of the debate a division took place, when there appeared, for the motion 108, against it 253. This debate, in which there was a pretty fair trial of strength between the two parties, was also a trial upon the subject of the Danish expedition; but, with the exception of the information, communicated to the house by Mr. Canning, there was nothing said, which had not, in substance at least, been said before. That information was, indeed, of great importance; for, it not only strips the Danes of that fine character for inoffensiveness, which had been attributed to them by some persons, but showed, most satisfactorily, that it was next to impossible, that they could have felt any thing like shame or sorrow at giving up their fleet upon the conditions proposed by us. The ministers took the ground of necessity, evident from notorious circumstances; and upon this ground, which they should have taken at the first, the plain common sense of the country and of mankind is with them. It was well to make known to the country, facts which were not before generally known; and this has now been done; but, it was, at no time, proper to lay any stress upon "secret" information, because that was sure to excite doubts as to the great plea of necessity. Some of those, who insist, that this is a new system of morality, upon which we are acting, may, probably, be sincere ; but, I would ask any one of those gentlemen, whether, if he had, in the course of a year, seen Sweden invaded through the means of Denmark; a hostile fleet lying in the ports of Norway, and another in those of Sweden, he would not have cursed the imbecility of those ministers, who waited patiently, to see Napoleon effect an object, so dear to his heart? Much has been said about the consequence of the future hatred of the Danes towards us. The hatred of nation, I allow, is not to be wantonly provoked; but, will any one pretend, that it is possible for any future hatred of the Danes to produce acts more hostile to our welfare, than those of which Denmark has been guilty for the last thirty years? In what way is the hatred of that nation to operate upon us? In the way of war to be sure. Well, then, as I have, upon a former occasion, clearly shewn, they have availed themselves of every opportunity of proving to us the existence of this hatred for the period above mentioned, without having recently discovered, in any part of their conduct, the slightest inclination to amend their ways. But, in taking a final leave of this subject (for it is now pretty well exhausted,) I beg leave to repeat, that if the Danes had been as good a nation as they are a bad nation; if they had been towards us, as harmless in their future probable views and in their past conduct, as they have been mischievous, still, if I had been minister, I would, if they had rejected the proposition made to them, have seized their fleet and arsenals; because, though ever so willing to resist the power of France, it was manifest that they wanted the ability; because, situated as they were with respect to our enemy, it was also manifest, that they would have been made use of as instruments in his hands, for the purpose of insuring our subjugation; and because, having the power of my country committed to my hands, it is my duty so to employ that power as to prevent every thing which manifestly tends to its subjugation, let who will suffer from my exertions. And this is no "new morality." It is morality as old as the hills and the valleys. It is a morality which must be adopted; or, we must confess that there are certain political evils greater than that of seeing one's country conquered. 1990 Westminster, 5th Feb. 1808. 66 IRELAND, AS IT IS. SIR,If there be any case, in which, more than another, it behoves those, who venture to state an opinion, to satisfy their own minds perfectly of the justice of their impression, it is that, wherein their opinion, if adopted and acted upon, would be decisive of the happiness or misery of millions of their fellow creatures. Yet, so indisposed or incapable is the bulk of mankind, to undertake or exercise this important function of intellectual and independent beings, that there is no imposition too gross, no error too flagrant, not to obtain the countenance and support of the ignorant and unreflecting, The facility of being deluded is the preroga tive of the vulgar and unlettered; and whilst there are dupes there will be impostors. Even those who are fully competent to form a judgment, are the automatons of habit, înfluence, or association, unless where their own immediate interests hang upon the result of their decision. Public measures are of wide operation, and comparatively distant consequences; and, unless their effects be locally felt, or faithfully exposed, the gene rality of the people seldom bestow a thought upon them. This is more particularly the case, when the interests of remote parts only of the empire are at stake, and the existence of habitual prejudices adds to the facility or popular delusion. Weak men with heated imaginations, and wicked men with factious objects are equally ready to promote their respective purposes, by stimulating the very worst propensities of the unthinking part of the community. No part of the empire has suffered, in this way, so much as Ireland, because no part has been so uniformly traduced, misrepresented, and condemned, either in the whole or in part, by almost all of those, who have undertaken to give to the British public an idea of its actual situation. We have had bigots of all sects, and partisans of all factions, amongst the labourers in this departament; but, from the gross misstatements in parliament, down to the unblushing ignorance and effroutery of the wretched pamphlet by Mr. John Bowles, there has not been any statement made to the public, founded upon a comprehensive conception of the real extent of, Irish grievances, and the absolute necessity of adequate redress.-In judging of the actual state of Ireland, it would be absurd to apply any standard, by which the circumstances of any other country are usually estimated. Free without the benefits of the constitution, commercial without the possession of capital, and agricultural in spite of every discouragement, the state of that country defies all parallel or competition. To be justly ascertained, it must be estimated as it is, without reference to any other country, and the investigation, that is to lead to any general result, must be conducted with a view to the interests of the people, and not for local, partial, or party purposes. The great and inmediate cause of the distresses of Ireland is the want of capital; the intermediate cause, which produces that want of capital, arises from the frequent disturbances, interrupting the pub. lic tranquillity, and endangering the individual security of the inhabitants of that country, and the remote or ultimate cause is to be found in the high rents and the extravagaat exactions of proprietors, proctors, and nriddlemen. This is the clymax by which we ascend to the true source and origin of Irish calamities. The statement may be unpalatable to the Irish landlords, but it is not the less founded; and no one of them, in or out of parliament, will venture to contradict it. The fact is so well known to every one, in the slightest degree acquainted with that country, that it would require more brass, than Mr. Bowles, has proved himself to possess by writing on a subject, of which he is totally ignorant, to deny it. But, I shall proceed to examine the precise manner, in which these causes respectively act, and here we shall find, that, tliough by a regular analysis of their operation, and series, they follow in the order in which, I have placed them, yet such is the equality of their action and reaction, that they reciprocally produce each other and are produced. The want of capital acts in a variety of ways to depress the people, and retard the prosperity of Ireland. Most of the multiplied sources of employment and industry, which afford sup. port and wealth to the population of other states, are absolutely shut to the people of Ireland for want of sufficient means to prosecute them with success or effect. Only a single manufacture, and that confined to one province, diversifies the labours of the industrious classes. A country possessing every advantage of soil, of climate, and of favourable situation, for every purpose of manufac tures and commerce, absolutely languishes in a declining state, because it has not the op portunity of developing its natural resources, The commercial jealousy of the English mercautile and manufacturing interests, at the commencerpent of last century, blasted the manufactuating prospects of Ireland, as if England cpuid suffer by the prosperity of that county. The present century opened with some prospect of the extinction of that narrow spirit of monopoly, which construed the health of the extremity, as the decay of the trunk. But it is in vain, that new pros? pects and a more auspicious feeling towards Ireland prevails, the defect of capital cramps its every exertion, and the unfortunate propensity of its gentry to emulate the expendi ture of their more affluent neighbours in this country, and their consequent exactions from those, who hold under them, keep the seeds of discontent alive, and close the door against the introduction of British capital The industry of the people, therefore, is, and nyust be confined to the operations of husbandry and speculations in land. Labour, like every thing else, which is to be purwol chased, must be similarly affected by the number and variety of markets; and the nas ture and extent of the demand for it. When the vent is limited and the sellers numerous out of all proportion, the price must sink," and the competition will be, not who shall gain most, but who shall lose least by the sale. Indispensable necessity: obliges the.. unfortunate man, who brings his labour to market, to dispose of it at whatever it will fetch, because he has scarcely an alternative but irremediable want and starvation. But the measure of his suffering does not end bere. The same overflow of the market, that reduces the price of labour, enhances the rent of lands, and extends to the other extreme the sources of popular grievance.. Many bidders produce high prices, and avari cions proprietors take advantage of the pe mand to add to their exactions. To this it production. If the price of those be low, may be answered, that the undertaking is whilst the price of any one or two of these voluntary on the part. of him, who rents be raised, it must follow, that there is a corland, and that the proprietor has a right to respondent reduction in the price of the re dispose of his property to the best advantage. maining component part or parts of the price But how can that be voluntary, which is the of provisions Thus, within the last thirty fruit of dire and inevitable necessity? The years the rents of lands have been trebled to labourer must come into any terms, or be the farmers, and quadrupled to the peasant? destitute of the means of subsistence for his ry, whilst the price of labour has scarcely family. The landlord unquestionably has a advanced one-fourth, and the price of every right to dispose of his land on the most ad- material necessary to cultivation has been vantageous terms, but as unquestionably he trebled; so that, if the price of provisions has is bound in justice to raise the price he trebled within that period, as it undoubtedly pays for labour in the same proportion, that has, it must be obvions, that the farmer is he adds to the amount of rent for his land. indemnified, for the advance of his rent, by Thus between the overcharges of the land the proportionate advance in the price of his proprietors and middlemen, and the under produce, but that the great mass of the peorates of labour, the poor and oppressed pea-ple is subjected to treble the burthen as to santry are scarcely able to procure a wretch-provisions, and quadruple the oppression as ed subsistence, bereft of niany of the neces saries, and totally destitute of any of the comforts or conveniencies of life. It should in this place be observed, that the agricultural labourers are not the sole sufferers from these causes. All the working classes in Ireland, except in the cities and great towns, are cultivators, and consequently severely affected by the extravagant rents demanded for lands. The uncertainty of employment, and the ambition of being independant of the market for sustenance, make them submit to any terms, in order that they might have the means of raising produce for their own consumption. The practice, therefore, is general, when possible, amongst the poorer classes in Ireland, of tilling a certain portion of land for the support of their families. Imall the acts of the legislature, for securing the rights of landlords or tenants, and regulating their respective interests and claims, there is no provision whatever to be found, that includes, within its protecting operation, this most numerous and oppressed class. of occupants. An abolition or commutation of tythes would not afford relief to them, unless sonie effectual measures should be taken, to shelter them from the exactions of the land proprietors and middlemen. The tenure, by which they hold, is universally auntal, and, if we may judge of the future by the past, there is too much reason to conclude, that, so far as their interests are to rents, whilst their means have received only a fractional addition of one fourth, or at most one half, during the last thirty years. This point is susceptible of arithmetical demonstration. If we suppose the price of labour thirty years ago to have been-as four, and that the produce of his labour was, at that time, adequate to the maintenance of a peasant's family, we may designate the price of provisions or the rent of lands, at the same period, by the same numerical denominator four. The present price of provi sions, of labour, and the rent of lands let to the peasantry will be clearly ascertained, by applying the proportion of their respective augmentation to this common denominator. The result is, that labour, increased one half at most, is now as six, provisions trebled as twelve, and rents quadrupled as sixteen. So that, taking the average of rent and provisions at fourteen, the disproportion, between the labourer's necessary expenditure and his means, is nearly as two and a half to one." Under such circumstances, it would appear impossible for him, to subsist himself and his family by his labour; and the fact would be so, if the possession of a small portion of land, to raise produce for their support, did not enable him to compensate for the low price of his labour, and the extravagant rent of the land, by the intense and incessant exertions, with which he cultivates it, both before and after his daily work This state concerned, the removal of the burthen ofment alone will suffice to refute the calum nies, so commonly circulated and believed of the Irish peasantry, that they are idle, indolent, and lazy. When engaged in the business of their landlords, or rather task mas tythe's would not be attended with any material advantage. The comparative cheapness of provisions is, in general, an indication of nascent wealth and growing prospe rity. In general it is so, but in this particuters, who are anxious to get as much and pay lar case it is otherwise. The price of provisions is compounded of the price of the lapour, land, and materials, employed in their as little as they can, they unquestionably do not display as much alacrity and effort, as when working for themselves. It is not in human nature to be reconciled to such an inequality of exaction and consideration. The wretched peasant, therefore, does not feel scrupulous of withholding some portion of his full and competent services, under a firm conviction, that, how low soever he may reduce the amount of his labour, it will still be far more than an equivalent for the remuneration, which he is to receive. It is not the peasant, then, that is lazy, but his employer, that is oppressive; and the reason why the former always is supposed, when the latter ought to be the impression, is, because the characters of both are uniformly taken from the representations of those, who think they have an interest in concealing the real state of the case, because they would otherwise become self-accusers.-The advocates of the abolition of the slave trade constantly argued, that the indolence, imputed to slaves, was a consequence of their unhappy condition. If these very humane gentlemen had given themselves the trouble to examine, but superficially, into the state and circumstances of the Irish peasantry, who are accused of the same inertness, they would have found room for the exercise of their philanthropy amongst a population, nominally free, but actually subjected to all the miseries of bondage. They would have perceived, that the imputed quality was but a consequence of the reaction of a reasoning principle against outrageous oppression, and they would have been encouraged to engage in the laudable work of redress, by the animating prospect of proearing comfort for so many millions of their fellow freemen and subjects. In truth and in fact, the condition of the slaves in the West Indies, except in the sentimental consciousness of freedom, is paradise, compared with the situation of the unfortunate peasants of Ireland. For though debarred of the actual enjoyment of that first blessing of man in his civil state, liberty, they possess all the substantial comforts, that can be procured from its exercise, in their sphere. Well clad, well fed, well lodged, and amply provided with every necessary care and attendance, they, unhappy as a condition of slavery must be, are yet exempted from those anxieties and afflictions, which the vicissitudes of seasons and the revolutions of property ordinarily bring upon their owners. Whatever may be the circumstances of the planter, his slaves, as a most valuable part of his property, must be properly attended to. The contrast between their situation and that of the peasants of Ireland, may be amply, though summarily, described, in the negative enumeration of negro comforts and accommodations. Badly, or rather scarcely clad, ill fed, and worse lodged, dependant upon his own means alone for every necessary to restore health or sustain life, and exposed to all the hardships of a state of slavery without any of the advantages of a state of freedom, the Irish peasant drags on a miserable existence, embittered by intolerable practical burthens, and incapable of allevia tion by the communication of any political rights. What has been stated above renders it scarcely necessary to pursue this subject further; yet it will not be amiss to add another illustration of the amount of the sufferings of the mass of the people of Ireland. The population of that country is now ascertained to be about five millions. Protestant bigots will state it to be less, as Catholic bigots will perhaps represent it greater; but, however it may suit the former to extenuate, or the latter to exaggerate the fact, for the purpose of decrying or enhancing the Catholic claims, public documents and political calculation, prove the population of Ireland to exceed five millions of souls. Upon these grounds therefore, I take its population at five millions; and, as in this inquiry we have nothing to do with sects or factions, I shall, according to my former grand distinc tion, consider that population as composed of two descriptions of persons, the oppres sors, and those, that are oppressed. In the former are included all the land proprietors both absentees and residents, and "all the various denominations and classes of 'popular' Scourges, the middlemen; in the latter the whole mass of the labouring poor; and I have reason to assume the number of the former at one million, and that of the latter at four. Now, however accident, or good fortune, or unusual means from rare success, may enable some out of this vast number occasionally to vary their regular course of diet, the great staple of their support consists of potatoes. The average consumption of potatoes in a family of six persons amounts to twenty stones in six days, or twelve hun" dred and twenty stones in the year. The average produce of an acre of land in culture for potatoes is eighty-two barrels of twenty, stones each. From these averages of produce and consumption we shall find the consumption of the whole four millions of peo ple to be forty millions and six hundred thousand barrels, and the quantity of land necessary to raise that produce to be about five hundred thousand acres. It will, no doubt, be objected, that some portion of this description of persons consume other kinds of food, and consequently less of that, which is assumed, as the great staple of their support. But, though that fact be admitted, it can have no material effect upon the result just stated, nor upon that which is to follow. The average rent, paid, for potatoe land, by the labouring poor, is much under-stated at six guineas per acre per annum, and the average rent of their cabins far exceeds two guineas per annum, whilst the average charge for tythes is at least fifteen shillings per acre. The result of these averages, which, I challenge any man of Ireland to question, is that four millions of the Irish nation raise a subsistence, such as it is, and God knows how miserable their fare is, for themselves from five hundred thousand acres of land, for which, and tythes, and the wretched hovels, they in general have to dwell in, they pay by their labour alone to their oppressors of all denominations, the enormous sum of five million two hundred and ninety thousand pounds, Irish currency, annually!!! Let the land proprietors and middlemen, who, in prosecuting their selfish objects, represent themselves as the people of Ireland, reflect upon this statement and invalidate any item of it they can; let them state, if they dare, or shew, if they are able, that the clergy, who are by law entitled to one tenth of the produce of the land, in demanding little more than one teuth of the rent, exacted for that land, are to be considered as the oppressors of the people; let them ask themselves this tremendous question, whether a population so oppressed can be wedded to their privations, or dread a change; and if, after this process, they shall persevere in bringing a case before parliament, let them take care to present themselves in a character free of suspicion, and with such a representation of the real grievances of their country, as may lead to a radical and complete investigation of its actual situation, and terminate in such measures, as the wisdom of parliament may recommend for the comfort, tranquillity, and happiness of the whole nation. -I am, Sir, &c.-VINDEX.-—London, Jan 26, 1803. 66 PERISH COMMERCE." SIR, -If the subject of commerce be not grown too stale for your Register, (it is a subject, I hope, that will be long interesting to Britons) I beg leave to send you a few observations, upon the new doctrine, promulgated by you and Mr. Spence, that Britain is independent of commerce.' Amidst your numerous correspondents, I have not seen any who have attacked your principle, although it seems to me to be not very defensible. I come, therefore, if not in due season, in due order, to storm the citadel, after the outworks have been damaged.Mr. Spence and you are of opinion, that Britain is independent of commerce, because commerce creates no wealth, or at least none worth noticing; but, Mr. Spence makes a distinction (a very proper one in my opinion) between the wealth, and the prosperity of a nation; and says, that, though a nation may be wealthy without being prosperous, it cannot be prosperous, without, at the same time, growing wealthy: it is, therefore, incumbent upon you and Mr. Spence to shew, not only, that commerce creates no wealth directly, but also that it does not promote the prosperity of the nation, before you can decide that the nation is independent of it. Mr. Spence affrins that manufactures create no wealth; but at the same time, he attibutes to manufactures the flourishing state of agriculture, whence all wealth, according to him, is derived; for what reason, therefore, he should not have attributed to commerce a stimulus of a similar kind, I am at a loss to guess; since I think, it may be clearly proved, that, both commerce and manufactures act upon agriculture, in the same way, and that commerce affords, at least as much encouragement to agriculture, as manufactures do, because it not only promotes agriculture directly, but also encourages manufactures, which, by Mr. Spence's acknowledgment, extend agriculture. Thinking, therefore, as I think, that commerce encourages agriculture in both the above ways, directly and indirectly, I cannot say that I am one of those enlightened persons, who feel no joy at a new market being opened to our manufactures; or that I can see any large branch of our commerce cut off, or in consequence of it, a considerable manufacture destroyed, and the manufacturers turned out of employment, without some degree of pain. It seems to me, Sir, that if a new market be opened for our goods, an additional spring is given to our manufactures, or our agriculture; and that, on the contrary, by cutting off any part of our export trade, a check is given to both But, Mr. Spence makes another distinction, which is between goods of more or less value, and says that commerce obtains for us luxuries in 'exchange for more valuable commodities. Mr. Spence, himself, Sir, lays it down as an axiom, that the prosperity of a nation consists in expenditure, not in parsimony; and it is evident, that if consumable articles, wine, tea, tobacco, or even Mr. Spence's new luxury, nitrous oxyd, be imported in exchange for our linen, and our hardware, the export of our manufactured goods may go on increasing, year by year, for ever and I should think it was equally evident, if we |