Part 17

We can readily anticipate the surprise the public must have felt at the nonsensical and unjust doctrine here broached by the _Whig_ Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man in the possession of a large income was doing injustice to an office if he refused to take the salary pertaining to it, though such salary was drained from a heavily-taxed people! But it is really wonderful how much a little acquaintance with office will alter the liberal and patriotic opinions of a man,--even of that boaster of economy and retrenchment, the _honest-looking_ Lord ALTHORPE! When Lord Durham and the Duke of Richmond first accepted place, the public heard much of their high-minded contempt for gain, and were told how purely disinterested were their views on entering the public service. Time, however, proved that money was not altogether so offensive to these patriotic peers, and to avoid doing injustice to their offices, they at length consented (amazing condescension!) to receive their salaries. Such an act of justice _to an office_, which cannot be appreciated by the object, is in very bad taste, considering it is detrimental to the public, who would have felt grateful for a similar regard to its own interests. But the Duke of Richmond's conduct by no means surprised us: he who is only a Tory in disguise was just the man to pretend a contempt for salary before he was in place, and to clutch at it ravenously the moment he got into power. Some persons, when he first spoke of taking no pay, laughed at his unfitness for office, and he was strongly advised to resign, as he got nothing but ridicule for his pains. His grace heeded not this rebuke, but appears to have been actuated by the same feeling as the blind fiddler, who was recommended to begone, as every one laughed at him. "Hold thy peace," said the fiddler, "we shall have their money presently, and then we will laugh at them."

Thus it will be seen that the interests of the people have never been considered by any ministry, however great its pretensions to honesty and patriotism. Added to this lamentable fact, an all-opposing and insuperable obstacle has, for many years, been obtruding itself on the energies of the country,--the embarrassing and overwhelming STATE SECRETS. These have ever formed a paramount consideration with royalty; and, in order to prevent them being made public, the constitution has been openly and shamelessly infringed, morality and honesty set at defiance, and the order of society reversed! The enormous charges entailed on this country, by bribing the parties in possession of these secrets, have been made fully manifest in our preceding pages. Still it had been utterly impossible for ministers to carry on such a ruinous system of peculation and crime, if they had not contrived the corruption of the people's representatives. This was so effectually accomplished by Pitt, Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Sidmouth, that every law they thought proper to propose, and every supply of money they demanded, for whatever iniquitous purpose it might be required, was sure to meet with the ready acquiescence of the House of Commons. Hence the crown became a mighty host of power, perpetually acquiring an accession of purchased adherents, who ever exhibited the greatest readiness to accomplish the unconstitutional purposes of their abandoned employers.

It may here not be improper succinctly to explain of what materials this "host of power" consisted at the death of George the Fourth. Out of the six hundred and fifty-eight who composed the House of Commons, four hundred and eighty-eight, or nearly three-fourths, were returned by the influence or nomination of one hundred and forty-four peers, and one hundred and twenty-three commoners. These patrons, by themselves or their nominees, necessarily determined the decisions of both houses of parliament; and, consequently, engrossed the whole power of the state! In the exercise of this overgrown influence, however, they were happily a little restrained by the operation of public opinion, as prompted by the liberty of the press, and sustained by the trial by jury,--both of which they, in vain, attempted to destroy. This body of boroughmongers, as we have shewn, consisted of two hundred and sixty-seven individuals,--including lords, ladies, commoners, lunatics, and minors! They constituted the oligarchy,--that selfish faction so unhappily familiar to the public of the present day by the name of the "Conservatives," or the "Cumberland Club." Of this faction, so long the keepers of the now-explained secrets of state, the nominal ministers of the crown were, in effect, necessarily the tools or agents. Under such a monstrous system of government, carried on for the exclusive interest of the prevailing faction, the blackest deeds were countenanced by men in power, of the truth of which our volumes will furnish future generations with abundant proof. This usurpation of the whole power of the state by two hundred and sixty-seven persons, however, was not effected suddenly; it was the result of gradual encroachments on the right of suffrage by a succession of the votes of a corrupt and venal House of Commons, commencing with the septennial act, a little more than a century ago. As these two hundred and sixty-seven individuals returned nearly three-fourths of the Lower House, and constituted a majority in the Upper, their influence was supreme in both. To the one hundred and forty-four peers who influenced the House of Commons was added the whole tribe of the unchristianlike and ostentatious bishops, who, almost to a man, voted with the oligarchial members, in hopes of coming in for a share of the "loaves and fishes." From this, it is almost impossible to say which house of parliament was most corrupt of the two. Hence arose the incessant attempts to abridge the rights and liberties of the people, through the forms of the constitution. The independence of parliament became words of contempt to all who knew the secret spring of their automaton movements. But, independent of corruption, another grievous cause of complaint exists in the Upper House. It has been frequently proved that both IDIOTS and LUNATICS have exercised their "hereditary" right of assisting in the making of British laws!!! We also lately observed, in the farewell address of Lord Stanley, _who is heir to a peerage_, the reason assigned to his constituents for withdrawing from the House of Commons was, "the rapid growth of an infirmity under which he has long laboured." That infirmity is deafness; and here arises a curious question: if his lordship's infirmity disqualify him from sitting in a house whose functions are legislatorial, how can he be qualified for a seat in a house which is both _legislatorial_ and _judicial_? If his lordship's deafness unfit him to be a maker of laws, how can he, when he becomes a member of the Upper House, be fit for the discharge of the duties both of _legislator_ and _judge_,--HEARING, in the latter case, being more indispensable than in the former? How injurious is the doctrine of the legitimate descent of wisdom! A member of the Lower House becomes deaf, like Lord Stanley, or an idiot, like some scores of members who shall be nameless, and therefore unfit for the duties of legislation _there_; but if he happen to be the heir to a peerage, the death of a father makes the deaf to hear, and imbues the idiot with intellect; and he is in a moment fitted not only for _legislatorial_ but for judicial functions! How much longer will the people tolerate such "hereditary" privileges? But, even from the dawn of the French revolution, and the lesson which Napoleon gave to tyrants, the oligarchy and the people have maintained a constant and increasing struggle; and the year 1832 has plainly proclaimed to which party the victory will be ultimately awarded.

From such an unconstitutional state of things as we have here briefly described, Englishmen may account for the unjust wars which have overwhelmed them with debt, poverty, and taxes, in order to retard the progress of liberty, and stultify the human intellect. In what a miserable plight did such wars leave this vast island, covered as she once was with the gorgeous mantle of successful agriculture! They left her "with Industry in rags, and Patience in despair: the merchant without a ledger, the shops without a customer, the Exchange deserted, and the Gazette crowded." Let us inquire for what purposes these wars were so obstinately maintained. Were they for the benefit of Europe?--for the happiness of mankind?--for the strengthening of liberty?--for the improvement of politics and philosophy? Alas! no. But, by these long and bloody wars, England has compelled the millions in America to manufacture for themselves, and the greater part of the Continent to do the same, to the manifest injury of our own artizans. Besides this impolicy, the American war, from 1776 to 1782, cost this country two thousand, two hundred, and seventy millions, and a half. The fleet alone, in 1779, created an expense of one hundred and eighty millions. During the crusade against French liberty, our national debt was increased from two hundred millions to nine hundred millions, and the interest from nine to forty-five millions per annum. And what was the object to be obtained by this war? To save Louis the Sixteenth, and to check that spirit of propagandism, announced in the French Chamber, from being formidably maintained and spread by the troops of France. To effect this, England took up arms when Louis the Sixteenth had gone to his ancestors, and when the Republican armies, flushed with victory, and threatened with the guillotine in the event of defeat, were become, from raw recruits, desperate and veteran soldiers. We reserved our defence of the monarch till he had perished on the scaffold,--our defence of the monarchy till the French Republic was declared "a besieged city, and France a vast camp!" Then we commenced a war with allies who were become anxious for peace, and who, in taking our money, reserved it to pay the expense of the campaign they had finished, without any consideration for the violent inclination for fighting which we had just been seized with. This was the policy which Mr. Pitt asked Mr. Canning if he approved of; this was the policy which Mr. Canning came into parliament to defend, and which he did defend on every occasion, and which he always boasted having defended to his dying day! But it is only a person well acquainted with the House of Commons at this period who could believe that Mr. Canning's defence of such ministerial imbecility received enthusiastic applause! There never was a collection of more glaring contradictions, more gaudy sophisms, than the youthful orator's declamatory harangue. The war was to be pursued because we were victorious; peace was to be refused on account of the successes of the enemy; France was too weak to be respected,--too formidable not to be opposed! As for the sums we were expending, they were insignificant when compared with the objects we had in view. Our ancestors, whose immaculate wisdom Mr. Canning was at that time so fond of citing, would certainly have been astonished to find that those objects were the re-establishment of Spain in its ancient power, and the subjugation of Rome to the authority of the Pope! The heart of any reflecting man must burn within him when he thinks that a sanguinary war was undertaken for the purpose of forcing France out of her undoubted right of choosing her own monarch,--a war which uprooted the very foundation of the English constitution, which declared tyranny eternal, and announced to the people, amidst the thunder of artillery, that, no matter how aggrieved, their only allowable attitude was that of supplication, which, when it told the French reformer of 1793 that his defeat was just, told the British reformer of 1688 his triumphal revolution was treason, forgetting that OUR KING HIMSELF WAS THE CREATURE OF THAT REVOLUTION! After an immense loss of life and treasure, the Bourbons were, for a time, restored to the throne of France, contrary to the wishes of at least nine-tenths of the French people; for the Bourbons had proved themselves incapable of learning Mercy from Misfortune, or Wisdom from Experience. Vindictive in prosperity, servile in defeat, timid in the field, vacillating in the cabinet, their very name had become odious to the ears of a Frenchman, and Napoleon had only to present himself to ensure their precipitate flight. The downfall of that great man, who shed a splendour around royalty unknown to it before, will ever be regretted by the majority of the French people, though British ministers have classed the unhallowed act in the list of their achievements! By the same tyrannical means, a prince was restored to Portugal, who, when his dominions were invaded, his people distracted, his crown in danger, and all that could interest the highest energies of man at issue, left his cause to be combatted by foreigners, and fled, with cowardly precipitation, to claim the shameful protection of Lord Castlereagh and his junta! A wretch was also restored to unhappy Spain, in the person of the "beloved" Ferdinand, who filled his dungeons and fed his rack with the heroic remnant that had braved war, famine, and massacre beneath his banners,--who rewarded Patriotism with a prison, Fidelity with torture, Heroism with the scaffold, and Piety with the inquisition! The royal monster proclaimed his humanity by the number of his death-warrants, and his religious zeal by embroidering petticoats for the blessed virgin! Such were the three dynasties restored by these cruel wars. As to the rest of Europe, how has it been ameliorated?--what solitary benefit have the "deliverers" conferred? If we look back to Lord Castlereagh's treaties of 1814 and 1815, we shall there find that the states of the feeble were given to the powerful, and guarantees made to preserve the institutions of every former tyranny. Saxony, Genoa, Norway, and, above all, unhappy Poland,--that speaking monument of regal murder and "legitimate" robbery, furnish a lamentable illustration of the cruel injustice of these treaties. Italy was also parcelled out to temporizing Austria, and Prussia, after fruitless toil and wreathless triumphs, was mocked with the promise of a visionary constitution; while England was left, eaten by the cancer of an incurable debt, exhausted by poor rates, supporting a "civil" list of near a million and a half annually, guarded by an unconstitutional standing army, misrepresented by the House of Commons, mocked with a military peace, and girt with the fortifications of a war establishment!!! This, frightful as the picture may appear, is but an outline of the miseries that have been produced by our long and sanguinary wars, undertaken to protect the monster of legitimacy, and to crush the rising liberties of an enlightened people! These are the "ACHIEVEMENTS" for which the Duke of Wellington received his title and his enormous wealth, and for which he unblushingly claims the _gratitude_ of Englishmen!!!

While all this misery was being accomplished abroad, how were our ministers employed at home? Why, in feeding the bloated mammoth of sinecure, in weighing the farthings of some poor clerk's salary, in preparing Ireland for a garrison, and England for a poor-house,--in furnishing means for their spendthrift master to erect Chinese palaces, to decorate dragoons with his "tasteful" inventions, to purchase gold and silver baubles, and to load his mistresses and his minions with the produce of the people's industry! We had also, at this period, a "saint" in the Exchequer, who studied Scripture for some purpose: the famishing people cried out for _bread_, and the pious Vansittart gave them _stones_! But the idea that a man like Vansittart should entail a debt of above four hundred millions of pounds on the country; the idea that "the least, the meanest" of the Pitt tribe should make the House of Commons vote that the Bank note, worth twenty worn shillings, was as valuable as the guinea worth twenty-seven good ones, will hardly be credited by future generations. The weakest man that ever held office under a crown may well boast that he reduced the parliament of England to the lowest degradation, to the most abject servility, that a public assembly of gentlemen was ever trodden to. Yet, strange as it must appear, it was for such services that this same Vansittart was created--a lord!! Lord Bexley was consequently sent to the "Upper House," as a proof of the high approbation in which his talents were held by his admiring master! In that situation, he has since zealously exerted himself to preserve every existing abuse, and his ill-acquired title has ever figured in the list of those who vote against the people.

To keep up such an iniquitous state of affairs, it was deemed necessary to persecute those who struggled to bring back the constitution to its original principles. Hence the employment of spies and informers; hence systematic massacre, imprisonment, and cruelty; hence the regular manufacture of forged seditious placards for the purpose of affording a pretext for the military execution against the reformers at Manchester and elsewhere; and hence, for such atrocities could happen under no other system upon earth, the murders, the cold-blooded murders, recorded in our preceding pages.

Even the most superficial observer must be convinced that our country has long been gradually degenerating from its greatness, that the most fictitious and speculative means have uniformly been devised to prop her exchequer, and that the most plausible, though, to many, unintelligible, pleas advanced for introducing new taxes and new laws of an arbitrary description, tending to abridge the civil liberties and paralyze the energies of the people. These, however, have eventually failed of producing their desired end. Despotism, and the total thraldom of the mind, Providence will never allow to be the destiny of generous and noble-minded Englishmen,--at least for any length of time. An arbitrary use of power naturally leads to extremes, and these extremes eventually to a crisis, opening the door of dissatisfaction and inquiry, where a stand must be made, rescinding every possibility either of proceeding or of retreating. Is not such our present political situation? And whence, let us again inquire, arises this state of affairs? Surely not to be ascribed to a turbulent disposition or a moral degeneracy of the working classes. It is the grossest deceit and hypocrisy, not to say the most audacious and ungrateful calumny, to stigmatize them with such opprobrium; for never were any people more injured, more oppressed, nor more insulted, than were the tax-payers of England during the last two reigns! Ministers have too long imposed upon the credulity of the timid, by describing every riotous proceeding as the natural consequence of the progress of liberal opinions. The excesses of a few rioters, who most probably knew not the extent of the mischief they were doing, ought not to be attributed to the people generally. Such accusations are a gross libel on the peaceable spirit of Englishmen, and are only used by corrupt and designing men to raise an alarm against liberty; for mischief of this kind may be attributed, with more certainty, to the cowardice, folly, and wickedness of certain public functionaries, liberally paid to prevent such disgraceful exhibitions. But the "church and state" men have never failed to turn riots to the illustration of their own injurious theory. "See!" cry they, exulting over the scene, "the effects of power in the hands of the people!" Yet the people,--that is, the grand mass of the community,--were not at all concerned in effecting the mischief, for who beside such libellers would call an assemblage of all the refuse of society--the people? The first irregularities at Bristol, for instance, might have been suppressed by the slightest exertion of manly spirit; or, indeed, that destructive riot had never commenced but for the headstrong or cowardly, (we hardly know which to call it) conduct of Sir Charles Wetherell, who openly declared that he would insult the Bristol people with his detested person, "if a cannon forced his entrance!" Did not the Tories, then, we ask, both create and feed the riots at Bristol, for the purpose of frightening the people from reform? The people at large, we say, ought not to be blamed for such events; the whole of the culpability belongs to the aiders and abettors of them, and the appointed ministers of the law, in whom the people trust, but have mostly been deceived. This blame, however, has always been laid to the people, while all men of arbitrary principles rejoice at the calamity, as an auspicious event, confirming all their theories, and justifying their practice! But these have been some of the murderous means employed to augment and continue the political torpor of the people of England for the last sixty years. When any appeal to the people was in agitation on the subject of liberty, it was sufficient for Pitt, Liverpool, Castlereagh, Canning, Sidmouth, or any of their minions, to exclaim, "Remember the riots!" and the intended measure was sure to be relinquished immediately, when these despotic ministers chuckled over the success of their scheme, as though they had gained the most splendid victory. The excesses of the French revolution in 1793 were peculiarly grateful to the friends of tyranny in England. While the patriot wept, the factor of despotism triumphantly shouted, "Here is another instance of the people's unfitness to possess power, and the mischievous effects of excessive liberty!" Every art which ingenuity could practise, and influence assist in its operation, was exerted to vilify and misrepresent the real design of the French revolution. From this moment, persecutions were vigorously commenced against patriotism, and it became sedition to hint at parliamentary reform,--the root of the people's grievances. Never, since the expulsion of the Stuarts, were such vigorous laws enforced,--never before did Pitt so exult in the downfall of liberty. He and his followers no longer skulked, no longer walked in masquerade. They boasted of their principles, and claimed the honour of being the only friends to law, order, and religion! They talked of the English laws being too lenient for the punishment of sedition, and the acts consequently introduced for its more effectual suppression were made agreeable to the most refined notions of despotism. The clergy now stood forward in their pulpits, and preached, not the word of God, but that doctrine which led the nearest way to promotion, while many other needy and avaricious men wrote in favour of an arbitrary government. Thus fear in the well-meaning, self-interest in the knavish, and systematic subtlety among the state-secret keepers, caused a general uproar in favour of principles and practices at variance with constitutional liberty, and invested the reigning prince and his mother with all but absolute power. How zealously they took advantage of this state of alarm, our volumes fully explain. The friends of humanity, however, have now cause to rejoice that the film of deception is rapidly disappearing from before the eyes of the people, and that such panic fears, servile sycophantism, and artful bigotry, can no longer prevail over cool reason and liberal philanthropy. Such a feverish delirium has passed away, and sober sense perceives the necessity of destroying the destructive power which held so baneful a sway over English liberty during the last two reigns.