tives. It shews, undoubtedly, that popula-grations also. The English labourer seeks tion is increasing, and equal to the produc- less for employment, than he is himself tions of the soil. My reason, therefore, sought after. Manufactories are too numeleads me to think that we are rather to inferrous and extensive, and agriculture too unithe prosperity than the poverty of Scotland from the circumstance of the Scotch emigrating in great numbers to England, and, also, that I, Scoto-Britannus, and Mr. Whitbread may pay you visits, from motives less praise-worthy, than," from pure phi ingenuity or of enterprize." In my last letter I argued [p. 501] that, on the contrary, the emigration of the Scots proved "more ingenuity, industry, and enterprize, than to remain, at home, deprived of agricultural concerns, of both conveniency, and materials for practicing a mecha "nical profession." In reply to this, [p. 491] you say "I admit it all, without the "least reserve." And you add :-" in "order to convince me that a similar plan versal and improved. From this fact, and from another very strong one, viz. the experience arising from the observation of the miseries and disasters which have befallen the Scotch emigrants, and the resulting dread of similar speculations, it may, with nearly absolute certainty, be anticipated that the introduction of the education of the poor into England, would not make the tendency to emigration greater than it presently is; and, therefore, you must admit that you are "convinced that a plan of education similar "to the Scotch is desirable for England."With regard to your" first instance of un"deniable facts," I still deny that your criterion, founded upon the relative amount of the taxes, is a fair one. I still maintain that a great part of what you call English taxes are paid by Scotch labour. For since the enterprize of Scotsmen leads them up to' London, that they may, there, more advantageously exercise their "great talents;" and since when settled, there, their ingenuity suggests, and industry realizes the most extensive, profitable, and, at the same time time, tax-affording speculations, how can it be denied, I say, that part, at least, of what comes under the denomination of English taxes is paid by Scotch labour? Your crite rion, consequently is not fair. But there is another consideration of your criterion which. I have not yet noticed, and which still more clearly points out its impropriety. You say [p. 336] "where there are two countries "under one and the same government, lying is desirable for England, he has only to "prove that England would derive strength "from the emigration of her most able"bodied sons." Yes, Mr. Cobbett, I will do more. I will shew that no emigration of her able-bodied sous will take place, but what is advantageous.-It was not the system of education that exclusively caused the emigration from Scotland. That system, in the existing circumstances, might perhaps increase it; but, by itself, had not, nor can adjoining to each other, having both a due have that tendency. On the contrary, edu- "proportion of the offices and emoluments cation as it makes men more acquainted with "of the state, then the amount of the taxtheir native country, in enabling them to es is a fair criterion of the respective read its history, and acquire associations of "industry of each." But I am not at all of ideas connected with it, it makes them more opinion, Mr. Cobbett, that Scotland, at averse to quit it. What made the Scotch present, has her "due proportion of the Highlanders emigrate, was their being de- "offices and emoluments" of the British prived of their farms, by the new plan of Empire. It is notorious that, I may say all, husbandry, Not being accommodated with our nobility, spending their time and their manufactories, or fisheries, as they ought to money in London, at the Court, drain away have been, they were necessarily forced the produce of the industry of the tenants, either to starve, or to leave their native shores. from Scotland, and from the amount of the Had they [who you allow have all a great Scotch taxes, to squander it in England, and deal of nationality,] got work, and conse swell the amount of the English taxes.-We quently subsistence, you may depend upon have no Lord Lieutenant to draw a croud of it, they would not have forsaken the beloved wealthy satellites after him. We have no habitations of their forefathers. But the Stamp-office; and, comparatively, no CusEnglish labourers are not so situated. Had tom-house. We have very few appointed these been so, uncultivated as they are, and officers of government drawing a share of in fact, the more on that account, you may the public money. After this account, I be sure we should have heard of their emi-think it can be hardly said that Scotland has her due proportion of offices and emoluments" and, therefore, from the conjunct force of this, and my former objection, I must protest against the fairness of your celebrated critérion.-These objections may serve besides as a sufficient answer to that observation of yours, which you consider as your most important, viz. " that large sums are annually granted out of the fruit of the labourers of England, expressly, to prevent the Scotch from emigrating, by making work for them at home."—I have moreover demonstrated, upon different unobjectionable data, that from the relation of Scotland to England a great part of the English taxes are paid by Scotch labour, These sums, therefore, which you so particularly mark, as paid by the English, to support the Scotch labour, are really altoge ther, mediately, paid by Scotland herself; and, at any rate, she ostensively and immediately pays her proportional part of them It ought always to be recollected, too, that at the tine of the union, exactly 100 years ago, Scotland laboured under no national debts. Immediately after that event she drank port at 2 shillings a bottle, instead of having her cups overflowing with claret at 8 pence. Every other article, in cousequence of the uncommon duties imposed, was raised in the same ratio, and being taxed in every respect similar to England, Scotland might well enough receive these sums in consideration of her own relative poverty, and in consideration for being obliged to pay taxes to discharge debts, which she had not been the means of contracting.-I have now, Sir, successively, replied to all your objections to my former reasonings, as fully as I have room. If you think that I have not done so, satisfactorily, believe me it is not for want of argument, but of opportunity. There are several hints in my former letter which you have quite overlooked, and one, in particular, on which I lay a good deal of stress. "Were the peasantry" I observed [p. 499] " obliged, as is the case in Scot land, to educate their, children, the "school-fees would employ the surplus-part "of their income, which would otherwise "have been squandered in idleness debau of youth affords the best means of employ Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem says Horace; and Pope, with the same idea, Were your English peasants able to read the Bible, they would see in the Proverbs, besides many other golden maxims," train up a child in the way he should go, and "when he is old he will not depart from it." How are your peasants children to be em ployed unless at school? Being allowed to spend their boyhood according to their own inclinations, if they do not acquire the ha bits of thieves, and robbers, they will learn a laziness, fickleness, and ungovernable stiffness which will necessarily prevent them from being such useful members of society, as they, otherwise, might have been.-2. The system of education would tend to establish, and maintain the purity of Parliament. This argument applies peculiarly to England, where every 40 shilling freeholder being entitled to a vote, immense concourses of people necessarily assemble on occasions of elections. It has been universally experienced that the declaimer has never so much effect, as when speaking to such assemblies, as surround the English hustings. Draughts of sophistry are swallowed, which pervade the mob with the rapidity of electricity, and which, unless guarded against by the enlightened minds of the audience, intoxicate the people, and make them run regardless, like a stream, after the will of the speaker. How, for instance, unless the Electors of Westminster could read; could they be saved by your salutary written. or printed counsels, from the delusion of the melliferous tongue of a Sheridan, or the naval roat of a Lord Cochrane? I must, now, conclude, with begging your excuse for so long a letter: because it is written to justify me, when I, with the greatest deference, still affirm that your arguments, regarding the Poor's education-bill, have not, in the slightest degree, altered the disinterested opinion of your benevolent, and obliged correspondent, J. B-TH-K, (SCOTO-BRITANNUS).-Edin burgh, 18th Nov, 1807. Printed by Cox and Baylis, No. 75, Great Queen Street, and published by R. Bagshaw, Brydges Street, Covent Garden, where former Numbers may be had; sold also by J. Budd, Crown and Mitre, Pall-Mali VOL. XII. No. 25.] LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1807. (PRICE 100. "Acquiescence, on our part, has been followed, at every step, by some new demand on theirs; and the consequence has been such as always will result from a yielding disposition incessantly beseiged by greedy "importunity."--SWIFT. 961] SUMMARY OF POLITICS.. AMERICAN STATES (continued from p. 921.)Enough has, I think, been said. to convince the reader, if, indeed, he wanted conviction upon the subject, that, in case of a war with the American States, no injury would arise to England; because, it has been shewn, in the article above referred to, and in others which have recently been published in this work, 1st, That it is impossible for America (let us get rid of the long compound name) to dispense with most of the goods which she can receive from no other country than England, or through English permission. 2nd, That, as to navigation, supposing our mercantile marine to be conducive to our naval strength, we derive no benefit from our commercial connection with America, seeing that all the goods which go either from England or from her colonies to America are carried in American ships; and, under the present system, must be so carried, because those which should be carried in our ships would be more heavily taxed there, where there exists a law for the purpose; so that, upon the supposition that a mercantile marine tends to give naval power to a state, our commercial connection with America tends to create unto ourselves a formidable rival upon that element, where it is, on all hands, agreed, that we ought to endeavour, at the expense of almost any sacrifice, to maintain an unrivalled superiority. 3rd, That, as to manufactures, made here for America, the hands employed therein, if not so employed, would, in a short time, find other em ployment, and, that, in the meanwhile, there would be, in our country, the same food for them to subsist upon, whereon they now subsist, 4th, That it is, however, within the compass of no earthly power, except ourselves, to put a stop to the supplying of America with English goods; that, if prohibited, they would be smuggled, as they were during the rebellion; that the sea coast, in case of war, would be in the quiet possession of our cruizers; that the mouths of the rivers and the rivers themselves to a considerable distance up, would be under our [962 controul, and that while we thus kept open an inlet for goods, we should keep open an outlet for provisions for our ships. 5th, That a hundred thousand men, constantly kept in arms, would not be able to prevent this intercourse. 6th, That nineteen-twentieths of the amount of the American revenues are levied upon goods imported; that, in case of a war with us, the taxes (which would require to be augmented fivefold, at least) must be laid upon the land and upon the few manufactures of the country, and this, too, at a time, that the price of Woollens, Rum, and Coffee, would, from the prohibitions against the former, and the obstacles thrown by us in the way of the latter, be doubled. 7th, That, in such a state of things the union of the States could not be preserved, except through our folly, as, to effect a separation, we should only have to issue a proclamation, permitting any particular State or States to trade with the West-ludies, with England, and, indeed, with all the world, upon the couditions proposed by us to the Federal Government; this being all that would be necessary to confine the authority of that government to the States Southward from the Delaware, and to less than one half of the population of the country, it being evident, that the States upon the Mississippi, which have only that single outlet to the sea, only that one channel through which to receive their salt, their cloathing and their rum, must have that channel open, or must lose its inhabitants. All this has, I think, been fully proved, in the several articles, recently published and referred to by me; hut, because it be proved, that England would sustain little or no injury from a war with America, and that America herself would be speedily reduced thereby to thereby to a state that would compel her to submit to our terms, it does not hence follow, that those terms ought to be exorbitant; that they ought to contain any new or unjust demand; that they ought to exhibit any thing insulting to America, any thing to submit to which would degrade her in the eyes of the world: it does not follow, in short,, that we ought to make claims for the purpose of seeking a war with her; but, it does clearly follow, from the above propositions, the truth of which I take to have been proved, that we ought not to submit to any terms injurious to ourselves for the purpose of avoiding such war. What the terms are, which she aims at imposing upon us, we cannot, from the President's late speech, precisely ascer tain; but, besides the point, relative to the searching of merchant ships for English deserters, and to concede which would be openly to encourage desertion from our ships of war; besides this point, which is vitally interesting to us, it would seem that Mr. Thomas Jefferson has some very large views respecting the exercise of our naval power; and that, in short, it is his wish to co-operate with Napoleon, in the great undertaking of securing "the freedom of the seas," or, in other words, the annihilation of that part of our power, which is the only means of preserving our independence as a nation; an undertaking in which, I trust, they will find 1 themselves frustrated and put to confusion. -But, it may be, that America may consent to stop short, in the first instance, of the full extent of her demands. If, how ever, we yield, in whatever degree our yielding may be, her demands will, in that same degree, increase. Observe the curs, that pour out upon the passing mastiff. If he stop and only look them hard in the face, they stop too, casting an eye back to the doors whence they have issued, to see if their retreat be open. He moves on his way; they advance again; and, if, from their numbers, he discovers any symptoms of fear, they are upon him, have him down, worry him and tear him half to death. By boldly seizing upon the first aggressor (if that be the course he pursues), and sending him back howling to his retreat, he stops and silences the malignant confederation, is enabled to go on his way with safety and with honour, and that, too, not only for the present, but upon all future occasions. The fer, which for reasons presently to be sta ted, we have discovered of America, has led to our present quarrel with her; and, it has led also, in a great degree, to the partiality existing in that country for France. When the question is "to whom shall we bow?" men never determine to bow to those whom. they know to be afraid of them; and they seldom refuse to do it to those whom they fear.The conduct of America.towards England presents a series of aggressions of fifteen years, with scarcely a month's interuption. No sooner had the war broken out, between England and France, in 1762, than the Americans openly avowed their wishes for the success of the latter. I do not mean, in their newspapers, I mean in the speeches of the members of the Con gress, where, the utmost extent of the arguments on the other side, was, that it was not for the benefit of Ankrica to join France in the war. These wishes, accompanied with the most outrageous abuse of the king of England and of the English navy and of the English nation, were openly professed, and, at public meetings, proclaimed, in the most authoritative and solemn manner, by magis trates, judges, and governors; and, this, too, observe, without any reproof on the part of the general government, some of whose officers actually joined in these injurious inrectives. From words they proceeded to deeds. Individuals not only violated the laws of neutrality; but, when they had so done, boasted of their success, and incurred, at no time, the displeasure of that governmeat, who stood upon the professed ground of strict and impartial neutrality. Nay, that government itself scrupled not to imitate, in this respect, its maliguant citizens. A large fleet of American merchant ships, laden with provisions on account of the government of France, being collected at Norfolk, in Vir ginia, and being nearly ready to sail, at the time when it was thought proper to lay an embargo upon all merchant ships whatever, this large ficet, under convoy of a French force, was suffered to proceed omits destina tion, while the law of embargo was rigo rously enforced (both before and after the sailing of that fleet) with respect to all the ships bound to the ports of England or her colonies. Say, for argument's sake, that it was not in the power of the government to prevent the sailing of this fleet, so useful to France at that critical moment; but, not to observe, that its power, if not efficient for all cases, should not have been exercised against us any more than against France; not to mention this, it is a fact not to be des nied, that, though the law of embargo pros vided a penalty for all those who should vio late it, yet, that not one of those who were guilty of an open violation thereof, by send ing or taking out their ships in this fleet, ever underwent the penalty; and that, so: well were they satisfied, that they had nothing to fear upon this account, they openly boasted of the violation they had committed, and which to have committed Lecame, in some sort, a title to public esteem-At a later period of the war (to pass over the endless list of minor acts of partiality), the people and public authorities of New York, openly and boastingly gave nid and assistance to the French frigate, the Ambuscade, in a battle, fought by her, against the English frigate, the Boston. It will be remembered, that the former, which was lying under the forts of New York, received a challenge from the latter, lying their out st the mouth of the harbour; that the battle ended in the death of the gallant Captain Courtenay, who had given the challenge, and in the defeat of the Ambuscade, which, though of 44 guns against her enemy's 36 (I believe), saved herself from capture by a Alight, which she effected, while the Boston was obliged to lye-to, having a mast gone by the board. Previous to the combat, which the French delayed for the purpose, assistance of all sorts was sent to the French frigate from the shore; several port pilots agreed, by lot, to serve on board of her; men were taken from the American ships in the harbour to add to her crew; additional surgeons from the shore were provided; and, at last, out she went under the French and American flags entwined, while the people on shore, under banners entwined in a similar manner, shouted an anticipated triumph. When she returned, without the prize; beaten and shattered, and stained with the blood of many of the malignant wretches, who had volunteered to give England a stab, a public contribution was made to provide wine, linen, and other things for those who had been wounded in the combat; and, while, from public meetings, consisting in part of men in authority, revenge for the failure and disgrace was sought in abuse the most infamous against the English nation and name, the general government, which, in the observance of its solemn promise of impartial neutrality, was bound to animadvert upon these proceedings, suffered all to pass in a silence which indicated that its secret wishes but too well corresponded with those of the open violators of that neutrality, and that, in short, the line of neutrality had been adopted merely for the purpose of tying the hands of England.The laws of neutrality demand, a perfect impartiality, not only in granting and refusing, but also in resenting injuries. It is notorious, and I have hundreds of proofs to produce of the fact, that, while remonstrance upon remonstrance was made by the American government against what it called the agressions of England, the well known and outrageous aggressions of France produced no complaint or remonstrance at all; that the sufferers were referred to the great and sovereign balm of hurt minds, patience; and that, finally, when, under the Presidentship of Mr. Adams, a shew of obtaining redress for the thousands of injuries, received from France, was made, no redress was obtained, but that, in the accommodation, the government sub mitted to new injuries to America, and that, too, for the obvious purpose, of producing injury to England.During the nine years beginning in 1792 and ending 1800, there were many flagrant outrages committed' in America against the English envoys, not one of which was noticed, by the government. During the same period, publications against the king and people of England, such as never were conceived unless in an American mind, teemed in the newspapers, in pamphlets, and in books. The abuse contained in these publications it is impossible to describe. Never did the government notice one of them; but, the moment a publication appeared against their allies, (for so they called France, and, afterwards, Spain), it armed itself with all its powers; the general government and the under government fastened upon the offender both at once, for one and the same publication; in their bills of indictment, their attorney general shared the paragraphs of the same publication between them, so that if one failed the other might succeed! And, yet, did this people, at that very time, carry on its commerce, to all parts of the world, under the guise of neutrality; and of all this, too, were our ministers at home duly informed, though they never resented it, a forbearance, an acquiescence under injustice, for which we have since dearly paid, and shall continue dearly to pay. Let us now come to the treaty of 1794, and see how it was fulfilled by this nation, to whom we are now called upon, by the Morning Chronicle and its Whig wri ters, to make further concessions of our niaritime rights, for the sake of preserving that harmony, which they assert (and, I have proved, assert falsely) to be absolutely neces sary to the prosperity of England. The principal stipulation in that treaty related to reciprocal pecuniary claims. Upon the bare mention of this the reader will think that lie anticipates the sequel; but; unless he be al ready well informed upon the subject, I defy his imagination to arm him against the astonishment that will arise from the hearing of what I am going to relate.The stipu Jation, here mentioned, arose out of the fol lowing circumstances. At the breaking out of the rebellion (for, I love to call things by their right names), there were large sums of money, as there necessarily must be, due from merchants and others in America, to merchants and manufacturers in England. There was money due to others; but this may serve as a general description. As soon |