is, I suppose, to distinguish you forward, as the herald of the designs of the Land-owners, to plunder the rest of the nation. You have promulgated a project, which, if it could be carried into effect, would make England a country of the vilest slavery upon the face of the whole earth. from Sir JAMES GRAHAM, the old Attorney, and the famous agent of the Lowthers. In the Baronetage Book I find you represented, or rather, representing yourself, as a prime aristocrat, "descended from the EARLS of MONTEITH, in Scotland," and having for ancestor, in the reign of Henry the Fourth of England, JOHN, surnamed "John with the bright sword." I hope that John's sword was brighter than your pen, or it must have been very much like the sword of Hudibras. You sword," down to the present time, or at least, to the date of your Pedigree, tracing yourself along through a wonderful parcel of Lords and Baronets and Parsons, till you come down to your own precious self, who, as you tell us, was born in 1761, married (1785) Before I go any further, let me call upon you, or, rather, let me call upon my readers, in general; let me call upon the public, in short, to look well at the Motto to this letter. You have got a motto to your pamphlet. Yours is a Latin motto; and, it is just as apgo on, from "John with a bright plicable to the subjects of your pamphlet; just as applicable to a discussion relative to the effects of a depreciated currency, as it would be, to the matter contained in a treatise on music or dancing. You are about to write on the ruin brought upon Landlords by peace and papermoney. You are about to promulgate a project for sponging off the National Debt, and for laying, at the same time, a heavy permanent tax upon bread: this is what you were going to write about; and you take the following passage of VIRGIL for a Motto, Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas, tot bella to " per orbem, Lady CATHERINE STEWART, "eldest daughter of John, seventh "Earl of GALLOWAY, K. T." Aye, do not forget the K. T. for God's sake! You tell us that you had, in 1819, thirteen children. Four sons and nine daughters, one daughter married to a Parson, and another to a Major. These circumstances would be of no more importance to the public than the pedigree of those infernal caterpillars, that I left at Kensington devouring my Indian" When right and wrong are so corn, and the destruction of which" confounded; when War so reptiles I left an order to accom- "much prevails, and when there plish with all possible despatch." are so many kinds of crime, the These circumstances relating to plough cannot receive due hoyou and your family, would be "nour, and the fields, deprived of of no more importance to my "their cultivators, must lie fallow readers than the pedigree, I say," and fall into decay." of those nasty voracious caterpil- Now," Sir James Graham, lars; but you have been thrusted Baronet, of Netherby," do tell forward, or have poked yourself us, man, what this Motto about Tam multæ scelerum facies: non ullus aratro "" 66 wars, about crimes of Soldiers, | Petition; and, let it be borne in about pressing Farmers to go to mind, that this Petition, which the wars; do tell us, thou Son-in-was agreed to by that public-spilaw of the seventh Earl of Gallo- rited County, in St. Andrew's way, K. T. (never forgetting the Hall, in the City of Norwich, on K. T.); do tell us, thou descend- the third of January, 1823; let it ant of "John with the bright be borne in mind, that this Petition sword;" do tell us, or I shall now stands on the Journals of the go crazy, what the devil this House of Commons. Motto has to do with the affairs After this preface, I come to the of a Country, which has been subject matter of your pamphlet, twelve years at Peace, and which which I pronounce to be a base knows of no torments, except production; an insult to the mothose of National Debts and pa- rals of the Nation, an attack on per-money; and the high state of its character for justice and coucultivation of the lands of which rage; a literary crime which calls is known to the whole world, and for immediate punishment, which is an everlasting boast amongst punishment, it is my duty as well all the Land-owners in the coun- as my inclination to inflict; and, try? Do tell us, then, what in order to discharge that duty, I could induce thee to choose this shall, first of all, describe the obMotto. I will tell thee what it ject which you have in view, and was, then. The Motto arose out which you have the profligacy to of thy stupid aristocratical inso- avow. lence. You thought that even these Latin words would tend to inspire the vulgar, as you call them, with reverence for you. You, therefore, must have some "6 :6 You first speak of the dangers which threaten the Land-owners. You say that one part of the Land-owners clings to the Government of "the day, and blindly Latin; and not having judgment." supports its prodigal expendi sufficient to select a passage that ture, in the hope of sharing its was applicable, you took one that "patronage, and of making that was inapplicable. Latin was La-provision out of the public tin; and you did not expect that purse for dependants, which the any one would expose your igno- hereditary family estates can rance. Your habitual insolence, no longer bear; "-This, then, together with the habitual subser- is a very pretty crew to be previency of the poor wretches about served, at the expense of Fundyou, made you believe that you holders, or any body else. This might say any thing without being is a very pretty crew, who are to laughed at. be kept up in all their splendour, even at the risk of ruin, starvation and open rebellion! Can there be upon earth a more despicable crew than this? Yet, it is to preserve a crew like this, in all their splendour; it is to preserve to them their power of still living upon the sweat of the people, that T 2 My Motto is of a different description. It is applicable to my subject it shortly expresses the point to which I shall come before I have done; and that point is precisely opposite to that at which you aim. This Motto of mine is taken from the Norfolk ," 66 66 66 you would commit the monstrous" bestow lasting benefit on the robbery that you propose! You" community!" say, in another place, "I protest What a surprisingly impudent "that the number of proprietors, assertion! What! It would assist "with estates unencumbered form the labouring poor, would it; it so small a minority as to make would bestow lasting benefit on "the description of Mr. HUSKIS- the community, to rob three hunSON applicable for all prac-dred thousand families, in the "tical purposes, to the whole middle rank of life, for the pur"body; that is to say, that the pose of keeping up, in all their "whole body have their lands so ill-gotten splendour, from six to "deeply mortgaged, as to be, in ten thousand families of lazy and "fact, hardly the owners of the insolent aristocrats, who have had, "estates which they call theirs." who have put, according to the 66 This is the state, in which you words of my motto, a large part say the Land-owners are. Your of the public loans into their own object is, to save these Land-own-pockets. ers, and the Parsons along with I shall speak, by and by, of the them. The Parsons are, indeed, MEANS that you propose to ema part of the aristocracy; and ploy for the purpose of effecting so is the army, and the same is this object; but, let me first state the navy. The aristocracy have the case of the Land-owners; let all the livings, and all the high me state this case to you truly; offices. Church, army, navy, co- and, when that is done, we shall lonies; all appear to be made for better understand the nature of them, and forthem only; and as we your proposition; we shall see shall see, by and by, you would more clearly the impudence and take the fortune of the Fundholder the wickedness of that proposition. away, while you would leave all I state their case, then, thus, in these in the hands of the aristo- distinct propositions: cracy. You acknowledge, that the scheme which you propose must produce considerable injustice; but that it would save the aristocracy. Let us have your words there, for " ey are most impudent and most profligate :-"I will not, "therefore, attempt to deny, that "the course which I shall pre66 sume to recommend to the Land(6 owners is open to grave ob"jections, and that it must pro"duce considerable injustice; but "if it save the aristocracy-if it << the landed interest, it will "also restore vigour to our comand plenty to our labouring poor; it will inflict partial "injury on a few, but it will 2. 1. That the land-owners, according to your own account, in pages six and seven, are the makers of the laws; that the House of Lords, "(notwithstanding the recent infusion of less noble blood), contains an immense majority of ancient Land-owners; and that," in the House of Commons, the landed proprietors form a phalanx, that no Minister can resist ;" that, therefore, according to your own account, the Land-owners had and have, the making of all save 66 the laws; and that, accord merce "" ingly, they have made what laws they pleased. 2. That they have pleased to make laws to make a national funded debt, an unfunded debt, and a dead - weight debt, amounting altogether to more than a thousand millions of pounds sterling, and demanding, directly and indirectly, more than fifty millions of taxes to be raised annually, the bare collection of which taxes costs more than four millions of pounds sterling a year; that is to say, more than the gross amount of the taxes raised in the United States of America, for debt, for army, for every thing, including the expenses of building a most powerful navy, which building is constantly going on! 3. That, the Land-owners (that is to say, the aristocracy and the clergy), caused these 2 - enormous debts to be con t 4 tracted, for the purpose of carrying on wars and of paying pensions, sinecures and grants; that the first of these expensive wars was, that which was carried on against the Americans, to compel them to bear taxes, without choosing their Members of Parliament; and that the other of these expensive wars was for the purpose of keeping, what were called French principles out of England; namely,principles which were at war with tithes and with aristocratical title and power. 4. That, the aristocracy and clergy did not succeed in compelling the Americans to be taxed without having mem ! bers to serve them in Parliament; that they did succeed in keeping, what were called French principles out of England; that they preserved the tithes, and the aristocratical distinctions in England; and that, by means of war, and measures of a warlike. nature, they, at last, succeeded, in preventing a reform of the House of Commons, which great part of the nation had loudly called for, and which was prevented by various measures of force of an expensive nature. 5. That, however, the Landowners; or, in other words, the lords, the baronets, the big 'squires and the established clergy, did finally succeed in preserving the titles of nobility, the pensions, the sinecures, the grants, the tithes and the MODE OF FILLING THE SEATS IN PARLIAMENT. 6. That they succeeded in preserving it all; that their measures were crowned with complete success; that they gained a "glorious victory;" that they shouted and clapped their hands with joy, while hundreds of thousands of pounds, and even millions, were voted out of the taxes for the keeping of a jubilee, and for the building of triumphal arches and ments to commemorate the valiant deeds, by which had been preserved the titles, the church lands, the tithes, the pensions, the sinecures, the grants, and particularly the inestimable mode of filling the seats in Parliament. 7. That persons, so happy as these Land-owners, would not have monu or possible to pay these good people upon the nail, out of the rents and sinecures, and so forth, and still to have the same rents and so forth, to spend upon themselves; that, therefore, the Land-owners borrowed the money to give to the Austrians, Switzers, Hanoverians, and so forth, to buy them victuals and clothes, and muskets and powder and ball, and hairy caps. 9. That, thus it was that the Land-owners contracted the debts, mentioned in the second proposition; and that their estates became, in fact, by laws, MADE BY THEMSELVES, even according to your own account, mortgaged for the amount of these debts, to the mortgagees, or annuitants, fundholders (call them which you please,) who hold the mortgage deeds and bands. 10. That, those who lent the money have a right to receive the interest in full, according to Acts of Parliament made, as you yourself say, by the Land-owners themselves; that the Landowners, before they had advanced very far in their borrowing, found it necessary to pay in paper, instead of gold and silver; that they have now made attempts to return to gold and silver; that they find it extremely difficult to get along; that they perceive their inability to continue to pay in full; and that, they begin to perceive, that if they continue to pay in full, agreeably to the laws which they have passed themselves, been found upon the face of the earth; that they would now have been ready, after vomitting forth their stomachfull of insolence, to die overpowered with joy and exultation, but that, alas! They had BORROWED THE MONEY, wherewith to effect the preservation of these valuable things. They had had the assistance of nearly a million of Austrians, Russians, Prussians, Bavarians, Italians, Hessians, Hanoverians, Danes, Swedes, Switzers, Dutch, Westphalians, Belgians, Genevese, Genoese, Maltese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Algerines, Tripolitans, Africans, and God knows who besides; Calmeres, Hungarians, Bohemians, Transylvanians, Polonese; whether they had any Japanese, I cannot say ; but they had, at one time, nearly a million of men in arms, to assist them in preserving the tithes, the seats, and the other precious things. 8. That, however, alas! as sistance is seldom to be had, without MONEY, and particularly of this valuable kind; that the Land-owners did not choose to go without rents to their estates during the wars, and without places, pensions, sinecures, and grants; that, nevertheless, it was impossible to have rents and all these other good things to live upon in splendour, and to pay upon the nail, the money necessary for the Austrians, Russians, Prussians, Switzers, Hanoverians, Dutch, and so forth! that it was tim |