received it from the gentleman, who had "That these Taxes, especially the "Taxes on Property, Beer, and Malt, are "duced distress, misery, and degradation throughout the whole of the middle. and lower classes of the people, who smart under them to an insupportables "degree. per reporters at Winchester for the purpose of reporting the proceedings on Sir John Murray's Triak About an hour before the County Meeting took place, one of these gentlemen came to meat, the Inn where. Inad put ap, to ask me, whe-" ther I should have any papers, or memorandums, which might assist in making the report of the proceedings more complete, as he thought it would be important to obtain such papers; to which I answered, that, if I should have any such, he should have them, (and as I know him) I observed, that I should be glad" denominated War Taxes, and which by to see them in his hands. After the "law expire in a short time, cannot be Meeting was over, the same gentleman" pretended to be necessary any longer,. came to me, while I was at dinner, to "since the nation is now, happily, at apply for a copy of the Petition which peace. I had presented, in order that it might be forwarded for insertion, with the rest of the proceedings, in the Morning Chro-"grievously oppressive, and have pronicle, the Morning Herald, the Morning Post, and the British Press. I told him, that I had no copy; but, at his request," and upon his engaging to forward it for insertion, I sent to the Deputy Sheriff, obtained the original and had it delivered fo him. Before I left Winchester, I saw the same gentleman again, Mr. HUNT of Andover and Mr. HINXMAN of Chilling being present. This gentleman then" and honour of the nation; provided that informed us that the PETITION was "a systerr of economy and peaceful gosent off to be inserted in the Report, we "verument be adopted instead of the being anxious, that it should appear in-print" enormous expenditure, and the all-perif any thing of ours did appear; because our vading military establishment, whtch principles and wishes would then defy now exist, and which latter, though misrepresentation. But, upon being in- wholly unknown to our forefathers, now formed by him, that the four 66 bepapers seem to threaten to swallow up all the fore-mentioned had COALESCED as to re- "ancient civil powers and distinctions of ports from Winchester; and that each the country. had one fourth of the report sent to it, and, "That it is, in the opinion of your after setting up, sent its part to each of Petitioners, owing chiefly to the laws, the other three papers. Mr. HUNT asked," passed during the war, against persowhich of the papers my part and the peti- al liberty, the freedom of the press and tion was sent to. He was told, to the "of public discussion, that the above Morning Chronicle: "Then," said he," evils have been so long endured. it will never appear. That part hits Therefore your Petitioners pray, that "Perry's fartion too hard for him to print "you will repeal all the laws, passed dur "it." I was of a different opinion; buting the war, against personal liberty; Mr. HENT knew his man better than 1 "the freedom of the press and of publie did. Perry did suppress the PETITION, discussion, that you will not revive or and suppresudit ttoo from the other three "renew any of the Taxes, called War papers as well-we his own! I have the au- "Taxes, and that you will not authorise thority of the gentleman, who received the raising of any other Taxes in their the Petition from me, to assert, that it stead.-And your Petitioners, &c." sent to the Chronicle Office along with Such, reader, was the paper, which Mr. the report; and that it was "marked PERRY suppressed, though he found it "in" that is to say, made part of the re-incorpora ed into areport, sent to his office, Part itself. To-day (Thursday) 3 kave and though it had been-obtained from me That the Taxes, which will remain, "after all the War Taxes shall have been "taken off, will be much more than suf ficient for the maintaining of the credit 66 65 the electors any bribery or corruption.This being a fact, well known to all the world, I cannot help wishing that a respectable English gentleman had refrained from the use of a phrase, fit to be applied only to the head and members of governments of a very different description. To MR. COEBETT. under an express promise, that it would appear. It was thus kept out of three other papers, and kept from the Register too, until after the Saturday's Register was published. I do not blame the reporters. They acted fairly and honourably by the public? but, the conduct of Mr. PERRY has been precisely the contrary. It was due, not to me, but to truth, that this petition should be published. It had been rejected at the county Meeting; but there was nearly one half of the meeting in its favour. It did, too, embrace objects, which, one might have expected a printer to feel peculiar interest in; but, strange as it may seem at first sight, there are, perhaps, no persons in England such determined enemies of the real freedom of the press and of free public discussion as the proprietors of these paid-for-para-ing of the Americans, in the aggregate; graph newspapers. They thrive by falsehood; and, therefore, whatever has a tendency to the triumph of truth, they abhor. They resemble those insects which fatten in a poisonous atmosphere. are to -And these are the men, who enlighten all Europe! These are the men, whose publications are to wipe away all stains from the English character! These men are to perform this work, who, in fact, have been the principal cause of all our degradation both at home and abroad. SIR JOHN. Cox HIPPESLY. SIR,-As you have gone to some length of animadversion upon an expression which was stated, originally, in a Bath weekly paper, and have fallen upon me, at the Somerset Meeting, I trust to your candour that you will give equal publicity to this fact--that in the same paper in the following week, an express denial appeared, "that any such expression "was made use of by me," either in speak whom nevertheless I am ready to admit, STATE OF THE NATION. MR. COBBETT. It must be in the recollection of your readers, how often and how emphatically you have raised your warning voice against the tremendous war system, and war expenditure of our once happy country. Your calculating acuteness has been shewn in I send, with great pleasure, the follow- nothing more strikingly than in the full ing letter for publication. I do not re- realization of the predictions which you gularly see the Bath newspapers, and have, again and again, offered to the did not see the publication which is men- consideration of our unthinking peotioned in the letter. I am glad to per-ple, on what would be the effects of a ceive, that an English gentleman is anx-protracted course of warfare to this counious to deny, that he made use of ex- try -a course of warfare as unique in pressions, worthy only of such men as the proprietors of the Times, the Courier, and the Chronicle; and, though I cannot blame him for expressing his reprobation of the President and his Party," I wish he had not made use of that phrase, seeing that the President can have no party, which is not supported by a majority of the people; seeing that he has no power but what the people voluntarily put into his hands; that he is elected by the free voice ofa people, every man of whom who pays a tax has a vote; that he can neither make war or peace without the approbation of a Congress also chosen by a free people, and in which Congress there are no selling and buying of seats, or anong t its management, as awful in its terinination. It could not, Sir, have ever entered into your imagination, though always on the alert in political discernment, to have conceived it possible for the councils of a nation to have obstinately pursued a scale of expenditure that could not be sustained by even the united resources of Europe at large :---Had this truly gigantic exertion been instituted for objects connected with rational liberty, and not for the re-establishment of despotic rule, the virtuous and the intelligent part of mankind might have been gratified by the generosity of the effort, though they must have deplored the incorrigible folly that had urged so unnatural an adventure. It is almost inconceiveable, though an un- the disposal of the secret service money of deniable fact, that the people of these Government, can know any thing about. realms, during these twenty years, have-If the British Government, when it be been witnessing the prodigious efforts gan its career of expending, when it remade by their Government, to repress quired for the objects of the war unthe growing power of France, at an im- limited millions, could have contrived to measurable expence, as if the object could have bona fide provided, that all the na not be purchased at too high a rate, tions receiving its subsidies, and for without adverting to the ways and means whom the British sword was actually. of meeting and enduring the ultimate bur-unsheathed, should for ever disclaim, and then. The ruin at this country has been abandon, all right and title to manufac its paper credit. This Pandora's box of ture for themselves, and that they would civil and political mischief, has unhappily be wholly dependent on commercial sup overwhelmed our unthinking people plies from England, then indeed, some (thinking belongs' uo to them) with dis- prospect would be afforded of an exmay and impending ruin. Well then? tended trade, and of liquidating in time how does the land lay? The expences the abyss of debt into which the national that have been incurred, the interest of property is so deeply sunk. But the heavy loans contracted, must be paid; Sir, this is not the case; it could not be peace has been obtained; Bonaparte has the case. We have, therefore, been fightbeen deposed; and the Sovereigns of ing the battles of others, and have most Europe are sitting in solemn judgment, profligately and irretrievably sacrificed on, what they would have to be, the future British interests to foreign and ruinous political arrangement of the world! Now, objects. That either the British agricu Sir, if these splendid reveries could be turist, manufacturer, or artisan, should carried into effect as easily as they may now have any chance of successful combe imagined, we might some day see them petition with the nations of Europe, is a realised. But how does the case stand? vain expectation.-The miscries of an exWhy, the British Government has been hausting taxation are exhibited at all all along foremost in the field of expence points. All classes of men severely feel as well as in that of battle. It has tried the consequences resulting from a wasteall sides, over and over again, and has at ful expenditure of public money, and, too leng, proved to a gaping and an as- late, begin to perceive that a defensive tounded public, that though it has, eve. - system of warfare was, and always will tually, as it were, gained alt; though it be, best adapted to the insulated situation has effected every object for which it he- and civic privileges of the British nation. gan the contest, it has actually lost in- The European war is at an end; that finitely more than it has won; nay, that with America is also on the eve of clothe very winnings themselves have sing; we are without a market for our turned out to be, (as you, sir, have al-agricultural produce, without a demand ways held must be the case) its bitterest, for our manufactured articles, and our its most irretrievable losings. In short, artisans are for the best part without emwe have been at the expence, by all con-ployment! In exchange for these wonted ceivable means and devices, of over advantages, we have the renown of having throwing the Emperor Napoleon, and extravagantly subsidised in turn most of delivering from his influence the of the different powers of Europe; of various nations of Europe, who are now sending a first rate Plenipotentiary to beginning to discover the advantage of these subsidised Potentates; of engaging in being at liberty to cultivate the soil, to treaties offensive and defensive with them; manufacture raw materials, and to traffic of at least amply sharing in the pleasin such a way as might best suit their res-ing task of remunerating the services, pective interests; and all this without ordinary and extraordinary, connected either feeling or acknowledging any de- with the abrupt and strange termination pendence on English commerce. All of the late European war; and finally, they seemed to require from England was though not least in either tinselled gran money, and that, it must be confessed, deur, or aristocratic fame, we may boast, they have had almost to the last guinea, as the legitimate offspring of these por and are probably further accredited for tentous times, Knights Grand Crosses, sun, that none, but there conversant with dillo L'immanders, sud ditte Companions, WHIGS! IN the most conspicuous part of the Morning Chronicle, of yesterday, Mr. Perry inserted a string of resolutions, which that nest of iniquity, that vile crew at the Stock Exchange, have thought proper to agree to, as a sort of set off to Lord Cochrane's unanswerable letter to Lord Ellenborough. Nothing surely could be more detestable than this! Even that sink of corruption the Times, inserted only a modest paragraph, notieing the. meeting of the Sub-committee, and without even naming Lord Cochrane; thus shewing a degree of moderation towards : an oppressed opponent, which the Whigs, and Perry their organ, had not decency to evines.-These resolutions (which Per in vast abundance, all animated with a LORD COCHRANE-PERRY AND THE chivalrous ardour for military glory that will at least render a disposition to war, if not its actual existence, the order of the day. How far this new batch and hot-bed scheme of military aristocracy, exclusively in the erection and patronage of the royal authority, can be regarded as consistent with the constitutional privileges of British freedom, no one is more competent to judge than yourself; and were the subject to fall under your usually able discussion, it may Le justly presunied, that it would be salutarily operative in restraining the inordinate attempts, and, indeed, rapid strides that have been made, are making, and will hereafter be made, for subjugating, this land of ancient freedom to a military sway, not unlike that ex-ry has evidently been paid for inserting) perienced by the Cossack tribes, of the state over and over again, the hacknied » Autocrat of all the Russias! It is high evidence of the hackney coachman, and". time for Britons to turn with aversion the hackney post-boy, on the subject of from the senseless, the enslaving mum- the colour of De Berenger's coat; which mery of court pageantry. Freemen should evidence has been completely falsified, in avoid them as hostile to independence, the most incontestible manner, Lord Coch- : and disdain them as utterly contempti-rane has already so ably and so effectually. ble. The Americans, by their trium-vindicated himself, that it would be supephant bravery, evince what a handful of rerrogation in me to say a syllable on this men, determined to live and die under subject. It is the detestable conduct of the sacred banner of freedom, can achi- Perry and the Whigs, in becoming the eve. The issue of the contest they have trumpet of the Stock Exchange Com-. had to sustain, is engraved on the heart mittee, that I wish the public not to over-: of every friend of civil liberty in cha- look. Lord Cochrane has been ever the racters of indelible delight, and will be steady opposer of places, pensions, and recorded in the historic page for her ad-corruption in all its branches, Nothing: miration, her solace, and the encourage- more is wanted to explain the deadly ment of posterity. American independ-hatred of Perry and the Whigs. ence is as invulnerable and as immortal as the nature of human steadfastness can render it. A scheme of Government, founded on a correct estimation of civil and political rights, is at once natural, and practicable, and, as such, must be for ever entitled to an irresistible preference, in the feeling and judgment of those, who have the envied happiness of being born and bred under its auspices, The cause of civil liberty has gained infinitely more, by the heart-cheering proofs that have been recently given of 'transatlantic patriotism and courage, than it either has lost, or can lose by the jargon, the foppery, or the servility of European" of Conscience is respected every other politics. "cannot fail to be so," A sentiment like this from aman who stands unrivalled ON RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. LETTER VI. "If we were to use Violence in defending the. SATT HILARY, lib. i. Jun. 29, 1815, A THINKING BRITON. for his knowledge in Political Science ought to have some weight. How op- i H statesman, this second Machiavel, to the a very celebrated artist of that age. He blind mistaken notions of those stupid spent much time in the construction of kings, who would fain attempt to produce clocks and watches, of which he kept a harmony among their subjects by endea- great number in constant motion, but vouring to enforce their adherence to one found to his mortification, after various particular set of Tenets. How absurd trials, that he could not bring any two is it to suppose we can make people of of them to equal time. This circumdifferent educations, and capacities ever stance, it is said, caused him to reflect think alike; that we can enable persons with wonder and with shame, on his own whose understandings are unequal to weakness in having wasted so much labor, comprehend every thing with the same and been guilty of such barbarities, in facility, and to render men of various the more futile speculation of compelling ages and constitutions, capable of seeing his subjects to think exactly alike, conwith the same ease and perspicuity cerning the inscrutable mysteries and through the same pair of spectacles. ineffable beatitudes of our Holy Religion. If Kings and Priests were the architects If the genius of luxury and sloth, of folly of the human brain, they might with and vanity, of pristie, robbery, slaughter, some justice dictate its operations; but and ambition, can ever spare the tyrants since our faculties are produced by of the present day a few moments to tura NATURE, directed by NECESSITY, and over the page of History, in order to uncontrolled by their fiat; and since they review the lives of former despots, what have no more government over their own a lesson must the foregoing relation afford minds than they have over ours, it is the them. But it seems that government is most arrogant presumption, the most the only science that is not suffered to ridiculous folly, and the most diabolical be improved by experience; for we find, tyranny, to persecute us for our opinions, notwithstanding the many useful precepts Do not our ideas of any subject depend that may be deduced from the annals of entirely on the manner in which it is the world, and the fate of nations, that represented to us, or the state of our power and profit to themselves, instead understanding to receive the impression? of peace and prosperity to the people, Are not all our notions the effect either are still the ruling principles of most moof our education, or the circumstances narchical and aristocratical governments. and situations in which we have been It is for this reason that they all take to placed? Who then can command opinion, themselves a State Religion for their or constrain belief? Where is the merit handmaid, in the same manner that a or the crime either of BELIEF or Dis-man takes a wife to assist him in his doBELIEF, since neither of them are in our mestic concerns. They find it a powerpower, but dependent entirely upon the ful auxiliary to arbitrary sway, in as much state of our intellects on the quality of as the priesthood of the state religion, the evidence offered to our senses? How though fattening upon the industry of the weak and childish too, is the plan of people, are mediately or immediately, promoting social tranquillity by force and dependent upon them for their appointpersecution? Is it not palpable that ments; consequently they become conveniclemency and moderation are much more ent tools in their hands to keep the public calculated to produce harmony, loyalty, mind in acquired ignorance; and, as we and peace, than threats and imprisonment? have seen in former times, to preach The Emperor Charles the 5th was an up non-resistance, passive obedience, ambitious tyrant, and a persecuting the divine rights of Kings, the sacred bigot, who caused a system of faith to obligation of paying tythes, or any set of be prepared for Germany, and marched opinions, that may suit the Government at the head of his armies against those or their own interests.-A state-religion, cities which refused to receive it. When by monopolizing all consequence, pergrown old, he gave up the idle pomp of fection, and privilege to itself, naturally a court, the trumpery appendages of creates an envious distinction in society'; royalty, and the false glory of a Warrior, causes its members to look upon others to spend his last days in the monastery with contempt; and, by depriving those of St. Justus, in Plazencia. One of his of their civil rights whose conscience pastimes in this solitude was mechanics, will not permit them to come within its Lin which he was assisted by Tarrians, pale, necessarily foments jealousy and |