No. 38. Or, The Chieftain's Weekly Gazette. COBBETT. BILLY and his admirers, I hope, are now convinced that Captain Rock is a man capable of performing whatever he promises. Mr. Andrews affected a sneer when I announced my intention of giving Cobbett what the fancy call-a finisher; but he has, no doubt, discovered, before this time, that I was then in carnest; and that I have done nearly half the work already. Last week I threw some light upon the vile vagabond's' character; and I will this week unveil him to the world. Out of his own mouth I will condemn him; and if, after this exposé of Cobbett's character, Mr. Andrews perseveres in his laudations of the Enlightener, I shall begin to suspect that the SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1825. all which the rain does, is the enlivening them, giving them new spirits, and calling them forth to seek new habitations, and enjoy the element they were destined in great part to live in. Theophrastus, the greatest of all the naturalists of antiquity, has affirmed the same thing. We find that the error of supposing these creatures to fall from the clouds was as early as that author's time; and also that the truth, in regard to their appearance, was as early known; though in the ages since, authors have taken care to conceal the truth, and to hand down to us the error. We find this venerable sage, in a fragment of his on the generation of animals which appear on a sud. den, bantering the opinion, and asserting that they were hatched and living long before. The world owes, however, to the accurate Signor Redi, the great proof of this truth, which Theophrastus only has affirmed for this gentleman, dissecting some of these new-ap : PRICE TWO PENCE. of these and other the like animals, cannot but know that some seasons will prove particularly favourable to the hatching them, and the prodigious number of eggs that many insects lay could not but every year bring us such abundance of the young, were they not liable to many accidents, and had not provident nature taken care, as in many plants, to continue the species by a very numerous stock of seeds, of which perhaps not one in 500 need take root in order to continue an equal number of plants. As it is thus also in regard to insects, it cannot but happen, that if a favourable season encourage the hatching of all those eggs, a very small number of which alone were necessary to continue the species, we must, in such seasons, have a proportionate abundance of them. There appeared about fifty years ago, in London, such a prodigious swarm of the little beetle we call the lady-cow, that the very posts in the streets were every where cover 'Truthteller' is not quite so sin-pearing frogs, found in their sto-ed with them. But thanks to the cere an advocate of Catholicity as I have heretofore given him credit for. Now to my task. I was obliged, for want of space, last week, to conclude, before I had fully demonstrated Billy's ignorance of natural history. Enough,God knows, had been adduced in proof of the simple fact; but as many entertain the Enlightener's opinions on the subject, a few additional remarks on supernatural rains may not be entirely uninstructive. RAINING OF FROGS. It is beyond a doubt that the frogs which make their appearance during or after rains, were hatched and in being long before; but that the dry seasons had injured them, and kept them sluggishly in holes or coverts; and that machs herbs and other half digested his credulous countrymen, asked food; and openly showing this to them whether they thought that nature, which engendered, according to their opinion, these animals in the clouds, had also been so provident as to engender grass there for their food and nourishment. RAINING OF LOCUSTS, &C. To the raining of frogs, says a celebrated naturalist, we ought to add the raining of grasshoppers and locusts, which have sometimes appeared in prodigious numbers, and devoured the fruits of the earth. There has not been the least pretence for the supposing that these animals descended from the clouds, but that they appeared on a sudden in prodigious numbers. The naturalist, who knows the many accidents attending the eggs progress of philosophy among us, rained cow-ladies, but contented we had nobody to assert that it ourselves with saying that it had been a favourable season for their eggs. The prodigious number of a sort of grub which did vast mischief about the same period among the corn and grass by eating off their roots, might also have been supposed to proceed from its having rained grubs by people fond of making every thing a prodigy; but our knowledge in natural history assured us that these were only the hexapode worms of the common hedge beetle called the cock-chafer. RAINING OF FISH. The raining of fish has been a prodigy also much talked of in France, where the streets of a town at some distance from Paris, after a terrible hurricane in the night, which tore up trees, blew down COBBETT'S SEVENTII AND LAST 7. What causes flounders, real little flat fish, brown on one side, white on the other, mouth side-ways, with tail, fins, and all, leaping alive, in the INSIDE of a rotten sheep's, and of every rotten sheep's LIVER? Billy's ignorance is not quite so conspicuous in this instance as in the foregoing, but still it is a proof of ignorance to call a worm a fish. Worms,' says Buffon, are frequently found in the livers of animals: a description of those of the wedder of an ox may be seen in the Journal des Scavans, and in the German Ephimerides. It was formerly imagined, that these worms were peculiar to ruminating animals but M. Daubenton discovered the same species in the liver of the ass; and it is probable they exist in several other quadrupeds. Butterflies, it has likewise been said, are sometimes found in the liver of the wedder. M. Rouille communicated to me a letter from M. Gachet de Beausort, physician at Montiers, of which the following is an extract: "It is an old remark, that our Alpine wedders, which are the best in Eu Seventh.-COBBETT IS IGNOKANT OF SOME OF THE LEADING QUESTIONS IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. rope, sometimes suddenly lose and believe that drops of rain turn. are Reader! Is not William Cob- become author of a book on 'Cot- | The man who undertakes to write on politics without understanding political economy, must be in the habit of committing blunders every day that he puts pen to paper. He deceives his readers, and exposes himself to ridicule. From the ignorance which has unhappily too long prevailed among the bulk of mankind, respecting this most useful and important science, such writers have escaped the contempt and cen. sure to which they ought to have been exposed. To the recent dissemination of works on political economy, must be attributed the growing disrespect for Cobbett's political writings. The English people have discovered that Billy is no prophet—that he has committed the most egregrous blunders in politics-and that, in fact, he knows little or nothing about a science on which he has been writing for the last three and thirty years. In proof of this, I shall adduce only a few of the most prominent instances, because they will be quite sufficient for my purpose; and because they will prove the seventh in my catalogue of assertions. It is well known that Billy has written much to prove that the rise in the price of bread has been the consequence-not of the Corn Laws-but of the Bank Notes, issued by the Bank of England. Now, I don't mean to deny but that an excessive issue of paper mo. ney at this moment, might affect the price of provisions; but I do con tend that, if the ports were open, and foreign corn admitted without any restrictions, the price of provisions in England would be regulated by the price of provisions on the Continent, and not by the issue of paper inoney. To go into the particulars of this question would occupy too much time; but every man acquainted with the first rudiments of political economy must know that I have stated a plain and palpable truth. Three years have not elapsed since Cobbett devised a plan for remedying the then distressed state of the kingdom; and his plan was nothing less than a kind of national bankruptcy. He recommended that one portion of the community -the fundholders-should be rob. bed; and, that what was taken from them should be given to another portion of the community-the landholders. Unless this was done he prophecied that England would be ruined. His counsel, however, was not taken; and, so far from a bankruptcy, the nation was never more apparently prosperous; and the landholders, so far from being ruined, are now the most thriving party in the country. A nation,' says Mon. de Staël, as well as an individual, has nothing to subsist on but its income; that is to say, the rent of its land, the interest of its capital, and the wages of its labour. No doubt, this or that distribution of wealth may improve the cultivation of the soil, promote the increase of capital, or render labour more productive; yet these various improvements have their limits in the nature of things, beyond which it is not in the power of man to proceed. When a nation has really made some progress; when by its industry, its natural resources, and its economy, new riches have been created, it may confer the privilege of enjoying them on a certain number of citizens, without the rest of the community being impoverished. But in a given degree of wealth, one class cannot be favoured unless at the expense of others; what is given to privileged persons, under whatever title, is necessarily taken from the rest of the citizens, and a difference of distribution does not render the whole of a nation either richer or poorer. This truth is so obvious, that it appears almost ridiculous to announce it; yet there is none more habitually misunderstood by must of those who reason on political economy, I do not say in the drawing-room merely, but in books written expressly on the subject. Every one makes this or that class wealthy, and assigns this or that employment to capital, as his opinion, interest, or whim leads him : but the simple idea, that nothing comes out of nothing, and that by giving to one we take from another, never enters the mind of these reasoners. A country left to the management of these speculators would be nearly in the condition of Swift's gentleman, who had five thousand a year, but all whose servants attempted to apply the whole of his income to the department particularly under his care. "For five thousand a year," said the coachman, "my master can have a noble set of horses and carriages." "With five thousand a year,” said the cook, "my master can keep open house ;" and thus the poor gentleman found himself ruined. It is this common error, that has led some men, even such as are well versed in the science of finance, the celebrated Hamilton of America among others, to consider a public debt as wealth; because, he says, this debt is an exchangeable property, that attracts foreign capital; without reflecting, that in this case the foreign capital only takes the place of the national capital that has been consumed, and that the interest produced by this new capital is exactly balanced by the taxes paid by the people. It is in consequence of the same error, that the too positive enemies of the funding system, or men who are interested in paying their court to the landholders, propose the reduction of the capital or interest of the debt, an arbitrary change of the conditions stipulated with the creditors, in short, a general or partial bankruptcy, as an efficacious method of alleviating the burdens of the nation. They do not consider, that the proprietors of the public funds will be impoverished by every sum bestowed on the payers of taxes; and that consequently the sum total of the wealth of the nation remains the same, except that a violent transfer of property involves in ruin and despair the classes that are robbed; and that by first suspending the demand, and afterward changing its nature, all the calculations of trade and industry are deranged.' So much for Billy's plan of plundering the fundholders, and degrading the nation: let us now turn to another proof of his ignorance of political economy. His 'Real emancipation for Ireland. No less than ten gentlemen, no one of whom is, that I know of, known to any one of the rest, have pressed me to republish in the Register, that part of the last published (or XI.) Number of the Protestant Reformation,' which gives the history of the causes and effects of poor rates in England, and of the want of poor rates in Ireland, These gentlemen deem the subject of the very greatest importance. So do I, and therefore, I comply with their request; and beg all my readers to bestow their best attention on this matter, which deeply affects us all. To imagine, that a few wigs and silk gowns, given to God knows who, or for what, can emancipate and feed an enslaved and hungry people! It is madness. But, bring the poor in constant contact with the rich by the means of poor rates; and you change the whole nature of the community at once.' : all would not do; that hunger, which breaks through stone-walls, set even her terrors and torments at defiance; at last, it was found to be absolutely necessary to make some general and permanent and solid provision for the poor; and, in the 43d year of her reign, was passed that act, which is in force to this day, and which provides a maintenance for indigent persons, which maintenance is to come from the land, assessed and collected by overseers, and the payment enforced by process the most effectual and most summary. And here we have the great, the prominent, the staring, the horrible, and ever durable consequence of the" Reformation;" that is to say, PAUPERISM ESTABLISHED BY LAW.' So the very worst consequence of the Reformation, according to Billy, was the poor laws. But read on: There, reader! is William Cob. bett's only plan for emancipating Ireland. There is the remedy proposed by Mr. William Eusebius Andrews's friend-the Enlightener -for remedying the evils of the penal code. Ireland, forsooth, wants poor laws, and not emancipation!!! Fie upon you! Ireland would not be benefitted by the abolition of the penal laws. No, says William Cobbett, Mr. An. drews's friend, and a great Enlightener to boot-no; she wants poor laws and Billy, to prove this, inserts a long extract from the eleventh number of his History of the Protestant Reformation,' at the request, if you believe him, of ten different gentlemen; not nine, mark you! but the even number of ten. This extract, of course, you must imagine, contains cogent reasons 'Every act (and there were many for the speedy introduction of the passed) short of a compulsory tax, poor laws into Ireland, since it in-enforced by distraint of goods and duced ten gentlemen, without any previous communication with each other, to request its insertion into the Weekly Register.' Its arguments must be powerful, and its conclusions just, since it proves that poor laws would answer Ireland much better than emancipation. Reader, what will be your surprise after this when I tell you, that this extract contains unanswerable ar. guments against the poor laws!!!! If Billy has stated what is true, poor laws, in place of being introduced into Ireland, should be abolished in England!!!! You are surprised, and well you may; but read the following extract from this eleventh number of the History of the Protestant Reformation,' and which extract Billy has quoted. 'However, though this terrible she tyrant (Elizabeth) spared neither racks nor halters, though she was continually reproving the cxecutors of her bloody laws for their remissness while they were strewing the country with the carcasses of malefactors or alleged malefactors, imprisonment of person, having failed, to this "glorious Bess" and her "Reformation," parliament at last came; and here we have it to this day, filling the country with endless quarrels and litigation, setting parish against parish, man against master, rich against poor, and producing, from a desire of the rich to shuffle out of its provisions, a mass of hypocrisy, idleness, fraud, oppression, andcruelty, such as was, except in the deeds of the original" Reformers," never be fore witnessed in the world!!!' And yet the institution which has produced all this, is recommended as a panacea-a sovereign remedy for the evils which afflict Ireland. Truly, Billy is a quere 'miscreant,' a strange animal.' 6 but, there is a new distribution of the produce. This 'Squire Charington's father used, I dare say, to sit at the head of the oak-table along with his men, say grace to them, and cut up the meat and the pudding. He might take a cup of strong beer to himself, when they had none; but that was pretty nearly all the difference in their manner of living. So that all lived well. But, the 'Squire had many wine-decanters and wine-glasses, and "a dinner set," and a "break. fast set," and "desert knives ;" and these evidently imply carryings on and a consumption that must of necessity have greatly robbed the long oak-table if it had remained fully tenanted. That long table could not share in the work of the decanters and the dinner set. There. fore, it became almost untenanted; the labourers retreated to hovels, called cottages; and, instead of board and lodging, they got money; so little of it as to enable the employer to drink wine; but, then, that he might not reduce them to quite starvation, they were enabled to come to him, in the king's name, and demand food as paupers. And, now, mind, that which a man rcceives in the king's name, he knows well he has by force; and it is not in nature that he should thank any body for it, and least of all the party from whom it is forced. Then, if this sort of force be insufficient to obtain him enough to eat and to keep him warm, is it surprising, if he think it no great offence against God (who created no man to starve) to use another sort of force more within his own controul? Is it, in short, surpris. ing, if he resort to theft and rob. bery? This is not only the natural progress, but it has been the progress in England ! ! !' So the poor laws have produced thieving and robbery in England; they have filled the country with quarrels and litigation;' they have • set man against master;' they have produced a mass of hypocrisy, idleness, fraud, oppression, cruelty,' &c. and therefore their introduction into Ireland would prove a greater benefit than the removal of Catholic disabilities! 'Oh,' says Billy Cobbett, the sage -the Enlightener, and William Andrews's friend-bring the poor in constant contact with the rich, by means of poor-rates, and you change the whole nature of the community at once.' Faith, and so you would, Billy, or you have grossly misrepresented the effects produced by poor rates in Eng land. From the foregoing it is evident that Cobbett is quite ignorant of political science; and the following extracts from his works will show what blunders he has committed in conseqence of this ignorance. COBBETT A FALSE PROPHET. The day is not far distant, when not a very long time, they would procure him four times as much as he could now purchase with that one thousand sovereigns.' v. 38, p. 373. Advice to Farmer's Wives.You can get silver at present. Put that by. You will shortly find it valuable. Give a pound note and two shillings to get a guinea. Give a pound note and a shilling to get a sovereign. You will soon find, that a treasure of Bank notes is very little better than a treasure of cockle-shells, or of leaves of flowers.' v. 38, p. 666. I advise every one to hoard; for, though a hundred sovereigns will buy a good deal of land now, they will buy a great deal more in less than two years time. Sovereigns do not eat or drink. By the time that the Bank shall be com a guinea-a real golden guinea-pelled to pay in gold, every seven will buy 1007. worth of the three per cents.' v. 20, p. 130. This day two years, a thousand pounds in stock will not be worth a silver sixpence.' v. 34, p. 123. 'Let him who has money in the funds turn it into Portugal gold, and keep it in that shape. When the blow-up comes, he will, with his gold, purchase an estate, four times the value of one that he can now buy with the paper. There is no pity for people who keep money in the funds, after this warning.' v. 34, p. 691. sovereigns will buy an acre of arable land of the average quality.' v. 40, p. 107. (July, 1821.) Prices must come down, until they be on a level with those of France. Farmers will constantly keep this in mind. Those prices cannot much exceed 3s. or 4s. a bushel for good wheat. My predictions have all proved to be true; not only as to substance, but as to manner.' d. 44, p. 44. Eighth.-COBBETT IS THE ENEMY OF CIVIL LIBERTY. In proof of this fact I shall just The boroughmongers have re- mention Cobbett's well known solved to return to cash payments. abuse of the exertions made by the To resolve is an easy matter; but, patriots of Spain and South Ameif they execute their resolution, rica. Within the last three years though it has now assumed the he has frequently contrasted the shape of a law, I will give Castle- government of France with the goreagh leave to put me upon a grid-vernment of England; and at each iron, while Sidmouth stirs the fire, and Canning stands by, making a jest of my writhing and my groans.' v. 35, p. 361. 'If the Reformers put any money by, let them put it by in silver. The time is not far distant, when a handful of silver will be a little for. tune.' v. 35, p. 698. If a man were to hoard a thousand sovereigns, and keep them for time he has given a decided preference to that of France. He did this, not because it is more tolerant in matters of religion, but because he represented it as better calculated for promoting the happiness of the people. This may, or may not, be true; but still there is no man who values the blessings of civil liberty, who would compare for an instant the political state of England with the political state of France. Billy's son, in his Letters from France,' has made an assertion similar to this; and, with the indignant feelings of a young man habitually accustomed to contemplate men in a state of freedom, he remarks on the deplorable condition of a nation, where even a native cannot travel from town to town, in the same kingdom, without procuring a passport, alias leave, from some scoundrel in authority. Under the Insurrection Act in Ireland, things were bad enough, while that vile unconstitutional measure continued in force; but still it affected only certain districts; and these only for a time. In France, however, an Insurrection Act is always in force, and extends over the whole kingdom. A peeler there has authority to enter the house of any inhabitant at any hour, either by night or by day, and to imprison the inmate or inmates, on bare suspicion, for any length of time. Degraded as I am in the land of my birth, and galling as the penal code continues to be, still I would prefer being an Irish Catholic helot, sooner than exchange my privileges, such as they are, as a subject of George the Fourth, for the privilege of being a subject of Charles the Tenth. Every Catholic in this kingdom would willingly make this declaration; and every man capable of appreciating the advantages of civil liberty, will denounce the slavekissing slave,' who could prefer French to English liberty. Cobbett, it is true, in his comedy, has attempted an apology for insulting the South Americans in their noble struggle for independence; but in this, as in almost all other cases, he shows what little value he sets upon consistency. He has sneered at Bolivar and his co-patriots ; and he has prognosticated defeat for their arms: but, thank God, Billy is a bad prophet. America will be free; and the patriots of all nations should unite in reprobating such an insidious friend of liberty as Wil. liam Cobbett really is. |