Chapter IX: Letter IX (2)

But the complaints of these persons against you are the more unreasonable, because they say not a word against the sums paid to sinecure placemen and pensioners. Of the five hundred and more Correspondents of the Board of Agriculture, there are scarcely ten who do not complain of the weight of the Poor-rates, of the immense sums taken away from them by the poor, and many of them complain of the idleness of the poor. But not one single man complains of the immense sums taken away to support sinecure placemen, who do nothing for their money, and to support pensioners, many of whom are women and children, the wives and daughters of the nobility and other persons in high life, and who can do nothing, and never can have done anything for what they receive. There are of these places and pensions all sizes, from twenty pounds to thirty thousand and nearly forty thousand pounds a year! And surely these ought to be done away before any proposition be made to take the parish allowance from any of you who are unable to work, or to find work to do. There are several individual placemen, the profits of each of which would maintain a thousand families. The names of the ladies upon the pension list would, if printed, one under another, fill a sheet of paper like this. And is it not, then, base and cruel at the same time in these Agricultural correspondents to cry out so loudly against the charge of supporting the unfortunate poor, while they utter not a word of complaint against the sinecure places and pensions?

The unfortunate journeymen and labourers and their families have a right, they have a just claim, to relief from the purses of the rich. For there can exist no riches and no resources which they by their labour have not assisted to create. But I should be glad to know how the sinecure placemen and lady pensioners have assisted to create food and raiment, or the means of producing them. The labourer who is out of work or ill, to-day, may be able to work, and set to work to-morrow. While those placemen and pensioners never can work; or, at least, it is clear that they never intend to do it.

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 us [as on] brutes! I trust they will change their tone, and that the day of the change is at no great distance!

The weight of the Poor-rate, which must increase while the present system continues, alarms the corrupt, who plainly see that what is paid to relieve you, they cannot have. Some of them, therefore, hint at your early marriages as a great evil, and a clergyman named Malthus has seriously proposed measures for checking you in this respect; while one of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture complains of the increase of bastards, and proposes severe punishment on the parents! How hard these men are to please! What would they have you do? As some have called you the swinish multitude, would it be much wonder if they were to propose to serve you as families of young pigs are served? Or if they were to bring forward the measure of Pharaoh, who ordered the midwives to kill all the male children of the Israelites?

But, if you can restrain your indignation at these insolent notions and schemes, 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 vexatious 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 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 propose, 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 that 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.

There is one more scheme to notice, which, though rather less against nature is not less hateful and insolent; namely, to encourage you to emigrate to foreign countries. This scheme is distinctly proposed to the Government by one of the correspondents of the Board of Agriculture. What he means by encouragement must be to send away by force, or by paying for the passage; for a man who has money stands in no need of relief. But, I trust, that not a man of you will move, let the _encouragement_ be what it may. It is impossible for many to go, though the prospect be ever so fair. We must stand by our country, and it is base not to stand by her, as long as there is a chance of seeing her what she ought to be. But the proposition is, nevertheless, base and insolent This man did not propose to encourage the sinecure placemen and pensioners to emigrate; yet, surely, you who help to maintain them by the taxes which you pay, have as good a right to remain in the country as they have! You have fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and children and friends as well as they; but this base projector recommends that you may be encouraged to leave your relations and friends for ever; while he would have the sinecure placemen and pensioners remain quietly where they are!

No: you will not leave your country. If you have suffered much and long, you have the greater right to remain in the hope of seeing better days. And I beseech you not to look upon yourselves as the _scum_; but, on the contrary, to be well persuaded that a great deal will depend upon your exertions; and therefore, I now proceed to point out to you what appears to me to be the line of conduct which journeymen and labourers ought to pursue in order to obtain effectual relief, and to assist in promoting tranquillity and restoring the happiness of the country.

We have seen that the cause of our miseries is the burden of taxes occasioned by wars, by standing armies, by sinecures, by pensions, etc. It would be endless and useless to enumerate all the different heads or sums of expenditure. The remedy is what we have now to look to, and that remedy consists wholly and solely of such a reform in the Commons' or People's House of Parliament, as shall give to every payer of direct taxes a vote at elections, and as shall cause the Members to be elected annually.

In a late _Register_ I have pointed out how easily, how peaceably, how fairly, such a Parliament might be chosen. I am aware that it may, and not without justice, be thought wrong to deprive those of the right of voting who pay indirect taxes. Direct taxes are those which are directly paid by any person into the hands of the tax-gatherers, as the assessed rates and taxes. Indirect taxes are those which are paid indirectly through the maker or seller of goods, as the tax on soap or candles or salt or malt. And, as no man ought to be taxed without his consent, there has always been a difficulty upon this head. There has been no question about the _right_ of every man who is free to exercise his will, who has a settled place in society, and who pays a tax of any sort, to vote for Members of Parliament. The difficulty is in taking the votes by any other means than by the Rate-book; for if there be no list of tax-payers in the hands of any person, mere menial servants, vagrants, pickpockets, and scamps of all sorts might not only come to the poll, but they might poll in several parishes or places, on one and the same day. A corrupt rich man might employ scores of persons of this description, and in this way would the purpose of reform be completely defeated. In America, where one branch of the Congress is elected for four years and the other for two years, they have still adhered to the principle of direct taxation, and in some of the States they have made it necessary for a voter to be worth one hundred pounds. Yet they have, in that country, duties on goods, custom duties, and excise duties also; and, of course, there are many persons who really pay taxes, and who, nevertheless, are not permitted to vote. The people do not complain of this. They know that the number of votes is so great that no corruption can take place, and they have no desire to see livery servants, vagrants, and pickpockets take part in their elections. Nevertheless it would be very easy for a reformed Parliament, when once it had taken root, to make a just arrangement of this matter. The most likely method would be to take off the indirect taxes, and to put a small direct tax upon every master of a house, however low his situation in life.

But this and all other good things, must be done by a reformed Parliament. We must have that first, or we shall have nothing good; and any man who would beforehand take up your time with the detail of what a reformed Parliament ought to do in this respect, or with respect to any changes in the form of government, can have no other object than that of defeating the cause of reform; and, indeed, the very act must show, that to raise obstacles is his wish.

Such men, now that they find you justly irritated, would persuade you that, because things have been perverted from their true ends, there is nothing good in our constitution and laws. For what, then, did Hampden die in the field, and Sydney on the scaffold? And has it been discovered at last that England has always been an enslaved country from top to toe? The Americans, who are a very wise people, and who love liberty with all their hearts, and who take care to enjoy it too, took special care not to part with any of the great principles and laws which they derived from their forefathers. They took special care to speak with reverence of, and to preserve Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, and not only all the body of the Common Law of England, but most of the rules of our courts, and all our form of jurisprudence. Indeed it is the greatest glory of England that she has thus supplied with sound principles of freedom those immense regions which will be peopled perhaps by hundreds of millions.

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 regulations (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.

That reform will come I know, if the people do their duty; and all that we have to guard against is confusion, which cannot come if reform take place in time. I have before observed to you that when the friends of corruption in France saw that they could not prevent a change, they bent their endeavours to produce confusion, in which they fully succeeded. They employed numbers of unprincipled men to go about the country proposing all sorts of mad schemes. They produced first a confusion in men's minds, and next a civil war between provinces, towns, villages and families. The tyrant Robespierre, who was exceeded in cruelty only by some of the Bourbons, was proved to have been in league with the open enemies of France. He butchered all the real friends of freedom whom he could lay his hands on, except Paine, whom he shut up in a dungeon till he was reduced to a skeleton. This monster was at last put to death himself; and his horrid end ought to be a warning to any man who may wish to walk in the same path. But I am, for my part, in little fear of the influence of such men. They cannot cajole you as Robespierre cajoled the people of Paris. It is, nevertheless, necessary for you to be on your guard against them, and when you hear a man talking big and hectoring about projects which go further than a real and radical reform of the Parliament, be you well assured that that man would be a second Robespierre if he could, and that he would make use of you and sacrifice the life of the very last man of you; that he would ride upon the shoulders of some through rivers of the blood of others, for the purpose of gratifying his own selfish and base and insolent ambition.

In order effectually to avoid the rock of confusion, we should keep steadily in our eye not only what we wish to be done but what can be done now. We know that such a reform as would send up a Parliament, chosen by all payers of direct taxes, is not only just and reasonable, but easy of execution. I am therefore for accomplishing that object first; and I am not at all afraid that a set of men who would really hold the purse of the people, and who had been just chosen freely by the people, would very soon do everything that the warmest friend of freedom could wish to see done.

While, however, you are upon your guard against false friends, you should neglect no opportunity of doing all that is within your power to give support to the cause of reform. Petition is the channel for your sentiments, and there is no village so small that its petition would not have some weight. You ought to attend at every public meeting within your reach. You ought to read to and to assist, each other in coming at a competent knowledge of all public matters. Above all things, you ought to be unanimous in your object, and not suffer yourselves to be divided.

The subject of religion has nothing to do with this great question of reform. A reformed Parliament would soon do away with all religious distinctions and disabilities. In their eyes, a Catholic and a Protestant would both appear in the same light.

The _Courier_, the _Times_, and other emissaries of corruption, are constantly endeavouring to direct your wrath against bakers, brewers, butchers, and other persons who deal in the necessaries of life. But, I trust that you are not to be stimulated to such a species of violence. These tradesmen are as much in distress as you. They cannot help their malt and hops and beer and bread and meat being too dear for you to purchase. They all sell as cheap as they can, without being absolutely ruined. The beer you drink is more than half _tax_, and when the tax has been paid by the seller he must have payment back again from you who drink, or he must be ruined. The baker has numerous taxes to pay, and so has the butcher, and so has the miller and the farmer. Besides, all men are eager to sell, and, if they could sell cheaper they certainly would, because that would be the sure way of getting more custom. It is the weight of the taxes which presses us all to the earth, except those who receive their incomes out of those taxes. Therefore I exhort you most earnestly not to be induced to lay violent hands on those who really suffer as much as yourselves.

On the subject of lowering wages too, you ought to consider that your employers cannot give to you that which they have not. At present, corn is high in price, but that high price is no benefit to the farmer, because it has risen from the badness of the crop, which Mr. Hunt foretold at the Common Hall, and for the foretelling of which he was so much abused by the hirelings of the press, who, almost up to this very moment, have been boasting and thanking God for the goodness of the crop! The farmer whose corn is half destroyed, gains nothing by selling the remaining half for double the price at which he would have sold the whole. If I grow 10 quarters of wheat, and if I save it all and sell it for two pounds a quarter, I receive as much money as if I had sold the one-half of it for four pounds a quarter. And I am better off in the former case, because I want wheat for seed, and because I want some to consume myself. These matters I recommend to your serious consideration; because it being unjust to fall upon your employers to force them to give that which they have not to give, your conduct in such cases must tend to weaken the great cause in which we ought all now to be engaged, namely the removal of our burdens through the means of a reformed Parliament. It is the interest of vile men of all descriptions to set one part of the people against the other part; and therefore it becomes you to be constantly on your guard against their allurements.

When journeymen find their wages reduced, they should take time to reflect on the real cause, before they fly on their employers, who are in many cases in as great or greater distress than themselves. How many of those employers have of late gone to jail for debt and left helpless families behind them! The employer's trade falls off. His goods are reduced in price. His stock loses the half of its value. He owes money. He is ruined; and how can he continue to pay high wages? The cause of his ruin is the weight of the taxes, which presses so heavily on us all, that we lose the power of purchasing goods. But it is certain that a great many, a very large portion of the farmers, tradesmen, and manufacturers, have, by their supineness and want of public spirit, contributed towards the bringing of this ruin upon themselves and upon you. They have _skulked_ from their public duty. They have kept aloof from, or opposed all measures for a redress of grievances; and indeed, they still skulk, though ruin and destruction stare them in the face. Why do they not now come forward and explain to you the real cause of the reduction of your wages? Why do they not put themselves at your head in petitioning for redress? This would secure their property much better than the calling in of troops, which can never afford them more than a short and precarious security. In the days of their prosperity they were amply warned of what has now come to pass; and the far greater part of them abused and calumniated those who gave them the warning. Even if they would now act the part of men worthy of being relieved, the relief to us all would speedily follow. If they will not; if they will still skulk, they will merit all the miseries which they are destined to suffer.

Instead of coming forward to apply for a reduction of those taxes which are pressing them as well as you to the earth, what are they doing? Why, they are applying to the Government to add to their receipts by passing Corn Bills, by preventing foreign wool from being imported; and many other silly schemes. Instead of asking for a reduction of taxes they are asking for the means of paying taxes! Instead of asking for the abolition of sinecure places and pensions, they pray to be enabled to continue to pay the amount of those places and pensions! They know very well that the salaries of the judges and of many other persons were greatly raised, some years ago, on the ground of the rise in the price of labour and provisions, why then do they not ask to have those salaries reduced, now that labour is reduced? Why do they not apply to the case of the judges and others the arguments which they apply to you? They can talk boldly enough to you; but they are too great cowards to talk to the Government, even in the way of petition! Far more honourable is it to be a ragged pauper than to be numbered among such men.

These people call themselves the _respectable_ part of the nation. They are, as they pretend, the virtuous part of the people, because they are quiet; as if virtue consisted in immobility! There is a canting Scotchman in London, who publishes a paper called the '_Champion_' who is everlastingly harping upon the virtues of the 'fireside,' and who inculcates the duty of quiet submission. Might we ask this Champion of the teapot and milk-jug whether Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights were won by the fireside? Whether the tyrants of the House of Stuart and of Bourbon were hurled down by fireside virtues? Whether the Americans gained their independence, and have preserved their freedom, by sitting by the fireside? O, no! these were all achieved by action, and amidst bustle and noise. Quiet indeed! Why in this quality a log, or a stone, far surpasses even the pupils of this Champion of quietness; and the chairs round his fireside exceed those who sit in them. But in order to put these quiet, fireside, respectable people to the test, let us ask them if they approve of drunkenness, breaches of the peace, black eyes, bloody noses, fraud, bribery, corruption, perjury, and subornation of perjury; and if they say no, let us ask them whether these are not going on all over the country at every general election. If they answer yes, as they must unless they be guilty of wilful falsehood, will they then be so good as to tell us how they reconcile their inactivity with sentiments of virtue? Some men, in all former ages, have been held in esteem for their wisdom, their genius, their skill, their valour, their devotion to country, etc., but never until this age, was _quietness_ deemed a quality to be extolled. It would be no difficult matter to show that the quiet, fireside gentry are the most callous and cruel, and, therefore, the most wicked part of the nation. Amongst them it is that you find all the peculators, all the blood-suckers of various degrees, all the borough-voters and their offspring, all the selfish and unfeeling wretches, who, rather than risk the disturbing of their ease for one single month, rather than go a mile to hold up their hand at a public meeting, would see half the people perish with hunger and cold. The humanity, which is continually on their lips, is all fiction. They weep over the tale of woe in a novel; but round their 'decent fireside,' never was compassion felt for a real sufferer, or indignation at the acts of a powerful tyrant.

The object of the efforts of such writers is clearly enough seen. Keep all _quiet_! Do not rouse! Keep still! Keep down! Let those who perish, perish in silence! It will, however, be out of the power of these quacks, with all their laudanum, to allay the blood which is now boiling in the veins of the people of this kingdom; who, if they are doomed to perish, are at any rate resolved not to perish in silence. The writer whom I have mentioned above, says that he, of course, does not count 'the lower classes, who, under the pressure of need or under the influence of ignorant prejudice, may blindly and weakly rush upon certain and prompt punishment; but that the security of every decent fireside, every respectable father's best hopes for his children, still connect themselves with the Government.' And by Government he clearly means all the mass as it now stands. There is nobody so callous and so insolent as your sentimental quacks and their patients. How these 'decent fireside' people would stare, if some morning they were to come down and find them occupied by uninvited visitors! I hope they never will. I hope that things will never come to this pass: but if one thing more than any other tends to produce so sad an effect, it is the cool insolence with which such men as this writer treats the most numerous and most suffering classes of the people.

Long as this Address already is, I cannot conclude without some observations on the 'Charity Subscriptions' at the London Tavern. The object of this subscription professes to be to afford relief to the distressed labourers, etc. About forty thousand pounds have been subscribed, and there is no probability of its going much further. There is an absurdity on the face of the scheme; for, as all parishes are compelled by law to afford relief to every person in distress, it is very clear that, as far as money is given by these people to relieve the poor, there will be so much saved in the parish rates. But the folly of the thing is not what I wish you most to attend to. Several of the subscribers to this fund receive each of them more than ten thousand pounds and some more than thirty thousand pounds each, out of those taxes which you help to pay, and which emoluments not a man of them proposes to give up. The clergy appear very forward in this subscription. An Archbishop and a Bishop assisted at the forming of the scheme. Now then, observe that there has been given out of the taxes, for several years past, one hundred thousand pounds a year, for what, think you? Why for the relief of the poor clergy! I have no account at hand later than that delivered last year, and there I find this sum!--for the poor clergy! The rich clergy do not pay this sum; but it comes out of those taxes, part, and a large part of which you pay on your beer, malt, salt, shoes, etc. I daresay that the 'decent firesides' of these poor clergy still connect themselves with the Government. Amongst all our misery we have had to support the intolerable disgrace of being an object of the charity of a Bourbon Prince, while we are paying for supporting that family upon the throne of France. Well! But is this all? We are taxed, at the very same moment, for the support of the French Emigrants! And you shall see to what amount. Nay, not only French, but Dutch and others, as appears from the forementioned account laid before Parliament last year. The sum, paid out of the taxes, in one year, for the relief of suffering French Clergy and Laity, St. Domingo Sufferers, Dutch Emigrants, Corsican Emigrants, was one hundred and eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds; yes, one hundred and eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds paid to this set in one year out of those taxes of which you pay so large a share, while you are insulted with a subscription to relieve you, and while there are projectors who have the audacity to recommend schemes for preventing you from marrying while young, and to induce you to emigrate from your country! I'll venture my life that the 'decent firesides' of all this swarm of French clergy and laity, and Dutch, and Corsicans, and St. Domingo sufferers 'still connect themselves closely with the Government'; and I will also venture my life that you do not stand in need of one more word to warm every drop of blood remaining in your bodies! As to the money subscribed by regiments of soldiers, whose pay arises from taxes in part paid by you, though it is a most shocking spectacle to behold, I do not think so much of it. The soldiers are your fathers, brothers, and sons. But if they were all to give their whole pay, and if they amount to one hundred and fifty thousand men, it would not amount to one-half of what is now paid in Poor-rates, and of course would not add half a pound of bread to every pound which the unhappy paupers now receive. All the expenses of the Army and Ordnance amount to an enormous sum--to sixteen or eighteen millions; but the pay of one hundred and fifty thousand men, at a shilling a day each, amounts to no more than two million seven hundred and twelve thousand five hundred pounds. So that, supposing them all to receive a shilling a day each, the soldiers receive only about a third part of the sum now paid annually in Poor-rates.

I have no room, nor have I any desire, to appeal to your passions upon this occasion. I have laid before you, with all the clearness I am master of, the causes of our misery, the measures which have led to those causes, and I have pointed out what appears to me to be the only remedy--namely a reform of the Commons', or People's House of Parliament. I exhort you to proceed in a peaceable and lawful manner, but at the same time to proceed with zeal and resolution in the attainment of this object. If the skulkers will not join you, if the 'decent fireside' gentry still keep aloof, proceed by yourselves. Any man can draw up a petition, and any man can carry it up to London, with instructions to deliver it into trusty hands, to be presented whenever the House shall meet. Some further information will be given as to this matter in a future Number. In the meanwhile, I remain your Friend, WM. COBBETT.

TO JACK HARROW, AN ENGLISH LABOURER

_On the new Cheat which is now on foot, and which goes under the name of Savings Banks_

NORTH HAMPSTEAD, LONG ISLAND, _November 7th, 1818._

Friend Jack--You sometimes hear the Parson talk about deceivers, who go about in sheep's clothing; but who inwardly are ravening wolves. You frequently hear of the tricks of the London cheats, and I daresay you have often enough witnessed those of mountebanks and gypsies. But, Jack, all the tricks of these deceivers and cheaters, if the trickery of them all were put together, would fall far short of the trick now playing off under the name of Savings Banks. And seeing that it is possible that you may be exposed to the danger of having a few pounds picked out of your pocket by this trick, I think it right to put you on your guard against the cheat.

You have before been informed of who and what the Boroughmongers are. Therefore, at present, I shall enter into no explanation of their recent conduct. But, in order to give you a clear view of their motives in this new trick, and which, I think, is about the last in their budget, I must go back and tell you something of the history of their Debt, and of what are called the Funds. Some years ago the Boroughmongers put me into a loathsome prison for two years, made me pay a thousand pounds fine, and made me enter into recognisances for seven years, only because I expressed my indignation at the flogging of Englishmen, in the heart of England, under the superintendence of hired German troops brought into the country to keep the people in awe. It pleased God, Jack, to preserve my life and health, while I was in that prison. And I employed a part of my time in writing a little book entitled _Paper against Gold_. In this little book I fully explained all the frauds of what is called the _National Debt_, and of what are called the _Funds_. But as it is possible that you may not have seen that little book, I will here tell you enough about these things to make you see the reasons for the Boroughmongers using this trick of Savings Banks.

The Boroughmongers are, you know, those persons (some Lords, some Baronets, and some Esquires, as they call themselves) who fill, or nominate others to fill, the seats in the House of Commons. _Commons_ means the mass of the _people_. So that this is the House of the People, according to the law of the land. The people--you, I, and all of us, ought to vote for the men who sit in this House. But the said Lords, Baronets, and Esquires have taken our rights away, and they nominate the Members themselves. A _monger_ is a _dealer_, as ironmonger, cheesemonger, and the like: and as the Lords, Baronets, and Esquires sometimes sell and sometimes buy seats, and as the seats are said to be filled by the people in certain Boroughs, these Lords, Baronets, and Esquires are very properly called _Boroughmongers_; that is to say, dealers in boroughs or in the seats of boroughs. As all laws and all other matters of government are set up and enforced at the will of the two Houses, against whose will the king cannot stir hand or foot; and as the Boroughmongers fill the seats of the two Houses, they have all the power, and, of course, the king and the people have none. Being possessed of all the power; being able to tax us at their pleasure; being able to hang us for whatever they please to call a crime; they will, of course, do with our property and persons just what they please. And accordingly, they take from us more than the half of our earnings; and they keep soldiers (whom they deceive) to shoot at us and kill us, if we attempt to resist. They put us in dungeons when they like. And, in Ireland, they compel people to remain shut up in their houses from sunset to sunrise, and if any man, contrary to their commands, goes out of his house in the night, in order to go to the privy, they punish him very severely; and in that unhappy country they transport men and women to Botany Bay without any trial by jury, and merely by the orders of two justices of the peace appointed by themselves.

This, Jack, is horrid work to be going on amongst a people who call themselves _free_; amongst a people who boast of their liberties. But the facts are so; and now I shall explain to you how the Boroughmongers, who are so few in number compared to the whole people, are able to commit these cruel acts and to carry on this abominable tyranny; and you will see that the trick of Savings Banks makes a part of the means, which they now intend to use for the perpetuating of this tyranny.

Formerly, more than a hundred years ago, when the kings of England had some real power, and before the Boroughmongers took all the powers of king and people into their hands, the people, when the kings behaved amiss, used to rise against them and compel them to act justly. They beheaded Charles the First about one hundred and seventy years ago; and they drove James the Second out of the kingdom; they went so far as to set his family aside for ever, and they put up the present royal family in its stead.

This was all very well; but when King James had been driven out, the Lords and Baronets and Squires conceived the notion of ruling for ever over king and people. They made Parliaments, which used to be annual, three years of duration; and when the members had been elected for three years, the members themselves made a law to make the people obey them for seven years. Thus was the usurpation completed; and from that time to this the Boroughmongers have filled the seats just as it has pleased them to do it; and they have, as I said before, done with our property and our persons just what they have pleased to do.

Now it will naturally be matter of wonder to you, friend Jack, that this small band of persons, and of debauched wretched persons too, any half dozen of whom you would be able to beat with one hand tied down; it will be matter of wonder to you that this contemptible band should have been able thus to subjugate, and hold in bondage so degrading, the whole of the English people. But, Jack, recollect that once a parcel of fat, lazy, drinking, and guttling monks and friars were able to make this same people to work and support them in their laziness and debaucheries, aye, and almost to adore them, too; to go to them, and kneel down and confess their sins to them, and to believe that it was in their power to absolve them of their sins. Now how was it that these fat, these bastard-propagating rascals succeeded in making the people do this? Why by fraud; by deception; by cheatery; by making them believe lies; by frightening them half out of their wits; by making them believe that they would go to hell if they did not work for them. A ten-thousandth part of the people were able to knock the greasy vagabonds on the head; and they would have done it too; but they were afraid of going to hell if they had no priest to pardon them.

Thus did these miscreants govern by fraud. The Boroughmongers, as I shall by and by show, have of late been compelled to resort to open force; but for a long while they governed by fraud alone. First they, by the artful and able agents which they have constantly kept in pay, frightened the people with the pretended dangers of a return of the old king's family. The people were amused with this scarecrow, while the chains were silently forging to bind them with. But the great fraud, the cheat of all cheats, was what they call the national debt. And now, Jack, pray attend to me; for I am going to explain the chief cause of all the disgraces and sufferings of the labourers in England; and am also going to explain the reasons or motives which the Boroughmongers have for setting on foot this new fraud of Savings Banks. I beg you, Jack, if you have no other leisure time, to stay at home instead of going to church, for one single Sunday. Shave yourself, put on a clean shirt, and sit down and read this letter ten times over, until you understand every word of it. And if you do that, you will laugh at the parson and tax-gatherer's coaxings about Savings Banks. You will keep your odd pennies to yourself; or lay them out in bread or bacon.

You have heard, I daresay, a great deal about the national debt; and now I will tell you what this thing is, and how it came, and then you will see what an imposture it is, and how shamefully the people of England have been duped and robbed.

The Boroughmongers having usurped all the powers of government, and having begun to pocket the public money at a great rate, the people grew discontented. They began to think that they had done wrong in driving King James away. In a pretty little fable-book, there is a fable which says that the frogs, who had a log of wood for king, prayed to Jupiter to send them something more active. He sent them a stork, or heron, which gobbled them up alive by scores! The people of England found in the Boroughmongers what the poor frogs found in the stork; and they began to cry out against them and to wish for the old king back again.

The Boroughmongers saw their danger, and they adopted measures to prevent it. They saw that if they could make it the interest of a great many rich people to uphold them and their system they should be able to get along. They therefore passed a law to enable themselves to borrow money of rich people; and by the same law they imposed it on the people at large to pay, for ever, the interest of the money so by them borrowed.

The money which they thus borrowed they spent in wars, or divided amongst themselves, in one shape or another. Indeed the money spent in wars was pocketed, for the greater part, by themselves. Thus they owed, in time, immense sums of money; and as they continued to pass laws to compel the nation at large to pay the interest of what they borrowed, spent and pocketed, they called and still call this debt, the debt of the nation; or, in the usual words, the national debt.

It is curious to observe that there has seldom been known in the world any very wicked and mischievous scheme of which a priest of some description or other was not at the bottom. This scheme, certainly as wicked in itself as any that was ever known, and far more mischievous in its consequences than any other, was the offspring of a Bishop of Salisbury, whose name was Burnet; a name that we ought to teach our very children to execrate. This crafty priest was made a Bishop for his invention of this scheme; a fit reward for such a service.

The Boroughmongers began this debt one hundred and twenty-four years ago. They have gone on borrowing ever since; and have never paid off one farthing, and never can. They have continued to pass Acts to make the people pay the interest of what has been borrowed; till, at last, the debt itself amounts to more than all the lands, all the houses, all the trees, all the canals and all the mines would sell for at their full sterling value; and the money to pay the interest is taken out of men's rents and out of their earnings; and you, Jack, as I shall by and by prove to you, pay to the Boroughmongers more than the half of what you receive in weekly wages from your master.

Is not this a pretty state of things? Pray observe, Jack, the debt far exceeds the real full value of the whole kingdom, if there could be a purchaser found for it. So that, you see, as to private property no man has any, as long as this debt hangs upon the country. Your master, Farmer Gripe, for instance, calls his farm _his_. It is none of his, according to the Boroughmongers' law; for that law has pawned it for the payment of the interest of the Boroughmongers' debt; and the pawn must remain as long as the Boroughmongers' law remains. Gripe is compelled to pay out of the yearly value of his farm a certain portion to the debt. He may, indeed, sell the farm; but he can get only a part of the value; because the purchaser will have to pay a yearly sum on account of the pawn. In short, the Boroughmongers have, in fact, passed laws to take every man's private property away from him, in whatever portions their debt may demand such taking away; and a man who thinks himself an owner of land, is at best only a steward who manages it for the Boroughmongers.

This, however, is only a small part of the evil; for the whole of the rents of the houses and lands and mines and canals would not pay the interest of this debt; no, and not much more than the half of it. The labour is therefore pawned too. Every man's labour is pawned for the payment of the interest of this debt. Aye, Jack, you may think that you are working for yourself, and that, when on a Saturday night you take nine shillings from Farmer Gripe, the shillings are for your own use. You are grievously deceived, for more than half the sum is paid to the Boroughmongers on account of the pawn. You do not see this, but the fact is so. Come, what are the things in which you expend the nine shillings? Tea, sugar, tobacco, candles, salt, soap, shoes, beer, bread; for no meat do you ever taste. On the articles taken together, except bread, you pay far more than half tax; and you will observe that your master's taxes are, in part, pinched out of you. There is an army employed in Ireland to go with the excisemen and other taxers to make the people pay. If the taxers were to wait at the ale houses and grocers' shops, and receive their portion from your own hands, you would then clearly see that the Boroughmongers take away more than the half of what you earn. You would then clearly see what it is that makes you poor and ragged, and that makes your children cry for the want of a bellyful. You would clearly see that what the hypocrites tell you about this being your lot, and about Providence placing you in such a state in order to try your patience and faith, is all a base falsehood. Why does not Providence place the Boroughmongers and the parsons in a state to try their patience and faith? Is Providence less anxious to save them than to save you? If you could see clearly what you pay on account of the Boroughmongers' pawn, you would see that your misery arises from the designs of a benevolent Providence being counteracted by the measures of the Borough-tyrants.

Your lot, indeed! Your lot assigned by Providence! This is real blasphemy! Just as if Providence, which sends the salt on shore all round our coast, had ordained that you should not have any of it unless you would pay the Boroughmongers fifteen shillings a bushel tax upon it! But what a Providence must that be which would ordain that an Englishman should pay fifteen shillings tax on a bushel of English salt, while a Long Islander pays only two shillings and sixpence for a bushel of the same salt, after it is brought to America from England? What an idea must we have of such a Providence as this? Oh no, Jack; this is not the work of Providence. It is the work of the Boroughmongers; the pretext about Providence has been invented to deceive and cheat you, and to perpetuate your slavery.