The “best public instructor” tells us, that the Ministers are about to give the Militia-Clothing to the poor Manufacturers! Coats, waistcoats, trousers, shoes and stockings! Oh, what a kind as well as wise “envy of surrounding nations” this is! Dear good souls! But what are the women to do? No smocks, pretty gentlemen! No royal commission to be appointed to distribute smocks to the suffering “females” of the “disturbed districts!” How fine our “manufacturing population” will look all dressed in red! Then indeed will the farming fellows have to repent, that they did not follow the advice of Dr. Black, and fly to the “happy manufacturing districts,” where employment, as the Doctor affirmed, was so abundant and so permanent, and where wages were so high! Out of evil comes good; and this state of things has blown the Scotch poleeteecal ecoonoomy to the devil, at any rate. In spite of all their plausibility and persevering brass, the Scotch writers are now generally looked upon as so many tricky humbugs. Mr. Sedgwick’s affair is enough, one would think, to open men’s eyes to the character of this greedy band of invaders; for invaders they are, and of the very worst sort: they come only to live on the labour of others; never to work themselves; and, while they do this, they are everlastingly publishing essays, the object of which is, to keep the Irish out of England! Dr. Black has, within these four years, published more than a hundred articles, in which he has represented the invasion of the Irish as being ruinous to England! What monstrous impudence! The Irish come to help do the work; the Scotch to help eat the taxes; or, to tramp “aboot mon” with a pack and licence; or, in other words, to cheat upon a small scale, as their superiors do upon a large one. This tricky and greedy set have, however, at last, overreached themselves, after having so long overreached all the rest of mankind that have had the misfortune to come in contact with them. They are now smarting under the scourge, the torments of which they have long made others feel. They have been the principal inventors and executors of all that has been damnable to England. They are now bothered; and I thank God for it. It may, and it must, finally deliver us from their baleful influence.
To return to the kind and pretty gentlemen of Whitehall, and their Militia-Clothing: if they refuse to supply the women with smocks, perhaps they would have no objection to hand them over some petticoats; or at any rate, to give their husbands a musket a piece, and a little powder and ball; just to amuse themselves with, instead of the employment of “digging holes one day and filling them up the next,” as suggested by “the great statesman, now no more,” who was one of that “noble, honourable, and venerable body” the Privy Council (to which Sturges Bourne belongs), and who cut his own throat at North Cray, in Kent, just about three years after he had brought in the bill, which compelled me to make the Register contain two sheets and a quarter, and to compel printers to give, before they began to print, bail to pay any fines that might be inflicted on them for anything that they might print. Let me see: where was I? Oh! the muskets and powder and ball ought, certainly, to go with the red clothes; but how strange it is, that the real relief never seems to occur, even for one single moment, to the minds of these pretty gentlemen; namely, taking off the taxes. What a thing it is to behold poor people receiving taxes, or alms, to prevent them from starving; and to behold one half, at least, of what they receive, taken from them in taxes! What a sight to behold soldiers, horse and foot, employed to prevent a distressed people from committing acts of violence, when the cost of the horse and foot would, probably, if applied in the way of relief to the sufferers, prevent the existence of the distress! A cavalry horse has, I think, ten pounds of oats a day and twenty pounds of hay. These at present prices, cost 16s. a week. Then there is stable room, barracks, straw, saddle and all the trappings. Then there is the wear of the horse. Then the pay of them. So that one single horseman, with his horse, do not cost so little as 36s. a week; and that is more than the parish allowance to five labourers’ or manufacturers’ families, at five to a family; so that one horseman and his horse cost what would feed twenty-five of the distressed creatures. If there be ten thousand of these horsemen, they cost as much as would keep, at the parish rate, two hundred and fifty thousand of the distressed persons. Aye; it is even so, parson Hay, stare at it as long as you like. But, suppose it to be only half as much: then it would maintain a hundred and twenty-five thousand persons. However, to get rid of all dispute, and to state one staring and undeniable fact, let me first observe, that it is notorious, that the poor-rates are looked upon as enormous; that they are deemed an insupportable burden; that Scarlett and Nolan have asserted, that they threaten to swallow up the land; that it is equally notorious that a large part of the poor-rates ought to be called wages; all this is undeniable, and now comes the damning fact; namely, that the whole amount of these poor-rates falls far short of the cost of the standing army in time of peace! So that, take away this army, which is to keep the distressed people from committing acts of violence, and you have, at once, ample means of removing all the distress and all the danger of acts of violence! When will this be done? Do not say, “Never,” reader: if you do, you are not only a slave, but you ought to be one.
I cannot dismiss this militia-clothing affair, without remarking, that I do not agree with those who blame the Ministers for having let in the foreign corn out of fear. Why not do it from that motive? “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” And what is meaned by “fear of the Lord,” but the fear of doing wrong, or of persevering in doing wrong? And whence is this fear to arise? From thinking of the consequences, to be sure: and, therefore if the Ministers did let in the foreign corn for fear of popular commotion, they acted rightly, and their motive was as good and reasonable as the act was wise and just. It would have been lucky for them if the same sort of motive had prevailed, when the Corn Bill was passed; but that game-cock statesman, who at last, sent a spur into his own throat, was then in high feather, and he, while soldiers were drawn up round the Honourable, Honourable, Honourable House, said, that he did not for his part, care much about the Bill; but, since the mob had clamoured against it, he was resolved to support it! Alas! that such a cock statesman should have come to such an end! All the towns and cities in England petitioned against that odious Bill. Their petitions were rejected, and that rejection is amongst the causes of the present embarrassments. Therefore I am not for blaming the Ministers for acting from fear. They did the same in the case of the poor Queen. Fear taught them wisely, then, also. What! would you never have people act from fear? What but fear of the law restrains many men from committing crimes? What but fear of exposure prevents thousands upon thousands of offences, moral as well as legal? Nonsense about “acting from fear.” I always hear with great suspicion your eulogists of “vigorous” government; I do not like your vigorous governments; your game-cock governments. We saw enough of these, and felt enough of them too, under Pitt, Dundas, Perceval, Gibbs, Ellenborough, Sidmouth and Castlereagh. I prefer governments like those of Edward I. of England and St. Louis of France; cocks as towards their enemies and rivals, and chickens as towards their own people: precisely the reverse of our modern “country gentlemen,” as they call themselves; very lions as towards their poor, robbed, famishing labourers, but more than lambs as towards tax-eaters, and especially as towards the fierce and whiskered dead-weight, in the presence of any of whom they dare not say that their souls are their own. This base race of men, called “country gentlemen” must be speedily changed by almost a miracle; or they, big as well as little, must be swept away; and if it should be desirable for posterity to have a just idea of them, let posterity take this one fact; that the tithes are now, in part, received by men, who are Rectors and Vicars, and who, at the same time receive half-pay as naval or military officers; and that not one English “country gentleman” has had the courage even to complain of this, though many gallant half-pay officers have been dismissed and beggared, upon the ground, that the half-pay is not a reward for past services, but a retaining fee for future services; so that, put the two together, they amount to this; that the half-pay is given to church parsons, that they may be, when war comes, ready to serve as officers in the army or navy! Let the world match that if it can! And yet there are scoundrels to say, that we do not want a radical reform! Why there must be such a reform, in order to prevent us from becoming a mass of wretches too corrupt and profligate and base even to carry on the common transactions of life.
Ryall, near Upton on Severn (Worcestershire),
Monday, 25th Sept.
I set off from Mr. Palmer’s yesterday, after breakfast, having his son (about 13 years old) as my travelling companion. We came across the country, a distance of about 22 miles, and, having crossed the Severn at Upton, arrived here, at Mr. John Price’s, about two o’clock. On our road we passed by the estate and park of another Ricardo! This is Osmond; the other is David. This one has ousted two families of Normans, the Honeywood Yateses, and the Scudamores. They suppose him to have ten thousand pounds a year in rent here! Famous “watching the turn of the market”! The Barings are at work down in this country too. They are everywhere, indeed, depositing their eggs about, like cunning old guinea-hens, in sly places, besides the great, open showy nests that they have. The “instructor” tells us, that the Ricardos have received sixty-four thousand pounds Commission, on the “Greek Loans,” or, rather, “Loans to the Greeks.” Oh, brave Greeks, to have such patriots to aid you with their financial skill; such patriots as Mr. Galloway to make engines of war for you, while his son is making them for the Turks; and such patriots as Burdett and Hobhouse to talk of your political relations! Happy Greeks! Happy Mexicans, too, it seems; for the “best instructor” tells us, that the Barings, whose progenitors came from Dutchland about the same time as, and perhaps in company with, the Ricardos; happy Mexicans too; for, the “instructor” as good as swears, that the Barings will see that the dividends on your loans are paid in future! Now, therefore, the riches, the loads, the shiploads of silver and gold are now to pour in upon us! Never was there a nation so foolish as this! But, and this ought to be well understood, it is not mere foolishness; not mere harmless folly; it is foolishness, the offspring of greediness and of a gambling, which is little short of a roguish disposition; and this disposition prevails to an enormous extent in the country, as I am told, more than in the monstrous Wen itself. Most delightfully, however, have the greedy, mercenary, selfish, unfeeling wretches, been bit by the loans and shares! The King of Spain gave the wretches a sharp bite, for which I always most cordially thank his Majesty. I dare say, that his sponging off of the roguish Bonds has reduced to beggary, or caused to cut their throats, many thousands of the greedy, fund-loving, stock-jobbing devils, who, if they regard it likely to raise their “securities” one per cent., would applaud the murder of half the human race. These vermin all, without a single exception, approved of, and rejoiced at, Sidmouth’s Power-of-Imprisonment Bill, and they applauded his Letter of Thanks to the Manchester Yeomanry Cavalry. No matter what it is that puts an end to a system which engenders and breeds up vermin like these.
Mr. Hanford, of this county, and Mr. Canning of Gloucestershire, having dined at Mr. Price’s yesterday, I went, to-day, with Mr. Price to see Mr. Hanford at his house and estate at Bredon Hill, which is, I believe, one of the highest in England. The ridge, or, rather, the edge of it, divides, in this part, Worcestershire from Gloucestershire. At the very highest part of it there are the remains of an encampment, or rather, I should think, citadel. In many instances, in Wiltshire, these marks of fortifications are called castles still; and, doubtless, there were once castles on these spots. From Bredon Hill you see into nine or ten counties; and those curious bubblings-up, the Malvern Hills, are right before you, and only at about ten miles’ distance, in a straight line. As this hill looks over the counties of Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford and part of Warwick and the rich part of Stafford; and, as it looks over the vales of Esham, Worcester, and Gloucester, having the Avon and the Severn, winding down them, you certainly see from this Bredon Hill one of the very richest spots of England, and I am fully convinced, a richer spot than is to be seen in any other country in the world; I mean Scotland excepted, of course, for fear Sawney should cut my throat, or, which is much the same thing squeeze me by the hand, from which last I pray thee to deliver me, O Lord!
The Avon (this is the third Avon that I have crossed in this Ride) falls into the Severn just below Tewkesbury, through which town we went in our way to Mr. Hanford’s. These rivers, particularly the Severn, go through, and sometimes overflow, the finest meadows of which it is possible to form an idea. Some of them contain more than a hundred acres each; and the number of cattle and sheep, feeding in them, is prodigious. Nine-tenths of the land, in these extensive vales, appears to me to be pasture, and it is pasture of the richest kind. The sheep are chiefly of the Leicester breed, and the cattle of the Hereford, white face and dark red body, certainly the finest and most beautiful of all horn-cattle. The grass, after the fine rains that we have had, is in its finest possible dress; but, here, as in the parts of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire that I have seen, there are no turnips, except those which have been recently sown; and, though amidst all these thousands upon thousands of acres of the finest meadows and grass land in the world, hay is, I hear, seven pounds a ton at Worcester. However, unless we should have very early and even hard frosts, the grass will be so abundant, that the cattle and sheep will do better than people are apt to think. But, be this as it may, this summer has taught us, that our climate is the best for produce, after all; and that we cannot have Italian sun and English meat and cheese. We complain of the drip; but it is the drip that makes the beef and the mutton.
Mr. Hanford’s house is on the side of Bredon Hill; about a third part up it, and is a very delightful place. The house is of ancient date, and it appears to have been always inhabited by and the property of Roman Catholics; for there is, in one corner of the very top of the building, up in the very roof of it, a Catholic chapel, as ancient as the roof itself. It is about twenty-five feet long and ten wide. It has arch-work, to imitate the roof of a church. At the back of the altar there is a little room, which you enter through a door going out of the chapel; and, adjoining this little room, there is a closet, in which is a trapdoor made to let the priests down into one of those hiding places, which were contrived for the purpose of evading the grasp of those greedy Scotch minions, to whom that pious and tolerant Protestant, James I., delivered over those English gentlemen, who remained faithful to the religion of their fathers, and, to set his country free from which greedy and cruel grasp, that honest Englishman, Guy Fawkes, wished, as he bravely told the King and his Scotch council, “to blow the Scotch beggars back to their mountains again.” Even this King has, in his works (for James was an author), had the justice to call him “the English Scævola”; and we Englishmen, fools set on by knaves, have the folly, or the baseness, to burn him in effigy on the 5th November, the anniversary of his intended exploit! In the hall of this house there is the portrait of Sir Thomas Winter, who was one of the accomplices of Fawkes, and who was killed in the fight with the sheriff and his party. There is also the portrait of his lady, who must have spent half her life-time in the working of some very curious sacerdotal vestments, which are preserved here with great care, and are as fresh and as beautiful as they were the day they were finished.
A parson said to me, once, by letter: “Your religion, Mr. Cobbett, seems to me to be altogether political.” “Very much so, indeed,” answered I, “and well it may, since I have been furnished with a creed which makes part of an Act of Parliament.” And, the fact is, I am no Doctor of Divinity, and like a religion, any religion, that tends to make men innocent and benevolent and happy, by taking the best possible means of furnishing them with plenty to eat and drink and wear. I am a Protestant of the Church of England, and, as such, blush to see, that more than half the parsonage-houses are wholly gone, or are become mere hovels. What I have written on the “Protestant Reformation,” has proceeded entirely from a sense of justice towards our calumniated Catholic forefathers, to whom we owe all those of our institutions that are worthy of our admiration and gratitude. I have not written as a Catholic, but as an Englishman; yet a sincere Catholic must feel some little gratitude towards me; and, if there was an ungrateful reptile in the neighbourhood of Preston, to give, as a toast, “Success to Stanley and Wood,” the conduct of those Catholics that I have seen here has, as far as I am concerned, amply compensated for his baseness.