POLITICAL REGISTER.

VOLUME LXXXIII.

FROM JANUARY 4 TO MARCH 29, 1834,

INCLUSIVE.

LONDON:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR,

11, BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET.

1834.

Sumner fund.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

VOLUME 83.

11. "Good News!"-To the People of
Oldham, on the Army and Navy Estimates.
-Rural Matters. Scotch Poor-laws;
Letter of Mr. Little.-State of Trade.-
Stamp and Legacy Duties.-Rep:
tion of Paisley continued.--Coopers' Union."

No. 12. Mr. Cobbett's Speech on his motion

for the repeal of the Malt-Tax; the other

speeches.-Minority.-Good News, in-

deed! New York Rag-rooks.

COBBETT'S WEEKLY POLITICAL REGISTER.

VOL. 83.-No. 1.]

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 4TH, 1834.

[Price 1s. 2d.

that which I have stated and printed before on the subject. This is precisely the case with regard to the subject before us. That which I wrote and printed in 1829, at and after the blunder-headed battle of NAVARINO, was then, in considerable part, prophesy; it is now history. My readers will remember my contemptuous observations

expedition, quoting the old country

sarcasın:

"Father and mother and I,
"With a stout and trusty band,
"Beat a poor little boy,

"Till he couldn't go nor stand.”

My House, No. 21, Crown-street, on, and ludicrous description of, that Westminster, facing the park, and having a door into the park on the other side, I shall have ready to be let, in about a week. It is a house fit for any gentleman's family; and it is just about six hundred yards from the chair of the Speaker in the House of Commons. There is not a better or pleasanter house in London. The particulars and the terms will be stated in the next Register. I should be much obliged by any editor of a newspaper, who would insert this notification about the house.

RUSSIA AND TURKEY.

The villanous newspapers: I might call them hellish; for they must be of infernal birth: these prodigious monsters, nearly one and all, town and country, cried up the "victory of Navarino,” as something "which would not suffer in

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a comparison with the most brilliant "naval achievements of England"! And, oh their praises of the gallantry and skill of the French and their admiral! Their intolerable baseness in this Bolt-court, 1. January, 1834. respect, their praises of the French and It was my intention to insert in this their crowing over the poor Turk, the week's Register, the famous Message faithful friend of England for two hunof the President of the United States; dred years, against these very French! and to remark particularly on the very It was enough to drive one to distracinteresting financial part of it; and tion as one read, reflecting that such on that part where he speaks of the words had dropped from the pens of villanous manœuvres of the grinders of Englishmen; and it required all the paper-money. Seeing him, however, patience, all the forbearance, all the in a fair way to blow the whole of the long-suffering, all the equanimity, all infernal machine to atoms, I shall defer the cool and placid resignation, belongthe expressions of my joy on that ac-ing to my character, to preserve to me count, or, at least, the detail of those any portion of my senses ! expressions, in order to make some remarks upon the subject stated at the head of this article.

By-and-by, it came out, that this "brillianı” and “glorious achievement," was an "untoward event." I did not, My writing-life has been so long, an. however, stop for this discovery: I said, I have always seen so far before me, at once, that it would lead, and that it and have so constantly put upon paper must lead, either to a war with Russia; predictions of what would take place, a resolute and desperate war; or to a that, as events now come on, I seem to base and cowardly abandonment, not have very little to do but to re-state, only of the rights acquired, but of the and, most commonly, merely to re-print character acquired for England, by our [Printed by W. Cobbett, Johnson's-court.]

B

wise and brave forefathers. To-day, I every epithet and term descriptive of read in the Times newspaper, that Eng-villany, two of those who so designated land, in 1828 and 1829, did "commit me having since cut their throats, or "the baseness of leaving the Turkish killed themselves in some way or anoempire to the tender mercies of ther; when my reasonable and just pro"Nicholas, the Duke of Wellington | position, which was adopted by the as"being fairly over-reached, as in 1831, sembled county of Kent, with a minority "she and France together, from similar of four voices, or at most seven; I, at mystification practised on the Whigs, that time, put it to the plain under"barbarously deserted Poland. They standings of the people of Kent, what now reap the fruits of the double would be the situation of England if "crime. However, the design of Russia again called upon to go to war, or "is palpable; and fixed, we have reason quietly submit to a curtailment of her "to believe, is her resolve to execute it, power. I made use of these words: "judging by her known preparations." "The figure of eight and the eight I believe it was to the tender mercies" noughts say to the King of England, of the "magnanimous" gentleman who" You never shall go to war again while was so much praised for having ordered," we are in existence." Then I put to or approved of, the burning of about a them: "Would you be content to see thousand women in child-birth, in his" the French come and demand possesown city of Moscow, and to touch the" sion of DOVER castle; then come up hem of whose merciful garment the" the MEDWAY and take possession of "ladies" of England galloped so many "UPNOR castle, to say nothing of the miles; I believe that it was he, and not" dock-yards and the arsenals? No: NICHOLAS; but it is of very little conse- so far from being content with this, quence which of them it was: this very your blood boils at having the quesTimes newspaper joined the rest in ap- "tions put to you. Ask yourselves, plauding the battle of NAVARINO, and "then, how such aggressions are to be in being delighted with the conse-" prevented, except by being prepared quences of that battle. There will be" for war? And then, again, ask youra time to talk of Poland hereafter, per- "selves how the nation is to move haps; but what is Poland, compared" one step in the way of preparing for with Turkey? The monsters, who," war, with this mill-stone of debt about chiefly through the instrumentality of" its neck?"

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the blaspheming Jews, have barbarously Much about the time I am now murdered, or doomed to the cruelest of speaking of, or soon afterwards, the slavery, the unhappy Polanders, are man who is now the Lord High Chanobjects of my execration; but, their cellor said, in the House of Commons, deeds there do not endanger the power "that he thanked God, that the nation of England but in a very indirect man- was BOUND TO KEEP THE PEACE ner. In Turkey the autocrat comes at" in a bond of eight hundred millions !” us at once; and we must strike, or ac- There was quite enough besides this to knowledge that we dare not: and then make me shudder at the idea of that we come to the disgraceful point, at man's possessing any political power in which I have a hundred and a thousand my country; but, if he had never uttertimes said we should arrive at last. In ed anything else to have displeased me, the year 1822, when I proposed, at a that one sentence would have been sufcounty-meeting at MAIDSTONE, to add ficient. It argued (and it argued conto the petition a prayer, that there might|clusively) that he was either wholly be a "just" reduction of the interest of destitute of judgment, destitute of the debt; and, when that petition, so knowledge, or destitute of love of counadded to, obtained for me, in the House try, and of all feeling for its honour and of Commons, from persons who, being its safety. Beyond all doubt it was one now in the House, I will not here name; of the two former; but, no matter when it obtained for me from that body which of the three, each equally dis

qualifying him for the possession of mán must be a rogue who could pro

political power.

pose, or assent to, a diminution of the What! rejoice, a man rejoice, that amount of this bond. After these things, his country is unable to go to war; and is it not farcical in the Times newspaper that man a statesman, too; and that to talk in this way, and to put an "if" man now a servant of the King of Eng- respecting an enemy's belief of our being land, and the keeper of his conscience afraid to go to war? Why, we are afraid with regard to high matters of state to go to war; with all our thundering and government! It is very true that navy and thundering army, we are afraid the nation is bound to keep the peace, to pronounce the word WAR. We know in a bond of eight hundred millions; that we cannot go to war without breakbut is this a thing to rejoice at, except ing the bond in one way or another; by the bitterest enemies of England? It we cannot break the bond without subis very true that the bond exists; but is jecting ourselves to be called “rogues ;” it so binding that the nation must lose and we are justly afraid of being called its power, and be sunk in everlasting "rogues." So, here we are, literally disgrace, rather than break the bond? bound not to strike, though we have a No individual can bind himself to suffer fleet and army, which, God knows, death, whether from sword or from ought to be ready, and though we have want. The loss of power to defend it- already received blow after blow, and self is death to a nation; therefore, to we are now receiving a blow greater that point a nation cannot be bound. than all the rest. It is just thirty years Upon the occasion of the petition from since I went to a play. The last time I Kent, the same man said, that there went I saw WALDRON in the character could be "no such thing as a just reduc- of GEORGE DOWNRIGHT, giving Fawtion of the interest of the debt." Put CETT a "hiding" (with an ash-stick) in the two assertions together, and state the character of BOBADIL, who had a them thus: "That it is subject of joy long swaggering sword by his side. "that the nation is bound in a bond of" Draw! draw! draw your spit," exeight hundred millions not to go to claimed the former. "Tall gentleman! 66 war; and that, the amount of this Tall gentleman! I protest.. "bond cannot be diminished." Put "Oh! damn your protesting! Draw these two together: and then you have your sword!" which the other took the assertion of the man who is now good care not to do; but being well Lord Chancellor, that the nation can provided with sheepskins under his dress, never go to war again, and that he is quietly took a walloping that made the glad of it; and then you have, I think, whole theatre resound; and, afterwards, a pretty sufficient reason for the Ameri- when questioned as to the cause, lifted cans grasping the FLORIDAS, and invad-up his hands and turned up the whites ing, and squatting down in the Texes; of his eyes, exclaiming: "It was the for the French invading Spain and dis-stars; certainly, the stars." "Certainly posing of her government at its plea- not, captain," answered young WELLand for the conquest of TURKEY BORN, "it was the stick: it certainly was the stick, captain, and not the stars."

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sure;

by RUSSIA.

The Times newspaper of to-day says: "If an enemy believe that we are afraid to strike, he will do so for us.' Believe! He must be hard of belief, indeed, if he reject belief on the fact that we are bound to keep the peace in a bond of eight hundred millions, and when he is told so by the man who is now Lord Chancellor; and that, as Sir ROBERT PEEL, in his memorable rating of me, rather more than hinted that a

Aye, and it is not the stars now that withhold our hands; neither will it be sufficient for us to plead the bond; the world is too penetrating and too just not to ascribe our want of resentment to the true cause; or, rather, our want of the act of showing our resentment; for, all our efforts to disguise from the world that we feel resentment will fail of success. The true cause is, a change in the character of the governing