This was about the year 1380, in the reign of Richard II. Oh! miserable “dark ages!” This fact must be true. White had no purpose to answer. His mention of the fact, or rather his transcript from the record, is purely incidental; and trifling as the fact is, it is conclusive as to the general mode of living in those happy days. Go, tell the harnessed gravel-drawers, in Hampshire, to cry “No Popery;” for, that, if the Pope be not put down, he may, in time, compel them to fast on bread and beer, instead of suffering them to continue to regale themselves on nice potatoes and pure water.—But, let us come to Acts of Parliament, and, first, to the Act above mentioned of King Edward III. That Act fixes the price of meat. After naming the four sorts of meat, beef, pork, mutton, and veal, the preamble has these words: “These being THE FOOD OF THE POORER SORT.” This is conclusive. It is an incidental mention of a fact. It is an Act of Parliament. It must have been true; and, it is a fact that we know well, that even the Judges have declared from the Bench, that bread alone is now the food of the poorer sort. What do we want more than this to convince us, that the main body of the people have been impoverished by the “Reformation?”—But I will prove, by other Acts of Parliament, this Act of Parliament to have spoken truth. These Acts declare what the wages of workmen shall be. There are several such Acts, but one or two may suffice. The Act of 23d of Edw. III. fixes the wages, without food, as follows. There are many other things mentioned, but the following will be enough for our purpose.

s. d.
A woman hay-making, or weeding corn, for the day 0 1
A man filling dung-cart 0 3½
A reaper 0 4
Mowing an acre of grass 0 6
Thrashing a quarter of Wheat 0 4

The price of shoes, cloth, and of provisions, throughout the time that this law continued in force, was as follows:—

L. s. d.
A pair of shoes 0 0 4
Russet broad-cloth the yard 0 1 1
A stall-fed ox 1 4 0
A grass-fed ox 0 16 0
A fat sheep unshorn 0 1 8
A fat sheep shorn 0 1 2
A fat hog 2 years old 0 3 4
A fat goose 0 0 2½
Ale, the gallon, by proclamation 0 0 1
Wheat the quarter 0 3 4
White wine the gallon 0 0 6
Red wine 0 0 4

These prices are taken from the Preciosum of Bishop Fleetwood, who took them from the accounts kept by the bursers of convents. All the world knows, that Fleetwood’s book is of undoubted authority.—We may then easily believe, that “beef, pork, mutton, and veal,” were “the food of the poorer sort,” when a dung-cart filler had more than the price of a fat goose and a half for a day’s work, and when a woman was allowed, for a day’s weeding, the price of a quart of red wine! Two yards of the cloth made a coat for the shepherd; and, as it cost 2s. 2d., the reaper would earn it in 6½ days; and, the dung-cart man would earn very nearly a pair of shoes every day! this dung-cart filler would earn a fat shorn sheep in four days; he would earn a fat hog, two years old, in twelve days; he would earn a grass-fed ox in twenty days; so that we may easily believe, that “beef, pork, and mutton,” were “the food of the poorer sort.” And, mind, this was “a priest-ridden people;” a people “buried in Popish superstition!” In our days of “Protestant light” and of “mental enjoyment,” the “poorer sort” are allowed by the Magistrates of Norfolk, 3d. a day for a single man able to work. That is to say, a half-penny less than the Catholic dung-cart man had; and that 3d. will get the “No Popery” gentleman about six ounces of old ewe-mutton, while the Popish dung-cart man got, for his day, rather more than the quarter of a fat sheep.—But, the popish people might work harder than “enlightened Protestants.” They might do more work in a day. This is contrary to all the assertions of the feelosophers; for they insist, that the Catholic religion made people idle. But, to set this matter at rest, let us look at the price of the job-labour; at the mowing by the acre, and at the thrashing of wheat by the quarter; and let us see how these wages are now, compared with the price of food. I have no parliamentary authority since the year 1821, when a report was printed by order of the House of Commons, containing the evidence of Mr. Ellman, of Sussex, as to wages, and of Mr. George, of Norfolk, as to price of wheat. The report was dated 18th June, 1821. The accounts are for 20 years, on an average, from 1800 inclusive. We will now proceed to see how the “popish, priest-ridden” Englishman stands in comparison with the “No Popery” Englishman.

POPISH MAN. NO POPERY MAN.
s.d. s.d.
Mowing an acre of grass 06 37¾
Thrashing a quarter of Wheat 04 40

Here are “waust improvements, Mau’m!” But, now let us look at the relative price of the wheat, which the labourer had to purchase with his wages. We have seen, that the “popish superstition slave” had to give fivepence a bushel for his wheat, and the evidence of Mr. George states, that the “enlightened Protestant” had to give 10 shillings a bushel for his wheat; that is 24 times as much as the “popish fool,” who suffered himself to be “priest-ridden.” So that the “enlightened” man, in order to make him as well off as the “dark-ages” man was, ought to receive twelve shillings, instead of 3s. 7¾d. for mowing an acre of grass; and he, in like manner, ought to receive, for thrashing a quarter of wheat, eight shillings, instead of the four shillings which he does receive. If we had the records, we should doubtless find, that Ireland was in the same state.

56. There! That settles the matter as to ancient good living. Now, as to the progress of poverty and misery, amongst the working people, during the last half century, take these facts; in the year 1771, that is, 55 years ago, Arthur Young, who was afterwards Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, published a work on the state of the agriculture of the country, in which he gave the allowance for the keeping of a farm-labourer, his wife and three children, which allowance, reckoning according to the present money-price of the articles which he allows amounted to 13s. 1d. He put the sum, at what he deemed the lowest possible sum, on which the people could exist. Alas! we shall find, that they can be made to exist upon little more than one-half of this sum!