that no two men, can force from ruffian power that which it holds; but, because this was, and is the case, could nothing be done to withdraw from the ruffians the support they receive from ignorance? Could nothing be done, in this way, by a man, who had, as every member of parliament has, the whole press of the country at his service, and unbought service too? is here, from New York, where he is carrying on business like a man, as he is, though only just sixteen. He has been out this morning, and has shot a bag-full of wood-cocks to the beautiful dog, which you gave him. He says he has seen from sixty to a hundred. He, who has never felt the rod or seen the frown of a pedagogue, and has had a life of gardening and rural sports, is as capable of great business as most men are at thirty. He has nearly attained the height of his earliest ambition; that was, "to be as tall It is true, that while the paper-steady and as trust-worthy and as fabric lasts, no Reform can be obtained; but, ought not our cock, then, to have endeavoured to destroy the paper-fabric? Nay; why does he not do it now? But, it is" as Papa," which, you will bear in vain to ask the question; and, therefore, I leave the shoy-hoys and the Bank for this time, reserving my remarks on the Grand Scheme as the subject of my next letter. In the meanwhile, I remain, most sincerely, your faithful friend and most obedient servant, WM. COBBETT. P. S. My son James, who, you remember, was so much delighted when he killed his first partridge, in mind, my boy, is a little taller than you! I do not believe, that it is in the power of man, or, which is much more, of woman, to draw a wilful falshood from his lips, or to get a glass of wine, or of spirits, or of beer, or of cider, down. his throat. Many, many things, make him sigh for home; but, convinced that he ought to remain, remain he will. How I shall leave him behind me, I do not know; but, the thing must be, and, therefore, I shall get through it as well as I can. Entered at Stationers' Hall. Printed by HAY and TORNER, 11, Newcastle Street, Strand, for T DOLBY, COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER. 65] LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1819. LETTER X. ΤΟ HENRY HUNT, Esq. On the recent Tricks of the Boroughmongers, relative to their Paper-Money. North Hampstead, Long Island, [66 to begin upon them? They are such baffled, battered, degraded scum, that one is afraid to touch them for fear of contamination. To execrate them is to do them an honour of which they are wholly unworthy. They are too low, too notoriously false, foul and despicable to be worthy of censure. To bestow censure on any one is to say, by implication, that there are persona in the world, who doubt, or may pos thinks of setting about to censure the Devil? These fellows are below censure; knave, fool, all that is wicked in design and despicable in talent is implied in the very word Boroughmonger. MY DEAR HUNT, In my last letter I exposed the falshood and the folly of a pro-sibly doubt, of his demerits. Who position to save the Bank from paying the fractions on its debts in order to enable it to pay the whole of the Debt, including those very fractions. I have now to remark on the Grand Cheat; namely, the proposition to pay in specie at the end of five years from February, 1819. The news-paper Reports as to this matter are so imperfect, that I do not know, that I possess a knowledge of the precise terms of the proposition. But, in substance it is what I have said. However, let us see what sort of a figure they now cut. They have been in a state of non-payment twenty two years. But, stop! For some one may say, "if they can go on for twenty two years, they can go on for ever; but, by the same reasoning, a cancer, that does not kill in a year, will never kill. A cancer surely kills at last; and so does a papermoney not convertible into specie. There are merchants who really When I addressed you, in last July, on the subject of the renewal of the swindle-protection Bill, I asked you how I should begin upon the vagabonds. Whe-are insolvent many years before ther I should shake a halter in their faces, or show them the point of my shoe. How, then, am I now they actually stop. Minchin and Printed by Hay and TURNER, 11, Newcastle Street, Strand; up. I remember this very MIN- [ being overthrown: In my last CHIN, the sleek-headed, smooth-letter I explained their motives tongued Minchin, observing to for forming their Grand Com mittee. I explained what were looked to as the effects of it. I will now, if I can, describe their Grand Scheme, which, for brevity's sake, I will call the Sixty Ounce scheme. The lies of past years would no longer serve their turn. They could not have renewed the Bill in the usual way, without being ashamed to look even each other in the face. It was a thing so by me, that they dared not try it again. They dared not to talk any longer about paying at the end of another year. And yet, something they must do to put off the day of their destruction. me, that there was pity due to most bankrupts, except to bankrupt bankers; for, these must always know well the state of their affairs; and, that, as they must always know what they really possessed, they must be rogues, if they broke in people's debt. I agreed with him, and I now congratulate him most cordially on his practical illustration of the principle. This fellow once press ed me to belong to his Bible-So-blown upon, made so ridiculous ciety. Grant, who lived at Wickham, and who was another of these Portsmouth Bankers, advised Mrs. Churcher not to take" Cobbett's 'trash;" but, to save the twopences, and to buy, a "family Bible." Pretty fellow! A " family Bible!" This is the way they have carried on their traffick. GRANT told Mrs. CHURCHER, that Cobbett's writings would only tend to her ruin, and that the Bible would be the salvation of her! It is curious that I should hear, in Long Island, of these tricks, which were passing under my nose in Hampshire. What choice knaves those are, who have been carrying on these Bible-matter, and even if paying in gold Schemes! Begging your pardon for this digression, I now return to our Grand Report makers. Twenty two years have the Boroughmongers been in a state of stoppage of payment. They cannot remain in that state much longer, without Well, then, up comes this scheme of paying in a paper acknowledged to be depreciated; but, in fact, as we shall see by-and-by, not paying at all. The Borough Bank is, first, to give gold in bars for its paper, at the rate of four pounds one shilling an ounce. This is a complete avowal of the depreciation. The Borough notes are at a discount of five pounds in the hundred, even in this view of the bars of sixty cunces were really a paying. The Borough notes are at a discount, then, and the fundholders are already paid, openly and avowedly in a depreciated paper. Yet, not a word did the base Shoy-hoy, Burdett, say, or, at least nothing did he do, upon this famous occasion. 1 bers After the Borough Bank has which are becoming in its Mem paid a year at the foregoing rate; that is to say, after it has been Occasionally selling bars of gold for its notes, and taking its notes in payment at a discount of five pounds in the hundred, it is to take its notes at a smaller discount; and, at the end of five years, it is to pay in specie. That is to say, it is then to pay in gold and silver coin! Was there ever such a poor, paltry, stupid shuffle as this! And yet the Shoy-hoy, Burdett, the Shoy-hoy, Waithman, and all the rest of the shoy-hoys, were as dumb as fishes! "What could we do?" This is what they say, This is what Burdett has always been saying. If they could do nothing, I will now show you, that I could have done something; and it will be seen, that that something might have been done by any man of talent, who had had a mind to do it. The Boroughmen should not have had their Grand Report and their Sixty Ounce Scheme one day upon the Table of the House before I would have moved the following Resolutions. 02 II. That this House has now on its Journals and in its Statute Book more than, twenty solemn declarations on the part of this House, that the Bank has, at every period, possessed sufficient means to pay all its notes in specie; and that its paper, nominal sum for nominal sum, has always been equal in value to gold. Yet, at the end of four years of profound peace, this House is now called upon to pass laws to protect the Bank in taking its own notes at a discount of five pounds in the Hundred. III. That this House has been repeatedly assured by successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, that payment at the Bank was deferred only on account of the troubled state of the affairs of commerce all over the world, which state, would, of course, terminate with the war; and, though the reasons for such deferring might appear wholly unsatisfactory to some minds, this House naturally expected, that the complete renewal of the cause would remove the effects, and that the end of the war would also be the end ofá spurious paper-money. But, that this House, so far from seeing an end to this spurious paper-money, has seen it augmented in quantity during peace; has seen it upheld by acts of parliament on pretexts the most frivolous; and now, at last, ha s the RESOLVED, I. That, this House has, with utter astonishment, heard the Report of its Select and Secret Committee on the affairs of the Bank, and on the means of causing that Body to pay in specie; astonishment, which, when it looks back to the past, is extorted from it, in spite of the mutual respect and forbearance, inexpressible'mortification to re eive a Report, from a Select and Secret Committee, recommending the passing of laws to keep this apurious paper-money on float for five years yet to come, making nine years, after the end of that war, which, as was so often and so solemnly alledged to this House, was the sole cause of nonpayment in specie. IV. That, this House, in looking back to the epoch of the first stoppage of the Bank, and in examining the several documents then laid before it by the Bank and by its own Committees, thinks it due to its own character to declare, that the circumstances attending that Stoppage were such as to call on it to hear with great suspicion, and to act with great caution on, any and every account, document, er assurance, that it may receive, either directly or indirectly, from the Bank; it being manifest to this House, that, at the epoch alluded to, the Acts passed by the parliament, were obtained on false grounds, which arose out of a clandestine contrivance of the Bank Directors and the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. doubted by its creditors, many of whom presented notes for payment in coin. That the Bank Directors applied to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer to obtain a law to protect them against their preditors; and that the same Bank Directors then solemnly declared to their creditors, that they, the Directors, desired no such protee tion; and that they merely yielded to the commands of superior power. VI. That it was under assurances of ability to pay in the Bank, and also under assurances that the necessity of protection would be of very short duration, that the first aet of parliament for protecting the Bank was passed; and, that it was now clear to all the world, that those assurances were not only utterly false in them. selves, but known to be false to the parties making them. VII. That, with such facts be fore its eyes, this House is too jea lous of its own honour not to desire most anxiously to avoid standing before the nation as an associate of the Bank Directors and Company; and that, for this reason, this House has seen with great pain, in the Report of its Select and Secret Committee, strong marks of V. That this House finds, with surprize, and not without indignation, that, at the epoch before mentioned, the acts passed to pro-a most familiar intercourse be-, tect the Bank against its creditors, and which acts were a violation of every principle of the laws and constitution of this realm; it finds, that, at that epoch, the sufficiency of the Bauk to pay its notes was tween that Committee and the Bauk Directors, and perceives, in the Report, an anxiety to palliate the acts of the Directors, and even almost an assumption, on behalf of the House, of a full participa |