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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN DOYLE, BOOKSELLER, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 COBBETT'S ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN, and (in- 
 cidentally) TO YOUNG WOMEN, in the middle and 
 higher ranks of life. In a series of letters addressed to 
 a youth, a bachelor, a lover, a husband, a citizen or 
 a subject 18mo. 50 cents. 
 
 COBBETT'S GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH 
 LANGUAGE, in a series of letters. Intended for the 
 use of schools and of young persons in general ; but 
 more especially for the use of soldiers, sailors, appren- 
 tices, and ploughboys. To which are added, six les- 
 sons, intended to prevent statesmen from using false 
 grammar, and from writing in an awkward manner. 
 18mo. 50 cents. 
 
 COBBETT'S FRENCH GRAMMAR ; or Plain In- 
 structions for the Learning of French, in a series of 
 letters. 18mo. 75 cents. 
 
 COBBETT'S COTTAGE ECONOMY: containing 
 information relative to the brewing of beer, making of 
 bread, keeping of cows, pigs, bees, ewes, goats, poultry, 
 and rabbits, and relative to other matters deemed use- 
 ful in the conducting of the affairs of a labourer's 
 family ; to which are added, instructions relative to the 
 selecting the cutting and the bleaching of the plants of 
 English grass and grain, for the purpose of making 
 hats and bonnets; and also instructions for erecting 
 and using ice-houses, after the Virginian manner. To 
 which is added, THE POOR MAN'S FRIEND ; or A 
 Defence of the rights of those who do the Work and 
 fight the Battles. 18mo. 50 cents. 
 
 COBBBET'S AMERICAN GARDENER ; or, a Trea- 
 tise on the Situation, Soil, Fencing and Laying out of 
 Gardens; on the making and managing of Hot-Beds, 
 and Green-Houses ; and on the Propagation and Cul- 
 tivation of the several sorts of Vegetables, Herbs, 
 Fruits, and Flowers. 18mo. 50 cents. 
 
COBBETT'S HISTORY OF THE PROTESTANT 
 REFORMATION, IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND ; 
 
 showing how that event has impoverished and degrad- 
 ed the main body of the people in those countries, in 
 a series of letters, addressed to all sensible and just 
 Englishmen; in 2 vols. (The second volume contains 
 a list of the abbeys, priories, nunneries, hospitals, and 
 other religious foundations in England and Wales, and 
 in Ireland, confiscated, seized on, or alienated, by the 
 " Protestant Reformation," sovereigns, and parlia- 
 ments.) 2 vols. 18mo. bound in one. $1. 
 
 COBBETT'S THIRTEEN SERMONS, on, 1. Hy- 
 pocrisy and Cruelty. 2. Drunkenness. 3. Bribery. 4. 
 The Rights of the Poor. 5. Unjust Judges. 6. The Slug- 
 gard. 7. Murder. 8. Gambling. 9. Public Robbery. 
 10. The Unnatural Mother. 11. Forbidding Marriage. 
 12. Parsons and Tythes. 13. Good Friday. To which 
 is added, an Address to the Working Class on the New 
 Dead Body Bill. 18mo. 50 cents. 
 
 COBBETT'S PAPER AGAINST GOLD ; or the His- 
 tory and Mystery of the Bank of England, of the debt 
 of the stocks, of the sinking fund, and of all the other 
 tricks and contrivances, carried on by means of paper 
 money. 18mo. 75 cents. 
 
 COBBETT'S TRIAL. A FULL AND ACCURATE 
 REPORT OF THE TRIAL OF WILLIAM COB- 
 BETT, M. P., before Lord Tenterden, and a Special Ju- 
 ry, in the Court of King's Bench, London. 8 vo. 25 cents. 
 
 COBBETT'S LEGACY TO THE PARSONS, in 
 
 Six Letters, addressed to the Church Parsons, in ge- 
 neral, including the Cathedral and College Clergy, and 
 the Bishops, with a Dedication to Dr. Bloomfield, Bishop 
 of London : To which is added his LEGACY TO LA- 
 BOURERS ; or, What is the Right which the Lords, 
 Baronets, and Squires, have to the Lands of England 1 
 In Six Letters, addressed to the Working People of 
 England, with a Dedication to Sir Robert Peel. 18mo. 
 50 cents. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD , 
 
 OR, THE 
 
 HISTORY AND MYSTERY 
 
 BANK OF ENGLAND, 
 
 OP THE DEBT, OP THE STOCKS, OF THE SINKING FUND, 
 AND OP ALL THE OTHER TRICKS AND CON- 
 TRIVANCES, CARRIED ON BY THE MEANS 
 OF PAPER MONEY. 
 
 BY WILLIAM COBBETT, M. P. 
 
 " In the course of this work, I have clearly expressed mj opinions as to 
 the final fatal effect of the paper money : those opinions are in direct oppo- 
 sition to those of the Ministers and the Parliament : TIME, the trier of all 
 things, must now decide between us ; and, if I he wrong, 1 have, at least, 
 taken effectual means to make my error as conspicuous and as notorious as 
 possible ; while, on the other hand, if I he right, I have laid the sure founda- 
 tion of~complete triumph over my haughty, supercilious, unjust, and insolent 
 foes." PAPER AGAINST GOLD, CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 PUBLISHED BY JOHN DOYLE. 
 
 1846. 
 
A 
 GENERAL 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 DUKE OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 MY LORD DUKE, 
 
 You, who are now First Lord of the Treasury, 
 ought to understand the principles relating to money, 
 that great instrument in the carrying on of human 
 affairs ; and, as it is my opinion, founded on various 
 reasons, and particularly on that suggested by your 
 recent speech on the Corn-Laws, that you do not un- 
 derstand those principles, I present this book to you 
 as a teacher in this branch of knowledge, now so 
 necessary to enable you to form a correct estimate of 
 the nature and magnitude of the difficulties, with 
 which you find yoursen surrounded. 
 
 In order to convince you that the book demands 
 your attention, a bare statement of the followkig cir- 
 cumstances, out of which it arose, ought to DC suffi- 
 cient. For seven years previous to 1810, I had con- 
 tended, and, indeed, I had been repeatedly proving, 
 that the paper-money was depreciated, and that it 
 must, in the end, produce a convulsion in the country, 
 unless prevented by a diminution of the Debt, and 
 a return to payments in gold, always considering 
 the latter as impossible without the former. On ac- 
 count of these opinions, I had to undergo the almost 
 incessant abuse of the base press of London ; and, 
 indeed, of the whole country ; and, which was a 
 more serious matter, I had to undergo the conse- 
 quences of the wrath of the people in power, inclu- 
 ding that of the far greater part of the Members of 
 the two Houses of Parliament. At last, however, a 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 portion of the Parliament came to make the assertion, 
 that a depreciation in the value of the paper-money 
 had actually taken place ; and, finally, a Committee 
 of the people who had got into the Commons' House, 
 was appointed to inquire into the matter. 
 
 This Committee, which ought to have been called 
 the Paper-Committee, was called the Bullion-Corn- 
 jnittee, having for its Chairman one HORNER, a Scotch 
 lawyer. After immense volumes of " evidence" ta- 
 ken down and published at the public expense, this 
 Committee reported to the House that the bank- 
 notes were depreciated, and that, in order to prevent 
 future fatal consequences, a law ought to be passed 
 to compel the Bank to pay in gold at the end of 
 two years from that time. The Ministry contend- 
 ed, that the bank notes were not depreciated, and 
 that the notes could, at any time, be paid in gold, 
 but that, during war, the proposed measure was in- 
 expedient. 
 
 I contended, that both sides were totally ignorant 
 on the subject ; and that the bank notes, without a 
 great reduction of the interest of the debt, and of all 
 other out-goings, never could be paid in gold, with- 
 out plunging the country into ruin. To prove this 
 opinion to be correct, and to show that I understood 
 more of the matter than both sides of the House put 
 together, I wrote and published this book, with an 
 avowed intention, too, of having it to produce, when 
 time should have verified its doctrines, and when the 
 sufferings of the nation should have disposed it to 
 listen to truth and reason. 
 
 The time is come, the doctrines have been verified, 
 the sufferings have taken place ; and, therefore, here 
 is the book. The scoffings, the scornings, the abuse, 
 the reviling, the horrible calumnies and the base per- 
 secutions which this book and other efforts of a si- 
 milar kind brought upon me, and the briefest notice 
 of each instance of which would fill fifty volumes 
 more bulky than this, are all amply avenged by the 
 joy that I feel at that which / now behold, and which 
 
DEDICATION. 5 
 
 can no longer be hidden even from the blindest and 
 most besotted of the people. 
 
 These men in power, seldom behind-hand in the 
 career of contumely, arrogance, and insolence, seem- 
 ed to adopt it as a maxim, that their main business 
 was to take care to do nothing that the nation should 
 be able to trace to my advice, on which maxim they 
 appear to have proceeded from that day to this. I, 
 on my part, resolved to maintain the right of mind 
 to a superiority over matter, have constantly been 
 repeating my advice, and keeping the past as well as 
 the present, steadily before the eyes of the nation ; 
 and, thus has the struggle been continued for nearly 
 twenty years. These men in power, the very proper 
 and adequate representatives of an aristocracy, with 
 some few exceptions, the most haughty, the most su- 
 percilious, the most conceited, and, at the same time, 
 the most empty and mean that the world ever saw, 
 seemed to read and to study all that I wrote upon 
 this subject, in order that they might be able to do 
 precisely that which I recommended not to be done, 
 and that they might shun, as a sailor does the rocks, 
 every thing which I had advised them to do ; while 
 I, in order to secure ample vengeance on them, took 
 care to be incessantly recommending the only mea- 
 sures that could save the country from ruin! This 
 was an odd way of seeking revenge : and, whoever 
 is convinced that this has really been the case, will 
 look upon the present state of things as the natural 
 and appropriate result. 
 
 What are the deserts of these men, it is, or rather, 
 it will be, for the nation to say ; but, nothing can be 
 more notorious than the following facts : namely, 
 that, in 1810, I proved to these men (in this work 
 which I now present to you,) that, if they ever at- 
 tempted to return to gold-payments without first re- 
 ducing the interest of the Debt, they would ruin the 
 country ; that, early in 1818, TIERNEY, a member of 
 parliament, who has since been Master of the Mint, 
 recommended to them a gradual return to gold-pay- 
 1* 
 
6 DEDICATION. 
 
 ments, without any reduction of the interest of the 
 Debt ; that, in the fall of that same year, I, in a Letter 
 to TIERNEY, warned them of the terrible danger of 
 following TIERNEY'S advice, and, after proving to 
 them how injurious that advice, if followed, must be 
 to the country, besought them not to follow it ; that, 
 this was quite enough to make them follow TIERNEY'S 
 advice, which they did, immediately afterwards, in 
 adopting the measure, called PEEL'S BILL ; that, as 
 soon as that bill was passed, I besought them to re- 
 duce the taxes so as to prevent the ruin that the bill 
 must otherwise produce, and, at the same time, I as- 
 sured them, that they should have leave to broil me 
 on a gridiron if they (without a great reduction of 
 taxes) ever carried Peel's Bill into full effect ; that, 
 here again was quite enough to make them persevere 
 in the bill, which they did, adding to the taxes, at 
 the same time, instead of reducing them, until, in 
 July, 1822, the country was on the eve of absolute 
 convulsion ; that then they gave way, partly repeal- 
 ed Peel's Bill, but, in opposition to my advice, re- 
 fused to listen to the prayer of the KENTISH PETITION, 
 filled the country with paper-money, and, which ought 
 never to be forgotten, boasted, almost in so many 
 words, that their wise parliament had proved my 
 predictions to be false ; that I instantly answered this 
 boast by foretelling that their country-banks would 
 soon blow up, and that they themselves, if they did 
 not take care, would be blown to the devil ; that 
 they laughed at my prediction, but that, in fifteen 
 months from the date of that prediction, panic seized 
 the system, the banks blew up, and these men them- 
 selves confessed that they had brought us to within 
 forty-eight hours of barter; that this was pretty 
 good revenge on these presumptuous, contumelious, 
 arrogant, and insolent men, and by no means a too 
 heavy punishment for a people, the then greater part 
 of the rich amongst whom had, whether by words, 
 deeds, or wishes, sided with these empty and insolent 
 men against me; that in their fright of 1826, they 
 
DEDICATION. 7 
 
 passed the present law, which, on the 5th of next 
 April, (1829,) puts an end to all notes under five 
 pounds, and that they, at the same time, declared 
 they would not reduce the interest of the Debt, and 
 that they would keep up a thundering standing army 
 in time of peace ; that I, while they were passing 
 this bill, humbly presented a petition, imploring 
 them not to think of enforcing this new law without 
 taking off one half of the taxes ; for that, if they did, 
 the most dreadful public calamities would ensue ; that, 
 of course, this was again enough, the law appears 
 to be intended to be enforced, the taxes have not 
 been reduced, and the calamities are come and are 
 coming in numbers, in magnitude, and in form that 
 seem to astound all beholders. 
 
 It has been sometimes asked why these men in 
 power, and in Parliament too, (for, with very few ex- 
 ceptions, all have acted alike in this respect,) should 
 have this anxious, and, apparently, unnatural desire 
 to do nothing that might redound to my credit, even 
 though for their own evident ease and advantage ; 
 and this is a question by no means impertinent, es- 
 pecially as we see them frequently enough acknow- 
 ledging in the most candid manner, their great obli- 
 gations to other writers; see their frequent practice 
 of bestowing rewards and what they call honours on 
 such writers ; nay, have seen them, in some cases, 
 admit them to a participation in power. The an- 
 swer to this question is this : that they never thus 
 acted towards any man who did not approach them 
 as an underling and a tool, who was not mean 
 enough to abandon the assertion of his own superi- 
 ority over them, who was not so base as always to 
 speak of himself as inferior to men whom he knew 
 to be poor creatures compared with himself. When 
 they have found, as they sometimes have, men of 
 great talent unable thus to bend to baseness, they 
 have used towards them all the arts of destroying, 
 in which, sooner or later, they have generally suc- 
 ceeded. Unable to make me bend, they have used 
 
8 DEDICATION. 
 
 all these arts towards me ; but they have in this case, 
 used them in vain ; and, in every instance, it has, un- 
 luckily for them, happened, that I put myself openly 
 at issue with them upon one great and all-important 
 question, a question which involved national salva- 
 tion or national ruin, and which question a reasonable 
 time was sure to determine. 
 
 That the facts stated in the last paragraph but one, 
 are truths, is asserted, not by me only, but by hun- 
 dreds of thousands of men ; and, indeed, they are as 
 well known as it is known that this country is called 
 England. Here we are, then, now waiting to see 
 whether you will follow the example of your half- 
 score of predecessors ; whether, to all my former 
 triumphs, I be to add a triumph over you. I tell you 
 distinctly, that you cannot carry the present law into 
 effect without a great reduction of taxes, or, without 
 plunging the country into a state of almost imme- 
 diate commotion; I tell you, that you, without such 
 reduction, or without a commotion a little more dis- 
 tant, or without Bank-restriction, cannot repeal the 
 present law ; I tell you, that you cannot make a Bank- 
 restriction (without such reduction,) without causing 
 a commotion not much more distant ; and, finally, I 
 tell you, that there is no remedy, no means of pre- 
 venting a final and terrible commotion, except that 
 remedy which is stated and prayed for in the petitions 
 of the sensible and spirited Counties of KENT and of 
 NORFOLK, of the last of which petitions (which is 
 more ample than the former) I, for my part, will 
 never give up one single point. 
 
 So that, unless you act upon my advice, and I have 
 no reason to think you will, here I am at issue with 
 YOU ; and, please to observe, that the trial is going 
 on, time must speedily give its verdict, and that ver- 
 dict will infallibly be in my favour. LORD GREN- 
 VILLE has put forth a pamphlet, in order to show, that 
 a sinking fund is useless ! He has made this dis- 
 covery rather late I I have shown this famous 
 " statesman" up j but, you ought to know, that the 
 
DEDICATION. 9 
 
 uselessness of such a "/wnd" is PROVED in this 
 work, proved beyond all contradiction, and in a man- 
 ner so clear, that no man but a stark fool, could, if 
 he read the book, fail to be convinced, eighteen years 
 ago, of the uselessness of the thing called the Sink- 
 ing- Fund. Notwithstanding this, the false and coolly 
 impudent Scotch felosofers pretend, that the disco- 
 very was made, about eight years ago, by a " DOCTOR 
 HAMILTON j" and, a brother " Doctor" of his, in Lon- 
 don, observed in print, about four years ago, that it 
 was " very odd, that no one ever even suspected the 
 inefficacy of the Sinking Fund, until Doctor Hamil- 
 ton wrote on the subject /" False loons ! Mr. 
 PAINE said, forty years ago, that it was like a man 
 with a wooden leg running after a hare : I proved 
 the inefficacy in 1803 ; but, in this work, eighteen 
 years ago, the proof was made demonstration. This 
 is on the part of the Scotch, just such another trick 
 as they attempted to play in the case of the " IN- 
 VINCIBLE STANDARD," which they claimed 
 the honour of having taken, but which I proved to 
 have been taken by a FRENCHMAN ! 
 
 To conclude, I do my duty in here tendering you 
 a book that will, if you will attend to it, teach you 
 what to do ; and, if you reject its teachings, this De- 
 dication will always be at hand to be produced, when 
 the consequences of such rejection shall have led to 
 the dreadful, but perfectly natural, catastrophe. Re- 
 member, that, during all the years of this struggle 
 between me and the men in power, my candle has 
 not been kept under a bushel (whether Winchester 
 or " Imperial ;") for that, besides my weekly ad- 
 monitions, more, perhaps, than a hundred thousand 
 copies of this one book have been printed and sold ; 
 so that we exhibit to the world this singular specta- 
 cle : a common people thoroughly enlightened by 
 their reading : and an aristocracy, a legislature and 
 a ministry resolved not to read, or, to read for no 
 other purpose than that of ascertaining how to shun 
 the light emanating from my pen. Time and Truth 
 
10 DEDICATION. 
 
 have, however, no respect to persons ; their deci- 
 sion will be impartial, and that decision is looked 
 forward to not only with perfect confidence, but 
 with the most cordial delight, by 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 
COBBETT'S 
 
 PAPER AGAINST GOLD : 
 
 CONTAINING THE HISTORY AND MYSTERY OF THE 
 BANK OF ENGLAND, THE FUNDS, THE DEBT, THE 
 SINKING FUND, THE BANK STOPPAGE, THE LOW- 
 ERING AND THE RAISING OF THE VALUE OF ?APER- 
 MONEY ; AND SHOWING, THAT TAXATION, PAUPER- 
 ISM, POVERTY, MISERY, AND CRIMES HAVE ALL 
 INCREASED, AND EVER MUST INCREASE, WITH A 
 FUNDING SYSTEM. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Botley, 8th February, 1817. 
 THE time is now come, when every man in this 
 kingdom ought to make himself, if possible, well ac- 
 quainted with all matters belonging to the Paper- 
 Money System. It is that System, which has mainly 
 contributed towards our present miseries ; and, in- 
 deed, without that System those miseries never could 
 have existed in any thing approaching towards their 
 present degree. In all countries, where a Paper- 
 Money, that is to say, a paper which could not, at 
 any moment, be converted into Gold and Silver, has 
 ever existed ; in all countries, where this has been 
 the case, the consequence, first or last, has always 
 been great and general misery, and, in most such 
 cases, such misery has been productive of that con- 
 fusion and bloodshed, which I most anxiously hope 
 will be prevented, in this instance, by timely mea- 
 sures of a just and conciliatory character, and by 
 the good sense, patience, and fortitude of the people. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To be able clearly to trace our miseries to this 
 grand cause, the Bank and the Paper-Money, it is 
 necessary, that we inquire into the origin of money, 
 how it acts upon the affairs of men, how prices de- 
 pend upon its quantity, and how money itself is 
 changed in its quantity and value. Next it is neces- 
 sary, that we come at a clear idea of the origin of 
 Paper-Money and of its introduction into this coun- 
 try. Next, we ought to see the origin of the Bank 
 and its Paper ; to see how Loans have been made, 
 and how, and by what means, a Debt has been 
 created. This compels us to go back and trace mi- 
 nutely the Bank and the Debt" from their fatal birth 
 to the present time ; to show how they arose both 
 together, and how they have gone swelling moun- 
 tains high, side by side, while taxes, pauperism, 
 misery, and crimes, have all gone on increasing in 
 the same degree. We ought next to inquire whether 
 it be possible to lessen the Debt by that scheme, 
 which has been called the Sinking Fund. Then 
 we ought to enter into all the facts of that curious 
 event, called the Bank-Restriction, which was a 
 Stoppage of Cash-Payments at the Bank, in viola- 
 tion of the Bank Charter and of the laws of debtor 
 and creditor. This transaction ought now to be 
 clearly understood by every man in England. All 
 the actors in the transaction ought to be put forth in 
 their true character ; for it is to this transaction, that 
 we may trace more immediately all those sudden 
 changes in the currency, which have ruined the far- 
 mers, the tradesmen, the land-owners, and which 
 have reduced the journeyman and labourers to such 
 intolerable misery as that which they now endure, 
 and which never was endured in England at any 
 former period. 
 
 To enable every man, and especially the youth, 
 of this country, to come at a competent knowledge 
 on all these topics, was the original object of this 
 work, and is now the object of its republication. It 
 consists of a Series of Letters, addressed to the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 People of Salisbury, in the years 1810 and 1811 ; 
 because, at that time, those people were suffering se- 
 verely from the failure of Country Banks. At the 
 same time, there was a proposition before Parliament 
 for making the Bank pay in Gold and Silver at the 
 end of two years. This was proposed by the Oppo- 
 sition ; but the Ministers said, that though the Bank 
 was able to pay, it would not be wise to make it pay, 
 till peace came. I contended, that, for the Bank to 
 pay in gold and silver was impossible, without wi- 
 ping away a part of the Debt ; or without plung- 
 ing the country into ruin and misery. The Bank 
 does not pay ; and, by only making one step towards 
 it, the whole nation, all but fund-holders and tax- 
 eaters, have already been ruined. 
 
 In the writing of this work the greatest pains were 
 taken to make my statements and my arguments, not 
 only as clear and as strong, but also, as familiar as 
 possible, and, by these means, to render a subject, 
 which has always been considered as intricate and 
 abstruse, so simple as to be understood by every 
 reader of common capacity ; and, in this object, I hope 
 I have succeeded, because I have had the satisfaction 
 to witness numerous instances, where persons, who 
 would generally be denominated illiterate, have, by 
 the reading of this work, become completely masters 
 of the whole subject. 
 
 The truth is, however, that the pride of those, who 
 call themselves learned men, lead them to misjudge 
 greatly as to the capacity of those, whom they call 
 the illiterate, or unlearned. To arrange words into 
 sentences in a grammatical manner, to arrive at cor- 
 rect results by the operations of figures, require a 
 knowledge of rules, which knowledge must be ac- 
 quired by art ; but the capacity of receiving plain 
 facts and of reasoning upon those facts has its na- 
 tural place in every sound mind ; and, perhaps, the 
 mind the most likely speedily to receive and deeply 
 to imbibe a fair impression is precisely that mind 
 which has never been pre-occupied by the impressions 
 2 
 

 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of art or of school-education. And, if there be men 
 to hold the doctrine, that the people in general ought 
 not to understand any thing of these matters, such 
 men can proceed upon no principle other than this, 
 that popular ignorance is the best security for public 
 plunderers and oppressors. 
 
 It will be seen, that the Letters, composing the 
 greater part of this work, were written in, and dated 
 from, the " State Prison, Newgate" For six years 
 before the date of these Letters, I had been endea- 
 vouring to rouse my country to a sense of its danger 
 from the Debt and Paper-money, and had often fore- 
 told, that national ruin and misery would be the re- 
 sult. But, it was while I was shut up in Newgate, 
 that I made my greatest eifort. The cause of my 
 imprisonment, and of the other heavy punishments 
 inflicted on me, is pretty well known ; but, as this 
 work is chiefly intended for the use of schools and of 
 young persons in general, and, as I hope it may be 
 read many years after its author will have closed his 
 eyes for ever, it is no more than justice to myself 
 and to a family of children, to whom their father's 
 character will always be as dear as their own lives, 
 for me to make here, and to send forth, inseparable 
 from this work, the following concise and undenia- 
 ble record of facts, which record was published im- 
 mediately after the expiration of my imprisonment, 
 in the month of July J812. 
 
 ENGLISH LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, 
 
 As illustrated in the Prosecution and Punishment of 
 
 WILLIAM COBBETT. 
 
 In order that my countrymen and that the world 
 may not be deceived, duped, and cheated upon this 
 subject, I, WILLIAM COBBETT, of Botley, in 
 Hampshire, put upon record the following facts ; to 
 wit : That, on the 24th of June, 1809, the following 
 
INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 article was published in a London newspaper, called 
 the COURIER: "The Mutiny amongst the LOCAL 
 MILITIA, which broke out at Ely, was fortunately 
 suppressed on Wednesday, by the arrival of four 
 squadrons of the GERMAN LEGION CAVALRY 
 from Bury, under the command of General Auck- 
 land. Five of the ringleaders were tried by a Court- 
 Martial, and sentenced to receive 500 lashes each, 
 part of which punishment they received on Wednes- 
 day, and a part was remitted. A stoppage for their 
 knapsacks was the ground of the complaint that ex- 
 cited this mutinous spirit, which occasioned the men 
 to surround their officers, and demand what they 
 deemed their arrears. The first division of the Ger- 
 man Legion halted yesterday at Newmarket on their 
 
 return to Bury." That, on the 1st of July, 1309, I 
 
 published, in the Political Register, an article cen- 
 suring, in the strongest terms, these proceedings ; 
 that, for so doing, the Attorney General prosecuted, 
 as seditious libellers, and by Ex-Officio Information, 
 me, and also my printer, my publisher, and one of 
 the principal retailers of the Political Register; that 
 I was brought to trial on the 15th June, 1810, and 
 was, by a Special Jury, that is to say, by 12 men out 
 of 48 appointed by the Master of the Crown Office, 
 found guilty ; that, on the 20th of the same month, I 
 was compelled to give bail for my appearance to re- 
 ceive judgment ; and that, as I came up from Botley 
 (to which place I had returned to my family and my 
 farm on the evening of the 15th,) a Tipstaff went 
 down from London in order to seize me, personally ; 
 that, on the 9th of July, 1810, I, together with my 
 printer, publisher, and the newsman, were brought 
 into the Court of King's Bench to receive judgment ; 
 that -the three former were sentenced to be impri- 
 soned for some months in the King's Bench prison ; 
 that I was sentenced to be imprisoned for two years 
 in Newgate, the great receptacle for malefactors, and 
 the front of which is the scene of numerous hangings 
 in the course of every year; that the part of the prison 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in which I was sentenced to be confined is sometimes 
 inhabited by felons, that felons were actually in it at 
 the time I entered it ; that one man was taken out of 
 it to be transported in about 48 hours after I was put 
 into the same yard with him ; and that it is the place 
 of confinement for men guilty of unnatural crimes, 
 of whom there are four in it at this time ; that, be- 
 sides this imprisonment, I was sentenced to pay a 
 thousand pounds ($4,800) TO THE KING, and to 
 give security for my good behaviour for seven years, 
 myself in the sum of 3,000 pounds, and two sureties 
 in the sum of 1,000 pounds each ; that the whole of 
 this sentence has been executed upon me, that I have 
 been imprisoned the two years, have paid the thou- 
 sand pounds TO THE KING, and have given the 
 bail, Timothy Brown and Peter Walker, Esqrs. being 
 my sureties ; that the Attorney General was Sir 
 Vicary Gibbs, the Judge who sat at the trial, Lord 
 Ellenborough, the four Judges who sat at passing 
 sentence, Eilenborough, Grose, Le Blanc, and Bai- 
 ley ; and that the jurors were, Thomas Rhodes of 
 Hampstead Road, John Davis of Southampton-place, 
 James Ellis of Tottenham Court Road, John Richards 
 of Bayswater, Thomas Marsham of Baker Street, 
 Robert Heathcote of High Street, Marylebone ; John 
 Maud of York-place, Marylebone ; George Baxter 
 of Church Terrace, Pancras ; Thomas Taylor of Red 
 Lion Square ; David Deane of St. John Street ; Wil- 
 liam Palmer of Upper Street, Islington ; Henry Favre 
 of Pall-Mall ; and that the Prime Ministers during the 
 time were Spencer Perceval, until he was shot by 
 John Bellingham, and after that Robert B. Jenkinson, 
 Earl of Liverpool ; that the prosecution and sentence 
 took place in the reign of King George the Third, 
 and that, he having become insane during my im- 
 prisonment, the 1,000 pounds was paid 10 his son, 
 the Prince Regent, in his behalf; that, during my 
 imprisonment, I wrote and published 364 Essays and 
 Letters upon political subjects ; that, during the same 
 time I was visited by persons from 197 cities and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 17 
 
 towns, many of them as a sort of deputies from So- 
 cieties or Clubs ; that, at the expiration of my impri- 
 sonment, on the 9th of July, 1812, a great dinner 
 was given in London for the purpose of receiving 
 me ; that dinners and other parties were held on the 
 same occasion in many other places in England ; 
 that, on my way home, I was received at Alton, the 
 first town in Hampshire, with the ringing of the 
 Church bells ; that a respectable company met me 
 and gave me a dinner at Winchester ; that I was 
 drawn from more than the distance of a mile into 
 Botley by the people ; that, upon my arrival in the 
 village, 1 found all the people assembled to receive 
 me ; that I concluded the day by explaining to them 
 the cause of my imprisonment, and by giving them 
 clear notions respecting the flogging of the Local Mi- 
 litia-men at Ely, and respecting the employment of 
 German Troops ; and, finally, which is more than a 
 compensation for my losses and all my sufferings, I 
 am in perfect health and strength, and, though I 
 must, for the sake of six children, feel the diminution 
 that has been made in my property (thinking it right 
 in me to decline the offer of a subscription,) I have 
 the consolation to see growing up three sons, upon 
 whose hearts, I trust, all these facts will be engraven. 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 Botley, July 23, 1812. 
 
 At the end of 16 years of experience, I find not a 
 word to alter. 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 Barn-Elm Farm, Surrey, February 20, 1828. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD, 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Appointment of the Bullion Committee Main points of tho 
 Report Proposition for the Bank to pay in two Years To 
 merit the appellation of a Thinking People, we must show 
 that our Thinking produces Knowledge Go hack into the 
 History of Paper- Money Definition of Money Increase of 
 Paper What is the cause of this Increase? Origin of the 
 Bank of England How it came to pass that so much Pa- 
 per Money got afloat Increase of Bank Notes wanted to 
 pay the increase of the interest on the National Debt Pro- 
 gress in issuing Bank Notes from 20 to I pounds Suspicion 
 awakened in 1797, which produced the Stoppage of Gold 
 and Silver Payments at the Bank of England. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 DURING the last session of Parliament, a Commit- 
 tee, that is to say, ten or twelve members of the 
 House of Commons, were appointed to inquire into 
 the cause of the high price of Gold Bullion, that is, 
 Gold not coined; and to take into consideration the 
 state of the circulating medium, or money, of this 
 country. This Committee have made a Report, as 
 they call it; but, it is a great book, that they have 
 written, and have had printed ; a book much larger 
 than the whole of the New Testament. Of this 
 Report I intend to enter into an Examination ; and, 
 as you have recently felt, and are still feeling, some 
 of the effects of Paper-Money, I think it may not be 
 amiss, if, upon this occasion, I address myself to 
 you. I have introduced myself to you without anr 
 ceremony ; but, before we part, we shall become well 
 acquainted ; and, I make no doubt, that you will un- 
 derstand the distinction between Paper-Money, and 
 Gold-Money much too well for it to be in the power 
 of any one ever again to deceive you ; which under- 
 standing will, in the times now fast approaching, be 
 of great utility to all those amongst you, who may 
 
20 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 have the means of laying up money, however small 
 the quantity may be. 
 
 The Committee above-mentioned, which, for bre- 
 vity's sake, I call the Bullion Committee, sent for 
 several persons, whom they examined as witnesses, 
 touching the matter in question. There was Sir 
 FRANCIS BARING, for instance, the great loan-maker, 
 and GOLDSMIDT, the rich Jew, whose name you so 
 often see in the newspapers, where he is stated to 
 give grand dinners to princes and great men. The 
 Evidence of these, and other money-dealers and 
 merchants, the Bullion Committee have had printed; 
 and, upon this evidence, as well as upon the Report 
 itself, we shall have to make some remarks. 
 
 The result of the Committee's inquiries is, in sub- 
 stance, this; that the high price of gold is occasion- 
 ed by the low value of the paper-money; that the 
 low value of the paper-money has been occasioned 
 (as you know the low value of apples is) by the great 
 abundance of it; that the only way to lower the price 
 of the gold is to raise the value of the paper-mo- 
 ney, and that the only way to raise the value of the 
 paper-money is to make the quantity of it less than 
 it now is. Thus far, as you will clearly see, there was 
 no conjuration required. The fact is, that, not only 
 do these propositions contain well-known, and almost 
 self-evident truths; but, these truths have, during 
 the last two or three years, and especially during the 
 last year, been so frequently stated in print, that it 
 was next to impossible that any person in England, 
 able to read, should have been unacquainted with 
 them. But, having arrived at the conclusion, that, 
 in order to raise the value of the paper-money, its 
 quantity must be lessened; having come to this 
 point, the rest of the way was more difficult ; for, the 
 next object was, to point out the means of lessening 
 the quantity of the paper-money, and this is an ob- 
 ject, which, in my opinion, will never be effected, 
 unless those means include the destruction of the 
 whole mass. 
 
 Not so, however, think the Gentlemen of the Bui- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 21 
 
 lion Committee. They think, or at least, they evi- 
 dently wish to make others think, that it is possible 
 to lessen the quantity of the paper-money, and to 
 cause guineas to come back again and to pass from 
 hand to hand as in former times ; they would fain 
 have us believe, that this can be done without the 
 total destruction of the paper-money ; and, indeed, 
 they have actually recommended to the House of 
 Commons to pass a Law to cause the Bank in Thread- 
 needle Street, London, commonly called the Bank of 
 England, to pay its notes in real money, at the END 
 OF TWO YEARS from this time, two years is 
 a pretty good lease for people to have of this sort. 
 This Bank promises to pay on demand. It doe* 
 this upon the face of every one of its notes ; and, 
 therefore, as a remedy for the evil of want of gold, 
 to propose, that this Bank should begin to pay in 
 two years' time, is something, which I think, would 
 not have been offered to the public in any age but 
 this, and, even in this age. to any public except the 
 public in this country. The notes of the Bank of 
 England bear, upon the face of them, a promise that 
 the Bankers, or Bank company, who issue the notes, 
 will pay the notes upon demand. Now what do we 
 mean by paying a note? Certainly we do not mean, 
 the giving of one note for another note. Yet, this 
 is the sort of payment, that people get at the Bank 
 of England ; and this sort of payment the Bullion 
 Committee does not purpose oven to begin to put an 
 end to in less than two years from this time. 
 
 Gentlemen ; we, the people of this country, have 
 been persuaded to believe many things. We have 
 been persuaded to believe ourselves to be " the most 
 thinking people in Europe ;" but to what purpose do 
 men fhink, unless they arrive at useful knowledge 
 by thinking? To what purpose do men think, if 
 they are, after all their thinking, to be persuaded, 
 that a Bank, which has not paid its promissory note* 
 in gold for thirteen years and a half, will be able 
 to pay them in gold at the end of fifteen years and 
 a half, the quantity of the notes having gone on re- 
 
22 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 gularly increasing' ? If men are to be persuaded to 
 believe this, to what purpose do they think ? But, 
 before I proceed any further in my remarks upon the 
 Report of the Bullion Committee ; before I proceed 
 to lay before you the exposures now made by the 
 labours of this Committee ; the facts now become 
 evident through this channel ; the confessions now 
 made by these members of the House of Commons : 
 before I proceed to lay these before you, and to re- 
 mark upon the remedies proposed by the Committee, 
 it will be necessary for me to go back into the his- 
 tory of the paper-money; because, without doing 
 this, I shall t>e talking to you of things, of which 
 you will have no clear notion, and the reasonings, 
 relating to which, you will, of course, not at all un- 
 derstand. It is a great misfortune, that any portion 
 of your time should be spent in reading or thinking 
 about matters of this kind ; but, such is our present 
 situation in this country, that every man who has a 
 family to preserve from want, ought to endeavour to 
 make himself acquainted with the nature, and with 
 the probable consequences, of the paper-money now 
 afloat. 
 
 Money, is the representative, or the token of pro- 
 perty, or things of value. The money, while used 
 as money, is of no other use ; and, therefore, a bit of 
 lead or of wood or of leather, would be as good as 
 gold or silver, to be used as money. But, if these 
 materials, which are every where found in such 
 abundance, were to be used as money, there would 
 be so much money made that there would be no end 
 to it ; and, besides, the money made in one country 
 would, however there enforced by law, have no va- 
 lue in any other country. For these reasons Gold 
 and Silver, which are amongst the most scarce of 
 things, have been, by all the nations that we know 
 any thing of, used as money. 
 
 While the money of any country consists of no^ 
 thing but these scarce metals ; while it consists of 
 nothing but gold and silver, there is no fear of its 
 becoming too abundant; but, if the money of a 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 23 
 
 country be made of lead, tin, wood, leather, or paper ; 
 and if any one can make it, who rnay choose to make 
 it, there needs no extraordinary wisdom to foresee, 
 that there will be a great abundance of this sort of 
 money, and thai the gold and silver money, being, in 
 fact, no longer of any use in such a state of things, 
 will go, either into the hoards of the prudent, or into 
 the bags of those, who have the means of sending 
 or carrying them to those foreign countries where 
 they are wanted, and where they will bring their 
 value. 
 
 That a state of things like that here spoken of, does 
 now exist in this country, is notorious to all the world. 
 But, while we are all acquainted with the fact, and 
 while many of us are most sensibly feeling the effects, 
 scarcely a man amongst us takes the trouble to in- 
 quire into the cause : yet, unless the cause be ascer- 
 tained, how are we to apply, or to judge of a remedy ? 
 We see the country abounding with paper-money ; 
 we see every man's hand full of it ; we frequently 
 talk of it as a strange thing, and a great evil ; but 
 never do we inquire into the cause of it. 
 
 There are few of you who cannot remember the 
 time, when there was scarcely ever seen a bank note 
 among Tradesmen and Farmers. I can remember 
 when this was the case ; and, when the farmers in 
 my country hardly ever saw a bank note, except 
 when they sold their hops at Weyhill fair. People, 
 in those days, used to carry little bags to put their 
 money in, instead of the paste-board or leather cases 
 that they now carry. If you look back, and take a 
 little time to think, you will trace the gradual increase 
 of paper-money, and the like decrease of gold and 
 silver money. At first there were no bank-notes un- 
 der 20 -pounds; next they came to 15 pounds; next 
 to 10 pounds : at the beginning of the last war, they 
 came to 5 pounds ; and, before the end of it, they 
 came down to 2 and to 1 pounds. How long it will 
 be before they come down to parts of a pound, it 
 would, perhaps, be difficult to say ; but in Kent, at 
 least, there are country notes in circulation to an 
 
24 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 amount so low as that of seven shillings. It is the 
 cause of this that is interesting to us ; the cause of 
 this change in our money, and, in the prices of goods 
 of all sorts and of labour. All of you who are forty 
 years of age can remember when the price of the 
 gallon loaf used to be about ten pence or a shilling, 
 instead of two shillings and sixpence or two shillings 
 and ten pence, as it now is. These effects strike 
 you. You talk of them every day ; but the cause of 
 them you seldom, if ever, either talk or think of: 
 and it is to this cause that I am now endeavouring 
 to draw your attention. 
 
 You have, during the last seventeen years, seen 
 the quantity of paper-money rapidly increase ; or in 
 other words, you have, day after day, seen less and 
 less of gold and silver appear in payments, and, of 
 course more and more of paper-money. But, it was 
 not till the year 1797, thai the paper-money began 
 to increase so very fast. It was then that the two 
 and one pound notes were first made by the Bank of 
 England. It was then, in short, that paper-money 
 became completely predominant. But, you will na- 
 turally ask me, " What was the cause of that ? n 
 The cause was, that the Bank of England stopped 
 paying its notes in gold and silver. What 1 stop 
 paying its notes ? Refuse to pay its promissory 
 notes? The Bank of England, when its notes were 
 presented, refuse to pay them? Yes: and, what is 
 more, an Act of Parliament brought in by Pitt, was 
 passed, to protect the Bank of England against the 
 legal consequences of such refusal. So that, the 
 people, who held promissory notes of the Bank, and 
 who had, perhaps, given gold or silver for them, 
 when they went to the Bank for payment, were told, 
 that they could have no gold or silver, but that they 
 might have other notes, more paper, if they pleased, 
 in exchange for the paper they held in their hands 
 Hnd tendered for payment. From that time to this, 
 the Act of Parliament, authorizing the Bank of Eng- 
 land to refuse to pay its notes in gold and silver, 
 kas been in force. At first it was passed for three 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 25 
 
 months; next, till the Parliament should meet again ; 
 then it was to last to the end of the war; then, when 
 peace came, it was continued just for a year, till 
 things should be settled ; then, as things were not 
 quite settled, it was continued till Parliament should 
 meet again ; and, as this present war had begun by 
 that time, the Act was made to continue till six 
 months after the next peace. 
 
 The reasons given upon the different occasions, 
 it will be very material to notice : for, it is this stop- 
 page in the payment of gold and silver at the Bank 
 of England upon which the whole question turns. 
 Every thing hangs upon this, and, when we come to 
 examine that part of the Report which treats of the 
 Bank's reviving its payments in gold and silver, we 
 shall find it of great use to us to recur to the reasons, 
 the divers, the manifold reasons that were given, at 
 different times, for suspending those payments. Since 
 that suspension took place you have seen the gold 
 and silver disappear; you have seen, the paper has 
 supplied the place of gold; paper-money makers 
 have set up all over the kingdom; and might not 
 this well happen, when, to pay paper-money nothing 
 more than paper-money was required ? But the rea- 
 sons given for this measure of suspension ; the rea- 
 sons given for the passing of an Act of Parliament 
 to protect the Bank of England against the demands 
 of its creditors are seldom recurred to, though, as you 
 will presently see, without recurring to those reasons, 
 and without ascertaining the true cause of the pass- 
 ing of that Act of Parliament, we cannot form so 
 good a judgment relative to the remedy now propo- 
 sed ; namely, that of the Bank of England's revi- 
 ving its payments in gold and silver. This is the 
 remndy, which the Bullion Committee propose ; and, 
 you will say, a very good remedy it is ; a very good 
 remedy, indeed ; for people who have, for so long a 
 time, not paid their notes in gold and silver, to begin 
 to pay their notes in gold and silver, is a very good 
 remedy ; but, the thing to ascertain, is, can the reme- 
 dy be applied ? This is the question for us to discuss. 
 3 
 
26 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 It required nobody to tell us, that paying in gold and 
 giloer would be an effectual remedy for the evils ari- 
 sing from not paying in gold and silver; but, it re- 
 quired much more than I have yet heard to convince 
 me, that to pay again in gold and silver was possible. 
 
 The chief object of our inquiries being this : Whe- 
 ther it be possible, without a total destruction of 
 the paper-money system, to restore gold and silver 
 to circulation amongst us ; this being the chief ob- 
 ject of our inquiries, we should first ascertain how 
 the gold and silver was driven out of circulation, 
 and had its place supplied by paper-money ; for, un- 
 less we get at a clear view of this, it will be next to 
 impossible for us to reason satisfactorily upon the 
 means of bringing gold and silver back again into 
 Circulation. 
 
 Some people suppose, that paper always made a 
 part of the currency, or common money, of England. 
 They seem to regard the Bank of England as being 
 as old as the Church of England, at least, and some 
 of them appear to have full as much veneration for it. 
 The truth is, however, that the Bank of England is a 
 mere human institution, arising out of causes having 
 nothing miraculous, or supernatural, about them ; 
 and that both the institution and the agents who 
 carry it on, are as mortal as any other thing and any 
 ether men, in this or in any other country. THE 
 BANK, as it is called, had its origin in the year 1694, 
 that is, a hundred and sixteen years ago ; and it arose 
 thus : the then King, WILLIAM III., who had come 
 from Holland, had begun a war against France, and, 
 wanting money to carry it on, an Act was passed 
 (which Act was the 20th of the 5th year of his reign) 
 to invite people to make voluntary advances to the 
 Government of the sum of 1,500,000 pounds, and for 
 securing the payment of the interest, and also for se- 
 curing the re-payment of the principal, tajres were 
 laid upon beer, ale, and other liquors. Upon condi- 
 tion of 1,20(),000/. of this money being advanced, 
 within a certain time, the subscribers to the loan 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 27 
 
 were to be incorporated ; and, as the money was ad- 
 vanced in due time, the incorporation took place, 
 and the lenders of the money were formed into a tra- 
 ding Company, called, " THE GOVERNOR AND COM- 
 PANY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND." Out of this, and 
 other sums borrowed by the Government in the way 
 of mortgage upon the taxes, there grew up a thing 
 called the Stocks, or the Funds (of which we will 
 speak hereafter ;) but the Bank Company remained 
 under its primitive name, and as the debt of the na- 
 tion increased, this Company increased in riches 
 and in consequence. 
 
 Thus, you see, and it is well worthy of your at- 
 tention, the Bank had its rise in war and taxation. 
 But, we must reserve reflections of this sort for other 
 occasions, and go on with our inquiries how gold 
 and silver have been driven out of circulation in 
 this country, or, in other words, how it came to pass 
 that so much paper-money got afloat. 
 
 The Act of Parliament, which I have just referred 
 to, points out the manner in which the Bank Com- 
 pany shall carry on their trade, and the articles in 
 which they shall trade, allowing them, amongst other 
 things, to trade in gold, silver, bills of exchange, and 
 other things, under certain restrictions ; but, as to 
 what are called bank-notes, the Company was not 
 empowered to issue any such, in any other way, or 
 upon any other footing, than merely as promissory 
 notes, for the amount of which, in the coin of the 
 country, they were liable to be sued and arrested. 
 Having, however, a greater credit than any other in- 
 dividuals, or company of individuals, the Bank Com- 
 pany issued notes to a greater amount ; and, which 
 was something new in England, they were made 
 payable, not to any particular person, or his order ^ 
 and not at any particular time ; but to the bearer, 
 and on demand. These characteristics, which dis- 
 tinguished the promissory notes of the Bank of Eng- 
 land from all other promissory notes, gave the people 
 greater confidence in them ; and, as the Bank Coin- 
 
28 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 pany were always ready to pay the notes in Gold and 
 Silver, when presented for payment, the notes be- 
 came, in time, to be looked upon as being as good as 
 gold and silver. Hence came our country sayings : 
 " As good as the Bank ;" " As solid as the Bank ;" 
 and the like. Yet, the Bank was, as we have seen, 
 merely a company of mortal men, formed into an as- 
 sociation of traders ; and their notes nothing more 
 than written promises to pay the bearer so much 
 money in gold or silver. 
 
 We used to have other sayings about the Bank, 
 such as " As rich as the Bank ;" " All the gold in 
 the Bank ;" and such like, always conveying a no- 
 tion, that the Bank was a place, and a place, too, 
 where there were great heaps of money. As long 
 as the Company were ready and willing to pay, and 
 did actually pay, their notes in gold and silver, to 
 all those persons who wished to have gold and silver, 
 it is clear that these opinions of the people, relative to 
 the Bank, were not altogether unfounded ; for, though 
 no bit of paper, or of any thing which has no value 
 in itself, can be, in fact, so good as a bit of gold : 
 still, if it will, at any moment, whenever the holder 
 pleases, bring him gold or silver to the amount writ- 
 ten upon it, it is very nearly as good as gold and 
 silver; and, at the time of which we are speak- 
 ing, this was the case with the promissory notes 
 of the Bank Company. But, it must be evident, 
 thaJt, though the Company were ready, at the time 
 now referred to, to pay their notes in gold and 
 silver, they had never in their money-chests a suf- 
 ficiency of gold and silver to pay off all their notes, 
 if they had been presented all at once. This 
 must be evident to every man ; because, if the 
 Bank Company kept locked up as much gold and 
 silver as their notes amounted to, they could get 
 nothing by issuing their notes, and might full as 
 well have sent out their gold and silver. A far- 
 mer, for instance, who is generally using a hun- 
 dred pounds of money to pay his workmen, might 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 29 
 
 Jend the hundred pounds and get interest for it, if he 
 could persuade his workmen to take promissory notes 
 of his own drawing, instead of money, and, if he were 
 sure that these promissory notes would not be brought 
 in for payment; but, if this was not the case, he would 
 be compelled to keep the hundred pounds in his drawer 
 ready to give to those who did not like to keep his 
 promissory notes ; and, in such case, it is clear, that 
 the money would be of no use to him, and that he 
 might full as well have none of his notes out. 
 
 Just so with the Bank Company, who, at no time, 
 could have in hand gold and silver enough to pay off 
 all their notes at once ; nor was this necessary as 
 long as the people regarded those notes as being 
 equally good with gold and silver. But, it is clear, 
 that this opinion of the goodness of the Company's 
 notes, or rather, the feeling of confidence, or, still 
 more properly perhaps, the absence of all suspicion, 
 with respect to them, must, in a great degree, de- 
 pend upon the quantity of notes seen in circulation, 
 compared with the quantity of gold and silver seen 
 in circulation. At, first, the quantity of notes was 
 very small indeed ; the increase of this quantity was, 
 for the first twenty years, very slow ; and, though it 
 became more rapid in the next twenty years, the 
 quantity does not appear to have been large till the 
 war which took place in 1755, before which time the 
 Bank Company put out no notes under 20 pounds in 
 amount. Then it was that they began to put out 15 
 pound notes, and afterwards, but during the same 
 war, 10 pound notes. During all this time, loans, 
 in every war, had been made by the Government. 
 That is to say, the Government had borrowed money 
 of individuals, in the same way as above-mentioned, 
 in the year 1694. The money thus borrowed was 
 never paid off, but was suffered to remain at in- 
 terest, and was, as it is now called, the NATIONAL 
 DEBT, the interest upon which is annually paid out 
 of the taxes raised upon the people. As this debt 
 went on increasing, the bank-notes went on in- 
 3* 
 
30 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 creasing, as, indeed, it is evident they must, see- 
 ing that the interest of the debt was, as it still 
 is and must be, paid in bank-notes. Why not pay 
 it in gold ? 
 
 It is not simply the quantity of bank-notes that are 
 put into circulation, which will excite alarm as to 
 their solidity ; but, it is that quantity, if it be great, 
 compared with the quantity of gold and silver, 
 seen in circulation. If, as the bank-notes increased, 
 the circulating gold and silver had increased in the 
 same proportion ; then, indeed, bank-notes would 
 still have retained their usual credit : people would 
 still have had the same confidence in them. But, 
 this could not be. From the nature of things it 
 could not be. The cause of the increase of the 
 bank-notes, was, the increase of the interest upon 
 the National Debt ; and, as it grew out of an ope- 
 ration occasioned by poverty, it would have been 
 strange indeed had it been accompanied with a cir- 
 cumstance, which would have been an infallible in- 
 dication of riches. 
 
 Without, however, stopping here to inquire into 
 the cause of the coin's not increasing with the in- 
 crease of paper, suffice it to say, that such was the 
 fact. Year after year we saw more of bank-notes 
 and less of gold and silver ; till, in time, such was 
 the quantity of bank-notes required to meet the pur- 
 poses of gold and silver in the payment of the inte- 
 rest of the still-increasing debt, and in the payment 
 of the taxes, that many other banks were opened, 
 and they also issued their promissory notes. The 
 Bank Company's notes, which had never before been 
 made for less sums than 10 pounds, were, soon after 
 the beginning of PITT'S war, in 1793, issued for five 
 pounds, after which it was not to be supposed, that 
 people could have the same opinion of bank-notes 
 that they formerly had. Every part of the people, 
 except the very poorest of them, now, occasionally, 
 at least, possessed bank-notes. Rents, salaries, yearly 
 wages, all sums above five pounds, were now paid in 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 31 
 
 bank-notes ; and, the Government itself was now 
 paid its taxes in this same sort of currency. 
 
 In such a state of things it was quite impossible 
 that people should not begin to perceive, that gold 
 and silver was better than bank-notes ; and that they 
 should not be more desirous of possessing the former 
 than the latter ; and, the moment this is the case, the 
 banking system must begin to tremble ; for, as the 
 notes are payable to the bearer, and payable on de- 
 mand, it is very certain, that no man, with such a 
 preference in his mind, will keep in his possession 
 a bank-note, unless we can suppose a man so absurd 
 as to keep a thing, of the goodness of which he has 
 a suspicion, while, for merely opening his mouth or 
 stretching forth his hand, he can exchange it for a 
 thing of the same nominal value, and of the good- 
 ness of which it is impossible for him or any one else 
 to entertain any suspicion. " Public Credit," as it 
 has been called, but, as it may more properly be 
 called, " The credit of bank-notes" has been em- 
 phatically denominated, " SUSPICION ASLEEP." In 
 the midst of events like those of 1793 and the years 
 immediately succeeding ; in the midst of circumstan- 
 ces like those above-mentioned, relating to the bank- 
 notes, it was impossible that SUSPICION should sleep 
 any longer. The putting forth of the 5 pound bank- 
 notes appears to have roused it, and, in the month of 
 February, 1797, it became broad awake. The stop- 
 page of payment on the part of the Bank Company 
 was the immediate consequence ; but, a particular ac- 
 count, of that important event, which totally changed 
 the nature of all our money transactions, and which 
 will, in the end, produce, in all human probability, 
 effects of the most serious nature, must be the sub- 
 ject of- a future Letter. In the mean while I am, 
 Your Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, 30th Aug. 1810. 
 
32 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 What are the Funds and Stocks and National Debt? Ne- 
 cessity of clearly understanding what these words mean 
 Meaning of themInquiry into the Origin of the Funds 
 and Debt The English Revolution Act of Parliament, 4th 
 William III. Cap. 3, begins the Funding and Debt System 
 First Loan to Government Nature of Funds and Stocks 
 and National Debt Explanation of how " Money is put in 
 the Funds" Illustration in the case of Messrs. Muckworm 
 and Company, and that of Farmer Greenhorn The Funds 
 shown to be NO PLACE, nor any thing of a mystical nature. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 HAVING, in the foregoing letter, taken a sketch 
 of the History of the Bank of England, and of its 
 Notes, from their origin down to the time when that 
 Bank stopped paying its notes in gold and silver , 
 the next thing to do in our regular course of proceed- 
 ing, will be to inquire into, and clearly ascertain, 
 the cause of that stoppage ; for it is very evident, 
 that without ascertaining this cause, we shall not 
 be able to come to any thing like a decided opinion 
 with regard to our main question namely, WHETHER 
 
 THERE BE ANY PROBABILITY THAT THIS BANK WILL BE 
 ABLE TO RETURN TO THEIR PAYMENTS IN GOLD AND 
 
 SILVER, in which question every man of us, from the 
 highest to the lowest, is so deeply interested. 
 
 But, it is necessary for us to stop a little where we 
 are, and not go on any further with our inquiries into 
 the cause of the stoppage at the Bank of England, 
 until we have taken time to look a little at the 
 FUNDS and the NATIONAL DEBT. These are 
 words which are frequently made use of; but, like 
 many other words, they stand for things which are 
 little understood, and the less, perhaps, because the 
 words are so very commonly used. As in the in- 
 stance of Shrove Tuesday or Shrovetide, words 
 which we all, from the oldest to the youngest, make 
 use of; but as to their meaning, we content our- 
 selves with supposing, (or appearing to suppose,) 
 that they contain a commandment for us to eat Frit- 
 ters and Pancakes, and to murder poor unoffending 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 33 
 
 cocks ; whereas they mean, the Tuesday, or the time 
 for going to confess our sins to, and to get abso- 
 lution from the Priests ; to shrive, being a word 
 equal in meaning to to confess, and shrove, to con- 
 fessed ; and the use of them in the case here men- 
 tioned having been handed down to us from the 
 days of our forefathers when the Catholic worship 
 was the worship of the country. 
 
 Monstrous, however, as is the perversion of the 
 meaning of words, in this instance, it is scarcely 
 more so than in the case of the Funds and the A"a- 
 tional Debt; but, there is this very important dif- 
 ference in the two cases ; that, while, in the former, 
 the perversion is attended with no mischief either to 
 individuals, or to the nation, in the latter, it is attended 
 with great mischief to both ; with the ruin and mi- 
 sery of many a thousand of widows and orphans, 
 and with woes unnumbered to the nation at large. 
 But, if a right understanding of the meaning of these 
 words be, in all cases where words are used, of some 
 consequence, it is of peculiar consequence here, where, 
 as may have been gathered from the preceding letter, 
 we shall find the Funds, the Stocks, and the Na- 
 tional Debt, to be so closely interwoven with the 
 Bank Notes, as to be quite inseparable therefrom in 
 every possible state or stage of their existence. 
 
 The word FUND means, a quantity of money 
 put or collected together. The word STOCK, as 
 applied to such matters, has the same meaning. 
 Both words may admit of meanings somewhat dif- 
 ferent from this ; but this is the meaning which plain 
 men commonly give to these words ; and it is, too, 
 the fair and sensible meaning of them. Now, we 
 shall presenly see, in what degree this meaning be- 
 longs to what are commonly called the Funds, or 
 the Stocks, into the origin and progress of which, we 
 are now going to inquire ; and, an inquiry it is, worthy 
 of the undivided attention of every true Englishman ; 
 every man who wishes to see the country of his fore- 
 fathers preserved from ruin and subjugation. 
 
&4 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Soon after the ENGLISH REVOLUTION ; that is to 
 say, soon after our ancestors had driven away King 
 James the Second, and had brought over the Prince 
 of Orange and made him king in his stead, and had, 
 at the same time, taken measures for stripping the 
 family of Stuart of the crown for ever, and putting 
 it upon the heads of His present Majesty's family ; 
 soon after this Revolution, the existence of Funds, 
 Stocks, and a National Deht began, under the auspi- 
 ces of that same Prince of Orange, who was then 
 become our King William III., and who appears to 
 have lost but very little time in discovering the effect- 
 ual way of obtaining money from the English, with- 
 out resorting, as the Stuarts had, to those means, the 
 use of which had, ever and anon, excited commo- 
 tions against them ; which had brought one of them 
 to the scaffold ; and which, at last, after driving 
 another from the land, had for ever stripped them 
 of their crown. The real motives for creating a 
 National Debt we shall, by-and-by, perhaps, have 
 occasion to notice ; but, at present, our business is 
 to get at a clear notion of the way in which it was 
 created. 
 
 William the Third was hardly seated upon the 
 throne before a war was begun against France, and, 
 in the 4th year of his reign, being the year 1692, an 
 Act of Parliament was passed imposing " Certain 
 rates and duties upon beer, ale, and other liquors, 
 for securing certain Recompenses and Advantages 
 in the said Act mentioned, to such Persons as shall 
 voluntarily advance the sum of Ten Hundred Thou- 
 sand Pounds towards carrying on the War against 
 France." This is the Title of the Act, being Chap 
 ter 3d of the 4th year of William and Mary. 
 These are the very words ; and fatal words they 
 were to England. 
 
 In the body of this Act it is enacted, that the per- 
 sons, who shall advance the million of pounds, shall, 
 out of the rates and duties imposed by the Act, re- 
 ceive a certain inter est, or annual payment, for the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 35 
 
 use of the money so advanced. They were to have, 
 and they had, their money secured to them by way 
 of annuity for life or lives ; and, they were to 
 have certain advantages in cases of survivorship ; 
 and the annuities were to be redeemed upon certain 
 conditions and at certain times. But, it will be quite 
 useless for us to load our subject with a multitude 
 of words, and to ring the changes upon all the quaint 
 terms, which, as appertaining to these matters, have, 
 one would think, been made use of for no other pur- 
 pose than that of confusing the understandings of 
 plain men. The light wherein to view the transac- 
 tion is this : The Government was (no matter how, 
 or from what cause) got into a war with France ; 
 and, for the alleged purpose of pushing on this Avar 
 with u vigour" (it is odd enough that the very word 
 was made use of, just as it is now) they borrowed 
 a million of pounds of individuals, and, at the same 
 time, imposed taxes upon the whole nation for the 
 purpose of paying the interest of the money so bor- 
 rowed ; or, in other words, the nat ; on's taxes were 
 mortgaged to the lenders of this million of pounds. 
 The lenders of the money, who, in time, became 
 to be called fund holders or stock holders, did, as 
 the work of lending and fund-making advanced, 
 make their loans in various ways, and the bargains 
 between them and the Government were of great 
 variety in their terms, and in the denominations 
 made use of; but, it was always the same thing in 
 effect : the government borrowed the money of in- 
 dividuals, it mortgaged taxes for the payment of the 
 interest ; and those individuals received for their 
 money, promises, or engagements, no matter in what 
 shape, which enabled them to demand annually, 
 half-yearly, or quarterly, the share of interest due to 
 each of them ; and any single parcel of interest, so 
 received, is what is, in the queer language of the 
 funding trade, called a "dividend." No matter, 
 however, what the thing is called ; no matter how 
 many nick-names they choose to give to the several 
 
36 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 branches of the Debt. We daily see, in the news- 
 papers, what is called the " PRICE OF STOCKS," 
 as in the following statement, which is in all the 
 newspapers of this day : 
 
 Bank Stock 257 5$ 
 
 3 per Cent. Red. 68 f f 
 
 3 per Cent. Con. 67f 8 7$ 
 
 4 per Cent. 85 4 5-J- 4 f 
 
 5 per Cent. Navy 99f \ -f 
 Long Annuities 18^- 
 Omnium 2 -f- -f- dis. 
 Excheq. Bills 1 dis. 5 prem. 
 Bank Stock for open 257 
 Consols for 68 i f 
 
 These are names, which the dealers, or job- 
 bers, in Stocks give to the several classes of them. 
 But, as I said before, let us avoid confusing our heads 
 with this worse than Babylonish collection of names, 
 or sounds, and keep fully and clearly and constantly 
 in our sight, these plain facts : FIRST, that the Funds, 
 the Stocks, and the National Debt, all mean one 
 and the same thing; SECONDLY, that this Debt is 
 made up of the Principal money lent to the Go- 
 vernment at different times since the beginning of 
 the thing in 1692 ; THIRDLY, that the Interest upon 
 this principal money is paid out of the taxes ; and, 
 FOURTHLY, that those persons who are entitled to re- 
 ceive this interest, are what we call fund-holders, 
 or stock-holders, or, according to the more common 
 notion and saying, have " money in the Funds" 
 
 Being here in the elementary, the mere horn-book 
 part of our subject, we cannot make the matter too 
 clear to our comprehension ; and, we ought, by no 
 means, to go a step further till we have inquired into 
 the sense of this saying about people's "having 
 money in the Funds /" from which any one, who 
 did not understand the thing, would naturally con- 
 clude, that the person who made use of the saying, 
 looked upon the Funds, as a place, where a great 
 quantity of gold and silver was kept locked up in 
 safety. Nor, would such conclusion be vprv <>~r*- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 37 
 
 neous ; for, generally speaking, the notion of the 
 people of this country is, that the Funds or the 
 Stocks (they are made use of indiscriminately) is a 
 PLACE, where money is kept. A place, indeed, 
 of a sort of mysterious existence ; a sort of financial 
 Ark; a place not, perhaps, to be touched, 'or even 
 seen ; but, still the notion is, that of a place, and a 
 place, too, of more than mortal security. 
 
 Alas ! the Funds are no place at all ! and, indeed, 
 how should they, seeing that they are, in fact, one 
 and the same thing with the National Debt? But, 
 to remove, from the mind of every creature, all doubt 
 upon this point ; to dissipate the mists in which we 
 have so long been wandering, to the infinite amusement 
 of those who invented these terms, let us take a plain 
 common-sense view of one of these loaning transac- 
 tions. Let us suppose, then, that the Government 
 wants a loan, that is, wants to borrow money ', to the 
 amount of a million of pounds. It gives out its wishes 
 to this effect, and, after the usual ceremony upon such 
 occasions, the loan is made, that is, the money is lent, 
 by Messrs. Muckworm and Company. We shall 
 see, by-and-by, when we come to talk more fully 
 upon the subject of loans, what sort of a way it is, 
 in which Muckworm pays in the money so lent, and 
 in what sort of money it is that he pays. But, for 
 the sake of simplicity in our illustration, we will 
 suppose him to pay in real good money, and to pay 
 the whole million himself at once. Well : what 
 does Muckworm get in return ? Why, his name is 
 written in a book ; against his name is written, 
 that he is entitled to receive interest for a million 
 of money; which book is kept at the Bank Com- 
 pany's house, or shop, in Threadneedle Street, Lon- 
 don. And, thus it is that Muckworm "puts a mil- 
 lion of money into i the Funds? " " Well," you will 
 say, " but what becomes of the money ?" Why, the 
 Government expends it, to be sure : what should be- 
 come of it ? Very few people borrow money for the 
 purpose of locking it up in their drawers or chests. 
 "What? then the money all vanishes; and w>- 
 4 
 
38 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 thing remains in lieu of it but the lenders name 
 written in a book?" Even so: and this, my good 
 neighbours, is the way, that " money is put into the 
 Funds." 
 
 But, the most interesting part of the transaction 
 remains to be described. Muckworm, who is as wise, 
 as he is rich, takes special care not to be a fund-holder 
 himself ; and, as is always the case, he loses no time 
 in selling his stock, that is to say, his right to re- 
 ceive the interest of the million of pounds. These 
 Funds, or Stocks, as we have seen, have no bodily 
 existence, either in the shape of money or of bonds 
 or of certificates or of any thing else that can be seen 
 or touched. They have a being merely in name. 
 They mean, in fact, a right to receive interest; 
 and, a man, who is said to possess, or to have a 
 thousand pounds' worth of stock, possesses in 
 reality, nothing but the right of receiving the inte- 
 rest oja thousand pounds. When, therefore, Muck- 
 worm sells his millions' worth of stock, he sells the 
 right of receiving the interest upon the million of 
 pounds which he lent to the Government. But, the 
 way in which sales of this sort are effected is by par- 
 celling the stock out to little purchasers, every one 
 of whom buys as much as he likes ; he has his name 
 written in the book for so much, instead of the name 
 Muckworm and Company ; and, when Muckworm 
 has sold the whole, his name is crossed out, and the 
 names of the persons, to whom he has sold, remain 
 in the book. 
 
 And, here it is that the thing comes home to 
 our very bosoms ; for, our neighbour, farmer Green- 
 horn, who has all his life been working like a horse, 
 in order to secure his children from the perils of po- 
 verty, having first bequeathed his farm to his son, 
 sells the rest of his property (amounting to a couple 
 of thousands of pounds,) and, with the real good 
 money, the fruit of his incessant toil and eare, pur- 
 chases two thousand pounds' worth of Muckworm's 
 Funds, or Stocks, and leaves the said purchase to 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 39 
 
 his daughter. And, why does he do so? The rea- 
 son is, that, as he believes, his daughter will always 
 receive the interest of the two thousand pounds, 
 without any of the risk, or trouble, belonging to the 
 rents of house or land. Thus neighbour Greenhorn 
 is said to have u put two thousand pounds in the 
 Funds ;" and thus his daughter (poor girl !) is said to 
 " have, her money in the Funds /" when the plain 
 fact is, that Muckworm's money has been spent by 
 the Government, that Muckworm has now the two 
 thousand pounds of poor Grizzle Greenhorn, and 
 that she, in return for it, has her name written in 
 a Book, at the Bank Company's house, in Thread- 
 needle-street, London, in consequence of which she 
 is entitled to receive the interest of the two thousand 
 pounds ; which brings us back to the point whence 
 we started, and explains the whole art and mystery 
 of making loans and funds and stocks and national 
 debts. 
 
 It will be very useful to show the effect of this 
 * putting money in the Funds," with respect to the 
 party who is said to put it in. I do not know of any 
 duty more pressing upon me, than that of showing, 
 in this plain and practical way, what have been, 
 what are, and what must be, the consequences to 
 those, who thus dispose of their property ; especially 
 if they have no property of any other sort. But, this 
 will be found to belong to another part of our sub- 
 ject ; and as we have now seen what the Funds and 
 the Stocks really are ; as we have blown away the 
 mist in which we had so long been wandering ; as 
 the financial Ark is now no more in our sight than 
 any veritable box made of deal boards and nails ; as 
 we are now satisfied, that there is nothing mystical 
 in the~words Funds and Stocks, and that, so far from 
 meaning a place where a great quantity of money 
 is kept, they are not the name of any place at all, 
 nor of any thing which has a corporeal existence, 
 and are the mere denominations, or names, of the 
 several classes or parcels, of Debt, which the Go- 
 
40 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 vernment owes to individuals : in short, as we have 
 now, let us hope, arrived at a complete knowledge of 
 the nature and origin of the Funds and the Stocks 
 and the National Debt, which, as was before said, 
 are, in fact, all one and the same thing, it is time 
 that we proceed to inquire into their progress, and 
 to see how that progress is connected with the in- 
 crease of the Bank Notes and with the stoppage of 
 the payment of those notes in gold and silver. To 
 do justice, however, to this copious and interesting 
 theme, especially when coupled with what it will 
 be necessary to say as to the schemes for arresting 
 the progress of the Debt, will demand a separate 
 Letter. In the meanwhile, 
 
 I am, with perfect sincerity, 
 Your Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, 6th Sept. 1810. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Danger of exciting Popular Discontents against Country 
 Paper-Money Makers Description of the National Debt- 
 Progress of the Debt The different Denominations of it no 
 Consequence Cost of the Anti-jacobin War Progress of 
 the National Expenses Progress of the Revenue or Taxes 
 The effect of Taxation Taxes cause Poverty and Mi- 
 sery in a Country Not like Rents Increase of Revenue 
 no Proof of National Prosperity What are the Signs of 
 National Prosperity Increase of the Poor rates in England 
 Cost of the Tax-Gatherers sufficient to support 92,500 
 Families. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 A LONDON print, which is what is called a mi- 
 nisterial newspaper, and which I, in the discharge of 
 my duty as a public writer, am compelled to read, 
 but which, for the sake of your morals, I hope none 
 of you ever see, has most harshly spoken of that part 
 of our paper-money, which is issued by the Bankers, 
 whose shops are in the country. The writer of this 
 print has described that paper, namely, the country 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 4i 
 
 bank-notes, as " destructive assignats ;" and, in 
 another of his publications, he calls them " vile 
 rags ;" and then again " dirty rags." These hard 
 words, besides that they are unbecoming in sober 
 discussion, can do no good, and may do a great deal 
 of harm, if they have any effect at all upon the minds 
 of the people ; and, therefore, we will make a re- 
 mark or two upon their tendency, before we proceed 
 with the topic mentioned at the close of the last letter. 
 Assignats was the name given to the French re- 
 volutionary paper-money, the distresses occasioned 
 by which are fresh in the recollection of most people ; 
 and, to give the same name to our country bank-notes 
 was , therefore, to proclaim, as far as this writer was 
 able to proclaim, that these notes, being more than one 
 half of all our circulating medium, were as bad, 
 if not worse, than the paper-money of France, which 
 produced so much individual misery to so many mil- 
 lions of people. Not that this was betraying any 
 secret to the world ; for, it is beyond all comprehen- 
 sion foolish to suppose, that all the world, particu- 
 larly our sharp-sighted enemy, are not fully ac- 
 quainted with our situation in this respect, more es- 
 pecially now that the Bullion Report is abroad ; but 
 what I find fault of, is, that this description of coun- 
 try hank-notes, as contradistinguished from the 
 London bank-notes, has a tendency to excite popular 
 hatred, and in cases that may happen, popular vio- 
 lence, against that part of our paper-money makers, 
 called country bankers ; than which nothing can 
 be much more unjust in itself, or be more likely 
 to lead to universal confusion, the experience of the 
 world having proved that commotion, when once oil 
 foot, is seldom limited to the accomplishment of its 
 original object ; and, we may venture to affirm, that 
 nothing was ever better calculated to render popular 
 commotion violent, and to push it beyond its natural 
 bounds, than the hatred and revenge, which it would 
 seem to be the object of the print above-mentioned 
 to excite in the minds of the people. 
 4* 
 
42 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 The country paper-money makers are not, as we 
 shall soon see, any more to blame than are the paper- 
 money makers in town. Paper-money making is a 
 trade, or calling, perfectly innocent in itself, and the 
 tradesmen may be very moral and even very liberal 
 men. Amongst them, as amongst men of other 
 trades, there are, doubtless, sharpers and even rogues, 
 and the trade itself may be one that exposes men to 
 the temptation of becoming roguish ; but it does not 
 follow, that all the paper-money makers, or that the 
 paper-money makers in general, are men of dis- 
 honest views. It is, therefore, not only illiberal, 
 but unjust in the extreme, to condemn the whole of 
 the trade in a lump, to call their wares " destructive 
 assignats, vile rags, dirty rags" and the like, 
 whence it is, of course, intended that it should be un- 
 derstood, that all the issuers of them ought to be re- 
 garded as pests of society and treated accordingly ; 
 when, the truth is, as we shall presently see, the 
 fault is not in individuals, but in the system. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to put you upon your 
 guard against the tendency of this very unjust repre- 
 sentation of our country bankers, and their money, 
 an endeavour, which, it appeared to me, ought not to 
 be delayed, we will now proceed with our subject, 
 and, as was proposed, at the close of the last Letter, 
 inquire into the progress of the Funds and Stocks ; 
 or, in more proper terms, into the INCREASE OF 
 THE NATIONAL DEBT. 
 
 We have before seen what is the nature of this 
 debt : we have also seen how it began : we shall, by- 
 and-by, have to show the effects of it : but what we 
 have to do, at present, is to inquire into and ascer- 
 tain, how it has gone on increasing, and what is now 
 its amount. We shall next inquire into, the schemes 
 for lessening the Debt ; and then we shall distin- 
 guish what is called Redeemed from Unredeemed 
 debt ; but, first of all, let us leave all other views 
 of it aside, and confine our attention merely to the 
 sums borrowed. We have before seen, that the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 43 
 
 money has been borrowed in various ways, or under 
 various denominations. In some cases the money 
 borrowed was to yield the lender 3 per centum, that 
 is to say 3 pounds interest, yearly, for every hun- 
 dred pounds of principal. In some cases the lender 
 was to receive 4 per centum ; in some cases 5 per 
 centum : and in some cases more. Hence come the 
 denomination of 3 per cents, and 4 per cents., and 
 so forth. But, to the people, who have to pay the 
 interest, these distinctions are of no consequence at 
 all, any more than it would be to either of us, whe- 
 ther our bakers' bills were made out upon brown 
 paper or upon white. We shall see afterwards what 
 we have to pay yearly in the shape of interest^ which 
 is the thing that touches us home ; but, let us first 
 see what the principal is, and how it has gone on 
 increasing ; bearing in mind, that, as was shown in 
 the foregoing Letter page 36, the borrowing, and, of 
 course the Debt, began in the year ] 692, in the reign 
 of William the Third, and that the loan made in that 
 year amounted to one million of pounds. 
 When QJJEEN ANNE, who succeeded 
 
 William, came to the throne, which 
 
 was in the year 1701, the Debt 
 
 was 16,394,702 
 
 When GEORGE I. came to the throne, in 
 
 1714, it was 54,145,363 
 
 When GEORGE II. came to the throne, 
 
 in 1727, it was 52,092,235 
 
 When GEORGE III. came to the throne, 
 
 in 1760, it was 146,682,844 
 
 After the AMERICAN WAR, in 1784, it 
 
 was 257,213,043 
 
 At the latter END OF THE LAST WAR ; 
 
 that- is to say, the first war against 
 
 the French Revolutionists, and 
 
 which, for the sake of having a dis- 
 tinctive appellation, we will call the 
 
 ANTI-JACOBIN WAR : at the end of 
 
 that war, in 1801, the Debt was . . 579 931,447 
 
44 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 At the PRESENT TIME \ oi rather in Ja- 
 nuary last:* 811,898,082 
 
 That is to say, eight hundred and eleven millions y 
 eight hundred and ninety eight thousand, and 
 eighty-two ; and these in pounds, in English pounds, 
 too ! There are in the accounts laid before the Par- 
 liament (from which the last-mentioned sum is taken) 
 some shillings and pence and even FARTHINGS, 
 in addition ; but though these accountants have been 
 so nice, we will not mind a few farthings. Part of 
 this Debt is what is called funded and a part un- 
 funded ; part is called Irish Debt, part Emperor of 
 Germany's Debt, and another part the Prince Re- 
 gent of Portugal's. But interest upon the whole of 
 it is payable in England ; and that is all that we 
 have to look after ; it being of no consequence to us 
 what the thing is called, so that we have to pay for 
 it. So that we are taxed to pay the interest of it, 
 what matters it to us what names the several parts 
 of it may go by ? I hope, that there is not, at this 
 day, a man amongst you, who is to be amused with 
 empty sounds : I hope that your minds are not, now- 
 a-days, after all that you have seen, to be led away 
 from the object before them by any repetition of 
 mere names. So long as we are taxed to pay the 
 interest upon the Debt, that man must be exceed- 
 ingly weak, who is to be made to believe, that it is 
 of any consequence to any of us by what name that 
 debt is called.f 
 
 Such, then, has been the progress of the National 
 Debt ; and, it is well worthy of our attention, that it 
 has increased in an increasing proportion. It is 
 now nearly s?> times as great as it was when the 
 present king [Geo. III.] came to the throne ; and, 
 
 * The above enormous sums maybe converted into United 
 States' money by reckoning 4s. 6d. to the dollar, and adding 
 eight per cent, which is the common rate of exchange. 
 This makes the pound sterling about $4 80. Thus as ll. ster- 
 lingis $4 80: 811,898,032^. is $3,897,110,793,60. 
 
 t There is, besides the above, the INDIA DEBT ; but of that 
 we will speak another time. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 45 
 
 which ought to he well attended to, more than two 
 thirds of the whole of the debt has been contracted 
 in carrying on, against the French, that war, which, 
 at its commencement, was to succeed by means of 
 ruining the Finances of France. When the ANTI- 
 JACOBIN WAR began in 1793, the Debt was, at the 
 utmost, 257,213,043. It is now 811,898,082. 
 Such has, thus far, been the financial effect ; such 
 has been the effect, as to money-matters, of the wars 
 against the Jacobins. How many times were we 
 told, that it required but one more campaign ; one 
 more ; only one more vigorous campaign, to put an 
 end to the war ; to destroy, to annihilate, for ever, 
 the resources of France. Alas ! those resources 
 have not been destroyed. They have increased in 
 a fearful degree ; while we have accumulated hun- 
 dreds of millions of Debt in the attempt. How 
 many writers have flattered us, from time to time, 
 with the hope, nay, the certainty, (if we would but 
 persevere,) of triumphing over the French by the 
 means of our riches ! To how many of these de- 
 ceivers have we been so foolish as to listen ! It is 
 this credulity which has led to the present state of 
 things ; and, unless we shake it off at once, and re- 
 solve to look our dangers in the face, we shall, I 
 greatly fear, experience that fate which our deceivers 
 told us would be experienced by our enemy. PITT, 
 it is well known, grew into favour with the nation, 
 in consequence of his promises and his plans to pay 
 off the National Debt ; and, this same PITT, who 
 found that Debt 257 millions, left it upwards of 600 
 millions, after having, for twenty years, had the full 
 power of managing all the resources of the nation ; 
 after having, for nearly the whole of that time, had 
 the support of three fourths, if not more, of the Mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons ; after having, of 
 course, adopted whatever measures he thought pro- 
 per, during the whole of that time. He found the 
 Debt two hundred and fifty odd millions, and he 
 left it six hundred and fifty odd. This was what 
 
46 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 was done for England by that PITT whose own pri- 
 vate debts the people had to pay, besides the expense 
 of a monument to his memory ! This is what every 
 man in England should bear constantly in mind. 
 
 Having now seen how the National Debt has in- 
 creased, let us next see how the EXPENSES of 
 the Nation have increased ; and, then take a look at 
 the increase of the TAXES ; for, in order to be able 
 to form a correct opinion upon the main points, 
 touched upon by the Bullion Committee, we must 
 have a full view, not only of the Debt but of the Ex- 
 penses and the Taxes of the nation. 
 When Q,UEEN ANNE came to the 
 
 throne, in 1701, the whole Ex- 
 penses of the year, including 
 
 the interest on the National 
 
 Debt, amounted to ..... 5,610,987 Peace. 
 When GEORGE I. came to the 
 
 throne, in 1714, and just after 
 
 Q,ueen Anne had been at war 
 
 eleven years 6,633,581 Peace. 
 
 When GEORGE II. came to the 
 
 throne, in 1727 5,441,248 Peace. 
 
 When GEORGE III. came to the 
 
 throne, in 1760 24,456,940 War. 
 
 After the END OF THE AMERICAN 
 
 WAR, and at the beginning of 
 
 PITT'S Administration, in 1784 21,657,609 Peace. 
 At the latter End of the last, or 
 
 ANTI-JACOBIN WAR, in 1801 . 61,278,018 War. 
 For the last year, that is, the year 
 
 1809 82,027,288, 5s. 1-Jd. War. 
 
 Now, without any thing more than this, let me ask 
 any of you, to whom I address this Letter, whether 
 you think it possible for the thing to go on in this 
 way for any great length of time? If the subject 
 did not present so many considerations to make us 
 serious, it would be quite impossible to refrain from 
 laughing at the scrupulousness that could put Jive 
 shillings and a penny three farthings at the end 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 47 
 
 of a sum of millions, that it almost makes one's 
 head swim but to think of. Laughable, however, as 
 we may think it, those who have such accounts made 
 out, think it no laughing matter. It is, on the con- 
 trary, looked upon by them, perhaps, as no very un- 
 important part of the system. 
 
 Upon looking at the above progress of the Expen- 
 diture, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the 
 increase, during the present reign. The year 1760 
 was a time of war as well as the present ; but, as we 
 see, a year of war then, cost only 24 millions ; 
 whereas a year of war now costs 82 millions. We 
 see, too, that a year of war now costs 20 millions 
 more than a year of war cost only ten years ago. 
 What, then, will be the cost, if this war should con- 
 tinue many years longer, and if, as appearances 
 threaten, the enemy should lake such measures, and 
 adopt such a change in his mode of hostility, as to 
 add greatly to the expensiveness of our defence ? 
 This is a very material consideration; and, though it 
 will hereafter be taken up, still I could not refrain 
 from just touching upon it in this place. Am I told, 
 that our money is depreciated or fallen off in va- 
 lue; and that the increase in our expenses is more 
 nominal than real ; that the increase is in name ; 
 merely in the figures, and not in the thing ; for that 
 a pound is not worth anything like what a pound 
 was worth when the king came to the throne ? Arn 
 I told this ? If I am, I say, that we are not yet 
 come to the proper place for discussing matters of 
 this sort ; that we shall come to it all in good time ; 
 but, that, in the meanwhile, I may hope to hear no 
 more abuse of our doctrines, from those, at least, 
 who, in this way, would reconcile our minds to the 
 enormous increase in the nation's yearly expenses. 
 
 Having now taken a view of tfie increase of the 
 Debt, and also of the yearly expenses of the nation, 
 let us now see how the revenue, or income, or, more 
 properly speaking, the TAXES ; that is to say, the 
 money received from the people, in the course of the 
 
48 PAPER AGAINST G6LD. 
 
 year, by the several sorts of tax-gatherers ; let us 
 now see how the amount of these has gone on in- 
 creasing. 
 When QUEEN ANNE came to the throne, in 
 
 1701. the yearly amount of the taxes 
 
 was 4,212,358 
 
 When GEORGE I. came to the throne in 
 
 1714, it was 6,762,643 
 
 When GEORGE II. came to the throne in 
 
 1727 it was 6,522,540 
 
 When GEORGE III. came to the throne in 
 
 1760, it was 8,744,682 
 
 After the AMERICAN WAR, 1784, it was 13,300,921 
 At the close of the Anti-Jacohin War, in 
 
 1801 it was 36,728,971 
 
 For the last year, that is 1809, it was. . 70,240.226 
 
 It is quite useless to offer any comments upon this. 
 The figures speak too plainly for themselves to re- 
 ceive any assistance from words. As to the correct- 
 ness of these statements, there may, perhaps, be 
 found some little inaccuracies in the copying of the 
 figures, and in adding some of the sums together; 
 but, these must be very immaterial ; and, indeed, 
 none of the questions, which we have to discuss, can 
 possibly be affected by any little error of this sort. I 
 say this in order to bar any cavil that may, possibly, 
 be attempted to be raised out of circumstances, such 
 as I have here mentioned. 
 
 Thus, then, we have pretty fairly before us, a view 
 of the increase of the Debts, the Expenses, and the 
 Taxes, of the nation ; and a view it is quite suffi- 
 cient to impress with serious thoughts every man, 
 whose regard for his country is not confined to mere 
 professions. There are persons, I know, who laugh 
 at this. They may have reason to laugh ; but we 
 have not. The pretence is, that taxes return again 
 to those who pay them. Return again ! In what 
 manner do they return ? Can any of you perceive 
 the taxes that you pay coming back again to you ? 
 All the interested persons who have written upon 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 49 
 
 taxation, have endeavoured to persuade the people, 
 that, to load them with taxes does them no harm at 
 all, though this is in direct opposition to the language 
 of every Speech that the King makes to the Parlia- 
 ment during every war ; for, in every such Speech, 
 he expresses his deep sorrow, that he is compelled 
 to lay new burdens upon his people. 
 
 The writers here alluded to, the greater part of 
 whom live, or have a design to live, upon the taxes, 
 always appear to consider the nation as being rich 
 and prosperous in a direct proportion to the quan- 
 tity of taxes that is raised upon it ; never seeming 
 to take into their views of riches and prosperity the 
 ease and comfort of the people who pay those taxes. 
 The notion of these persons seems to be. that, as 
 there always will be more food raised, and more 
 goods made in the country, than is sufficient for those, 
 who own, and who till the soil, and who labour in 
 other ways, that the surplus, or super-abundance, 
 ought to fall to their share ; or, at least, that it ought 
 to be taken away in taxes, which produce a luxu- 
 rious way of living, and luxury gives employment to 
 the people; that is to say, that it sets them to work 
 to earn their own money back again. This is a 
 mighty favour to be sure. 
 
 The tendency of taxation is, to create a class of 
 persons who do not labour ; to take from those who 
 do labour, the produce of that labour, and to give it 
 to those who do not labour. The produce taken 
 away is, in this case, totally destroyed ; but, if it 
 were expended, or consumed, amongst those who 
 labour, it would produce something in its stead. 
 There would be more, or better cloth ; more or better 
 houses ; and these would be more generally distri- 
 buted ;~ while the growth of vice, which idleness al- 
 ways engenders and fosters, would be prevented. 
 
 If, by the gripe of taxation, every grain of the sur- 
 plus produce of a country be taken from the lowest 
 class of those who labour, they will have the means 
 of bare existence left. Of course, their clothing and 
 5 
 
50 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 their dwellings will become miserable, their food bad, 
 or in stinted quantity ; that surplus produce which 
 should go to the making of an addition to their meal, 
 and to the creating of things for their use, will be an- 
 nihilated by those who do nothing but eat. Sup- 
 pose, for instance, a community to consist of a farmer, 
 four cottagers, a tailor, a shoemaker, a smith, a carpen- 
 ter, and a mason, and that the land produces enough 
 for them all and no more. Suppose this little com- 
 munity to be seized with a desire to imitate their 
 betters, and to keep a sinecure placeman, giving him 
 a tenth of their produce which they formerly gave to 
 their shoemaker. The consequence would be, that 
 poor CRISPIN would die, and they would go bare- 
 footed, with the consolation of reflecting that they 
 had brought themselves into this state, from the silly 
 vanity of keeping an idle man. But, suppose the 
 land to yield enough food for all ten of them, and 
 enough for two more besides. They have this, then, 
 besides what is absolutely necessary to supply their 
 wants. They can spare one of their men from the 
 field, and have besides, food enough to keep him in 
 some other situation. Now, which is best, to make 
 him a second carpenter, who, in return for his food, 
 would give them additional and permanent conve- 
 nience and comfort in their dwellings ; or, to make 
 him a sinecure placeman or a singer, in either of 
 which places he would be an annihilator of corn, at 
 the same time that, in case of emergency, he would 
 not be half so able to defend the community ? Sup- 
 pose two of the cultivators became sinecure placemen, 
 then you kill the carpenter or some one else; or, 
 what is more likely, all the labouring part of the 
 community, that is to say, all but the sinecure place- 
 men, live more miserably, in dress, in dwellings, and 
 in food. This reasoning applied to tens, applies 
 equally well to millions , the causes and effects being, 
 in the latter case, only a little more difficult to trace. 
 Such is the way in which taxes operate j the dis- 
 tinction between which operation and the operation 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 51 
 
 of rents being this, that in the latter case, you re- 
 ceive something of which you have the particular 
 enjoyment, for what you give ; and, in the former 
 case, you receive nothing. It is by no means to be 
 understood, that there should be no persons to live 
 without what is generally called labour. Physicians, 
 Parsons, Lawyers, and others of the higher callings 
 in life, do, in fact, labour ; and it is right that there 
 should be persons of great estate, and without any 
 profession at all ; but then, you will find, that these 
 persons do not live upon the earnings of others : 
 they all of them give something in return for what 
 they receive. Those of the learned professions give 
 the use of their talents and skill ; and the landlord 
 gives the use of his land or his houses. 
 
 Nor ought we to look upon all Taxes as so much 
 of the fruit of our labour lost, or taken away with- 
 out cause. Taxes are necessary in every commu- 
 nity ; and the man, whether he be statesman, solr 
 dier, or sailor, who is in the service of the commu- 
 nity, gives his services in return for that portion of 
 the taxes which he receives. We are not talking 
 against taxes in general ; nor, indeed, will we stop 
 here to inquire, whether our taxes, at their present 
 amount, be necessary ; or, whether, by other coun- 
 sels, they might, in great part, at least, have been 
 avoided. These are questions which, for the pre- 
 sent, we will wholly pass over, our object being to 
 come at a correct opinion with regard to the effect of 
 heavy taxation upon the people who have to support 
 it, reserving for another opportunity our remarks and 
 opinions as to the necessity of such taxation in our 
 particular case. 
 
 By national prosperity the writers above alluded 
 to mean something very different indeed from that 
 which you and I, who have no desire to live upon 
 the taxes, should call national prosperity. They 
 look upon it, or, at least, they would have us look 
 upon it as being demonstrated in the increase of the 
 number of chariots and of fine-dressed people in and 
 
52 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 about the purlieus of the court ; whereas, reflection 
 will not fail to teach us, that this is a demonstration 
 of the increase of the taxes, and nothing more. Na- 
 tional prosperity shows itself in very different ways : 
 in the plentiful meal, the comfortable dwelling, the 
 decent furniture and dress, the healthy and happy 
 countenances, and the good morals of the labouring 
 classes of the people. These are the ways in which 
 national prosperity shows itself; and, whatever is not 
 attended with these signs, is not national prosperity. 
 Need I ask you, then, if heavy taxation be calculated 
 to produce these effects ? Have our labourers a plen- 
 tiful meal of food fit for man ? Do they taste meat 
 once in a day ? Are they decently clothed ? Have 
 they the means of obtaining firing ? Are they and 
 their children healthy and happy ? I put these ques- 
 tions to you, Gentlemen, who have the means of 
 knowing the facts, and who must, I am afraid, answer 
 them all in the negative. 
 
 But, why need we here leave any thing to con- 
 jecture, when we have the undeniable proof before 
 us, in the accounts, laid before Parliament, of the 
 amount of the Poor-Rates, at two different periods, 
 and, of course, at two different stages in our taxation ; 
 namely, in the year 1784, and in the year 1803 ? 
 At the former period, the taxes of the year, as we 
 have seen above, amounted to 13,300,921 ; and then 
 the Poor-Rates amounted to 2,105,623. At the 
 latter period, the taxes of the year (as will be seen 
 from the Official Statement in Register, Vol. IV. 
 page 1471) amounted to 41,931,747 ; and the Poor- 
 Rates had then risen to 5,246,506. What must they, 
 then, amount to at this day, when the year's taxes 
 amount to upwards of 70 millions of pounds ? 
 
 Here then, we have a pretty good proof, that taxa- 
 tion and pauperism go hand in hand. We have seen 
 what was produced by the ANTI-JACOBIN WAR. The 
 taxes continued nearly the same from 1784 to 1793, 
 the year in which PITT began that war ; so that, by 
 the ANTI-JACOBIN WAR alone the Poor-Rates were 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 53 
 
 augmented, in nominal amount, from 2,105,623 to 
 5,246,506 ; at which we shall not be surprised, if 
 we apply to this case the principle above illustrated 
 in the supposed community of ten men, where it is 
 shown, that, by taking the produce of labour from 
 the proprietors of it, and giving it to those, who do 
 not labour and do not give the proprietors of such pro- 
 duce any thing in return, poverty, or, at least, a less 
 degree of ease and enjoyment, must be the conse- 
 quence. 
 
 The Poor-Rates alone are now equal in amount 
 to the whole of the national expenditure, including 
 the interest of the Debt, when the late King came to 
 the throne ; and, the charges of managing the taxes ; 
 that is to say, the wages, salaries, or allowances, to 
 the tax-gatherers of various descriptions ; the bare 
 charge which we pay on this account, amounts to 
 very little short of as much as the whole of the 
 taxes amounted to when King William was crowned. 
 
 This charge ; that is to say, what we pay to the 
 tax-gatherers, in one shape or another, is stated in 
 the account laid before Parliament for the last year, 
 at 2,886,201, a sum equal to a year's wages of 
 92,500 labourers at twelve shillings a week, which 
 may, I suppose, be looked upon as the average wages 
 of labourers, take all the kingdom through. Is this 
 no evil ? Are we to be persuaded, that, to take the 
 means of supporting 92,500 families, consisting, upon 
 the usual computation (5 to a family) of 461,000 
 souls ; that to take away the means of supporting all 
 these, and giving those means to support others, 
 whose business it is to tax the rest, instead of adding 
 to the stock of the community by their labour ; are 
 we to be persuaded that this is no evil ; and that, 
 too, though we see the Poor-Rates grown from 2 
 millions to 5 millions in the space of 10 years ? Are 
 we to be persuaded to believe this ? Verily, if we 
 are, it is a great shame for us to pretend to laugh at 
 the Mahomedans. 
 
 Having now taken a view of the progress of the 
 
54 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 National Debt together with that of the National 
 Expenses and Taxes : and having (by stepping 
 a little aside for a moment) seen something of their 
 effect upon national prosperity* we will, in the 
 next Letter, agreeably to the intention before ex- 
 pressed, inquire into the schemes for arresting this 
 fearful progress ; or, as they are generally denomi- 
 nated, plans, for paying off, or, reducing, the Na- 
 tional Debt ; a subject of very great importance, be- 
 cause, as we must now be satisfied, the bank-notes 
 have increased with the Debt, and, of course, the 
 reducing of the Debt would, if it were accomplished, 
 tend to the reduction of the quantity of bank-notes, 
 by the excess of which it is, as the Bullion Com- 
 mittee have declared, that the gold coin has been, 
 driven from circulation. 
 
 I am. Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful "Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Tuesday, 11th Sept. 1810, 
 
 ' 
 
 LETTER IV, 
 
 Schemes for paying off the National Debt Former Sinking 
 Funds Origin of Pitt's Grand Sinking Fund Changes 
 made by Pitt's sway in the state of this Country Grand 
 Sinking Fund Purposes of it The Commissioners and 
 their manner of Proceeding How they would buy up Griz- 
 zle Greenhorn's share of the Debt What Redemption 
 means Commissioners step into Grizzle's shoes We still 
 are taxed for the Interest Evils of the Grand Sinking Fund 
 What would be really Redeeming American mode of Re- 
 deeming Statement of the Increase of the Interest on the 
 Debt Clause in Pitt's Grand Sinking Fund Act for ceasing 
 to pay Interest, in 1808, upon Stock bought up. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 OUR next business is to inform ourselves correctly 
 with respect to the Schemes, which, at different 
 times, have been on foot for PAYING OFF THE 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 55 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT, and about which paying off 
 we have, all our lives long, heard so much. 
 
 We have seen how the Debt has gone on increasing 
 from its first existence to the present day ; we have 
 seen how the Expenses of the nation and the Taxes 
 of the nation have gone on increasing with the debt ; 
 we have also seen that the increase of the bank-notes 
 has kept pace with the rest, till those notes have, at 
 last, driven the gold coin out of circulation. This 
 last is the evil, for which the Bullion Committee 
 have endeavoured to find out a remedy, and such a 
 remedy they appear to think that they have found, 
 in an Act of Parliament which they propose to be 
 passed, for causing the Bank Company to pay their 
 promissory notes in gold and silver in two years' 
 time. One of our principal objects, in this discussion 
 is, to enable ourselves to forjn a correct opinion as 
 to the practicability of this remedy, even at the 
 end of two years ; and, as we have, from what has 
 already been shown, good reason to believe, that the 
 quantity of bank-notes, the excess of which has dri- 
 ven the gold out of circulation, cannot be lessened 
 unless the Debt be also diminished, it is necessary 
 for us to ascertain what has been done or attempted, 
 and what is likely to be done, in the way of causing 
 such diminution. 
 
 From very early stages of the Debt ; indeed, al- 
 most from the very beginning of it, there were mea 
 sures proposed for paying it off, the idea of an ever- 
 lasting Debt, and an everlasting mortgage upon the 
 nation's means, being, at first, something too fright- 
 ful for our upright and sensible ancestors to bear. 
 Propositions, and even provisions, were, at different 
 times, accordingly made for paying off parts of the 
 Debt" and some comparatively small sums were, in 
 the early stages of the progress, actually paid off; 
 the Debt became less, and less interest was, of course, 
 paid upon it. Still, however, as new wars came on, 
 new sums were borrowed ; and, as lending money 
 to the Government was found to be a profitable trade ; 
 
56 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 as so many persons of influence found their advan- 
 tage in the loaning transactions, the money was al- 
 ways easily enough raised. But, yet there continued 
 to be a talk of -paying off the Debt ; and, in time, a 
 part of the yearly taxes were set aside for that pur- 
 pose, which part of the taxes so set aside was called 
 a SINKING FUND. 
 
 These being words, which, as belonging to our 
 present subject, are of vast importance, it is neces- 
 sary for us to have a clear notion of their meaning. 
 The word Fund, as was before observed in Letter 
 II. page 13, means a quantity of money put together 
 for any purpose; and, in the instance before us, 
 the word Sinking appears to have been prefixed to 
 the word Fund in order to characterize, or describe, 
 the particular purpose, or use, of the taxes so set 
 apart 5 namely, the purpose of sinking, or reducing, 
 or diminishing, or lessening, the Debt. So that the 
 Sinking Fund, of which we have all heard so much, 
 and of which most of us have known so little, means, 
 in other words, in words better to be understood, a 
 Lessening Fund ; and whether the thing has, in 
 its operations, hitherto, answered to its name, we 
 shall by-and-by see, if, indeed, we have not seen 
 enough to satisfy us upon this point in the increasing 
 of the Debt, as exhibited in the foregoing Letter. 
 
 The amount of taxes thus set apart, or, to use the 
 words with which we must now grow familiar, the 
 Sinking Funds, which were, time after time, esta- 
 blished, were, in many cases, applied to other pur- 
 poses than that for which they were destined, or in- 
 tended. Indeed, they seem, for many years, to have 
 been very little better than purses made up at one 
 time and spent again at another, without answering 
 any rational purpose at all ; and, accordingly, the 
 nation does not appear to have paid any great atten- 
 tion to them, or to have considered them as of any 
 consequence, until the year 1786, when the present 
 GRAND SINKING FUND was established by PITT, 
 oj but a little while before, had been made Prime 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 57 
 
 Minister, and whose system has continued to this 
 day. 
 
 Gentlemen, we are now entering upon a part of 
 our subject, which not only demands an uncommon 
 portion of your attention, but into the discussion of 
 which you will, I hope, carry such a spirit of im- 
 partiality as shall subdue all the prejudices of party, 
 and dissipate all the mists of ignorance which have 
 therefrom arisen. It is, even yet, impossible to men- 
 tion the name of PITT, without exciting feelings that 
 struggle hard against reason, and that, in some minds, 
 overcome it. During his administration, the nation 
 was divided into two parties, so hostile to each.other, 
 that both were easily made subservient to his views ; 
 and, it is, with every man who really loves his coun- 
 try, matter of deep regret, that the same, or nearly 
 the same, divisions continue to the present day. 
 
 It is not for me, who, at one time, really looked 
 upon PITT as the greatest minister that England ever 
 saw, to reproach others, who may still be as igno- 
 rant of the truth, as I was then^ for their attach- 
 ment to his memory, for their high opinion of the 
 schemes of his inventing, and for their blind adora- 
 tion of those schemes ; but when they have, as I 
 have, taken a fair and full view of all his measures ; 
 when they have compared his deeds with his pro- 
 fessions, his performances with his promises ; when 
 they have seen, that he added threefold to our Taxes 
 and our Expenditure, and that, notwithstanding this, 
 the power and the territory of France were, extended 
 in proportion to the sacrifices he called upon us to 
 make for what he called resisting her ; when they 
 see, that the standard of national misery, the Poor- 
 Rates, rose, during his sway, in almost a triple de- 
 gree;- when they see, that the war, at the outset of 
 which he relied, in no small degree, for success upon 
 the destruction of French assignats, did, at the 
 end of four years, cause the stoppage of gold and 
 silver payments at the Bank of England, and that its 
 prolongation has led to a state of things, in which a 
 
58 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 public print devoted to the Government, has described 
 the largest class of English bank-notes as " destruc- 
 tive assignats ;" when they see this, and when they 
 see, that, the National Debt, which he himself called, 
 " the best ally of France ;" when they see, that 
 that Debt, which he found at 200 millions and odd, 
 he left at 600 millions and odd, while France, during 
 his wars against her, had exchanged her assignats 
 for gold, and had extended her territory and her 
 sway to a degree which made that nation, whose 
 power our forefathers despised, an object of continual 
 dread to England; when the former partizans of PITT 
 see this, as they must, aye, and/ee/ it too, will they 
 still persist in asserting the wisdom of his plans ; 
 and, above all, will they, when they see the debt 
 tripling in amount under his hands, still persist in 
 asserting the efficacy of his Sinking Fund, and, 
 upon that bare assertion, reject all inquiry into either 
 the nature or the effect of that celebrated scheme ? 
 
 Let us hope, that in a country boasting of the 
 though tfulness of its people, there can be but very 
 few persons so besotted as this ; and, indeed, it is due 
 to the country to say, that there do not appear to be 
 any such left, excepting amongst those who live upon 
 the taxes, and whose perverseness arises not from 
 their want of information. But, be this as it may, 
 I am satisfied that you, my Friends and Neighbours, 
 who, like me, have no interests separate from those 
 of our country, will not, whatever may have been 
 your prejudices heretofore, wilfully shut your eyes 
 against the truth, and that you will accompany me 
 in this inquiry with that great attention, which, as I 
 before observed, the subject demands. 
 
 Pitt's Sinking Fund was begun in the year 1786, 
 by an Act of Parliament (being Chapter XXXI. of 
 the 26th year of the reign of Geo. III.) entitled 
 u An Act for vesting certain sums in Commission- 
 ers^ at the end of every Quarter of a Year, to be 
 by them applied to the Reduction of the National 
 Debt." In virtue of this Act, a certain part of the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 59 
 
 taxes was, in each year, to be paid to certain persons 
 named in the Act, as Commissioners for managing 
 the concern ; and these taxes, together with the ac- 
 cumulations upon them, have been, as formerly, 
 called a Sinking Fund. 
 
 It is no matter what was the amount of the sum, or 
 sums, of money, thus to be set apart out of the taxes, 
 and to introduce particulars of that sort would only 
 embarrass our view. Suffice it to know, that certain 
 sums of money, being a part of the taxes, were set 
 apart, and that, with this money, together with its 
 growing interest, the Commissioners, appointed by 
 the Sinking Fund Act, were, at stated periods, and 
 with certain limitations in their powers, to redeem 
 the Debt as fast as they could, the word redeem ha- 
 ving now come into fashion instead of the word pay 
 off. It is of no consequence what were the. periods, 
 what were the days of the week or the times of the 
 moon, when this work of redemption was to be per- 
 formed. The effect is what we have to look after , 
 but, in order to have a clear view of even that, we 
 must see the manner of doing the thing, the manner 
 of redeeming or paying off the Debt ; for, without 
 that, we shall be continually exposed to be bewildered 
 and deceived ; and, indeed, we shall be quite unable 
 to form any thing like a clear notion of what the 
 Sinking Fund really is. 
 
 The Commissioners, with the money thus put 
 under their care and management, were to purchase 
 up stock from individuals, which stock would then 
 become the property of the nation. But, stay. 
 We must go gently on here, or we lose ourselves in 
 a moment. We must, indeed, not proceed a step 
 further, till we have gone back to Letter II, at pages 
 36, 37 f and 38, and have taken another look, and re- 
 freshened our memories as to what STOCK means. 
 Having done so, and read on to the end of the first pa- 
 ragraph in page 38, we may proceed by repeating, that 
 the Commissioners were to go to work with the money 
 lodged in their hands, out of the taxes, and purchase 
 
CO PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 up Stock. We have seen, in the pages just referred, 
 to, how Stock is made ; we have seen how MUCK 
 WORM lent his money to the Government ; we have 
 seen how he got his name written in a book in re- 
 turn for his money ; we have seen that Stock is no- 
 thing that can be seen, heard, smelled or touched ; 
 we have seen that it signifies the right of receiving 
 interest upon money lent to the Government, which 
 money has been long ago expended ; we have seen 
 the operation by which MUCKWORM became possessed 
 of Stock : and lastly, we have seen our neighbour, 
 FARMER GREENHORN, purchase two thousand pounds' 
 worth of MUCKWORM'S Stock, which the former be- 
 queathed to his poor daughter GRIZZLE. 
 
 Now, then, observe ; the whole of the Stock, of 
 which the National Debt is made up, is exactly the 
 same sort of thing as this two thousand pounds' worth 
 of Stock, belonging to Grizzle Greenhorn. There is a 
 book in which a list of the names of all those persons 
 is written, who have, like Grizzle, a right to draw in- 
 terest from the Government out of the taxes ; against 
 each name in this list is placed the amount of the 
 sum for which the person has a right to draw interest. 
 Some have a right to draw interest for more and some 
 for less. And these sums make up what is called 
 the National Debt. Of course, the Sinking Fund 
 Commissioners, in order to pay off the National Debt, 
 or any part of it, must purchase up Stock from indi- 
 viduals ; or, in other words, pay them off their share 
 of the Debt. If, for instance, Grizzle Greenhorn 
 has a mind to have her two thousand pounds to lay 
 out upon land, or do any thing else with, she sells 
 her stock, and, if it so happen, she may sell it to the 
 Commissioners ; and thus, as they pay her for it with 
 the nation's money, it is said, that, by this transaction 
 they have redeemed (by which I should mean paid 
 oJJ) two thousand pounds of the National Debt. 
 Grizzle, who was the creditor, has got her money 
 again ; she has no longer any right to draw interest 
 for it ; and, of course, you would think, that these 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 61 
 
 two thousand pounds' worth of Deht were paid off, 
 and that the nation, that we ihe people, had no longer 
 any interest to pay upon it; you would naturally 
 think, that we were no longer taxed to pay the in- 
 terest upon this part of the Debt. 
 
 Greatly, however, would you be deceived ; cruelly 
 deceived, if you did think so ; for, notwithstanding 
 the Commissioners have redeemed these two thou- 
 sand pounds, we have still to pay the interest of them 
 every year ; we are still taxed for the money where- 
 with to pay this interest, just in the same way as 
 if the two thousand pounds' worth of Debt had 
 not been redeemed at all, but still belonged to Griz- 
 zle Greenhorn ! This is an odd way of redeeming ; 
 an odd way of paying off ; do you not think it is, 
 Neighbours ? We have before seen, that the National 
 Debt is a mortgage upon the taxes. It is constantly 
 called so in conversation, and in writings upon the 
 subject. But, should not either of you, who happened 
 to have a mortgage upon your land or house, think it 
 strange if, after you had redeemed a part of the 
 mortgage, you had still to pay interest upon the part 
 redeemed as well as upon the part unredeemed ? 
 TO REDEEM, as applied to money engagements, 
 means to discharge, to set free by payment. This 
 is the meaning of the word redeem, as applied to 
 such matters. It sometimes means to rescue or to 
 ransom, from captivity, from forfeiture, or from peril 
 of any sort, by paying a price. But, in every sense 
 in which this word is used, it always implies the set- 
 ting free of the object on which it operates; and, 
 when applied to a mortgage, a bond, a note of hand, 
 or a Debt of any sort, it implies the paying of it off. 
 How, then, can the two thousand pounds' worth of 
 Debt,- purchased from Grizzle Greenhorn, by our 
 Sinking Fund Commissioners, be said to be redeemed 
 by us, if we are still taxed to pay the interest upon 
 it, and, of course, if it be not discharged, and not set 
 free? 
 
 Nothing, at first sight, appears more plausible, no 
 6 
 
62 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 thing more reasonable, nothing more clear, than the 
 mode above described, of redeeming the Debt by pur- 
 chasing from the several individuals, who, little Griz- 
 zle Greenhorn, own the Stock or the Debt, their re- 
 spective shares thereof. And, the operation is as 
 simple as any thing can be. For, the Sinking Fund 
 Commissioners, having, for instance, received two 
 thousand pounds from the tax-gatherers, in virtue of 
 the Sinking Fund Act, go and purchase Grizzle's 
 Stock ; they give her the two thousand pounds ; her 
 right to draw interest from us ceases; her share of 
 the Stock or Debt is redeemed or paid off; and her 
 name is crossed out of the Book. Ah ; but alas ! 
 the names of our Sinking Fund Commissioners are 
 'written in the Book instead of hers ! Aye : we 
 have to pay the interest of the two thousand pounds 
 to them instead of to her ; and our taxes on account 
 of this, which is called the redeemed part of the 
 Debt, are just as great as they were before this cu- 
 rious work of redemption began. 
 
 " Well then," you will say, " what does this thing 
 mean; and what can it have been intended for?" 
 Why, to speak candidly of the matter, though the 
 thing was an invention of PITT, under whose sway 
 so much mischief came upon this nation, I believe 
 that the thing was well meant. I believe that it was 
 intended to free the nation from its Debt. But, I 
 am satisfied, that it has been productive of no small 
 part of the evils, which England and which Europe 
 have experienced since its invention ; for, by giving 
 people renewed confidence in the soli'dity of the 
 Funds or Stocks, it rendered Government borrowing 
 more easy ; and, of course, it took from the Minister 
 that check to the making of wars and the paying of 
 foreign armies, for the want of which check th^ Ex- 
 penses and Taxes and Debt of the country have been 
 so fearfully augmented, to say nothing, at present, 
 about the dreadful changes which those wars have 
 made in our affairs both at home and abroach 
 
 To produce such effects was, however, certainly 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 63 
 
 not the intention of the scheme. The intention was, 
 that the Sinking Fund Commissioners should, with 
 the money put into their hands out of the taxes, pur- 
 chase up Stock, or parts of the Debt, belonging to 
 individuals ; that the parts so purchased up, should 
 not cease to exist ; that, they should be written in 
 the Great Book under the name of the Commission- 
 ers ; that the Commissioners should receive the in- 
 terest upon them, instead of its being received by in- 
 dividuals as before ; that this interest, as fast as it 
 came into the hands of the Commissioners, should, 
 like the money paid to them annually out of the 
 taxes, be laid out in purchasing up more Stock from 
 individuals ; and that the thing should go on thus, 
 till the last of the Stock, or Debt, got into the hands 
 of the Commissioners ; when, of course, the Govern- 
 ment might burn the Great Book ; and the National 
 Debt would be paid off. 
 
 This scheme was very pretty upon paper ; it made 
 a fine figure in the newspapers and pamphlets of the 
 day ; and looked quite solemn when embodied into 
 an Act of Parliament. There was, to be sure, when 
 people looked into the matter more closely, something 
 rather whimsical in the idea of a nation's paying 
 interest to itself ; something very whimsical in a na- 
 tion's GETTINGMONEYby paying itself interest 
 ' upon its own Stock. Many persons thought so, at 
 the time, and some said so ; but the formidable tables 
 of figures made out by court calculators, and the 
 flowery and bold speeches of PITT, soon put all such 
 persons out of countenance, and reduced them to si- 
 lence ; or exposed them to the charge of faction and 
 disaffection and disloyalty. The country, infatuated 
 with its " heaven-born Minister," became deaf to the 
 dictates of common sense ; and, with as much fond- 
 ness as the mother hangs over her smiling babe, it 
 cherished and fostered the fatal delusion. 
 
 As the execution of the Sinking Fund Act pro- 
 ceeded, more and more of the Stock, or parts of the 
 Debt, became of course entered in the Great Book in 
 
64 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the names of the Commissioners. Hence arose a 
 new denomination in our national money accounts; 
 namely, the Redeemed Debt ; that is, the parts of the 
 Debt, as aforesaid, purchased up by the Commission- 
 ers, was now called the " Redeemed Debt ;" a phrase 
 which contains a contradiction in itself. But, still, 
 it was unavoidable ; for, it was not paid off ; it was 
 bought up, but we had still, and have still, to pay 
 interest upon it ; and, therefore, it could not be said 
 to be paid off ; for, it would be folly too gross to pretend 
 that we have paid off a debt or a mortgage, for which 
 we were still paying interest. If, indeed, the parts 
 of the debt, which were purchased up by the Com- 
 missioners, had been, at once, done away, and we 
 had ceased to pay interest upon them, then those 
 parts would have been really redeemed. If, for in- 
 stance, Grizzle Greenhorn's two thousand pounds' 
 worth of Stock had been crossed out of the Great 
 Book, and had not been inserted in it again under 
 any other name, that two thousand pounds' worth of 
 the Debt would have been redeemed in reality. This 
 is the way in which the Sinking Fund of the Ame- 
 rican States operates. They raise yearly a certain 
 sum in taxes ; with that sum they purchase up part 
 of their Debt ; and then that part of the Debt ceases 
 to exist in any shape whatever. The next year they 
 raise a like sum in taxes, and again purchase up par- 
 cels of the Debt. And, thus they proceed, having 
 every succeeding year, less and less interest to pay 
 upon their Debt. This is real redemption : this 
 is real paying off. But, the way in which we pro- 
 ceed bears no resemblance to it ; nor has any thing 
 in common with it, except it be the name. 
 
 Let us, before we proceed any further, take a view 
 of the increase of the interest that we have to pay 
 upon the Debt. We have seen in Letter III., page 
 43, how the debt itself has gone on increasing. But, 
 we have not yet taken a look at the increase of the 
 INTEREST ; though this is very material, and, in- 
 deed, it is the only thing, belonging to the Debt, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 65 
 
 worthy of our attention. The statement of the 
 amount of the Debt itself is of no practical use, ex- 
 cept as it serves to illustrate, to render more clear, 
 the part of the subject upon which we now are. 
 For, as we have seen, the Debt is nothing more than, 
 a right possessed by certain persons, called Stock- 
 holders,, to draw interest from the nation ; or, in 
 other words, to take annually, or quarterly, part of 
 the taxes raised upon the people at large. Let us, 
 therefore, take a look at the progress of this interest. 
 When Q,UEEN ANNE came to the throne 
 
 in 1701, the annual interest on the 
 
 National Debt was 1,310,942 
 
 When GEORGE I. came to the throne, in 
 
 1714 3,351,358 
 
 Yv r hen GEORGE II. came to the throne, 
 
 in 1727 2,217,551 
 
 When GEORGE III. came to the throne, 
 
 in 1760 . . 4,840,821 
 
 After the AMERICAN WAR, in 1784, 
 
 and just before the making of Pitt's 
 
 Sinking Fund 9,669,435 
 
 At the latter end of the ANTI-JACOBIN 
 
 WAR, in 1801 ........ 21,778,018 
 
 For the LAST YEAR, that is 1809 . . 32,870,608 
 
 There are included in this sum " charges for man- 
 agement ;" and, as we have before seen, there is 
 some of the Debt (small portions) called the loans, 
 or debts, of the Emperor of Germany ', and of the 
 Prince Regent of Portugal, which, it is possible, 
 they may repay us ; but, this is as, as it is called in 
 the account laid before Parliament, during the last 
 session, the " Total charge on account of Debt, pay- 
 able -in Great Britain." And, let me ask any sen- 
 sible man, what consequence it can be to us what the 
 Debt is called, what consequence by what name the 
 different sorts of it may go, so that the interest upon it 
 still goes on increasing, and so that we have to pay 
 the whole of that interest out of the taxes ? 
 
 When PITT'S Sinking Fund was established, there 
 6* 
 
 
66 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 was a time fixed, when the interest should begin to 
 be diminished. I mean, a time was fixed, when the 
 people should no longer pay taxes to defray the in- 
 terest upon the Stock, or parts of the Debt, which 
 should after that time be purchased up by the Com- 
 missioners. The time so fixed was 1808, two years 
 ago. The year was not named in the Act ; but, it 
 was known to a certainty ; because this ceasing to 
 pay interest was to begin, when the interest upon the 
 Stock, or parts of the Debt, bought up, together Avith 
 the sums paid to the Commissioners out of the taxes, 
 should amount to a certain sum (four millions an- 
 nually ;) and, as the sums to be paid to them were 
 fixed, it was a mere question of arithmetic when the 
 paying of interest would cease, agreeably to the terms 
 of the Act ; as expressed in the XXth clause, as fol- 
 lows : " And be it further enacted by the authority 
 aforesaid, that whenever the whole sum annually re- 
 ceivable by the said Commissioners, including, as 
 well, the quarterly sum of two hundred and fifty 
 thousand pounds herein before directed to be issued 
 from the Exchequer, as the several Annuities and 
 Dividends of Slock to be placed to the account of 
 the said Commissioners in the Books of the Governor 
 and Company of the Bank of England, by virtue 
 of this Act, shall amount in the whole to FOUR MIL- 
 LIONS ANNUALLY, the Dividends due on such part of 
 the Principal or Capital Stock as shall thence-forth 
 be paid off by the said Commissioners, and the Mo- 
 nies payable on such annuities for Lives or Years as 
 may afterwards cease and determine, SHALL NO 
 LONGER BE ISSUED AT THE RECEIPT 
 OF HIS MAJESTY'S EXCHEQUER, but shall 
 be CONSIDERED AS REDEEMED by Parlia- 
 ment, and shall remain to be disposed of as Parlia- 
 ment shall direct." In what way it might have 
 been supposed, that Parliament, in its wisdom, would 
 dispose of these parcels of redeemed debt, I shall 
 not, for my part, presume to hazard a conjecture ; 
 but, as was before observed, it was easy (the sums 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 67 
 
 being given) to ascertain the time, when the provi- 
 sion in this clause would begin to operate ; and, that 
 time was, the year 1808. 
 
 There was another Act, passed seven years later, 
 (1792,) allotting more of the taxes to the same pur- 
 pose (Chapter 52 of the 32nd year of this king's 
 reign ;) and still the same provision was made ; 
 namely, that, when the produce of the Sinking Fund 
 should amount to 4 millions annually, all the Stocky 
 or parts of the Debt, that should be purchased up 
 by the Commissioners after that time, SHOULD 
 NO LONGER HAVE INTEREST PAID UPON 
 IT OUT OF THE TAXES ; but that these parts 
 of the Debt should (mark the words) " be considered 
 AS REDEEMED." And so they would. They 
 really, in that case would have been redeemed ; but 
 the word redeemed is now applied, even in the Ac- 
 counts laid before Parliament, to those parts of the 
 Debt bought up by the Commissioners, the dividend, 
 or interest, on which parts, IS STILL ISSUED 
 AT THE EXCHEQUER 5 that is to say, is still 
 paid out of the taxes! And all this goes on 
 amongst " the thinking" people of England ! 
 
 But what was done in the long-expected year 1808 ? 
 What was done, when the year of promise came ? 
 This is the most interesting part of this most curious 
 history ; but, as to bring to a close the whole of the 
 discussion, relating to the Sinking Fund, would ex- 
 tend this letter to double its present length, 1 think 
 it better to make the remaining part of it the subject 
 of another Letter, beseeching you, in the meanwhile, 
 to make up, by your patience in the perusal, for 
 whatever want 01 clearness may be discovered in 
 the writer. 
 
 I remain, Gentlemen, your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, September 14, 1810. 
 
 
68 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 " I would inculcate one truth with peculiar earnestness ; namely, that 
 a Revolution is not the necessary consequence of a National Bankruptcy." 
 i Pursuits of Literature. 
 
 Digression respecting the use of Bank-Notes as a Political 
 Support to the Government Mr. Addington's Notion of 
 convincing Buonaparte by the means of a Tax Answer of 
 the Mpniteur Advice given to Mr. Addington in the Re- 
 gister in 1803 Passage quoted from a Government News- 
 paper, describing Bank-Notes as necessary to the Existence 
 of the Government Same Doctrine promulgated by Blr. 
 Paine in his Rights of Man How different is this from 
 what the World has been told Effect of it to encourage 
 the Enemy Resume the subject of the Sinking Fund 
 No Interest taken off in 1808 Addington's Act of 1802 
 George Rose quoted to prove that it was clearly held forth 
 to the Nation, that Taxes would be repealed in consequence 
 of the Sinking Fund P. S. Sir John Sinclair's Pamphlet. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 BEFORE we resume the discussion, relating to 
 Pitt's Grand Sinking Fund, which want of room 
 obliged us to break off, at the close of the last Letter, 
 I think it may be useful to submit to you here an 
 observation or two, calculated to obviate any un- 
 founded apprehensions that might otherwise be ex- 
 cited by the apparently inevitable fate of the paper- 
 money ; and this I deem the more necessary, as pub- 
 lications are daily appearing, from the pens of igno- 
 rant or interested persons, the evident tendency, and, 
 indeed, object, of which is, to persuade the public, 
 that the existence of the Government ; that the ex- 
 istence of law and order ; that the safety to persons 
 and property ; nay, that the continuance of the very 
 breath in our nostrils, depend upon the credit of the 
 bank-notes. 
 
 The author, from whose writings I have taken my 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 69 
 
 motto to this present Number of my work, was, you 
 see, of a very different opinion ; and, I have quoted 
 his sentiment upon the subject, because his work is 
 well known to be of what is called the ANTI- JACOBIN 
 kind, that is to say, a work, the tendency of which is 
 to prevent men like you from having any thing to 
 say or to do, any more than your horses, in the af- 
 fairs of Government. This writer, who, however, 
 might mean well, and who is certainly a very clever 
 man, so far from supposing that the existence of the 
 Government depended upon the credit of bank-notes, 
 is, you see, fixed in his opinion, and an opinion that 
 he wishes " to inculcate with peculiar earnestness," 
 that a REVOLUTION, thereby meaning a change in the 
 form of Government, is not the necessary conse- 
 quence, even of a national bankruptcy ; that is to 
 say, not only a total discredit of all the paper-money 
 and especially the Bank of England Notes, but also 
 an utter inability to pay, in any way whatever, the 
 interest upon the National Debt, or any part of it. 
 
 This is my opinion also, as it always has been 
 since I turned my attention to the subject. At the 
 beginning of the present war, Mr. ADDINGTON, who 
 was then the Prime Minister, told the House of 
 Commons, that one of his principal objects in laying 
 on the Property Tax and other war taxes, was, " to 
 convince Buonaparte, that it was hopeless for him 
 to contend with our finances" To which the 
 MONITEUR, or French government-newspaper, re- 
 plied : " Pay your bank-notes in gold and silver, 
 and then we will believe you, without your going 
 to war."* 
 
 Whether the Minister made good his promise ; 
 whether he has convinced Buonaparte, that, it was 
 " hopeless for him to contend with our finances" 
 you. Gentlemen, are as likely to be able to judge as 
 any body that I know. I, for my part, blanked the 
 Minister, for holding out such a motive for his tax- 
 ing measures. I said to him : The true way of con- 
 
 * Register, Vol. III., page 948, June, 1803. 
 
 
70 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 vincing your enemy, that this war upon your finances 
 will be useless, is to state explicitly to the world, 
 that you are not at all afraid of the consequences of 
 what is called a national bankruptcy ; for, while 
 you endeavour to make people believe that such an 
 event cannot possibly happen, they will certainly 
 think that you regard it, if it should happen, as irre- 
 trievable ruin and destruction; and, therefore, as 
 you never can quite overcome their apprehensions, 
 the best way is to be silent upon the subject, or to 
 set the terrijic bug-bear at defiance. To Bona- 
 parte's exultation at our approaching bankruptcy, the 
 answer is always ready : France has been a bank- 
 rupt ; France has not paid her paper-money in 
 specie ; yet, France is not the weaker for that ; 
 France is, in spite of her ruined finances, in spite of 
 the long pamphlets of Sir Francis D'lvernois and 
 Mr. Rose, in spite of the longer speeches of Lord 
 Mornington, Lord Auckland, and Mr. Pitt, in spite of 
 the innumerable columns of figures which these no- 
 blemen and gentlemen have drawn up in battle array 
 against her ; in spite of all this, France is yet pow- 
 erful, yea, much more powerful than she was before 
 she experienced what is called a national bankrupt- 
 cy. What ground, therefore, have the French to 
 rejoice at our finances being about to undergo a simi- 
 lar operation ? 
 
 Such were my sentiments and my reasoning upon 
 this subject, seven years ago ; a time, when to pro- 
 nounce the word depreciation, as applied to bank 
 notes, was sure to expose a man to charges very 
 little short of treason, which charges were made by 
 those very persons who have now declared the 
 greater half of our bank notes to be " destructive 
 assignats" and who have called them " vile and 
 dirty rags" My opinion was, and it still is, that 
 the total destruction of the paper money would not 
 cause any change injurious to this kingdom ; and, 
 indeed, I should have a most hearty contempt for 
 the constitution and for the whole form and compo- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 71 
 
 sition of our Government, if -I thought that their 
 existence depended upon the credit of bank-notes. 
 There are, however, those who think just the re- 
 verse ; and these are, too, writers, who appear to be 
 entirely devoted to the Government : one of whom 
 goes so far as to say, that the Government has no 
 other trust-worthy support than that which it de- 
 rives from the bank-notes. " The human mind," 
 says he, " is sensible only of the present good, or 
 evil, and has too little thought to anticipate conse- 
 quences, and if it was not for the immediate per- 
 sonal interest of a very large and informed part 
 of the community in the National Debt, Patronage 
 and Paper Currency, GOVERNMENT COULD 
 HAVE NO EXISTENCE, standing insulated on 
 the pure basis of duty, and remote national and 
 respective good. The conduct of Sweden, America, 
 Ireland, and the Jacobins of England, in their par- 
 tiality for France, exemplify a want of sense to 
 execute the maxims of EPICURUS; The paper curren- 
 cy of bank-notes (there should be no Country Bank) 
 offers to Government a most indestructible sup- 
 port, because IT MAKES THE DAILY BREAD 
 OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL DEPEND SUB- 
 STANTIALLY ON THE SAFETY OF GO- 
 VERNMENT, whereas money, which may be 
 hoarded, separates the individual from the public 
 safety. In the present revolutionary state of the 
 world, I think our paper currency a most miraculous 
 'mean of sal cat ion, and the man who would pro- 
 pose the payment of bank-notes in specie at any 
 period, to separate individual property from public 
 safety, might as well propose the burning of the 
 Navy to protect the commerce of the icor/c/."* 
 
 Gentlemen, do you remember he writings of 
 PAINE ? Do you remember the Rights of Man, for 
 the writing of which the author was prosecuted 
 by the then Attorney General who is now the Lord 
 Chancellor ? Do you remember the Rights of Man, 
 
 * MORNING POST newspaper: 14th Sept., 1810. 
 
72 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the author of which was prosecuted, and, being 
 absent, was outlawed ; the publishers of which 
 were prosecuted, all over the kingdom ; the circula- 
 ting of which was forbidden by proclamation ; and, 
 to counteract the principles of which, ASSOCIATIONS 
 were formed, of the rich and the powerful ? Well, it 
 was in this very work, that the doctrine here laid 
 down by this government writer, was first started. 
 PAINE said, that the existence of the Government 
 depended upon the existence of the bank-notes ; 
 and that, the question was not, how long the British 
 Government would stand ; but how long the Fund- 
 ing System would last. PAINE'S mode of reasoning 
 was, if I am correct in my recollection, as nearly as 
 possible like that of this government writer. He 
 laid it down as an admitted fact, that the people 
 (owing to causes that he stated) must be wholly in- 
 different about the fate of the Government / but, 
 that, as so many of them were, either by holding 
 Stocks or bank-notes, interested in the fate of the 
 Government, they would, while the Stocks or bank- 
 notes lasted, continue to support the Government, 
 whatever might be their feelings towards it. But, 
 that, when, from whatever cause, the Funding Sys- 
 tem should fail, not a soul would be found to lift a 
 finger, or, even to express a wish in favour of the 
 existence of the Government. 
 
 Just the same, or rather more, is now said by this 
 government writer; a writer, one half of whose pages 
 are filled with invectives against those whom he calls 
 the friends of the Emperor of France. But, how is 
 it possible for any thing to be written more agreeable 
 to the Emperor Napoleon than what this writer has 
 put forth ? Until now the world has been told that 
 we entertained a real love for our Government ; 
 that we were attached to our constitution because it 
 afforded such fine protection to our persons and our 
 property that we loved the constitution, because 
 it insured to us the enjoyment of liberty, and de- 
 fended us against every species of oppression ; that 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 73 
 
 we liad made numerous sacrifices, and that we were 
 ready to make as many more, nay, even ;c to spend 
 our last shilling and shed the last drop of our 
 blood" for the sake of these liberties and in defence 
 of a king, whom we so dearly loved, and, in grati- 
 tude for the blessings enjoyed during whose reign, 
 we held a Jubilee. Until NOW, this is what the 
 world has been told. But NOW it is told, by this 
 loyalty-professing writer, that the only motive 
 whence we support the Government at all, is, to 
 preserve the value of the bank-notes that we hold ; 
 that, if it was not for the immediate personal interest 
 of so many people in the National Debt, and for 
 patronage and paper currency, the Government 
 could have no existence ; that we support the Go- 
 vernment because, without its existence, the bank- 
 notes would fall, and because, by the number of bank- 
 notes, we are thus made to depend upon the safety 
 of Government for our daily bread; and that, 
 therefore, the man who would propose the payment 
 of bank-notes in gold and silver at any period, 
 might as well propose the burning of the navy, or, in 
 other words, the giving up of the country to France. 
 
 What, Gentlemen ! are we never, then, to see gold 
 and silver again ? Every Minister ; every Member 
 of Parliament ; every one of those who endeavoured 
 to palliate the measure of protecting the Bank Com- 
 pany from paying their notes in gold and silver ; 
 every one of them " lamented the necessity ," as 
 they called it, of the measure. But, NOW, behold, 
 we are told that it was a good thing ; and not only 
 a good thing, but that the Government could not 
 exist without it! Gentlemen, we call ourselves a 
 " thinking people ;" but, believe me, that this is 
 what would not have been said to any other civilized 
 people upon earth. 
 
 We might here easily show how encouraging a 
 prospect doctrines of this sort hold out to our enemy, 
 and how strong an inducement to use all those 
 means, whether in the way of attack or of menace, 
 
74 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 which are likely to destroy the credit of the paper- 
 money, that being, if these doctrines be sound, the 
 sure and certain way of destroying our Government. 
 But, another opportunity will offer for observations 
 upon these matters ; and, it is now time that we 
 return to our inquiry into the SINKING FUND. 
 
 In the last Letter, page 66, 67, having stated the 
 provisions, made in the ACTS of 1786 and 1792, for 
 the nation's ceasing to pay interest upon the Stock 
 that should be redeemed, or bought up by the Com- 
 missioners, after the year 1808 ; or, in other words, 
 the nation's ceasing to pay taxes on account of the 
 Stock, or part of the Debt, which should be bought 
 up after that time : having stated these provisions, 
 we were proceeding to inquire What was done in 
 the long-expected year, 1808? What was done 
 when the year of promise came? 
 
 Why, my Neighbours, nothing at all was done : 
 just nothing at all in the way provided for. The 
 nation ceased to pay no dividends of interest ; and, 
 of course, this work of redemption caused none of its 
 taxes to be taken off. " Well," say you, " but is it 
 possible, that, after such a solemn proceeding ; after 
 the express and positive declaration in two Acts of 
 Parliament, that the dividends of interest should cease 
 to be paid in 1808 ; is it possible that, after that, all 
 the dividends did continue to be paid, jws the same as 
 if those Acts had never been passed ?" O, yes ! It 
 is not only possible to be so, but it is so. All the 
 dividends have continued to be paid ; and are paid 
 to this day. The above-mentioned provisions, in 
 the Acts of 1786 and 1792 were repealed. The 
 Parliament undid what it had before done. It did 
 away the provisions which it had mado in 1786 and 
 1792. It passed another Act, which said that those 
 provisions should not be carried into effect ; or, in 
 other words, that which was law before was no 
 longer law. 
 
 This new Act was passed in the month of June, 
 1802 j ADDINGTON, the successor and the friend of 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 75 
 
 PITT, being then Minister. This Act (which is 
 Chapter 71 of the 42d year of the reign of George 
 III.) is entitled" An Act to amend and RENDER 
 MORE EFFECTUAL two Acts passed in the 
 twenty-sixth and thirty-second years of the reign of 
 His present Majesty, for the reduction of the Na- 
 tional Debt." This Act, which was to render those 
 two Acts more effectual, sets out by stating, that 
 the said two Acts had been by experience found "to 
 be attended with most beneficial consequences to the 
 public credit of the country ;" and, having made 
 that declaration, it sets to work, and repeals the two 
 provisions above-mentioned ; and, of course, when 
 the year 1808 came, when the year of expectation 
 arrive-d, no dividends ceased to be paid, and interest 
 upon the whole of the Debt was still paid, and is 
 still paid to this day. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is hardly to be believed, that any 
 men, who, like PITT and his associates and support- 
 ers, had invented and caused to be passed, the two 
 first-mentioned Acts, could propose the last-mention- 
 ed Act, that is to say, the Act of 1802. Not only, 
 however, did they propose it, but the ANTI- JACOBIN 
 writers laughed m our faces and called us fools, if 
 not levellers and Jacobins, if we ventured to express 
 any doubt at all of the wisdom and justice of any of 
 these successive measures ; and, these writers stout- 
 ly denied, that it ever was intended to take off any 
 of the taxes in 1808 ; and, of course, they maintain- 
 ed, that we, who felt disappointment in this respect, 
 were fools for our pains, and, indeed, they expressed 
 themselves thus, that we were " nature's fools" 
 and not the fools of the Minister. 
 
 Never, surely, were any portion of mankind treat- 
 ed with such barefaced contempt as the people of 
 England were, at the time referred to, by the venal 
 writers of newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and 
 reviews, who, seeing the people terrified out of their 
 senses, by alternate alarms within and without, 
 seemed to think that he was the best man who could 
 
76 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 show the greatest degree of scorn for their under- 
 standing and character. Had not this been their 
 persuasion, would they have dared to tell us, that 
 none but fools ever- expected the Sinking Fund to 
 produce a repeal of taxes, when it must still remain 
 in the memory of every man, who was then at all 
 conversant in political matters, that the repeal oj 
 taxes ; the lessening of the taxes ; the making of 
 their burthens less, was the promise held forth to 
 the people by the supporters of PITT ; nay, when it 
 is notorious, that PITT owed the establishment of 
 his tremendous power to the opinion which the 
 people entertained, that he had discovered, and 
 would put in practice, the means of reducing the 
 load of their taxes ? This, as the great end of 
 his schemes, was so much talked of; it is so well 
 known, that this was so distinctly stated in the 
 speeches in Parliament, and so many times repeated, 
 that I am almost ashamed to trouble you with any 
 proof of the fact ; yet, considering that the point is 
 of great importance, I will put the matter beyond 
 all dispute by a reference to a work on the increase 
 of the Resources of the kingdom, published in 1799, 
 under the name of GEORGE ROSE, who was then a 
 Secretary of the treasury, and who is now Treasu- 
 rer of the Navy and a Privy Counsellor, and who, 
 in the execution of the work about to be cited, was, 
 doubtless, assisted by PITT himself. Indeed, this 
 must have been the case ; or, at least, it must be 
 believed, that nothing, upon such a subject, and 
 under the name of his official Secretary, would be 
 published without PITT'S previous approbation. In 
 this work, which is entitled, " A Brief Examination 
 into the Increase of the Revenue, Commerce, and 
 Manufactures of Great Britain, from 1792 to 1799 ;" 
 in this work the hopeful effects of the Sinking Funds 
 of 1786 and 1792 are pointed out, and the writer 
 says : " By the operation of these sinking-funds, 
 without any further intervention of Parliament, the 
 one existing before the war will attain its maximum 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 (4,000,000 a year) most probably, in 1808, in no 
 case later than February, 1811. As the dividends 
 due on such parts of the old debt as shall be paid off 
 after the sinking-fund shall have attained its maxi- 
 mum, and the annuities which shall afterwards fall 
 in, will be at the disposal of Parliament, the period 
 of REPEALING TAXES annually, to an 
 amount equal thereto, cannot be delayed more than 
 nine, ten, or eleven years" 
 
 Need I ask you, Gentlemen, whether you have 
 heard of any repealing of taxes ? Whether you 
 have felt your load of taxation lightened ? Whe- 
 ther you pay less taxes, than you paid when this 
 placeman wrote his book in 1799 ? No : these 
 questions I need not put to you ; nor need I ask you 
 what are your feelings towards those who fed you 
 with hopes of a diminution of your burdens ; nor 
 need I, perhaps, say one more word upon the subject 
 of the Sinking Fund, not to have seen through 
 which by this time would argue a much greater 
 want of discernment than I am disposed to attribute 
 to any part of my countrymen, and especially to 
 you, whose discerning faculties have, as to matters 
 of this sort, been, of late, pretty well sharpened by 
 experience. Nevertheless, with the hope of leaving 
 no possibility of bewildering any body in future, 
 with regard to the nature or effect of the Sinking 
 Fund, I shall add some additional remarks ; but, as 
 these remarks will open to us quite new views of 
 the matter, and I will extend to some length, I shall 
 postpone them to my next ; and I remain, in the 
 meanwhile, Your faithful Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Monday, Sept. 17, 1810. 
 
 P. S. A pamphlet, entitled, "OBSERVATIONS ON 
 THE REPORT OP THE BULLION COMMITTEE," has just 
 been published by Sir JOHN SINCLAIR, who is, it 
 seems, a member of Parliament, and who is said to 
 
 7* 
 
 
78 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 have been recently made a Privy Counsellor. So 
 much of such gross ignorance, in so short a compass, 
 I do not recollect to have met with in the course of 
 my reading, except, perhaps, in the Morning Post 
 newspaper, or in the British Critic Review. Such 
 a publication would be wholly unworthy of serious 
 notice, were it not pretty evidently the vehicle of 
 the sentiments and views of others. For this reason, 
 some of its prominent absurdities will be noticed, 
 when I come to that part of my subject to which 
 they more particularly belong. In the mean time, 
 in order to furnish the means of judging of this wri- 
 ter's depth of understanding, take the following 
 specimen from a former work of his, and compare 
 his theory with the practice now before our eyes. 
 " The PUBLIC DEBTS of a nation, not only attract 
 riches from abroad, with a species of magnetic in- 
 fluence, but they also retain money at home which 
 otherwise would be exported, and which, if sent to 
 other countries, might possibly be attended with 
 pernicious consequences to the State, whose wealth 
 was carried out of it. If France, for example, main- 
 tained its wars by borrowing money, and England 
 raised all its within the year, the necessary conse- 
 quence would be, that all the loose and unemployed 
 money of England, would naturally be transmitted 
 to France, where it would be placed out to advan- 
 tage." This is quite sufficient. The next time that 
 Sir JOHN thinks of writing upon matters of this sort, 
 he will do well to go, previously, and take a lesson 
 of Mrs. DE YONGE. She will be able to tell him for 
 a certainty, whether National Debts have a tenden- 
 cy to keep money at home, to prevent it from being 
 exported, and to bring money from abroad. She 
 will also be able to give him a lesson upon deprecia- 
 tion, in a way, which, perhaps, will make the thing 
 comprehensible even to him. 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 79 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 " It is not altogether improbable, that, when the nation becomes he 
 
 of its Debts, and is cruelly oppressed by them, some daring projector may 
 arise with visionary schemes for their discharge; and, as public credit 
 will begin, by that time, to be a little frail, the least touch will destroy it ; 
 and in this manner it will die of the Doctor. But, it is more probable, that 
 the breach of national faith will be the necessary effect of wars, defeats, 
 misfortunes, and public calamities, or even, perhaps, of victories and con- 
 quests." HUME on Public Credit. 
 
 Saying that a Man writes from a Prison is not a satisfactory 
 Refutation of his Argument Proceed with the subject of 
 the Sinking Fund Alleged grounds of Addington's Act in 
 1802 The time when it was to hegin to yield" us Relief, to 
 wit, 45 years Mr. Brand's Answer to an Argument of mine 
 He denies that interest is paid upon the Redeemed Stock 
 Acts of Parliament and Public Accounts say the contrary 
 Examination of the Example stated by Mr. Brand 
 Great Error in regarding things as alike which are essen- 
 tially dissimilar in their properties Consequence of this 
 error shown in the supposed case of Thrifty Grand Fal- 
 lacy in supposing that what we pay to support the Sinking 
 Fund, would otherwise be of no use to us Conclusion of 
 the subject of the Sinking Fund P. S. Mr. Randall 
 Jackson's Speech at the Bank Company's House, in 
 Threadneedle Street. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IT was naturally to be expected, that those venal 
 men, who, for want of industry to " labour with their 
 hands the thing that is good," and from a desire to 
 live upon the labour of others, have chosen the oc- 
 cupation of writing, 'instead of obeying the voice of 
 nature, which bade them use the brush and not the 
 pen, to blacken shoes and not paper ; it was natu- 
 rally to be expected that those venal men, who gain 
 their .livelihood by serving the corrupt and by de- 
 ceiving the weak, and the number of whom, in this 
 Town, is, unfortunately, but too great ; it was na- 
 turally to be expected that this description of men 
 would feel alarmed at the progress of these Letters, 
 which, by making honest and useful truths so fami- 
 
80 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 liar to the minds of the people, threatened literary 
 venality with destruction. Accordingly these in- 
 struments of Corruption have shown their anger and 
 resentment against me ; but, the only answer they 
 have offered to me is this : " that I discharge my gun 
 from a stone-battery ;" meaning that I write from 
 a prison ; therein giving the public a specimen of 
 their wit as well as of their manliness. This is al- 
 ways the way ; it is the constant practice of those, 
 who, while they are, from whatever motive, impelled 
 to oppose a writer, want either the materials or the 
 ability to show that he is wrong ; and, Gentlemen, 
 you may lay it down as a maxim, that when any pub- 
 lication is answered by abuse, and especially per- 
 sonal abuse, the author of such publication is right, 
 or, at least, that his abusers want the ability to show 
 that he is wrong. Facts and reasoning, if erroneous, 
 always admit of refutation : but, if correct, no one 
 can refute them ; and, if erroneous, to refute may 
 still require some ability ; whereas, to abuse the per- 
 son from whom they have proceeded is within the 
 power of every one, a gift not denied to any creature 
 capable of uttering articulate sounds or of making 
 marks upon paper. The great cause, however, of 
 abuse in such cases, is the 'Weight of the truths 
 against which such abuse is opposed : for it is here 
 as in common verbal disputes, he who has the truth 
 clearly on his side, is always seen to be in good tem- 
 per, while his opponent scarcely ever fails to disco- 
 ver impatience and anger, and, in but too many 
 cases, to give way to personal invective and false ac- 
 cusation ; and, be you well assured, Gentlemen, that 
 even the venal men, above-described, answer me by 
 saying that I write from a prison, only because 
 they have no other answer to give. 
 
 Leaving them in the full possession and unenvied 
 enjoyment of all the advantage and of all the honour 
 which such a mode of answering can give, let us 
 proceed witli our inquiry into the effects of the 
 SINKING FUND, just casting our eye back first, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 81 
 
 and refreshing our memory as to the foregoing facts ; 
 namely, that the Sinking- Fund Acts of PITT, which 
 provided for the cutting off some part of the interest 
 upon the Debt in 1808 ; that these provisions, which 
 led the poor nation to hope for a taking off of part of 
 its taxes in 1808 ; that these provisions, which, as 
 we have seen, were held forth to the believing peo- 
 ple of England, in the pamphlet of GEORGE ROSE, 
 as the sure and undoubted pledge for the taking off 
 of taxes in 1808, or thereabouts ; that these provisions, 
 in order to begin to taste the benefit of which, the 
 people were to pay a million a year of additional 
 taxes for twenty-two years ; that these provisions, 
 yes, we must bear in mind that these provisions, after 
 the people had gone on hoping for sixteen years 
 out of the twenty-two ; that these provisions, were, 
 by ADDINGTON'S Act of 1802, repealed, done away, 
 made of no more effect than if they never had been 
 enacted by the Parliament. 
 
 " Well," you will say, " but upcn what ground 
 was this measure adopted ? What end was it pro- 
 posed to answer ?" Oh ! why 'it was to pay off the 
 Debt, new as well as old ; for, by this time, the 
 Debt contracted since the existence of the Sinking 
 Fund, was become greater than the one contracted 
 before. It was to pay off the Debt, new as well as 
 old, sooner than they would have been paid off, if 
 this New Act had not been passed. And it was said, 
 in support of the measure, that it would be better for 
 us (good God, what a " thinking" people we are !) 
 not to have any of our taxes taken off in 1808 ; but 
 to go on paying interest upon the whole of the Debt, 
 as before, till our Sinking Fund Commissioners had 
 bought up the whole of the Stock, and that, then, 
 (Oh, then !) then, my boys, huzza ! for, then we 
 should be completely out of Debt. 
 
 " Thinking people" of England, when do you think 
 that that then was to arrive ? When do you think 
 that it was supposed that our Commissioners would 
 have bought up the whole of the Stock existing when 
 
82 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the new Act was passed ? When do you think that 
 the day, the happy day, the new day of promise was 
 to come ? When do you think we were, according 
 to this Act for rendering the Sinking Fund " MORE 
 EFFECTUAL ;" when, aye, when do you think, that 
 we were, according to this improved plan, to begin 
 to feel the effects of it, in the lessening of our taxes 1 
 How many years do you think we were to wait ; 
 how many years to keep paying additional taxes for 
 the purpose of paying off the Debt, before we began to 
 taste of any redemption of Taxes in consequence of 
 it ? Only FORTY-FIVE ! Forty-five years only 
 had we to wait; and now we have only THIRTY- 
 NINE to wait, and to pay taxes all the time, over 
 and above the interest upon the Debt ; only thirty- 
 nine years before we shall cease to pay interest upon 
 the whole of the Debt existing in 1802 ; about five- 
 eighths of the Debt, now existing. We have been 
 waiting ever since the year 1786 ; we have been wait- 
 ing for twenty-four years ; we have been pay- 
 ing taxes all that time, over and above the interest 
 of the Debt ; we have, for twenty-four years, been 
 paying taxes for the purpose of paying off the Debt ; 
 and, now, at the end of these twenty-four years, those 
 of us who are alive have the consolation to reflect, 
 that we have only thirty-nine years more to wait 
 and to pay these Sinking- Fund taxes, before we 
 shall begin to taste the fruit of all this patience and 
 all these sacrifices, and that, at the blessed time here 
 mentioned, some of our taxes will be taken off .... 
 unless another Act should be passed, between this 
 time and that, for rendering the last made Act 
 MORE EFFECTUAL." 
 
 Gentlemen, need I say more ? Certainly it is not 
 necessary ; but, there are still some views to take 
 of this matter, which having taken, we may defy all 
 the world to puzzle us upon this subject again. 
 
 We have seen, that we still pay interest upon 
 'he whole of the Debt ; we have seen, in Letter IV. 
 j. 64 ; that since the Sinking Fund was established^ 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 83 
 
 the interest we pay has increased from nine millions 
 and upwards to thirty-two millions and upwards : and 
 we humbly think, at least I do, that so long as I am 
 compelled to pay interest for a Debt, it is no matter 
 to whom, or under what name, I pay it. This is an 
 obvious truth. There is something so consummately 
 ridiculous in the idea of a nation's getting money by 
 paying interest to itself upon its own stock, that the 
 mind of every rational man naturally rejects it. It is, 
 really, something little short of madness to suppose, 
 that a nation can increase its wealth ; increase its 
 means of paying others ; that it can do this by pay- 
 ing interest to itself. When time is taken to reflect, 
 no rational man will attempt to maintain a proposition 
 so shockingly absurd. I put the thing in this way 
 in an Article, published by me in 1804,* and I re- 
 quested the late Rev. JOHN BRAND, who had written 
 a great deal upon the subject, to look at the Article, 
 and to tell me what sort of answer he could find to 
 this part of it. He did so, and the following was his 
 answer : 
 
 " I have looked at your observations on the Sink- 
 ing Fund ; and the following is my answer to your 
 great argument ; namely, ( that the Debt said to be 
 redeemed is an imaginary discharge, because IN- 
 TEREST thereon continues to be paid.'' If the 
 
 interest does continue to be paid, the conclusion is 
 just ; and this is the fundamental principle of much 
 
 of what you have said. It is reduced, therefore, 
 
 to a question of fact, and I should say the interest 
 does not continue to be paid. The same tax con- 
 tinues to be levied, it is paid also away, but it is paid 
 for another purpose ; it is yearly applied to the pay- 
 ing off more principal ; no part of it is applied to 
 
 the payment of interest. Take an example in a 
 
 private concern : A. has on his estate a mortgage of 
 70,000 at 3 per cent., which he has the liberty to 
 pay oft* as he pleases. He determines to diminish 
 
 * REGISTER, vol. v. page 591. 
 
84 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 his expenditure by 1,OOOZ. a year; at the end of the 
 year he pays the interest 2,100Z., and part of the prin- 
 cipal 1,000/. ; his payment that year is 3,100/., and 
 this sum he continues to pay annually till the debt 
 is annihilated ; it is now reduced to 69,000/. ; at the 
 end of the second year there will be due for interest 
 2,070., being 30/. less than the year before ; when, 
 therefore, the second payment of 3,100/. is made, it 
 will consist of two parts, 1,030/. for principal, and 
 
 2,070/. for interest. The interest of the 1,000/. 
 
 paid off the first year does not continue to be paid in 
 the second, and the 30Z. interest of the part of the 
 capital redeemed or paid off is now applied to the 
 
 payment of more capital. Such mortgagor at the 
 
 end of the year has actually paid off 1,000/., of year 
 two 2,030Z., and of year three 3,060Z. 18*. And that 
 he continues to pay annually the same sum on ac- 
 count of debt, that is, on account of principal and in- 
 terest jointly, does not in the least affect this con- 
 clusion." 
 
 Now, in the first place, you s-ee, Mr. BRAND takes 
 up " a new position" as most combatants do, when 
 they are afraid to meet their antagonist. He is 
 obliged to say, that we DO NOT continue to pay 
 interest upon the part of the Debt, which is bought 
 up, or, as it is called, redeemed. Aye ! but what 
 say the Acts of Parliament ? They say, that in- 
 terest is continued to be paid thereon : they say, that, 
 when any Stock, or parts of the Debt, are bougkt 
 up, or redeemed, by the Commissioners, " the divi- 
 dends thereon shall be received by the said Com- 
 missioners" or by the Bank, on their account. And, 
 what is the language of the Accounts, laid before 
 Parliament ? Why, in the account of the nation's 
 Expenditure of last year, there is the following 
 item : " INTEREST on Debt of Great Britain RE- 
 DEEMED, 4,443,519/." So that, either the Acts 
 of Parliament and the Public Accounts make use of 
 misnomers, or, I was right in calling it interest. 
 Besides, how completely does this denial of Mr. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 85 
 
 BRAND dissipate all our fine dreams about the gains 
 of the Sinking Fund ? Is it not the commonly re- 
 ceived notion, that we gain money by this Fund? 
 Are we not continually told, by the venal writers of 
 the day, about what the Fund yields ? Were we 
 not told by them, less than six weeks ago, that this 
 Fund had produced such and such sums ? And, 
 what is meant by a Fund's yielding and producing, 
 if you cast the notion of interest aside ? In what 
 other way is it to yield ? In what other way can it 
 produce an addition to its amount? Yet, on the 
 other hand, it is impossible to adhere to this notion 
 of interest, without falling into the gross absurdity, 
 before mentioned, of supposing that the nation can 
 get money ; that it can increase its means of pay- 
 ing others, by paying interest to itself, by becoming 
 the lender of money to itself, by becoming its own 
 creditor ; an absurdity, which, as we have seen, 
 Mr. BRAND dared not risk his reputation in attempt- 
 ing to support. 
 
 We now come to Mr. BRAND'S " example in a pri- 
 vate concern." And here, Gentlemen, suffer me 
 once more, and in a more pressing manner than be- 
 fore, to solicit your attention ; because we have now 
 before us the ground-work of all the sad delusion, 
 which has so long existed, and which does still exist, 
 upon this subject. 
 
 It is a natural propensity of the mind of man, to 
 assimilate things, which he wishes to understand, 
 with things which he does understand. Hence the 
 application of the terms mortgage, redemption, 
 and others, to the Debt of the Nation. But, in 
 this work of assimilation, or bringing things to 
 a resemblance for the purposes of illustration, 
 we ought to take the greatest care, not to make use 
 of violence, not to regard as alike things which are 
 essentially different in their properties ; for, if 
 we do this, error must be the result, and I think, you 
 will find, that this has been done by all those, who 
 have reasoned like Mr. BRAND ; that is to say, the 
 8 
 
86 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 whole of those writers and speakers, who have held 
 forth the Sinking Fund as likely to produce relief 
 to the country. 
 
 We know, we daily see, that private persons pay 
 off incumbrances upon their estates ; and, we know 
 very well and very familiarly, how fast the money of 
 private persons increases by being' permitted to lie 
 at compound interest. This very common portion 
 of knowledge appears to have been quite enough for 
 our Financiers, who had, therefore, nothing to do 
 but to look into interest tables^ where they would 
 not fail to find, that a million a year set apart, in 
 1786, would, at compound interest, pay off the then 
 existing Debt, in the space of sixty years from that 
 time. They ask no more. This quite satisfies them. 
 They have no doubts upon the subject; and, accord- 
 ingly, they set apart the million a year, that is to 
 say, they make a law for applying, as we have seen, 
 a million a year of taxes, raised upon the nation, to 
 the paying of the nation's Debts. But, where is the 
 real similarity between this proceeding and the pro- 
 ceeding of the individual as supposed by Mr. Brand, 
 Mr. M'Arthur, Mr. Pitt, and others ; for they have 
 all made use of the same sort of illustration ? Where 
 is the similarity in the cases ? 
 
 Mr. BRAND'S individual, to whom, for the sake of 
 clearness, we will give the name of THRIFTY, dimin- 
 ishes his expenditure by a thousand a year ; that is, 
 he, instead of spending it upon beer, wine, bread, 
 beef, and servants, pays it annually to GOLDHAIR, 
 who has the mortgage upon his estate. Now, this 
 you will clearly see, is to be a thousand a year 
 SAVED by THRIFTY ; and, besides this, he resolves 
 to pay to GOLDHAIR, (who has the mortgage on the 
 estate, mind,) as much more every year as will make 
 each payment equal to what he formerly paid on 
 account of the interest of the whole debt. This is 
 an odd sort of way to do the thing, but it is THRIFTY'S 
 humour, and there can be no doubt, that, in time, 
 he will thus pay off his mortgage. But again, I ask. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 87 
 
 what similarity there is in the case of THRIFTY and 
 the case of a NATION ? 
 
 THRIFTY, we are told, "determines to diminish 
 his expenditure." Can a NATION do this ? THRIFTY 
 knows to a certainty what his income and what his 
 expenditure will be; the former infixed, and over 
 the latter he has complete control. Is this the case 
 with a NATION? Prudent THRIFTY does not, and, 
 indeed, the supposition will not let him, contract a 
 debt with SILVERLOCKS, while he is clearing off 
 with GOLDHAIR. Is this the case with a NATION ? 
 But suppose, for argument's sake, that, as to all these, 
 there is a perfect similarity ; still is there a point of 
 dissimilarity, which nothing can remove. THRIFTY, 
 we are told, SAVES a thousand pounds a year. 
 How does the saving arise ? Why, he has less beer, 
 wine, bread, beef, and servants, than he had before. 
 His saving, then, is made from the brewer, the wine- 
 merchant, the baker, the butcher, and the footmen ; 
 or, rather, it is made from the public ; it is made 
 from the nation ; it is made from a third party. But 
 where is the NATION to find a third party from 
 whom to make its saving ? 
 
 But, what we are now going to view is the 
 GRAND FALLACY. In this case of THRIFTY, it 
 is supposed, that he makes retrenchments from use- 
 less expenses ; that " he determines to diminish 
 his expenses by a thousand a year," and that, what 
 he WASTED before, what HE GOT NOTHING 
 BY THE USE OF BEFORE, he now applies to 
 the paying off of his mortgage. This is very rational, 
 and Very efficient it would be ; but, is this the case 
 with a NATION ? Would the money which is collect- 
 ed from the people in taj?es, for the purpose of sup- 
 porting the Sinking Fund, be wasted, if not collected 
 from them ? Would it be squandered away by the 
 several individuals who pay it, in the same manner 
 that THRIFTY ; S thousand a year is supposed to have 
 been wasted, before he began the work of redemp- 
 tion ? Would it, in short, be of no advantage to 
 
88 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 them, if it were not taken away to be given to the 
 Sinking Fund ? Oh, yes ! And it would produce a 
 compound interest, too, in the hands of individuals, 
 as well as in the hands of the Sinking Fund Com- 
 missioners. What has the nation gained, then, by 
 paying millions to Commissioners, instead of keep- 
 ing those millions in their own hands ? SINCE 
 THE YEAR 1786, THE NATION HAS PAID 
 UPWARDS OF 160 MILLIONS INTO THE 
 HANDS OF THE SINKING FUND COMMIS- 
 SIONERS ; that is to say, so much money has 
 been collected from the people in taxes for the pur- 
 pose of redeeming Debt; and, if this sum had been 
 left in the people's hands, would it have been of no 
 use to them ? Would it not, at any rate, have helped 
 to prevent the Debt, since that time, from being 
 AUGMENTED IN THE SUM OF 600 MIL- 
 LIONS. 
 
 Let us give the thing one more turn, and then, ic 
 is, I think, hard, if we may not safely quit it for 
 ever. 
 
 THRIFTY is supposed to take his thousand a year 
 out of what he before wasted ; out of his superflui- 
 ties. But does our Sinking Fund money ; do the tax- 
 es that we pay towards the Sinking Fund, come out 
 of our superfluities? And, why suppose that THRIFTY 
 wasted any money before ? Why suppose that he 
 had any money to waste? Is THRIFTY 's being in 
 debt, and having his estate encumbered are these 
 reasons sufficient for concluding, that he had it in 
 his power to "determine to diminishhis expenses?" 
 Are they not rather reasons sufficient for concluding, 
 that he was in circumstances of distress ? Yes ; and 
 if, when we have come to that rational conclusion, 
 we suppose him persuaded to believe, that he will 
 get out of debt by borrowing from SILVERLOCKS all 
 the money that he pays off with GOLDHAIR, and 
 loading his estate with a new mortgage, with the 
 addition of the cost of bonds and fees, then we 
 shall have before our eyes " an example in a private 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 89 
 
 concern," pretty well calculated to illustrate the cele- 
 brated scheme, which we have now been discussing 1 , 
 and of which I now flatter myself that a single word 
 more need never be uttered to any man of only 
 common sense. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, 20th Sept. 1810. 
 
 P. S. FRIDAY, 21st SEPT. I have just seen, m 
 the public prints, a report of a speech, said to have 
 been delivered yesterday at the Bank Company's 
 House, in Threadneedle-street, by Mr. RANDALL JACK- 
 SON. I shall not, as I said before, suffer any publi- 
 cations of the day to interrupt the course of my dis- 
 cussion. In my next LETTER, which will open the 
 way to that memorable transaction, the Stoppage of 
 Gold and Silver payments at the Bank of Eng- 
 land, I shall, in all likelihood, have occasion to no- 
 tice Mr. JACKSON'S speech, not so much on its own 
 account, as because it appears to have been highly ap- 
 plauded by the people at the head of the Bank Com- 
 pany, for whom, perhaps, Mr. JACKSON, who, it seems 
 is a lawyer, made it in the way of his profession. 
 One word, however, I must beg leave to add upon the 
 part of this Gentleman's speech, in which, as the re- 
 porter says, he alluded to me, as one who had exulted 
 at the appearance of the Bullion Report, because that 
 report, coming from such high authority, had put the 
 stamp of correctness on my opinions. Never did 
 I say this ; never did I think this. Never did I look 
 upon the Bullion Committee as a high authority ; 
 and, meanly indeed should I think of myself, if I 
 thought any thing, that they could say or do, capable 
 of adding the smallest weight to my opinions. No : 
 what I exulted at was, that my principles and 
 doctrines, as to paper- money, had, at last, produced 
 practical effect, a proof of which was contained in 
 8* 
 
90 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the Bullion Report ; and that, it was now more 
 likely than before, that such measures would, in 
 time, be adopted, as would be likely to secure the 
 country from the natural consequences of that over- 
 whelming CORRUPTION, and that want of love 
 for the real Constitution, which I regard as the fruit 
 of the Paper-money System, and which, years ago, 
 I proved, as I think, to have proceeded, in great part, 
 from that poisonous and all-degrading root. This 
 was the cause of my exultation. I looked upon the 
 Bullion Report as tending to this great object ; and, 
 as I prefer the accomplishment of this object, as I 
 look upon ihe happiness and honour of my country 
 as of far ^:vairr value tome than any other worldly 
 possession, I said, and 1 still say, that the Bullion 
 Keport has given me more pleasure than I should 
 derive from being made the owner of the whole of 
 Hampshire. As for any idea of a party nature, I 
 shall, I am sure, be believed when I say, that 1 did 
 not care one straw to what party the Committee be- 
 longed. If I had a wish as to party it certainly 
 would be, that no change of ministry should take 
 place; for, (without prejudice to the OUTS, who, 
 1 think, would do the thing full as well with a little 
 more time,) I am <juite satisfied, that the present 
 men will do it as neatly and as quickly as< any rea- 
 sonable man can expect. 
 
PAI'KIl AOAIN8T GOLD. 01 
 
 LKTTER VII. 
 
 "RKAL MONIW ran hardly <-v<:r multiply I"., mii'-h in nny n.in.l.y. 
 
 buciuine H will tilwayf. 01 ITHH-M-IMI-H, in; tlw certain ti&n <>/ '//" ///<-/ >.-< 
 of TRADE, ofwlnrh it. 1.4 tin- iii--;i iure, .m<! <,,!,... -iH'Miily -.1 ili- noundnuM 
 
 nnil vi;;.)u, oflli'- wlniln U'l y. I'.nl l! i )\i;V mny, :iml ilo.-n 
 
 WllllDill. flliy Ilirn-.-i .,1 Tr.-uli: . liny, olli-ll v.'lini Tl.uli- ,-n-fil|y 
 
 iii-r.lin.-i, rot; rr is NOT Tin: MI; A si in i; OF TIM; TK ADI; oi- 1 rr. \ 
 NATION, HUT OK THE N I,' :i-;.-..-,lTY OF MS (JOVKKNMKNT ; MIH! 
 
 1 1 i . :il> i r (I inn! mil il In' i H i n a in, licit, tin- s;mn: rniHC wliu'li nn I ur.i II / 
 lh<- wr.althnfn Nntioii. Hlioill'l lil.i-wir.i: lc MH-. (inly jnnduCliva 
 
 cause <if money." UUJlk K. 
 
 Review "f flic ( Jr^uinl over wliirh we lin vr pn:; ,;r d in i!i- forr,-- 
 l.i-i.i/-rs OJH-IIIII;; iln: w;y info rhc IIiMory of tlur 
 r>;uik':t Sli>|ip;i;v: in l/iy Va^uc !\olioii ;i!)nnt tin- h 
 (I r,:inl: i\otcs licni:' :i I'-'ti <>\ :ui I IMT< -i; J ,c of TiJi'lc. nii'i 
 Wcallli, ;iiul Prosperity; 'rhii Notion <-,x;iiiiiin-<l Mi. K.;in- 
 rlall Jackson's &p 'iiin;- ;i";nn.,l. llioxc who liav; 
 
 reCOimnended that. In: ami IMM I'arlm-i.i :,h;.ll In: comprlli d to 
 I'ay ihcif I'loini , 01 / i\oli s in two Yrai: lh:i iNolion t!i;:t 
 an lnrir-;i:c i>\ |',-ink NoM-i naluially an;,i:-i Itoin ;m In- 
 c.r:asc o| 'I'ca'l'- \lu c hf-api-d upon those who wi:.h lh<: 
 
 I'.ank lo pay it:; Nulrn Such I'et :-.ons ealh-.j |{ ill, CH, mid 
 
 oy llij Credit of Old iMi-land 
 A n I ncrease of l'i'-. .te-; i.; a I'ro'.l'ol an In 
 
 
 ol I). ,ni. l-'ive Way 1 in which I',ank A'oie.t -el oiil into cir- 
 culation Absurdity of 'hat. an Jncn-a.eol I'fo 
 tin 'i to pay ' re a Si-li ol' an increase of" the ,\l< 
 J'ayinx N. I'.. An Account, of the I )r,n , Irorrj 
 tho I''ailure of llir; llankn at Salinhury and ,Shaite:,hui y. 
 
 i U:MI:N, 
 
 I-,- i.l e fore^oin^ L-n-r, w: closed 
 relative lo the Hi.n/rin'; l''iuul, ;ind that biou'^ht 
 
 us to a point, to a sort of stage. OJ 
 our vv;iy, I'rain vvlii-h jxjint it will he ;idv;mt;it;eou^ 
 for us lo fake ;L brirl' r-vi<-vv ol' the ground over 
 wlii'-J) we; l:tve pus.sed ; for, \vlidi tin- <!-xi';n of (he 
 writer is to serve the c.:ui:;e of ///////., and < .[H-einlly 
 when !.!n- truth', he. wi:- Jiev. lo n:ike ;ij|);in-nl, have 
 h'-en Indoftriously env'-lopcd iti d;nkn-ss; in such a 
 Case, every other (juality in wiiliri", <>\:-\\il to yi-ld to 
 that of rl. a r ness. 
 
92 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 It was stated, at the outset of our inquiries, that the 
 chief object of them was, to ascertain, or, at least, 
 to enable ourselves to form a decided opinion, 
 " whether it be possible, without a total destruc- 
 tion of all the paper-money ', to restore Gold and 
 Silver to circulation amongst us" In pursuit of 
 this object, it became necessary for us to make some 
 preliminary inquiries as to the cause of the Gold and 
 Silver having gone out of circulation. 
 
 The cause, the immediate cause, that is to say, 
 the cause which came close before the effect, was the 
 increase of the paper-money. This cause was evi- 
 dent to every one ; but, then, it became us to inquire 
 what had been the cause of that increase ; other- 
 wise our inquiries would have been as useless as 
 would be those of a farmer, who, upon finding a 
 score of his sheep dead, should content himself with 
 ascertaining that they had been killed with a knife, 
 without making any inquiry as to the person by 
 whom the destructive instrument had been used. 
 Common sense, therefore, dictated to us to inquire 
 into the cause, or causes, of the increase of the 
 paper-money ; and, in order to come at a clear 
 understanding with respect to these causes, we were 
 obliged to go back to the inauspicious origin of the 
 paper-money system, that fatal system, whence 
 arose the National Debt, that Debt which even PITT 
 himself, the great abettor of the system, called " the 
 best ally of France." 
 
 During this retrospect, we have seen, that the 
 Bank of England is merely a company of traders, 
 whose charter arose out of a loan which they made 
 to the Government, and that, at its institution, it 
 never entered into the mind of man, that these tra- 
 ders were ever to be protected by law from paying, in 
 the king's coin, their promissory notes, as they have 
 been from February, 1797, to the present day. We 
 have seen, in proceeding to inquire into the cause of 
 this nonpayment or stoppage, on the part of the 
 Bank ; in 1797, that the bank notes have gone on in- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 93 
 
 creasing in quantity, and that these notes, of which, 
 for more than half a century, there were none under 
 20 pounds, appeared, in the war of 1755. in the shape 
 of 15 pounds and 10 pounds ; and, during PITT'S war 
 against the French revolution, which war he carried 
 on, in part at least, for the avowed purpose of de- 
 stroying the finances of France, we have seen that 
 they appeared in the shape, first, of 5 pounds, and, 
 at last, in the shape of 2 pounds and I pound. We 
 have, in order the better to understand the history of 
 the Bank Stoppage, in 1797, and the better to esti- 
 mate its consequences, taken a view of the Funds, 
 and Stocks, and National Debt ; we have seen how 
 they arose ; we have described their nature ; we 
 have traced them in their dreadful progress ; we have 
 seen how the National Debt has gone on increasing 
 from the reign of William the Third to the present 
 day ; we have seen how exactly the increase of the 
 National Expenditure, and the Taxes, and the Poor- 
 Rates, have kept pace with the increase of the Debt ; 
 and, in the three last Letters, we have seen an ample 
 development, a clear exposure, of the schemes for 
 "redeeming," or "paying off," that Debt, and we 
 have seen, that during the operation of those schemes 
 of redemption, the Debt has gone OD? increasing, and, 
 that the interest we pay upon the Debt, has, since the 
 Grand Scheme of PITT has been in force, been aug- 
 mented from 9 millions a year to 32 millions a year. 
 
 This is what we have seen and what we have 
 done. And having now, to use the sportsman's lan- 
 guage, made good our ground, we may begin to move 
 forwards towards the interesting history of the stop- 
 page of gold and silver payments at the Bank of 
 England, in 1797. 
 
 Our first step, in opening the way into this history, 
 must be to obtain a clear notion with regard to the 
 manner in which bank notes are issued, or put out 
 into circulation among the people ; or, rather, with 
 regard to the immediate causes of putting them out. 
 For, unless we have a clear understanding upon this 
 
 
94 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 point, we shall have hut a confused idea of the more 
 distant causes of their increase. 
 
 There is, apparently, a vague, or indistinct notion, 
 floating in the minds of some men, that the increase 
 of the bank notes is an indication, or sign, of an in- 
 crease of TRADE, of WEALTH, and of PROSPERITY, 
 which, as you must have perceived, are, by such 
 persons, always jumbled and confounded together, 
 for want of proper attention to the facts and princi- 
 ples, which we have stated and laid uown in Letter 
 III., from page 40 to page 54. But, we must not 
 suffer ourselves to fall into this confusion ; and, in- 
 deed, does not common sense reject the notion, that 
 an increase of promissory notes, which necessarily 
 argues the want of the means of the person issuing 
 them, to pay in specie ; does not common sense, does 
 not the plain understanding of every plain man re- 
 ject, with scorn, the notion, that such an increase is 
 a sign of increasing wealth and prosperity in the 
 person, or body, or community, by whom the issue is 
 made ? Why does our neighbour NEEDY give a 
 note ol hand in payment of his rent or of his tailor's 
 bill ? Why, because he has not the money in his 
 pocket or his drawer. And, are we to be made to 
 believe, that the circumstance of his not having 
 money to pay what he owes is a proof of his 
 wealth and prosperity ? We have been persuaded 
 to believe many things ; but, I think, that, at this 
 day, we shall not be persuaded to believe this. At 
 the time of the numerous bankruptcies, in 1793, 
 just after PITT'S war broke out, PITT asserted, that 
 they were a sign of national prosperity, and was al- 
 most huzzaed for the assertion ; but, we have had time 
 now to experience, time to feel, the worth of PITT'S 
 assertions, predictions, plans, and measures ; and, 
 with the benefit of this lesson, we shall not, now, be 
 so easily persuaded, that bankruptcy is a sign of 
 prosperity ; though, it must, I think, be allowed, that 
 it is full as true a sign of prosperity as that which 
 has now been discovered in the increase ofpromis- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 95 
 
 xorj/ notes, which increase is, and must be, always 
 an infallible sign of a want, in a greater or a less de- 
 gree, of the means to make payment in money. 
 
 As to the increase of Trade, that, indeed, will 
 demand, as we shall hereafter more fully see, a cer- 
 lain increase of circulating medium, or money, as 
 must be evident to every man, who reflects, but for 
 one moment, upon the subject ; because, where there 
 are ten purchases of a pound each to be made, (sup- 
 posing them to be made in the same space of time,) 
 twice as much money will be wanted as where there 
 are only five purchases of a pound each to be made. 
 But, the increase of trade, that is to say, the increase 
 of purchases and sales, or, in other words, the in- 
 crease of MONEY'S-WORTH things, though it 
 is a very solid reason for the increase of money, is 
 no reason at all for the increase of promissory notes, 
 and, especially, of promissory notes which will not 
 bring money in exchange for them. The man, 
 who is in a great way of trade, gives more promis- 
 sory notes than a man in a small way ; but he has 
 proportionate means, and, at any rate, does not give 
 notes without possessing the value of them in goods, 
 or property of some kind, in moneys-worth things ; 
 and, of course, his notes are convertible into money ; 
 but is this the case with the notes of the Bank ? Is 
 this the case with the notes of any of our Banks ? 
 Such a man stands in need of no law to protect him 
 against the demands of the holder of his notes ; but 
 there is a law to protect the Bank of England against 
 the demand of any holder of its notes, who may wish 
 to have guineas in exchange for those notes. And, 
 can the increase of such notes be regarded as a sign 
 of the increase of trade ? 
 
 Yet this is a favourite fallacy with those, who 
 either do not understand the matter, or who, while 
 they do understand it, wish to deceive the world, 
 and the people of this country in particular. This 
 same fallacy was put forth with great assurance, at 
 the House of the Bank, in Threadneedle-Street, 
 
96 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 London, no longer ago than last Friday, by the Gen- 
 tleman, a Mr. RANDALL JACKSON, mentioned in the 
 Postscript to the last Letter, page 89, 90, in a speech, 
 the whole of which (together with the speeches of the 
 GOVERNOR OF THE BANK and of a Mr. PAYN, a coun- 
 try Banker) as reported in the Morning Chronicle 
 of Saturday last, will he found in the APPENDIX, A., 
 and which I beg leave to recommend to your atten- 
 tive perusal. 
 
 Mr. JACKSON, who is, it would seem, a proprietor 
 of Bank Stock ; that is to say, one of the Bank Com- 
 pany, that is to say, one of the persons in whose 
 names the bank notes are issued ; that is to say, one 
 of the persons who put forth the promissory notes of 
 the Bank ; that is to say, one of the persons who de- 
 rive a profit, who get rich, from the putting out of 
 those notes ; Mr. JACKSON most loudly inveighs 
 against the Bullion Committee, and, indeed, pretty 
 roundly abuses them ; pretty roundly abuses a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons, for having recom- 
 mended to the House to pass a law to oblige him 
 and his partners to pay their notes agreeably to 
 promise ; and this he does, you will observe, at the 
 very time that he is railing against the revolutionists 
 of France, for their levelling principles^ and, insi- 
 nuating, that there are such levellers now at work in 
 England ; all which may be very natural in Mr. JACK- 
 SON ; for, who that is protected by law from the pay- 
 ment of his promissory notes, would wish that law to 
 be repealed, and its place supplied by a law to compel 
 him to pay ? It may be very natural for a gentle- 
 man, so situated, to abuse the Committee; but, it 
 would be very foolish in the people ; very foolish in 
 the holders of his notes ; very foolish in his creditors 
 to join in such abuse. Upon this part of his speech, 
 however, we shall find a more suitable place for ex- 
 tending our remarks, and also for noticing what he said 
 about the vast increase of the Country Banks, without 
 seeming to perceive, that that increase has been owing 
 solely to the law which protected, and still protects, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 97 
 
 the Bank of England against the Gold and Silver 
 demands of its creditors. Upon these parts of his 
 speech, and upon his assertions respecting a debt 
 said to be due to the Bank from the public ; upon 
 his statement of the causes of the Bank stoppage ; 
 upon the wonderful unanimity of all the speakers 
 at this Meeting of the partners of the Bank Com- 
 pany, in declaring, that there would be NO GOOD 
 in their paying off their promissory notes in Gold 
 and Silver ; upon all these topics, and upon some 
 others, brought forward at the Bank Company's 
 Meeting, we shall find, hereafter, a more suitable op- 
 portunity for making and apply ing our remarks, which, 
 indeed, belong to other parts of our subject, and, there- 
 fore, we will, at present, confine ourselves to the only 
 topic introduced into these speeches, which belongs 
 to the part of our subject now immediately before us ; 
 namely, the notion, that the increase of bank notes 
 naturally arises from an increase of trade. 
 
 Since, however, I have digressed so far, I take 
 the liberty to continue on a little further for the 
 purpose of noticing a paragraph, in a newspaper 
 of this very morning, (Monday. 24th September,) 
 which imitates Mr. JACKSON in abusing those, who 
 are desirous of seeing the Bank Company once more 
 pay their promissory notes in Gold and Silver. 
 " We are happy," says this writer, " to find, that the 
 opinion we have more than once expressed upon the 
 subject is sanctioned by the first authorities in the 
 Country, and that the mischievous idea of throwing 
 open the Bank immediately to be rijled by the en- 
 grossers and exporters of guineas, is universally 
 reprobated. Sir John Sinclair has taken up the pen 
 upon the subject, and most ably does he treat it. 
 Neither the authority of the Committee, nor the cla- 
 mours of those who wish to destroy the public cre- 
 dtt of Old England, have been sufficient to intimi- 
 date that highly informed and much respected Gen- 
 tleman from coining forward to vindicate truth and 
 dispel a most mischievous delusion" What, Gen- 
 9 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 tlemen ! is a recommendation to pass a law to oblige 
 the Bank Company to begin to pay its promissory 
 notes in gold and silver, at the end of two years ; 
 is this to be called " throwing" open" the Bank to be 
 " rifled ?" Are you and all of us, who hold bank notes, 
 to be denominated " rijlers," or robbers, because we 
 may wish to be paid the amount of those notes in gold 
 and silver ? Is a desire to see the Bank pay its pro- 
 missory notes upon demand, agreeably to the words 
 written in them, and to see the king's coin once more 
 come back into circulation amongst us ; is this desire 
 to be attributed to a " wish to destroy the public cre- 
 dit of Old England?" Gentlemen, this language 
 shows two things : first, that those who use it enter- 
 tain a most hearty contempt for the people of Eng- 
 land ; and, second, that their cause is so very bad, 
 that they dare not even attempt to offer in support of 
 it any thing bearing the shape of an argument. 
 
 Leaving the Bank Company to the support of these 
 railers, let us now, with the calmness and candour 
 which belong to the cause of truth, return to our 
 inquiry, whether the increase of the bank notes has 
 arisen from an increase of trade, and if not, what 
 has been the real cause, or causes, of that increase 
 of bank notes which has driven the gold and silver 
 out of circulation. 
 
 We have seen, that a real increase of trade means, 
 an increase in purchases and sales, or, in other 
 words, an increase in commodities, or things, which 
 are really worth money. Consequently, an increase 
 of trade will naturally demand an increase of money ; 
 but, what it demands is an increase of real money, 
 seeing that the increase of the trade itself is no other 
 than an increase of money's-worth things ; and, that 
 the increase of its demand will not be for paper, 
 or for notes not convertible into money. Precisely 
 the contrary ; and, in private concerns, we every day 
 see, that it is the falling o^of a man's real trade, 
 it is the lessening of his quantity of money's-wortli 
 things, that induces him to have recourse to the is- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 99 
 
 sue of paper, paper which he cannot turn into money. 
 In a word, it is DEBT that makes a man give pro- 
 missory notes. An increase of trade, always imply- 
 ing an increase of money's-worth things, brings, of 
 itself, an increase of real money, unless that money 
 be, by some unnatural cause, withheld from circula- 
 tion. It is just the same with a nation, whose in- 
 crease of money's-worth things will bring to it an 
 exactly proportionate increase of real money, if that 
 money be not kept back, or driven out again, by some 
 unnatural cause ; but, DEBT, and the attendants 
 upon debt, lead to the issuing of bank-notes, or, to 
 paper of some sort or other, or, to a something, no 
 matter what it be, which has not a real value in itself. 
 Real money is the representative of MONEY'S 
 WORTH THINGS; promissory notes are the re- 
 presentatives of DEBT ; and, this we shall clearly 
 see, as we proceed in examining into the way, or 
 rather the divers ways, in which bank notes get out 
 into circulation amongst the people. 
 
 The bank notes have in them nothing of a mys- 
 tical nature. They are the joint work of a paper- 
 maker, an engraver, a printer, and the person who 
 puts his name, in writing, at the bottom of them. 
 Being thus brought to perfection, they are delivered 
 at the Bank Company's House, or Shop, FIKST, to 
 any persons, to whom the Company may owe money, 
 for work done to their buildings, or to others for 
 keeping their books, or for paper, or for printing, or, 
 in short, for any services performed for them. A 
 SECOND way, in which the notes get out, is through 
 what is called discounting ; that is to say, loans of 
 bank notes made to private persons, for which the 
 borrower leaves in possession of the Company a note 
 of hand or bill of exchange, that is to say, an en- 
 gagement to pay back again as much as he receives, 
 together with interest for the time ; or, rather, the 
 interest is deducted when the loan is made. A 
 THIRD way, in which the notes get out, is through 
 the advances, or loans, which the Bank makes to the 
 
100 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Government, by way of anticipation upon the taxes, 
 before they come in. A FOURTH way is through the 
 payment of the interest of Exchequer Bills, or Navy 
 Bills, which are a sort of promissory notes, given by 
 the Government, and upon which the Bank some- 
 times pays the interest, and, at other times, discounts 
 them, or purchases them of the holders at the cur- 
 rent price ; but, in every case, a fresh parcel of bank 
 notes gets, through the means of these bills, into cir- 
 culation. A FIFTH way, in which the notes get out, 
 is through the payment of the dividends, or the in- 
 terest of the Stock, or National Debt, which divi- 
 dends are paid quarterly ; and, as we have before 
 seen, the amount is three times as great as it was at 
 the beginning of PITT'S war against the Jacobins of 
 France, which we have called the ANTI-JACOBIN war. 
 Now, without enumerating any more of the ways 
 in which bank notes get into circulation, is it not as 
 clear as the sun at noon-day, that they are always 
 the representatives q/DEBT ? Is it not a fact that 
 no one can deny, that the increase of them proceeds 
 from the increase of Debt, and not from the in- 
 crease of trade? Away, then, with the nonsense 
 of those dreamers, who would persuade us that an 
 issue of promissory notes proceeds from an increase 
 of moneys-worth things ! Away with the idle talk 
 about an increase of things of real value calling for 
 an increase of paper promises ! Away, away with 
 the confused, the childish notion, that an increase 
 of the means of paying, produces an increase of 
 promises to pay ! As well might any one tell you, 
 that the increase of the paper of the Salisbury* and 
 
 * The scenes at SALISBURY, on account of the failure of the 
 Banks at that city and at Shaftesbury. have been truly dis- 
 tressing. At Salisbury, in particular, where the greatest part 
 of the sufferers live, the poor people were, in many cases, 
 without victuals or drink for some time, and many persons, in 
 a respectable way of life, were, for many days together, 
 obliged to sit down to dine upon little more than bread, no 
 meat being to be purchased with the only sort of money (if a 
 debased paper ought, for a moment, to go by that name) which 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 101 
 
 Shaftesbury banks arose from the increase of the 
 means of paying their debts, an assertion, which, 
 
 was, generally speaking, in possession of the people. Many 
 persons, in the lower ranks of life, who had gathered together 
 a few pounds, the fruit of long labour and anxious care, of 
 frugality, and of forbearance frorn enjoyment; the fruit, in 
 short, of an exercise of all the domestic virtues, and destined 
 to be the provision, as the saying is, "against a rainy day," 
 that is, to be the source of comfort in sickness or in old age; 
 many persons of this description, the heart-ache of one of 
 whom ought to give us more pain than to see fifty thousand 
 Public Robbers swinging from so many gibbets ; many per- 
 sons of this description ; many of these very best of the peo- 
 ple, saw their little all vanish in a moment, and themselves 
 reduced to the same state with the improvident, the careless, 
 the lazy, the spendthrift, the drunkard, and the glutton, look- 
 ing back upon a life of labour and of care, and looldng f9rward 
 to the misery and disgrace of a workhouse ! To describe the 
 scene, when the Meetings of Creditors took place, at Salis- 
 bury, would be impossible. The Council Chamber of the city 
 (for no other place, except the Cathedral, would have con- 
 tained a twentieth part of them) was surrounded with such 
 multitudes, and so eager were they, in pressing forward, that 
 some were in danger of their lives ; and the constables, from 
 necessity, perhaps, laid their staves about the heads of many 
 of those who came to demand their due, particularly, as 1 arn 
 informed, on the 7th of this month. What a scene was this ! 
 Here, PITT, if he had still been alive, might have seen a speci- 
 men of the fruits of his system ! The holders of the notes 
 were, I understand, each of them compelled to be at the ex- 
 ense of an affidavit, and obliged, also, to attend in person, or 
 y an attorney, at the Meeting of Creditors, and also for the 
 receipt of the dividends whenever any shall take place. It is 
 easy, therefore, to conceive what portion of payment will ever 
 fall to the lot of hundreds of poor men and women, living at 
 a distance from Salisbury, and scattered about in country 
 places, where a newspaper is hardly ever seen. One of the 
 banks was called the Salisbury and Shaftesbury Bank, and 
 part of the notes are dated at one place, and part at the other. 
 Those notes, which were dated at the latter place, were to be 
 proved at meetings to beheld there; so that, many of the poor 
 fellows, who had brought their notes to Salisbury, were told, 
 that they must carry them to Shaftcsbury, a place at twenty 
 miles distance ! The holder of each note, was, I understand, 
 compelled, in order to have a claim to any dividend, to swear 
 that he had given the full value of the note ; so that, one man 
 could not demand payment of the note of any other man ; and, 
 people could not sell the notes for any thin? beloio their no- 
 minal value. It is evident, that, under circumstances like 
 these, a great portion of the poor people who hold any of these 
 
 p 
 b 
 
102 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 with the present scenes before your eyes, might be 
 a little more impudent, but not a whit more contrary 
 to truth, than the assertion above noticed, and I trust, 
 completely refuted. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 Monday, 24=th September, 1810. 
 
 notes, will lose the whole amount of them. I have two men, 
 for instance, who had the misfortune to be of this numher, 
 James Gullingham and William Hurckett, the former of whom 
 had a .five pound note, and the latter a one pound note, both 
 issued under the name of Bowles, Ogden, and Wyndham, and 
 both which notes I have now lying upon the table before me. 
 These men are at twenty-eight miles distance from Salisbury; 
 to present the notes at the Meeting would have required three 
 days' absence from home in the midst of harvest, besides their 
 expenses at Salisbury and upon the road, which, without the 
 expense of the affidavit, would have amounted to more than 
 the one pound note of Hurckett, to say nothing about the ex- 
 penses attending the receipt of the dividends. Indeed, upon 
 the circumstances being related to me, I was quite satisfied 
 that any attempt of poor Gullingham to recover his debt from 
 Messrs. Bowles, Ogden, and Wyndham, even supposing them 
 to pay 20 shillings in the pound, would be a losing concern, 
 and that the best way was for me to take the debt off their 
 hands. I intend to s'end the pretty little bits of paper down 
 to them, with a request, that they will paste them upon two 
 little boards, and hang them up in their cottages, not only by 
 way of ornament, but as a lesson to their neighbours and their 
 children. I dare say, that there are many considerate mas- 
 ters who will act in like manner; but it must be manifest to 
 every one, that hundreds of poor families will suffer, and very 
 severely suffer, from this one failure. What, then, must be 
 the consequence, if these failures should become general ? 
 and, does it not become every one, who wishes to see the 
 peace and independence of the country preserved, to use his 
 utmost endeavours to convince the public of the necessity of 
 measures to restore to circulation the gold and silver coin, and 
 thereby to prevent, if possible, those dreadful convulsions, in 
 which the issue of a paper currency, not convertible into 
 specie, have but too frequently, not to say, invariably, ended ? 
 
VAPER AGAINST GOLD. 103 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 That provisions and labour should become dear by the increase of trade 
 andmoney is, in many respects, an inconvenience ; but an inconvenience 
 that is unavoidable, and the effect of' that public wealth and prosperity 
 which are the end of all our wishes. It is compensated by the advantages 
 which we reap from the possession of those PRECIOUS METALS, and 
 the weight which, they give the nation in all foreign wars and negotia- 
 tions ; but there appears no reason for increasing that inconvenience by 
 a, counterfeit money, which foreigners will not accept of in any pay- 
 ment, and which any great disorder in the state will reduce to no- 
 thing. ' ' Hume. 
 
 Further Observations respecting the fallacious Notion that 
 Paper Money is the Consequence of an Increase of Trade 
 and of National Prosperity Sir John Sinclair's Idea about 
 Roads and Canals Exemplification in the Instances of 
 France and the American States Destruction of the Paper 
 Money in both those Countries, the dawn of National Pros- 
 perity Our own history shows the Influence of a National 
 Debt in producing Bank Notes Our Bank was the Offspring 
 of the Debt The Bank was necessary in order to pay the 
 Interest of the Debt Boldness of Mr. Jackson and Sir 
 John Sinclair in asserting that Paper Money is necessary 
 to Trade, and is a Mine of National Prosperity What 
 would Hume have said if he had been told that Scotland 
 \vould produce a man to assert what Sir John Sinclair has 
 asserted? The " LO HERE !" and the " LO THERE!" The 
 real cause of the increase of the Bank Notes That Increase 
 shown to have kept pace with the Increase of the Debt 
 Conclusion of this part of our subject. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN the foregoing Letter we opened the way to- 
 wards the history of the Stoppage of Gold and Silver, 
 or. Real-money payments, at the Bank of England, 
 in the year 1797, by showing the divers ways in 
 which bank-notes get out into circulation, or, in other 
 words, the divers motives for making those notes; 
 and by clearly showing also, in reasoning upon gene- 
 ral principles, that it is Debt and not Wealth, that 
 generates promissory notes, of whatever sort they 
 may be^ or by whomsoveer issued. So fond, how- 
 ever, have we been upon this subject, and such great 
 pains, for so long a time, have been taken to make 
 us believe, that the increase of the paper-currency 
 proceeds from an increase of trade, or of something 
 favourable to us, that I should not be perfectly sa- 
 
104 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 tisfied with myself were I to hasten forward, without 
 first submitting to you all the observations that have 
 occurred to me upon this part of our subject. 
 
 When those, who, from whatever motive, have 
 written in favour of the Paper System, have had to 
 account for the vast increase in the quantity of the 
 bank notes, they have always had recourse to our 
 " increasing trade" and " wealth" and "prosperity" 
 and "improvement;" and they have, like Sir JOHN 
 SINCLAIR, bid us look at the increase of turnpike- 
 roads and canals and harbours and new inclosures. 
 Now, this reference to roads, canals, harbours, and 
 inclosures is singularly unhappy ; for, the Emperor 
 Napoleon, in his annual speeches, to his Corps Le- 
 gislatif, or Parliament, tells them of new roads and 
 canals, compared to which ours are not worth na- 
 ming, while we know pretty well that he has, du- 
 ring this war even, made a harbour and an arsenal 
 and a fleet too, where there was before no semblance 
 of maritime means ; to get at which fleet, or, rather 
 to attempt to get at it, has cost us all the lives and 
 all the millions of taxes expended in the Walcheren 
 Expedition ; and, while we see, that, as to agricul- 
 tural improvements, France is able to let us have 
 bread. Therefore, as this is the case in France, 
 and as these same writers assure us, that the people 
 of France are in a state of extreme misery r , methinks 
 that new canals and roads and harbours and agricul- 
 tural improvements should not, by these writers, at 
 any rate, be cited as proofs of national prosperity. 
 
 But, what have these exertions of genins and in- 
 dustry ; these efforts of the bodily or mental facul- 
 ties of a people ; what have these to do with paper- 
 money ? There is no paper-money in France. 
 Yet the French make roads and canals and har- 
 bours and agricultural improvements. There is 
 no paper-money, by which we always mean, paper 
 not convertible into gold or silver at the will of 
 the holder ; there is no paper of this kind in the 
 AMERICAN STATES j yet, it is pretty notorious that 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 105 
 
 there are improvements going on in those Slates, 
 some of which are truly astonishing, and one instance 
 in particular, I cannot help giving you, just as I 
 found it published in the London newspapers of the 
 llth of last month.* Having seen and admired this 
 
 * It is now a little more than five years, since a number of 
 German families, styling themselves " THE HARMONY SO- 
 CIETY," went to the United States, with the view of forming 
 a distinct settlement. They soon planted themselves in the 
 wilderness of BUTLER COUNTY, in the north-western corner 
 of PENNSYLVANIA. The following account of the origin, and 
 progress of their settlement is copied from the Mirror, a paper 
 published in the neighbourhood of this frugal and industrious 
 and thriving people : The Association of Harmonv had its 
 origin in Germany upwards of 20 years ago ; and, feeling 
 themselves much oppressed on account of their religion, they 
 concluded to seek a country where they could exercise their 
 religion without hinderance or oppression. They chose the 
 United States of America. In the year 1804, in December, 
 about 20 families arrived in Zelinople, in the neighbourhood of 
 which, Mr. George Rapp, with some others, bought about 
 4,700 acres of land, and during that fall built nine log-houses. 
 In the year, 1805, in the spring, the Society consisted of 
 about 50 families: they laid out the town of Harmony on 
 their own land, and, in that spring, built twelve log-houses 
 94 feet by 18, built a large barn, cleared 25 acres round the 
 town, and 151 acres for corn, and 50 acres for potatoes ; a 
 grist-mill was built this year, the race 3-8ths of a mile long, 
 and 15 acres cleared for meadow, the other ground sowed 
 with wheat and rye ; in the fall and winter, 30 houses more 
 were built. In the year 1806 an inn was built two stories high, 
 42 by 32 feet, and some other houses ; 300 acres cleared for 
 corn, 58 acres for meadow ; an oil-mill was built, and a tan- 
 nery, a blue dyer's shop, and a frame barn 100 feet long. In 
 the year 1807, 360 acres were cleared for grain and a meadow, a 
 brick store-house built, a saw-mill and beer-brewery erected, 
 and four acres of vines planted : in this year the Society sold 500 
 bushels of grain, and 3,000 gallons of whiskey manufactured 
 by themselves of their own produce. In the year 1808, a con- 
 siderable quantity of ground cleared, a meeting-house built 
 of brick, 70 feet long and 55 feet wide, another brick house 
 built, some other buildings and stables for cattle, pot-ash, 
 soap-boiler and candle-drawer shops, erected, a frame barn 
 of 80 feet long built. Of the produce of this year were sold 
 2,000 bushels of grain ; and 1,400 bushels were distilled. 
 In the year 1809, a fulling-mill was built, which does a great 
 deal of business for the country, also a hemp-mill, an oil-mill, 
 a grist-mill, a brick warehouse 46 feet by 36, and another 
 
106 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 wonderful, aixd, perhaps, unparalleled, instance of 
 prosperity and happiness proceeding from the united 
 exertions of genius and industry ; and, being at the 
 same time aware, that something approaching to- 
 wards it must necessarily be going on in other parts 
 of the country, you have only to know, that there 
 is no such thing as a paper-money in any part of 
 that country ; for, then your conclusion must be, that 
 a paper-money is not necessary to create, or to aid 
 the operations 'of, genius and industry ; and, history, 
 at once to inform and console you, affords you these 
 further facts, that both in France and America, there 
 has been a paper-money ; that, in both countries, 
 that money has met with its total destruction ; and 
 that, since such destruction, both countries have 
 flourished much more than they did while that money 
 was in existence. 
 
 brick building of the same dimensions, one of which has a 
 cellar completely arched under the whole, for the purpose of 
 a wine-cellar. A considerable quantity of land cleared this 
 year. The produce of this year was 6,000 bushels of Indian 
 corn, 4,500 bushels of wheat, 5,000 bushels of oats, 10,000 
 bushels of potatoes, 4.000lbs. of hemp and flax, 100 bushels 
 of barley brewed into beer, and 50 gallons of sweet oil, made 
 from the white poppy. Of the produce of this year will be 
 sold, 3,000 bushels of corn, 1,000 bushels of potat9es, 1,000 
 bushels of wheat ; 1,200 bushels of rye will be distilled. In 
 the year IttlO will be erected a barn 90 feet long, a school- 
 house 50 fe-3t by 44 wide, a grist-mill with three pair of stones, 
 one of which will be burrs, and some small brick-houses for 
 families. The society now consists of 780 persons, compri- 
 sing 140 families ; they have now 1,600 acres of land cleared, 
 203 acres whereof are in meadow, and possess at present, 
 6,000 acres of land. There are different tradesmen members 
 of this society, who work for the country as well as the so- 
 ciety, to wit : Twelve shoemakers, six tailors, twelve wea- 
 vers, three wheel-wrights, five coopers, six blacksmiths, two 
 nail-smiths, three rope-makers, three blue dyers, ten carpen- 
 ters, four cabinet-makers, two sadlers, two wagon-makers, 
 twelve masons, two potters, one soap-boiler, a doctor and 
 apothecary ; but neither parson nor lawyer, and in a short 
 time a hatter and a tin-plate worker are expected. During 
 the last year the shoemakers alone worked for the country to 
 the amount of 112 dollars and 8 cents, the coopers to the 
 amount of 207 dollars, the sadlers to the amount of 739 dollars 
 64 cents, the tannery 675 dollars, the blacksmiths 180 dollars. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 107 
 
 What have the partisans of the Paper System to 
 offer in answer to this? Will any one of them ven- 
 ture to look these facts in the face ? I do not be- 
 lieve they will. They will, I should suppose, rather 
 choose to confine themselves to a dull re-assertion of 
 their former assertions, interspersed, may be, with a 
 seasoning of abuse upon those, by whom their igno- 
 rance, or insincerity, is detected and exposed. But, 
 without resorting to the instances furnished in foreign 
 countries, have we not, in the history of our own 
 finances, quite a sufficient proof, that paper-money, 
 or, indeed, bank-notes of any sort, are not the re- 
 presentatives of any thing but Debt ? In every 
 country, of which we have any knowledge, a Go- 
 vernment Debt has been accompanied with bank- 
 notes, or payments in paper, of some sort or other, 
 no matter under what name. The Debt, in England, 
 did, as we have seen, (Letter II, p. 34) begin in the 
 year 1692 ; and there appeared, at first, no intention 
 to pay either the interest or the principal in any thing 
 but the usual <*old and silver coin of the country. 
 People lent their guineas and crown pieces, and there 
 was not the smallest notion of their being repaid in 
 any thing but guineas and crown pieces. But it was 
 soon found, that to pay the interest of its Debt, the 
 Government needed something other than gold and 
 silver ; which, indeed, any one might have foreseen, 
 because the Debt itself necessarily arose from the 
 want of gold and silver within the reach of the 
 Government. It was, therefore, supreme folly to 
 suppose, that the Government, who had borrowed 
 people's guineas from want, would long have guineas 
 enough to carry on wars and to pay those people too. 
 Accordingly, in only two years after the Debt began, 
 the Bank was established; the Bank made notes; 
 these notes, as far as they went, supplied the place of 
 real money ; and, very soon, by giving all possible 
 countenance and support to the Bank, the Govern- 
 ment got great part of the interest of its Debt paid 
 in bank notes. Thus were the bank notes, from the 
 
108 PAPR AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 very outset, as, indeed, all promissory notes must 
 must be, the representatives of Debt, and not 
 of wealth, of prosperity, or of trade ; and, if this 
 was the case, at a time when these notes were con- 
 vertible, into gold and silver, shall we now look 
 upon them in a better light ? 
 
 In spite, however, of the voice of history and of 
 reason, and even in spite of common sense, there 
 are (as in the instances of Mr. RANDALL JACKSON and 
 Sir JOHN SINCLAIR) men to be found, so ignorant or 
 so hardy as to hold up bank-notes, promissory notes, 
 and promissory notes, too, not convertible into real 
 'money: there are men to s be found to hold up this 
 paper^money, which, as we have clearly shown, is 
 always issued in consequence of Debt, in conse- 
 quence of a want of real money, and which paper- 
 money is, as BURKE ( See the Motto to LetterVII. page 
 91) well describes it, " not the measure of the trade 
 of its nation, but of the necessities of its govern- 
 ment :" there are men to be found, who, like Mr. 
 JACKSON, insist that an increase of paper-money is 
 called for by an increase of trade ; and, who, like 
 the bolder BARONET, scruple not to assert, that, " the 
 abundance of circulation" (speaking of bank notes 
 not convertible into gold and silver) " is the great 
 source of our opulence and strength, and a MINE 
 of national prosperity ;" yea, who have the bold- 
 ness to call promissory notes, which are issued only 
 because the issuers are not able to pay in money, 
 a mine of national prosperity ; and, who are hardy 
 enough to make this assertion at the very moment 
 when they themselves are declaring, that it would 
 be ruinous to attempt to force the issuers of suchf 
 notes to pay them in money when presented. 
 
 HUME, as will be seen from that passage of his 
 Essay on Money, from which I have taken my motto, 
 observes, that there is an inconvenience in the in- 
 crease of real money, which, as was shown in the 
 last Letter, is naturally produced by an increase of 
 trade ; and he calls bank notes (though, observe, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 109 
 
 convertible into gold and silver, as they were in his 
 time,) counterfeit money. What, then, would tie 
 have said of our present bank notes ; what would he 
 have said of bank notes not convertible into gold 
 and silver ; and what would he have said, if he had 
 been told, that Scotland would produce a man, who 
 would tell the people of Great Britain, and in print 
 too, that such bank notes are a mine of National 
 Prosperity ? 
 
 We have now, I think, said quite enough to con- 
 vince any man, whose faculties enable him to dis- 
 tinguish falsehood from truth, that the notion of an 
 increase of trade demanding an increase of paper- 
 money is one of the most gross delusions, that either 
 ignorance or an intention to deceive ever attempted 
 to practise upon mankind. We have, in short, 
 clearly shown, that the increase of bank notes, and 
 of promissory notes of every description, are produced 
 by Debt, are the offspring and representatives of 
 Debt, and that real money, and real money only, 
 is the representative of property p , or wealth, or things 
 of real value, and, of course, that an increase of 
 trade, which is only another term for an increase of 
 moneys-worth things, demands, and if there be no 
 unnatural cause to prevent it, will, of itself, bring 
 into circulation an increase of real money. 
 
 To acknowledge this truth would, however, have 
 been so manifestly injurious to the Paper Money 
 System, that it is not surprising that the partizans 
 of that system (which is but another name for those 
 who have profited, and do still profit, from it) should 
 have taken uncommon pains to avoid the acknow- 
 ledgment, and even to maintain, with their utmost 
 ability, any opinion of a contrary tendency. Hence 
 all the-absurdities, that we find in the various speeches 
 and pamphlets, uttered and written upon the subject, 
 and in which the increase of the bank-notes, and now 
 of the paper-money, have been, at different times, 
 attributed to almost every cause but the real one. 
 At one time, it was the enterprise in commerce ; at 
 10 
 
130 PAPER AGAINST GOLD, 
 
 another, the enterprise in roads and canals ; at ano- 
 ther, the " pressure of the war," which was, as a 
 distant cause, true ; at another, it was a " temporary 
 alarm ;" as another, it was speculations abroad ; at 
 another, it was the u influx of wealth ;" at another, 
 it was Jacobinism. ; and now there are three causes, 
 an increase of trade, the embarrassment to trade 
 occasioned by Napoleon's commercial warfare against 
 us, and the exportation of gold! These last-men- 
 tioned causes, which any one may hear from, per- 
 haps, the three first persons whom he meets in 
 Threadneedle-Street, do, to be sure, most admirably 
 accord with each other ! But, it is the lot of false- 
 hood to contradict itself. 
 
 In the mean while, however, very great is the 
 mischief which arises from the misguiding of the 
 public mind. The people, while amused with this 
 " Lo here /" and " Lo there /" see not that which 
 they ought to see ; they see not the real cause of the 
 increase of the paper-money, the real cause of the 
 gold and silver having gone out of circulation ; 
 and, of course, they use no endeavours, they express 
 ao wish to see adopted any measures., calculated to 
 remove that cause, and to relieve their country from 
 this, the most formidable of all the dangers with 
 which it is threatened. 
 
 That this real cause is no other, than the increase 
 of the Debt contracted by the Government, cannot, 
 I think, be doubted by any one, who has gone pa- 
 tiently through the foregoing Letters, and who must 
 have seen, that, as the Dtbt increased, the bank 
 notes became of greater amount in the whole, and of 
 sums smaller and smaller, till, at last, they came 
 down to a single pound. At first, and for half a 
 century, there were no bank notes for a sum less 
 than twenty pounds. When the Debt got to about 
 70 millions, there were fifteen pound-notes made ; 
 before it reached 150 millions, there were ten pound- 
 notes made ; and before it had reached 300 millions, 
 there were Jive pound-notes made; and before it had 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. Ill 
 
 reached 500 millions, there were two pound-notes 
 and one pound-notes made. Since it reached 500 
 millions, there have been in some parts of the coun- 
 try, notes made to represent silver-coins j and the 
 SILVER TOKENS, issued from the Bank of England, 
 the intrinsic value of which is less than the nominal, 
 have been circulated over the country, while the 
 gold-coin, of every value, has almost wholly disap- 
 peared, is notoriously exported, and while English 
 guineas, not one of which is seen by hardly any man 
 in England, in the course of a month, make part of 
 the common current coin on the continent of Europe, 
 in the American States, and more especially in 
 France ; aye, in that very country, which PITT and 
 his associates told us, over and over again, was in 
 " the very gulph of Bankruptcy ;" and which we 
 were, year after year, induced to believe would be 
 totally ruined by the fall of that paper-money, the 
 place of which has been, in a great part, supplied by 
 our guineas ! 
 
 Thus, then, we have seen, both from reason and 
 experience, that it is Debt which produces bank notes, 
 and paper-promises of every sort ; and, having seen 
 the manner in which these paper-promises get out 
 amongst us, and how their increase has kept pace 
 with the increase of our Debt, we shall, in the next 
 Letter, proceed to trace this increase to that grand 
 and memorable effect, the Stoppage of Gold and 
 Silver payments, at the Bank of England, in 1797. 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your Sincere Friend, 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, 21th Sept. 1810. 
 
112 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 The consternation was general through the whole kingdom. Thousand! 
 of families were utterly ruined, and "reduced from opulence to beggary. 
 Despair seemed to have seized upon the country, in which so many sui- 
 cides were never before heard of." HISTORY OF THE SOUTH SEA 
 BUBBLE. 
 
 This Letter a Digression from the regular line of the Dis- 
 cussion Death of Abraham Gold 8 mid t the great Jew 
 Money-Dealer Effect of it described, as to the Funds 
 He and Sir Francis Baring called the Pillars of the City 
 The Corporation of Lpndon thought nothing of Perilous 
 State of the Country, if such be the Pillars of its Credit 
 Goldsmidt's Character His Charities His princely Enter- 
 tainmentsHis Transactions with Sir John Peter at the 
 Exchequer Bill Office The Motive for the Act of Self-Mur- 
 der A Hint at the reasons why this Jew has been so 
 praised ; and why benevolent Jew Characters have been 
 introduced in to some of our Modern Stage Plays The cause 
 of Goldsmidt's committing the Act History of the Loan- 
 Transactions What Omnium and Discount are Progress 
 of the Fall of the price of Stocks Newspaper Puffs to keep 
 them up What must be the State of the Country if such 
 trifling Causes produce Discredit " Capital, Credit, and Con- 
 fidence" What security have we that Things will not be- 
 come worse ? The effect upon the Minds of our Enemies 
 Can it be supposed that People will purchase Stock, or 
 hold Stock, if the Fabric be so frail? May not Napoleon 
 cause a Combination against the Funds '? Of the Remedy 
 or Expedient talked of The Loan-Makers have no Claim 
 to Compensation for any Loss they may sustain The fa- 
 mous and immortal Loyalty Loan in the Days of Pitt 
 This Case different from that of the present Loan-Makers 
 Conclusion of the Digression. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 THE death, of ABRAHAM GOLDSMIDT, the rich Jew, 
 mentioned in Letter I, page 20, and who is said to 
 have shot himself on Friday last, the 28th of Sep- 
 tember ; this death is, in the history and progress of 
 the Paper-Money System, an incident of some im- 
 portance, and, at this time, worthy of our particular 
 attention ; because the circumstances connected with 
 it afford, perhaps, a more striking and satisfactory 
 illustration, than any other that can be imagined, of 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 113 
 
 the loan-making' transactions. In inquiries which 
 are of an intricate nature, it is always advantageous 
 to be able to combine practice with principle ; and 
 we shall, I think, find in the circumstances just al- 
 luded to, such a development, such a practical ex- 
 emplification, of some of the principles which we 
 have laid down, as could scarcely have been derived 
 from any other source. The present Letter will, 
 indeed, turn us a little aside from the direct line of 
 our pursuit, and may be considered as a Digres- 
 sion; but, it will not tend to confuse us, and the 
 matter of it will be found of great use to us during 
 the rest of our inquiry. 
 
 The newspapers, and particularly those which 
 praise the Government unceasingly, have stated, 
 that, when the intelligence of this man's death 
 reached the city of London (he having shot himself 
 at his house, or rather palace, at the village of MOR- 
 DEN in Surrey) all was confusion and consternation. 
 They tell us, that " The Stock Exchange, Capel- 
 court, and even the Royal Exchange, were crowded, 
 all persons eagerly making inquiries about this 
 event, and forgetting almost every thing else. 
 Little or no business was done. We question whe- 
 ther peace or war suddenly made, ever created 
 such a bustle"* We are told, that " Words would 
 be inadequate to express the surprise, the alarm and 
 dismay that were visible. "f We are further told, 
 that the moment the intelligence reached the city of 
 London, u the FUNDS felt the effect, and 3 per cent. 
 Stock fell from 66^- to 63f;"J that is to say, hun- 
 dreds of millions of this sort of property instantly 
 lost in value about 3 pounds in every hundred. We 
 are told, in another place, that " the Ministers sent 
 off a messenger, with the melancholy tidings, to the 
 King and to the Prince of Wales." 
 
 And all this for the death of a Jew merchant ? 
 
 * COURIER Newspaper, 28th Sept. t Ibid, 
 
 t TIMES Newspaper, 29th Sept. COURIER Newspaper, 
 28th Sept. 
 
 10* 
 
 
114 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 The King and the Heir Apparent to be informed 
 of it by a royal messenger 1 And, is it really true, 
 that this man's having shot himself made the citi- 
 zens of London forget almost every thing else ? Is 
 it really true, that such an event put business nearly 
 at a stand ? Is it really true, that it produced an 
 effect equal to peace or war suddenly made ? And 
 is it true ; is there truth in the shameful fact, that a 
 Jew Merchant's shooting himself produced alarm 
 and dismay in the capital of England, which is 
 also called, and not very improperly, perhaps, the 
 emporium of the world. 
 
 If all this be true, it is high time that we become 
 acquainted with the reasons why such a person was 
 thought of so much consequence, and that we con- 
 sider well the tendency of a system, that could 
 make his life or his death an object of national im- 
 portance. One of the public prints presents us with 
 the following disconsolate reflection : " The muta- 
 bility of human affairs has been strongly evinced 
 during the last few weeks. Sir FRANCIS BARING 
 and MR. A. GOLDSMIDT, who were considered as the 
 PILLARS OF THE CITY, are both dead within 
 that time. The effects their deaths have had on the 
 funds of the country will best bespeak the support 
 they gave them while they lived."* What ! The Pil- 
 lars of th e City of London ! The Corporation of that 
 famous City, the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Com- 
 mon Counsellors, and the Liverymen ; all these ; 
 the whole of this admirably constituted body, to 
 which, upon so many occasions, the people of the 
 kingdom have been indebted for the preservation of 
 their liberties ; the whole of this body sinks out of 
 sight, and all the Companies of industrious and inge- 
 nious Tradesmen along with it ; they all become 
 nothing, at the mention of the names of a couple of 
 dealers in funds and paper-money ! With eyes very 
 different indeed do I view the parties j and, though I 
 
 * TIMES Newspaper, 29th Sept. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 115 
 
 desire not the death of either, and am as sorry as 
 you, my neighbours, to hear of the untimely death 
 of any man, I have not the smallest hesitation in 
 saying, that I look upon the life of Sir FRANCIS BA- 
 RING, or that of GOLDSMIDT, as being of no more, it 
 so much, value to England, as that of any one of 
 your apprentices, or plough-boys; and I have no 
 doubt, that, before we arrive at the close of this 
 Series of Letters, you will see good reason for be- 
 lieving, that my opinion is founded in a just esti- 
 mate of the nature and tendency of the professions 
 of these several parties. 
 
 But are these writers aware of the import of their 
 words, when they tell us, that the two persons above- 
 mentioned were the PILLARS of the City ; that they 
 gave support to the funds of the country ; and that 
 their deaths have occasioned those Funds to fall ? 
 Are these writers aware of the tendency of such decla- 
 rations? Do they consider what it is that they are 
 saying ; what it is they are proclaiming to the peo- 
 ple and to the world ? If they do, and if they 
 expect to be believed, their intention must be to 
 destroy all confidence in the Funds and Stocks : for 
 what man in his senses can possibly confide in that 
 which leans for support upon the life of individuals ; 
 and of individuals, too, who, from the perils of their 
 very calling, are liable to be driven to commit acts 
 of suicide? In some cases, we are compelled to 
 leave our property dependent upon the lives of indi- 
 viduals ; but no man with his intellects perfect, ever 
 does this from choice ; and if these writers should 
 make the public in general believe, or if the public 
 from any other cause should believe, that the Funds 
 stand in need of the support of individuals, it is a 
 pretty clear case, that the price of them must fall 
 very low, before many people will be inclined to dis- 
 pose of their solid property, in order to purchase 
 Stock. They must come down to almost nothing, 
 and the purchase must be a sort of gambling; for 
 no man will lay out his money in Stock, as men 
 
116 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 hitherto have done, if it should become matter of 
 general belief, that the Funds are in any degree de- 
 pendent upon the lives, and, of course, upon the will 
 of individuals. 
 
 We will now see (for it is very curious) what has 
 been said as to the cause of GOLDSMIDT'S putting an 
 end to his life ; and, that will let us into matter es- 
 sentially belonging to our subject. But, before we 
 proceed any further, I think myself called upon to 
 make a few remarks upon what has. in some of our 
 newspapers, been said, about the character of this 
 man ; for, though I have no desire to say any harm 
 of him, or to cause people to believe harm of him, 
 I think it wrong ; I think it very unjust towards my 
 readers; I think it an act of treason to the morals 
 of my country, to stand by, with pen in hand, and 
 to see spread abroad amongst the people such un- 
 qualified praises of a man, who has terminated his 
 existence by suicide, and, especially, when I do not 
 believe those praises to be founded in truth. 
 
 We are told of his acts of charity ; his sub- 
 scriptions to charitable undertakings; his name, 
 we are told, was always seen foremost upon such 
 occasions. But why tell us of this again, if every 
 individual act has been carefully printed and pub- 
 lished before. There are cases, in which a man's 
 acts of charity may get out to the world in spite of 
 him ; but he is very unlucky when his name is print- 
 ed upon every trifling occasion, which has been the 
 case with this man's charities. Besides, what has 
 he given, put it all together ? Not, perhaps, the 
 odd shillings and pence upon the enormous sums 
 that he has gained by his dealings with the Govern- 
 ment ; and is any man so blind as not to perceive, 
 that motives very different indeed from those of cha- 
 rity, might dictate his gifts? A man, acquiring 
 such immense wealth, must see that something was 
 necessary, to keep the public from grudging; and, 
 though I do not take upon me to say, that GOLD- 
 SMIDT'S donations proceeded from this motive, I 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 117 
 
 cannot help thinking that they frequently did, when 
 I recollect how many paragraphs, stating the nature 
 and amount of his charities, I have, at different 
 times, read in the newspapers. 
 
 " Who builds a Church to God and not to fame, 
 Will ne'er inscribe the marble with his name." 
 
 One of his eulogists says : " he had done so 
 many kind and generous actions his benevolence 
 was so enlarged his public and private character 
 was so princely, embracing men of all persua- 
 sions he was so unostentatious in his habits, and 
 so mild and cheerful in his manners ; in short, 
 a man more truly amiable in all the relations of life 
 never existed. He was incessantly employed in 
 acts of friendship ; and though, like every man of 
 extensive dealings, he had to encounter the bitterness 
 of opposition and envy, we never heard even from 
 his most active rivals, any other than the most fa- 
 vourable testimony to his virtues. He died in the 
 53d years of his age. We understand that which 
 preyed most acutely on his feelings, and wrung 
 from him many an agonising exclamation, was the 
 manner in which he had been treated by some per- 
 sons who had been under the greatest obligations 
 to him. He had, for years, been a man the most 
 looked up to in the monied market his command of 
 money had been immense his credit unbounded. 
 This was a proud situation ; but, elevated as he was, 
 it inspired him with nothing like hauteur or inso- 
 lence he was still the same affable man, increasing 
 in kindness, if possible, with his increasing wealth."* 
 The much greater part of this has not, I am satisfied, 
 a particle of truth in it. Never was any thing more 
 ostentatious than the acts of benevolence, as they 
 are called, of this man, who, as I observed years 
 ago, merely tossed back to the miserable part of us, 
 in the shape of alms, the fractions of the pence, 
 upon the immense sums of money that he got by 
 
 * MORNING POST Newspaper, Oct. 
 
118 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 his traffic in loans and bills and funds. The pub- 
 lic, if it has any memory at all, must remember the 
 accounts that were given of his entertainments, at 
 which even princes were present ; and at which, 
 probably, as much was consumed in an evening as 
 would have maintained the whole village of Mor- 
 den for a year. Of these entertainments the most 
 pompous accounts were published in all the news- 
 papers of the day ; and, from the manner of the 
 publication, there can be but little doubt of its 
 having been paid for. As to his having shown his 
 hospitality to men of all persuasions, that is pre- 
 cisely what a man does, who is more intent upon 
 securing the favour of men in power, than upon 
 cultivating real friendship ; and, indeed, I have, for 
 my part, very little doubt, that the cost of the en- 
 tertainments of GOLDSMIDT was always put down 
 amongst the necessary outgoings of his trade. 
 
 Thus far, however, what I have stated may be 
 called matter of opinion. What I am now going 
 to state is matter of fact, and of fact, too, that the 
 people of England should have been made fully 
 acquainted with long ago. I allude to this man's 
 transaction with Sir JOHN PETER in the funding of 
 Exchequer Bills, and which transaction is related 
 in a Report made by a COMMITTEE of the House of 
 Commons, which was ordered to be printed on the 
 14th of May last, and which will be found at page 
 193 of the Appendix to Vol. XVII. of the Parlia- 
 mentary Debates. And here, Gentlemen, we shall 
 have a view of something of no small interest to us, 
 as belonging to the Inquiries in which we are en- 
 gaged. 
 
 In Letter VII., at page 100, mention was made of 
 Exchequer Bills ; and they were described as one 
 sort of the promissory notes issued by the Govern- 
 ment in payment of persons to whom they owe 
 money. They are like other promissory notes, with 
 this difference, that they bear an interest of so 
 much upon each hundred pounds every day, the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 119 
 
 rate of which interest vanes according to circum- 
 stances. In short, an EXCHEQUER BILL, which de- 
 rives its name from the place whence it issues, is 
 like a bank note, not convertible into money at the 
 will of the holder, except that the bank note does 
 not hear interest, and the Exchequer Bill does. You 
 will easily perceive, that these Exchequer Bills, 
 while out, form a part of the National Debt. They 
 belong to what is called Unfunded Debt ; and they 
 are sometimes paid off and taken up, as a private 
 person pays oft* and takes up his notes of hand. 
 But, sometimes, the Government, like the private 
 person, finds it inconvenient to pay off these bills ; 
 and, in such cases, it funds them ; that is to say, it 
 makes an advantageous offer to the holder of them 
 to exchange them for Stock ; and when this is 
 done, the amount of such Exchequer Bills is, of 
 course, added to the great mass of the permanent 
 National Debt ; which, as you will perceive, is a 
 way of borrowing money that occasions much less 
 talk and noise than would be occasioned by a new 
 loan. The loan, this year, was for 14 millions ; but 
 then, there were Exchequer Bills funded to the 
 amount of eight millions, so that the addition to the 
 permanent or funded Debt, has, in fact, in this one 
 year, been 22 millions. 
 
 1 have just said, that when the Government finds 
 it inconvenient to pay off and take up Exchequer 
 Bills, it makes an advantageous offer to the holders 
 of them, by which these holders are induced to give 
 them up, and to take Funds or Stock, in lieu of 
 them. The Bills are brought by the holders to a cer- 
 tain place, called the Exchequer Bill Office, where 
 they are received, and where the voucher is given 
 which .procures the holder stock in exchange for 
 them. Upon these occasions, there is generally a 
 great struggle of the Bill-holders, to get first into 
 the office ; because, when the quantity of Bills to be 
 funded has been presented and received, all the 
 rest must, for the present, at any rate, still remain 
 
120 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 with the holders ; and, as there is an advantage in 
 getting them funded, it is evident enough, that there 
 must always be an anxious rivalship in pursuit of 
 that object. 
 
 Upon an occasion of this sort, in the month of 
 March last, ABRAHAM GOLDSMIDT attended, amongst 
 others, with a view of getting into the Exchequer 
 Bill Office ; and, being unable to get in at the. com- 
 mon door, so early as some others, he went to a pas- 
 sage leading to another part of the office, where he 
 met Sir JOHN PETER, one of the Paymasters, or per- 
 sons who conduct the business of the office. " To 
 this person, he delivered his pocket-book, contain- 
 ing Exchequer Bills to the amount of 350,000 
 pounds, and then went away. Sir JOHN PETER 
 carried in the book and the bills ; and, in conse- 
 quence of this, GOLDSMIDT'S bills were funded ; 
 while the bills of other persons, who had attended 
 from the earliest hour, and had got in amongst the 
 very first, and whose bills were actually received, 
 had their bills returned without being funded." It 
 appears also, from the Report, that, upon a previous 
 day, this GOLDSMIDT, with a few others, had found 
 out and used the means of getting into the Office 
 before the door was opened to the public. The 
 Committee state, that the same Paymaster, " Sir 
 JOHN PETER, according to an arrangement previ- 
 ously made, did, on the first day of funding, before 
 the doors were open to the public, take into the of- 
 fice with him, Mr. GOLDSMIDT, Mr. SUTTON, and 
 Mr. GILLMAN, as appears from the evidence of Mr. 
 Gillman and Mr. Sutton. The other Paymaster in 
 attendance, Mr. PLANTA, says that he found those 
 gentlemen in the Board-Room upon his arrival at 
 the office ; that he knew it to be a great improprie- 
 ty ; that he expressed indignation at the proceed- 
 ing, and ordered the doors to be immediately thrown 
 open to the public. The names, however, of the 
 gentlemen so introduced, stand amongst the very 
 first on the books of that day" The Committee 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 121 
 
 reprobate these proceedings, as partial, unjust, and 
 foul ; and recommend means for preventing the like 
 in future. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, this is quite enough to enable 
 you to judge of the real character of GOLDSMIDT, 
 who is so extolled by our courtly news-writers, who 
 have, doubtless, their reasons for what they do ; you 
 will, from these facts alone, facts which cannot be 
 denied, be able to judge, whether this man is de- 
 serving of the character, which, with so much in- 
 dustry, is given him ; whether he was that kind, be- 
 nevolent, disinterested, generous, and noble-minded 
 man, which he has been represented to be ; or, whe- 
 ther, with all his outward show of liberality and ge- 
 nerosity, he was, as to his essential practices, still a 
 money-loving, a money-amassing Jew, and nothing 
 more; and if any additional proof of this were 
 wanting, what need we but the simple fact of his 
 having killed himself, because lie was losing a part 
 of his immense wealth ? a truly Jew-like motive for 
 the commission of an act at which human nature 
 shudders. Gentlemen, how much more to be re- 
 spected, and to be pitied, are hundreds and thousands 
 of your industrious and honest neighbours, who had 
 their all snatched from them in a moment, and who, 
 after a life of labour and of abstinence, saw them- 
 selves deprived of the means of buying a dinner; 
 and that, too, observe, without any fault of theirs, 
 without any greedy speculation, any desire on their 
 part to gain by overreaching their neighbours, or to 
 possess any thing which was not the fair fruit of 
 their labour ? What value are we to set upon the 
 princely feasts of a man, who could creep in at a 
 back door to get the preference in funding Exche- 
 quer Bills ? What value are we to set upon friend- 
 ship, such as he would, doubtless, entertain for such 
 men as Sir JOHN PETER? And, as to his charities ; 
 as to what he used to give to the miserable part of 
 our countrymen, under the name of charities, it is 
 very probable, that the whole of what he bestowed 
 11 
 
122 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 in this way in the course of his life, did not amount 
 to half so much as the sum that he gained in conse- 
 quence of his proceeding above-noticed with Sir 
 JOHN PETER. 
 
 Gentlemen, the reasons why he has been so much 
 praised by many of our news-writers would amuse 
 you ; and it would also entertain you to learn the 
 real caus? of the fine benevolent Jewish characters, 
 which are to be found in some of our modern 
 plays ; if, indeed, a feeling of shame for your coun- 
 try did not overpower your propensity to laugh at 
 these offerings of literary venality at the shrine of 
 Mammon. But, having now bestowed quite as much 
 time as it merited in remarks upon the character of 
 the departed Jew, but which remarks were demanded 
 by truth, we will now proceed to those matters, con- 
 nected with his death, which are of much greater 
 consequence to us, and a clear understanding of 
 which will be found to be greatly useful in the course 
 of the remainder of our inquiries. Indeed, these 
 matters not only relate to our subject, but they are 
 strongly illustrative of some of the most important 
 parts of it. 
 
 The cause of GOLDSMIDT'S committing the act of 
 self-murder is stated as follows : " The cause of this 
 rash act it is not difficult to assign : Mr. Goldsmidt 
 was a joint contractor for the late loan of 14 mil- 
 lions with the house of Sir Francis Baring, and. 
 taking the largest probable range that he had dealt 
 amongst his friends one half of the sum allotted to 
 him, the loss sustained by the remainder, at the rate 
 of 65/. per thousand, which was the price of Thurs- 
 day, was more than any individual fortune could be 
 expected to sustain. Ever since the decline of Om- 
 nium from par, Mr. Goldsmidt's spirits were pro- 
 gressively drooping ; but when it reached 5 and 6 
 per cent, discount, without the probability of reco- 
 vering, the unfortunate gentleman appeared evi- 
 dently restless in his disposition, and disordered in 
 his mind ; and, as we have reason to believe, not 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 123 
 
 finding that cheerful assistance amongst his monied 
 friends which he had experienced in happier times, 
 he was unable to bear up against the pressure of his 
 misfortunes ; and hence was driven to terminate a 
 life which till then had never been chequered by 
 misfortune. The moment intelligence of the dis- 
 tressing event reached the city, which was about the 
 period of the opening of the Stock Exchange, the 
 Funds suddenly felt the effects, and the Three per 
 Cent. Stock fell in a few minutes from 66 to 63 -J-: 
 Omnium declined from about 6} to 10J- discount, 
 and then remained steady at that price for some 
 time."* What to do with all these cant words one 
 hardly knows ; but, taking along with us what we 
 have before seen, we shall be able, with a little ex- 
 planation, to understand them. 
 
 In Letter II. page 34, and onwards, we saw some- 
 thing of the manner in which Loans are made to 
 the government ; but we must here speak of the 
 transaction a little more in particulars. The Loan- 
 Maker bargains with the Minister to lend so many 
 millions of money, upon condition of receiving so 
 much Stock, and we have seen what Stock means. 
 But, this Stock (as will be seen in Letter II. page 
 34,) is of several sorts : 4 per cents., 3 per cents., 
 and so on. And the Loan-Maker generally agrees 
 to take some of each sort. As soon as the Loan 
 is made, he begins to sell his Stock, as we have 
 seen, in page 38, to such people as our good neigh- 
 bour, FARMER GREENHORN ; but when he sells it, 
 all the sorts of it are put together, and hence it 
 is called OMNIUM, that being a Latin word, meaning 
 
 THE WHOLE TOGETHER, Or ALL TOGETHER. When 
 
 the Omnium will sell for more than has been given 
 for it, it is said to be at a premium ; and when it 
 will not sell for so much as has been given for it, it 
 is said to be at a discount, that word meaning, to 
 count back, or to refund ; so that, in these transac- 
 
 * TIMES Newspaper, Sept. 29. 
 
124 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 tions, to sell at a premium means to gain by the 
 sale, and to sell at a discount means to lose by the 
 sale ; premium means gain, and discount means loss. 
 
 Applying this to what we have before seen re- 
 specting the cause of the death of GOLDSMIDT, it 
 will be perceived, that he was losing 6 per cent., or 
 6 pounds in the hundred, upon his part of so im- 
 mense a transaction as that of a Loan of 14 mil- 
 lions. It is said, you will observe, that he and the 
 BARINGS took the loan between them ; and it is sup- 
 posed, that a great part of his share remained un- 
 sold, at the time when the fall in the price took 
 place. His loss, if the price did not mend, would, 
 of course, be immense ; and, it appears, that the 
 thought of such a loss was more than his mind 
 could bear ; which latter is by no means wonderful, 
 seeing that his soul was set upon gain ; that all his 
 views and notions of happiness centered in wealth. 
 The lover, whose passion is too strong for his rea- 
 son, destroys himself, because the object of that 
 passion is dearer to him than life. GOLDSMIDT de- 
 stroys himself, because wealth is dearer to him than 
 life. And yet, we are to be told of the princely 
 munificence of this man ! Never was there a nation 
 so much insulted as this ! 
 
 In most cases there is a considerable gain made 
 by LOAN-MAKERS, who have, indeed, in many cases, 
 become so rich by these transactions as to be ena- 
 bled to surpass in expenses the gentry and the nobi- 
 lity of the kingdom, which, as we shall by-and-by 
 see, is one of the great evils of the National Debt. 
 How it has happened, that so great a loss has hi- 
 therto been experienced upon the present loan, it 
 would be very difficult, perhaps, for any one to tell. 
 It has been asserted, in the public prints, that there 
 was a combination against the Loan-Makers ; but 
 this is perfect nonsense ; for all Stocks fell at the 
 same time ; and what a fine state must that thing, 
 called PUBLIC CREDIT, be in, if any combination of 
 individuals can injure it. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 125 
 
 The progress of the fall in the price of Stocks, 
 and particularly of the Omnium, upon this occasion, 
 is very curious ; and, it will be of great use to us to 
 take a look back into the public prints, and see the 
 attempts there made to keep up the prices ; attempts 
 which come very fairly under the denomination of 
 puffing. These attempts are worthy of the greatest 
 attention ; for, trifling and even stupid as they ap- 
 pear, and as they are in themselves, they will, if I 
 mistake not, be hereafter referred to, as being amongst 
 the most significant signs of the times. 
 
 These attempts began with a paragraph, inserted in 
 all the daily news-papers, stating the amount of the 
 fortune of Sir FRANCIS BARING'S family, who, it will 
 be recollected, were now become the part owners of 
 the OMNIUM along with GOLDSMIDT. The paragraph, 
 of the llth of September, was as follows: "Yes- 
 terday morning, at one o'clock, died, at his house at 
 Leigh, Sir Francis Baring, bart, in his 74th year. 
 He was physically exhausted, but his mind remained 
 unsubdued by age or infirmity to the last breath. 
 His bed was surrounded by nine out of ten, the num- 
 ber of his sons and daughters, all of whom he has 
 lived to see established in splendid independence. 
 Three of his sons carry on the great commercial 
 house, and which, by his superior talents and inte- 
 grity, he carried to so great a height of respect 
 and the other two sons are returned from, India 
 with fortunes. His five daughters are all most 
 happily married, and in addition to all this, it is sup- 
 posed he has left freehold estates to the amount of 
 half a million. Such has been the result of the 
 honourable life of this English Merchant." 
 
 On the 17th of September, the following was pub- 
 lished r " Stocks experienced this morning a consi- 
 derable depression : Omnium was at 5^- discount. 
 The death of Sir Francis Baring is said to have 
 been the chief cause of it." 
 
 On the 19th : " The sudden and rapid decline of 
 the Stocks merits, it may be supposed, some notice. 
 11* 
 
 
 
126 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Consols, which began yesterday at 66f , closed at 
 65^- ; and Omnium left off at 6 J- discount. Various 
 causes were assigned for this effect, (a descent upon 
 Heligoland, a subsidy to Russia,) all equally im- 
 probable. We can do no more at present than state 
 the fact, though we strongly suspect that we know 
 the cause" 
 
 On the 20th: c; Stocks were better this morning; 
 and the attempts to continue the depression of the 
 Funds are likely to be defeated, as they ought to be" 
 
 On the 22nd: "Yesterday being a holiday, no 
 business was publicly transacted in tne Funds, but 
 several private bargains were made at an advanced 
 price. Consols were done at 662" which is a material 
 rise. There is reason to hope that a few days will 
 dispel the alarm which was raised and propagated 
 beyond what any just cause could warrant, by per- 
 sons desirous of fishing in troubled waters ; by 
 certain writers, eager to convert public confusion 
 to the promotion of their political views, and by 
 certain jobbers, anxious to make it subservient to 
 their pecuniary interests. The erroneous idea, so 
 industriously circulated by certain individuals, that 
 there is a depreciation of the Bank currency, has 
 undoubtedly contributed, in some degree with other 
 circumstances of pressure, to produce the late de- 
 pression in the funds." 
 
 Now, it must be observed, that these paragraphs 
 were circular / that is to say, they went through 
 all the daily news-papers, or, at least, nearly all of 
 them ; and, for aught I know to the contrary, through 
 the weekly news -papers too ; so that, there is not 
 the smallest doubt of the puffing having been carried 
 on at the instigation of some interested party. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, what a state, I again ask, must 
 that thing called PUBLIC CREDIT, be in, if it can be 
 affected in this way ? First Sir FRANCIS BARING'S 
 death causes the Funds to fall, and the fall in the 
 Funds causes the death of GOLDSMIDT, and then the 
 death of GOLDSMIDT causes the Funds to fall lower 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 127 
 
 still! What is all this talk about combinations; 
 about attempts to continue the depression ; about an 
 alarm beyond any just cause ; about the Funds being 
 depressed by persons desirous of fishing in troubled 
 waters, by certain writers eager for public confusion ; 
 by certain jobbers anxious to promote their own in- 
 terest ; by certain individuals who have insidiously 
 circulated erroneous ideas about the depreciation of 
 Bank notes ? What is all this talk ? What does 
 all this mean ? Is it come to this at last, that this 
 PUBLIC CREDIT, which was to defend us against all 
 the warlike operations of France ; is it come to this, 
 that this PUBLIC CREDIT, this defence of the country, 
 is to be destroyed, or, at least, materially affected, by 
 the tricks of money-Jobbers, the opinions (and the 
 erroneous opinions too) of political writers, or by 
 the death of a Jew ? If this be the case, let those 
 who have what they call money in the Funds ; let 
 the GRIZZLE GREENHORNS look to themselves. 
 
 At the peace of Amiens, when we reminded PITT 
 and his associates of the promise they had made us, 
 never to make peace without obtaining " indemnity 
 for the past and security for the future," and, when 
 we proved to them, that, while they acknowledged 
 that they had obtained no indemnity for the past, 
 they had left us more insecure than ever for the fu- 
 ture : when we pointed out to them the consequences 
 of their war, which had put into the hands of France so 
 many countries, end so much of maritime means ; and 
 of their peace, which had left all these terrible means 
 in her hands : when we pointed out this to them, what 
 was their answer? Why this: that, though France 
 had acquired a great extent of territory, her acqui- 
 sitions in point of strength did not surpass ours, 
 which consisted of an immense mass of CAPITAL, 
 CREDIT, and CONFIDENCE ; the changes upon which 
 words were rung over and over again, till the speech 
 became full as enlivening and instructive as a peel of 
 the three bells of Botley Church. But what becomes 
 of these fine things, if the scribbling of a news-paper 
 
128 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 writer, or of a pamphleteer, or if the sudden death 
 of a Jew, is capable of so materially affecting them ? 
 What, in that case, becomes of that Capital, Credit, 
 and Confidence, which were to counterbalance all 
 the acquisitions of France, and were to prove a 
 never-falling defence to England ? True, said the 
 adherents of PITT, who wished still to find some- 
 thing to say, by way of apology, for his ruinous 
 measures, " true," said they, " France has made 
 conquests ; she has gained sea-ports ; she has ac- 
 quired and now quietly possesses, the means of rear- 
 ing a navy ; but look at the immense CAPITAL of 
 England : look at her CREDIT ; look at the CONFI- 
 DENCE which she possesses ; look at these pillars of 
 national strength. 7 ' It was not easy to see, however 
 long one looked, that these things were pillars of 
 national strength ; but, if they were ; if they were 
 the pillars upon which this nation was to depend, 
 what are we to think of our situation, when we are 
 told, as we are in the above-cited publications, and, 
 indeed, as we are told every day, that the Funds, 
 which are said to be the barometer of national CRE- 
 DIT, can be, nay, have been, and still are, lowered 
 in their value by such trifling things as the erroneous 
 opinion of a writer on politics, or the death of a Mer- 
 chant or a Jew ? If what we have been told about 
 the importance of CREDIT be true ; if it be our de- 
 fence against the enemy, what must our situation be, 
 if what we are now told be true, namely, that this 
 CREDIT has been shaken by such contemptible means ? 
 PITT and his associates told us, that CAPITAL, CRE- 
 DIT, and CONFIDENCE; which is using three words 
 instead of one, merely for the sake of the sound ; 
 they told us that these were the pillars of the na- 
 tion ; and, as we have seen above, our news-papers 
 now tell us, that Sir FRANCIS BARING and GOLDSMIDT 
 were the pillars of our CREDIT ; so that, at last, we 
 come to this comfortable conclusion that the de- 
 fence and preservation of the country depended upon 
 Sir FRANICS BARING and GOLDSMIDT, one of whom 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 129 
 
 has died, and the other shot himself, within the last 
 three weeks ! And this is the effect, is it, of the 
 PITT system of what is called Public Credit ? 
 
 If what we are now told be true, what security 
 have we, that things will stop where they are ? 
 What reason have we to conclude, or to suppose, 
 that the same causes will not continue to operate, 
 'till the whole of the Funds are annihilated ; that 
 is to say, until nobody will give any thing at all for 
 any sort of the Stock ? We are told, that the fall 
 which has already taken place, has, in part, been the 
 consequence of combinations of individuals, which 
 must mean, combinations not to purchase ; and who 
 is to put an end to such combinations ? Who is to 
 prevent the force of them from increasing? Then, 
 again, we are told, that the fall has partly been pro- 
 duced by jobbers intent upon their own interests ; 
 and who, let me ask, is to alter the nature of these 
 jobbers ; who can say, or even guess, when these in- 
 terested jobbers will be pleased to desist from their 
 selfish and mischievous practices ? If the causes of 
 the fall be such as have been stated to the public in 
 the above-cited and other publications, who will 
 pretend to say when or where, the fall will stop ? 
 And I should be very glad to hear any reason, why, 
 if those alleged causes be founded in truth, the 
 Funds should not continue to fall, till they are not 
 worth owning ; till it is not worth GRIZZLE GREEN- 
 HORN'S while to have her name written in the Great 
 Book. 
 
 We here see, that these boasted friends of their 
 country ; these men of such high-flying loyalty ; these 
 writers who accuse of Jacobinism all those who 
 cannot believe, and who will not say, that the Paper- 
 money is as good, if not better, than Gold and Sil- 
 ver ; we here see, that these boasted friends of their 
 country, who, apparently, would eat Buonaparte 
 raw, if they could get at him ; we here see these 
 outrageously-loyal writers proclaiming to that same 
 Buonaparte what must delight him more than al- 
 
130 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 most any thing that he could hear, namely, that such 
 is the state of our public credit, such the state of our 
 pecuniary resources, such the confidence in our funds, 
 such the confidence in the security of our government- 
 bonds, that this confidence is shaken by a combina- 
 tion of jobbers, or the death of a Jew. How much 
 abuse has been, at various times, heaped upon those, 
 who have expressed their doubts as to the durability 
 of the Paper-money system ! Nay, the Bullion Com- 
 mittee themselves have been very grossly abused for 
 their Report upon the subject; by which Report, 
 their opponents say, they have injured the credit of 
 the country. They are charged with having injured 
 the credit of this country, because they have recom- 
 mended that the Bank of England should pay its 
 notes in Gold and Silver. What, then, are those 
 men doing, who now assert, that a combination of 
 individuals ; that the tricks of interested jobbers ; 
 that the erroneous opinions of political writers: 
 what are the men doing, who assert, that these things 
 are capable of causing the government securities. to 
 fall in value ; and who scruple not to tell us, that the 
 men who where the pillars of the Public Funds, 
 are dead ? What are these writers doing ; and 
 how will they now be able to hold up their heads 
 and complain of the endeavours of others to destroy 
 what they call public credit, which, if it admit of de- 
 struction by the means of the pen, must assuredly 
 fall for ever under the pens of these writers ? 
 
 If what these writers say be true ; if the stocks are 
 to be lowered in value by combinations of individuals, 
 by the errors of writers, by the reports of commit- 
 tees, or by the death of a Jew ; if this be true, can it 
 be thought, that people will long be disposed to be- 
 come proprietors of stock ? Can it be thought, that 
 they will, like our neighbour GREENHORN, put their 
 money in the Funds ? Can it be expected, that fa- 
 thers and mothers will make provision for their child- 
 ren, or their grand-children, by purchasing stock, 
 liable to be lowered in value by such causes ? Nay, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD, 131 
 
 can it be expected, that any man in his senses, who 
 is now the owner of stock, will not dispose of it as 
 soon as possible, and at almost any rate ? For, is it 
 possible to regard as safe property ; is it possible to 
 regard as any property at all, a thing, the value of 
 which may be lowered ten per cent, in the space of 
 ten days, and, of course, which may be lowered 
 to almost nothing ? Is it possible to regard as any 
 property at all, a thing, the value of which may be 
 ilms reduced by the combinations of individuals, the 
 trickery of jobbers, the errors of political writers, 
 or the death of a Jew, or of any other individual, or 
 number of individuals ? Is it possible to regard 
 such a thing as property ? Common sense says, 
 <; No ;" and yet the statement of these causes, a 
 statement which, if it have any effect at all, must 
 tend to the discredit, and, indeed, to the destruction, 
 of the Funds ; this statement comes from the pens 
 of those, who cry out JACOBIN against every man who 
 ventures, in however modest a way, to express his 
 doubts of the solidity of the Funding System. 
 
 These writers, in their eagerness to abuse those, 
 to whom they impute the fall of the Funds, seem to 
 have overlooked the conclusions that would natu- 
 rally be drawn from their premises, else they would 
 have perceived what a dangerous thing it was to de- 
 clare to our powerful and sharp-sighted enemy that 
 a combination of individuals was capable of shaking 
 our Funds. That enemy is, by these same writers, 
 represented as being all-powerful by his intrigues in 
 other countries ; and, is it too much to suppose, that 
 it might be possible for him to find the means of 
 forming combinations against the Funds in England? 
 If combinations of individuals can pull down the 
 value of our government securities, is it to be be- 
 lieved, that our enemy will not be disposed, and that 
 he will not endeavour to form such combinations 1 
 And, if we are asked, where he will find individuals 
 so base, have not these writers pointed them out to 
 him ; or, at least, have they not told him, in terms that 
 
 
132 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 admit not of misunderstanding, that there are such 
 individuals in England, in London, and now actually 
 at work ; and that these individuals have caused the 
 Funds to fall, have caused the government securities 
 to lose part of their value? Let these writers, 
 therefore, confess that these statements of theirs 
 have proceeded from error; or, at any rate, that they 
 are untrue ; or let them for ever hold their tongue 
 as to complaints against those, who entertain doubts 
 of the solidity of the paper-money system. 
 
 Here, Gentlemen, I should have concluded this 
 already-too-long Letter : but an article which I find 
 in the public prints of this morning (Tuesday, 2nd 
 October,) induces me to add some observations upon 
 the subject of the remedy or expedient, which has 
 been more than hinted at. The article alluded to, 
 is as follows : " The state of the Funds was a little 
 improved yesterday ; and, as no bad consequences, 
 beyond those of the first shock, had arisen from Mr. 
 Goldsmidt's death, it is hoped that things will soon 
 be restored to their former level. The result of the 
 conferences of the leading Loan-holders, with the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Lords of 
 the Treasury, on Saturday, has not yet been made 
 known. Mr. Goldsmidt's house continues to dis- 
 charge, without reserve or hesitation, all the demands 
 made on it. The account at the Stock Exchange 
 was not settled nor declared yesterday, in conse- ; 
 quence of the attendance of Mr. Nathan Solomons, 
 Mr. Goldsmidt's broker, at the funeral, which took 
 place, according to the Jewish rites, about noon yes- 
 terday. His body was placed by the side of that of 
 his brother Benjamin. Yesterday morning early, 
 Mr. Perceval came to town from his house at 
 Ealing, and soon after sent off letters to the Go- 
 vernor and Deputy-Governor of the Bank, Mr. Wish, 
 the Chairman of the Commissioners of Excise, the 
 Treasurer of the Ordnance, and a number of other 
 official Gentlemen ; they all attended Mr. Perceval, 
 and he was with them during the whole of the day." 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 133 
 
 These conferences will not, I trust, as some per- 
 sons appear to suppose, lead to any application of 
 the public money, that is to say, of the taxes, to the 
 assisting, as it is called, of these Loan-holders. 
 The Loan-holders, or Loan-makers, have never been 
 known to return to the people any part of the im- 
 mense profits, which they, from time to time, have 
 made upon their loaning transactions. We see, from 
 one of the above-quoted passages, that Sir FRANCIS 
 BARING has gained enough to lay out half a million 
 of money in freehold estates. Great part of this 
 was, it is reasonable to suppose, gained by the many 
 loans to Government, in which he has been at differ- 
 ent times concerned. Well then, if these profits, 
 these immense gains, be considered as fairly belong- 
 ing to him, or his heirs and successors ; and, if we 
 view the not less immense gains of GOLDSMIDT in the 
 same light ; if the gains be theirs, ought not the loss 
 to be theirs also ? Upon any other principle, what a 
 sort of bargain would a government loan be ? A 
 bargain, where all the chance of gain would be on 
 one side, and all the chance of loss on the other. If 
 the loan-maker gained, well ; but if he lost, the 
 people must make good his loss. Is this the way 
 that dealings take place between man and man ? Is 
 there any one of you, Gentlemen, who would sell a 
 load of wheat to a miller, leaving him the chance 
 of gaining by it, and, if he happened to lose by it, 
 would give him back again the amount of his loss? 
 Oh, no ! You would keep the whole of the price of 
 your wheat, and leave the miller to console himself 
 in counting his gains upon other occasions. 
 
 But if, contrary to my wish and expectation, 
 " relief" as it is called, were to be given to those 
 persons^ in what way could it be done? The loan 
 is made and ratified in virtue of an ACT OF PARLIA- 
 MENT. There can be no alteration made in the bar- 
 gam ; there can be no change in the terms of pay- 
 ment ; there can be no abatement in the demands of 
 the Government, without another ACT OP PARLIA- 
 12 
 
 
134 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 MENT, previously passed. Those who made the loan 
 must pay the 14 millions into the King's Exchequer, 
 let what will be their loss upon the transaction, un- 
 less indeed, the whole of their property, real and 
 personal, be insufficient for the purpose ; and, in 
 that case, the people have a right to expect, that the 
 Government will take care to hold back from the 
 loan-makers, or to recover from them, so much of the 
 new Stock as will not leave the loan-makers a far- 
 thing in the people's debt. 
 
 During PITT'S Anti-jacobin War, which, as you 
 will bear in mind, was to succeed by producing the 
 destruction of the paper-money in France ! during 
 that war, which was to diminish the power of 
 France, and to restore the Bourbons, by the means 
 of ruin to the French finances ; during that famous 
 war, which was to plunge, and which, as PITT told 
 us. did plunge, France "into the very gulph of 
 Bankruptcy;" during that renowned war, there was 
 what was called a "LOYALTY LOAN." People 
 were invited, in the name of Loyally, to come for- 
 ward and lend their money to the Government, for 
 the purpose of carrying on the Anti-jacobin war 
 with vigour ; and, at the same time, no very unin- 
 telligible hints were given, in some of the public 
 prints, that those who had it in their power to lend, 
 and did not lend, upon this occasion, were deficient 
 in point of loyalty ; an imputation not very plea- 
 sant at any time, and, at the time to which we are 
 referring, singularly inconvenient. The LOYALTY 
 LOAN was accomplished ; but, owing to some cause 
 or other, it did not prove to be a profitable concern 
 for the lenders; and, as in the case of the present 
 loan, as far as it has gone, the loan fell to a dis- 
 count, and a loss was sustained upon it. Such loss, 
 one might have expected, would have been not only 
 contentedly, but gladly sustained, as a sacrifice upon 
 the altar of loyalty ; and this, it was said by PITT, 
 would have been the case, but that he and his asso- 
 ciates in the ministry, did not think it wise to suffer 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 135 
 
 loyalty so disinterested to experience any loss. An 
 act, therefore, was passed for making good to the 
 lenders whatever they would otherwise have lost by 
 their ardent affection for their King and country, 
 and loyalty was thus prevented from costing them 
 anything. 
 
 The case, however, of these loyal and devoted 
 persons was somewhat different from that of the 
 makers of the present loan. The Loyalty Loan 
 men had never gained any thing by loan-making. 
 They had not got their half million's worths of free- 
 holds and their palace-like mansions. They had 
 made a bargain, and they ought, in my opinion, to 
 have been held to that bargain ; because, if there 
 had been a gain instead of a loss, they would have 
 put that gain in their pocket, and would, doubtless, 
 have looked upon it as doubly blessed, being the 
 profits of trade and of loyalty too ; and further, be- 
 cause they had put their names down upon a list, 
 which was to hold them forth to the world as men 
 ready to make sacrifices for their King and country, 
 in contradistinction to those, whose names were not 
 put upon the list. But still, though nothing, in my 
 opinion, can ever fully reconcile to principles of jus- 
 tice, the compensating of these people for their losses 
 by that loan, there is a great difference between that 
 case, and the case of the present loan-makers or 
 holders, who have no claim whatever to any com- 
 pensation at all, or to any relief, or to the adoption 
 of any measure, that shall cost the people one single 
 shilling. If they lose by this loan, they have gained 
 by other loans. If they cannot pay without the sale 
 of their goods and chattels, why should not their 
 goods and chattels be sold, as well as the goods and 
 chattels of those, who, out of pure loyalty, have set 
 up papers for the purpose of writing me down, and 
 whose names I have never once mentioned, on 
 whose papers I have never set my eyes, and who 
 have killed themselves in their foolish attempts to 
 wound me ? Why should not the loan-makers, if 
 
136 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 they cannot make good their bargain, have their 
 goods and chattels sold, us well as these loyalty- 
 writers ? I am, however, reasoning here, against an 
 unfounded surmise ; for it appears from the above 
 quoted publications, that the family of BARING is 
 very rich and in perfect credit, and that the concerns 
 of GOLDSMIDT are in a flourishing way, seeing that 
 his house is able to meet all the demands upon it, of 
 every sort, without the least delay or hesitation. 
 This being the case, there can be no need of any 
 interference on the part of the Government, who 
 will doubtless see, that the bargain is fulfilled agree- 
 ably to the terms. 
 
 I have now done with this accidental occurrence, 
 the notice of which so much at length, forms a Di- 
 gression from the regular line of our progress, but 
 which, as we shall see by-and-by, will have alforded 
 us practical knowledge, of great use in our future 
 inquiries. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Friend, 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, 6th Sept. 1810. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 "They" (the French Revolutionists) "forget that, in England, not one 
 shilling of Paper Money of any description is received but of choice, 
 that the whole has had its origin in cash, actually deposited ; and that 
 it is convertible, at pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest 
 loss, into cash again. Our Paper is of value in commerce, because in 
 law it is of none. It is powerful on Change, because in Westminster-hall 
 it is impotent. In payment of a debt of twenty shillings, a creditor may 
 refuse all the paper of the Bank of England. Nor is there among us a 
 single public security, of any quality or nature whatsoever, that is en- 
 forced by authority. In fact, it might be easily shown, that our paper 
 wealth, instead of lessening the real coin, has a tendency to increase it. In- 
 stead of being a substitute for money, it only facilitates its entry, its exit, 
 and its circulation; that it is the symbol of prosperity, and not the badge 
 of distress. Never was a scarcity of cash, and an exuberance of paper, a 
 
 subject of complaint in this nation." Burke. Reflections on the French 
 
 Revolution. Written and published in 171-0. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 137 
 
 "But, whatever momentary relief, or aid, the Minister and the Bank 
 might expect from this low contrivance of Five Pound Notes, it will in- 
 crease the inability of the Lank to pay the Higher Notes, smd hasten the 
 destruction of all ; for, even the small taxes that used to be paid in 
 money, will now be paid in those notes, and the Bank will soon find it- 
 self with scarcely any ofher money than what the hair-powder puinea- 
 tax brinp* in." Fame's Decline and Ftill of (he English System of Pi- 
 nance. Written and published in March, 1796. 
 
 " When the situation of the B ink of England was under the consideration 
 of the two Houses of Parliament, in the year 1797, it was my opinion, 
 and that of many others, that the extent to which the Paper Currency had 
 teen carried, was the first and principal, though not the sole cause, of 
 the many difficulties to which that Corporate Body was then, and had, 
 of late years, from time to time, been exposed, in supplying the cash 
 necessary for the commerce of the kingdom. "-^Charles Jenkinson, Earl 
 of Liverpool, Letter to the King, published in 1805. 
 
 Horrid Passage from the Morning Post Newspaper Such 
 are the Writers by whom the Paper-Money System and its 
 Patrons are supported Such are the Answers that are 
 given to these Letters Bank-Paper asserted to be the only 
 Sort of Currency calculated to exert the Energies of an 
 Island Proceed in tracing the increase of Debt and Notes 
 to that Grand Effect, the Bank Stoppage Table showing 
 the annual Increase of the Debt and Interest from 1793 to 
 1797 Increase in the Number and Amount of Payments at 
 the Bank demanding Small Notes Hence came the Five 
 Pound Notes Burke's Picture of the English Bank-Pa- 
 per Paine' s Prediction Lord Liverpool the Historian of 
 Paine' s Prophecy. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN returning to our subject, we must bear m mind, 
 that, in Letter VIII. and in the foregoing Letter, we 
 saw clearly, that, bank-notes, as well as all other 
 promissory notes, ought to be considered as repre 
 sentatives of Debt^ while real money ought to be 
 considered as the representative of property, or 
 things of real value. At the close of Letter VIII., 
 we saw how tbe increase in the quantity of bank- 
 notes had kept pace with the increase of the Na- 
 tional Debt ; and we proposed, when we should re- 
 sume tbe subject, to trace this joint increase to that 
 grand and memorable effect, THE STOPPAGE OF GOLD 
 AND SILVER PAYMENTS AT THE BANK OF ENGLAND in 
 1797. 
 
 But, before we enter upon this interesting matter, 
 will you give me leave again to give you a specimen 
 of the way in which my Letters are answered by 
 12* 
 
138 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the venal writers in London? To do this will not 
 be without its utility, both now and hereafter. It 
 will be useful to show you what sort of writers those 
 are, who are opposed to me ; and, though it may not 
 be so useful to posterity, it will, nevertheless, be of 
 some use, and will be very curious, for our children 
 to see what manner of men those were, who wrote 
 in favour of the Paper-Money System. The passage 
 I am about to lay before you was published in a 
 newspaper, printed for the use of " The Fashionable 
 World" under the date of the 6th of this month, 
 and its words are these. " To the People of the 
 United Kingdom. The detestable characters ex- 
 posed lately in the pillory, may be considered the 
 real representatives of the Corsican Tyrant and 
 his Ministers, who boast of the monstrous vice 
 which excites such horrors in every British bosom, 
 and who, fearful of your valour, are exerting every 
 artifice to subvert your empire, betray your virtue, 
 and extirpate your people. COBBETT, the oracle of 
 the Jacobins, abuses the British Papers for speak- 
 ing ill of such infamous monsters, whose detesta- 
 ble practices must annihilate every virtuous princi- 
 ple from the human breast ; and he tells the British 
 People, in effect, that, if they are to be robbed by 
 taxes, and oppressed by power, it is of no conse- 
 quence whether they are conquered by a French 
 Vere-street gang, or governed by a virtuous British 
 Sovereign and his respectable ministers. Such 
 is the profound reasoning of an apostate low-minded 
 scribe, who is impelled by a savage passion to re- 
 venge for ministerial deserved contempt, and by 
 foolish and base hopes of conciliation with the Cor- 
 sican Monster, who often rewards, but never has 
 been known to forgive. He publishes weekly an in- 
 fernal Register, to excite mutiny in the army and 
 the fleet, to seduce the loyalty of British subjects, 
 to confound, the good sense of the yeomanry by low 
 cunning and artful sophistry ; and above all, to 
 destroy Public Credit and Bank Paper, as the best 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 130 
 
 bond of individual and public security, and the 
 only medium of currency to suit and exert the 
 energies of an insular and commercial people, 
 Such a man, whom reading and writing made a 
 corporal, but whom sense and reason will never 
 make a politician or an honest patriot, may be the 
 proper oracle of a Vert-street gang of legal 
 French ruffians, but his councils of liberty, eco- 
 nomy, and reform, must be regarded as the treache- 
 rous delusions of a French spy, when offered to a 
 free, virtuous, and happy nation !"* 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, is the language of my opposers. 
 Such is the sort of men who dislike me. Such are 
 the answers that are given to my statements and 
 my reasoning upon a sober and most important sub- 
 ject of political economy. The abuse here heaped 
 upon a person whom our commander in Portugal, in 
 his public despatches, recognises as an " Emperor" 
 and who, in our courts of justice, has been recog- 
 nised as a " Sovereign of France," to say nothing 
 of our negotiations and treaties with him ; the abuse 
 here heaped upon Napoleon, who is not only called 
 a monster, but is distinctly charged with " boasting 
 of the monstrous vice," for being guilty of which, 
 several infamous wretches have lately stood in the 
 pillory in London, can, surely, not meet with the 
 approbation of any man upon earth j for one would 
 fain hope, that there is not another man like this 
 writer. Yet is it a serious consideration for the 
 country, that such an accusation should be thus 
 boldly put forth in our public newspapers, and in a 
 newspaper, too, which, from its uniform praises of 
 the men at present in power, is called a ministerial 
 newspaper, and is, in general, looked upon as a sort 
 of halt official print. As far as concerns this par- 
 ticular article, every man in England will be ready 
 to acquit the ministers ; and, indeed, every man will 
 readily believe that it must meet with their sincere 
 
 * MORNING POST, Saturday, Oct. 6th, 1810. 
 
140 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 reprobation. But, this may not be the opinion 
 abroad ; and I leave you to guess what an impres- 
 sion such a publication is calculated to give the 
 world of our national character. 
 
 There is one declaration here, about the paper- 
 money, that I wish you to bear in mind ; namely, 
 that " bank-paper is the best bond of individual 
 and public security, and the only medium of cur- 
 rency to suit and exert the energies of an insular 
 and commercial people" So that, according to this 
 writer, the return of gold and silver would be no 
 good at all, and we ought, indeed, to desire to get 
 rid of it, if we had any ; though, upon the trial of 
 DE YONGE, (of which we shall see more by-and- 
 by,) both the Attorney General and the Judge so de- 
 cidedly declared the exportation of the coin to be 
 a most mischievous practice ; and, though this wri- 
 ter himself, little more than two months ago, con- 
 gratulated his readers upon the prospect of seeing 
 bank-paper destroyed, which paper he called, in his 
 print of the 19th of July, " destructive assignats" 
 and afterwards, " vile dirty rags ;" aye, that very 
 paper, which he now asserts to be " the best bond of 
 individual and public security, and the only medium 
 of currency to suit and exert the energies of an in- 
 sular and commercial people." 
 
 Let us now leave our opponents ; let us leave the 
 paper-money system and its patrons to receive all the 
 support that writings like the above can give, while 
 we proceed in tracing the increase of the National 
 Debt, and that of the bank notes, to that grand and 
 memorable effect, the stoppage of gold and silver- 
 payments at the Bank of England in 1797, from 
 which time our paper-money began, because it was 
 then that the bank notes ceased to be convertible 
 into coin, and they have remained in that state to 
 this day. 
 
 We have already seen, that, at the beginning of 
 PITT'S war with the Republicans of France in 1793, 
 cur National Debt amounted to about 250 millions, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 141 
 
 because it did not increase during the peace prece- 
 ding that war. Its amount, at the close of the Ame- 
 rican war, was 257 millions, (See Letter III. page 
 43,) and the annual interest paid upon it was 9 mil- 
 lions and about a half. The debt, and, of course, the 
 interest along with it, decreased a little before the 
 beginning of PITT'S war against the Jacobins of 
 France ; so that, when that war was begun, both 
 Debt and Interest were somewhat less than at the 
 conclusion of the American war. We will, however, 
 take them at what they were at the last-mentioned 
 period; and, in order the more clearly to shew the 
 progress of the cause of the great increase of bank- 
 notes, and finally, of the Stoppage of Gold and Sil- 
 ver-payments ai the Bank, we will state the annual 
 increase of the Debt and Interest, from the begin- 
 ning of the war to the year 1797, when the Stoppage 
 took place ; which statement is not only very cu- 
 rious, but is of singularly great importance. 
 
 Before the Anti-Jacobin war began 
 
 (in 1793,) the amount was . . 
 
 In that same year was added . . 
 
 Amount at the end of 1793 . . . 
 
 In the year 1794 was added . . 
 
 Amount at the end of 1794 . . . 
 
 In the year 1795 was added . . . 
 
 Amount at the end of 1795 . . . 
 
 In the year 1796 was added . . . 
 
 Amount at the end of 1796 . . . 
 
 In the year 1797 was added . . . 
 
 Amount at the end of 1797 . . . *413,140,831 17,015,149 
 
 DEBT. 
 
 . 
 
 257,213,043 
 6,250,000 
 
 INTEREST. 
 
 . 
 
 9,669,435 
 252,812 
 
 263,463,043 
 15,676,525 
 
 9,922,247 
 773,324 
 
 279,139,567 
 25,609,897 
 
 10,695,571 
 1,227,415 
 
 304,749,464 
 41,303,699 
 
 11,922,986 
 1,850,373 
 
 346,053,163 
 67,087,668 
 
 13,773,359 
 3,241,790 
 
 Thus, then, we see, that the first four years and a 
 
 * To convert these sums into United States' Money, see 
 page 44. 
 
142 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 half of PITT'S war with the Jacobins, or Republi- 
 cans of France, nearly doubled the Debt and the In- 
 terest, or (which is the same thing to the people,) 
 the annual charge on account of Debt, which, to- 
 gether with interest, includes management and Sink- 
 ing-Fund allowance. Four years and a half of the 
 Anti-Jacobin war nearly doubled these ; and, accord- 
 ing to the principles we have before laid down in 
 Letters VII. and VIII., the bank notes would necessa- 
 rily increase in the same proportion as the Debt and 
 Interest increased ; because, every quarter of a year, 
 the dividends to be paid at the Bank became greater 
 and greater. 
 
 Before the Anti-Jacobin war began, the dividends 
 of a year amounted, as we see above, to 9,669,435/. 
 To obviate all pettifogging cavil here, let me state, 
 that this sum was not wholly dividends, or interest ; 
 but consisted, partly, of " charges for management" 
 paid to the Bank of England ; and also of charges 
 on " account of the Sinking-Fund" But, as was 
 observed before, this is of no consequence to the 
 people who pay the taxes, out of which the whole 
 sum comes ; and I only make the distinction to avoid 
 a cavilling charge of misrepresentation, or error. 
 When, therefore, we speak of the amount of the In- 
 terest of the National Debt, let it be understood, that 
 we include these charges ; and that, by the word In- 
 terest, is meant the annual charge on account of 
 the Debt. 
 
 To resume, then ; before the Anti-Jacobin war 
 began, the dividends, or interest, of one year amount- 
 ed, as we have seen, to 9,669,435 pounds; and be- 
 fore the nation got to the end of the fifth year of that 
 war, a year's dividends, or interest, amounted to 
 17,015,149 pounds ; not much short of double. The 
 Bank, therefore, having nearly twice as much to pay 
 yearly in interest of the Debt ; having, to speak in 
 round numbers, 17 millions to pay under this head, 
 where it had but 9 millions to pay before the begin- 
 ning of PITT'S Ant i- Jacobin war j having twice is 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 143 
 
 much to issue on this great score as it had previous 
 to the war, was, of course, compelled to increase the 
 quantity of its paper-promises, or the quantity of 
 its Gold and Silver-coin ; because, as we have be- 
 fore seen, (Letter VII. page 91,) an increase in the 
 number and amount of payments must necessarily 
 demand an increase of the money, or medium, in 
 which those payments are made ; and, why this in- 
 crease, at the Bank of England, would take place 
 in paper-promises, and not in Gold and Silver coin, 
 we have seen in Letters VII. and VIII. ; where it 
 was shown that an increase of Debt must produce 
 an increase of paper-promises, or notes, when once 
 a paper-system has begun. 
 
 That the experience of the times of which we arc 
 now speaking, perfectly corresponded with the prin- 
 ciples here stated, we shall now see, by adverting a 
 little to the manner in which the payments of in- 
 terest at the Bank were formerly made. 
 
 It has before been observed, that, when the Na- 
 tional Debt first began, the whole of the Interest was 
 paid in Gold and Silver, there being then no such 
 thing as bank notes, and no such thing- as a Bank, 
 in this country. It has also been observed, that, very 
 shortly after the Debt came into existence, it produced 
 its natural offspring, a Bank, which issued its pro- 
 missory notes ; and in which promissory notes tho 
 interest of the Debt was, in part, at least, paid. At 
 Jirst, it appears, that the Bank paid an interest upon 
 its notes, or bills ; but, this was soon left off; and, 
 from that time, the bank notes, or bills, became part 
 of the circulating medium of the country. 
 
 When the Stock owners, or Public creditors, as 
 they are sometimes called, went to the Bank to re- 
 ceive their dividends, or interest, they might have 
 either bank notes, or Gold and Silver, according to 
 their choice. Some persons chose the coin, and 
 some the paper. But as the Debt increased, and, of 
 course, the amount of the dividends, or interest, it 
 was evident, from what has already been said, thai 
 
144 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the Bank would possess a less and less quantity of 
 Gold and Silver in proportion to the quantity of its 
 paper. And, further, the payments of interest hay- 
 ing, as we have seen above, become nearly double 
 in amount to what they were in 1793, previous to 
 the Anti- Jacobin war, it is natural to suppose, that 
 there would be double the number of Stock-holders, 
 and, of course, double the number of payments to 
 make. Therefore, as, at every payment, the re- 
 ceiver has his choice of paper, or Gold and Silver- 
 coin, there were double the number of chances 
 against the bank ; and, at any rate, as there were, as 
 yet, no bank notes of an amount less than TEN 
 POUNDS, there must necessarily be, upon every pay- 
 ment, an issue of Gold and Silver from the Bank, 
 to the amount of every demand, or part of a demand, 
 falling- short of ten pounds. 
 
 This the bank could bear before the Anti-Jacobin 
 war; but, when that war had nearly doubled the 
 Debt, the Interest, and the number of the payments, 
 on account of Interest; when this increase had taken 
 place, the Bank found it necessary, not only to aug- 
 ment the general quantity of its notes ; it found it ne- 
 cessary not only to add to the total amount of its notes ; 
 that is to say, to put out a greater sum in notes, than 
 it had out before the Anti-Jacobin war ; but it also 
 found it necessary to put out some notes of a lower 
 amount than it already had, in order to pay the parts 
 of ten pounds, which we have just mentioned. 
 
 Hence came the FIVE POUND NOTES. And you 
 will perceive, Gentlemen, that causes precisely si- 
 milar had formerly produced the FIFTEEN POUND 
 NOTES and the TEN POUND Notes ; namely, an in- 
 crease of the National Debt, and, of course, an in- 
 crease of the dividends, or interest; these being al- 
 ways paid at the Bank, after the establishment of the 
 Bank Company. 
 
 Here let us stop for a little, and look back at the 
 MOTTO, or rather MOTTOS, to this Letter. 
 
 In the FIRST, the passage from BUKKE, we have a 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 145 
 
 picture of English Bank Paper previous to the war ; 
 aye, to that very war, which that very picture and 
 others in the same publication greatly tended to pro- 
 duce, and were, without, I believe, any bad motive, 
 intended to produce. Look well at that picture, 
 Gentlemen. Look at the triumphant contrast there 
 exhibited between the money of England and that 
 of France, which latter country had then a paper- 
 money. And, when you have viewed that picture in 
 all its parts ; when you have fully examined the con- 
 trast ; then turn your eyes to what is now exhibited 
 to the world ; then see what English Bank-Paper 
 now is, and what, in this regard, is the state of 
 France, where all the paper-money has, long ago, 
 been destroyed, and where there is no currency but 
 that of Gold and Silver-coin, part of which coin con- 
 sists of English Guineas, those guineas the absence 
 of which all men of sense and of public spirit so 
 sorely lament, and the practicability of causing the 
 return of which is, as you will bear in mind, the 
 chief object of our inquiries. 
 
 In the SECOND motto, the passage from PAINE, (the 
 mortal antagonist of Burke as to every thing else,) 
 we have an opinion as to the consequences of the 
 Bank having made Five Pound notes. We have a 
 prediction as to the inability which it will produce 
 in the Bank to pay its higher notes. This predic- 
 tion was, it appears, written in March, 1796, and it 
 was published in England, in, or about, the month 
 of June of that year ; which was, as we shall see 
 by-and-by, only about nine months before the stop- 
 page of gold and silver-payments at the Bank ac- 
 tually took place. 
 
 In the THIRD motto, the passage from the late 
 Lord LIVERPOOL, we have the opinion, not only of 
 the writer himself, who upon such a matter, is no 
 very mean authority, but, as he asserts, of many 
 others, (doubtless, persons of distinction, as to rank, 
 at least ;) we have an opinion, thus sanctioned, that 
 the increase of the paper currency was the first 
 13 
 
146 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 and principal cause of the Stoppage of Gold and 
 Silver payments at the Bank ; and which opinion 
 perfectly corresponds with that of PAINE, there be- 
 ing this distinction in the merits of the two writers, 
 that Lord Liverpool only recorded what PAINE had 
 foretold : the former was the historian, the latter the 
 prophet ; and it is not a little curious, that Lord Li- 
 verpool, a clerk in whose office had written, under a 
 feigned name, a sham life of PAINE, should become 
 the recorder of the truth of PAINE'S predictions, and 
 that, too, in " a Letter to the King," in whose name 
 the very work containing the predictions had been 
 prosecuted as A LIBEL. 
 
 Here are three writers, all of great understanding 
 and experience, and the two former of abilities 
 scarcely ever surpassed in any age or country, all 
 opposed to each other as to every other question ; 
 each one hating the other two, and each one hating 
 the other one : yet all agreeing as harmoniously as 
 their bones would now agree, if they happened to be 
 tumbled together ; all agreeing as to these principles 
 respecting paper-money. 
 
 Having now traced the increase of the Debt down 
 to the putting forth of the Five Pound bank notes, 
 we will rest here, and resume the subject in OUT 
 next. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Monday, 8th Oct. 1810. 
 
 
 
 I 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 147 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 "These Jive pound-notes will circulate chiefly among little shop-keepers, 
 butchers, bakers, market-people, renters of small nouses, lodgers, &c. 
 All the high departments of commerce, and the affluent stations of life 
 were already overstocked, as Smith expresses it, with the bank notes. 
 No place remained open wherein to crowd an additional quantity of 
 bank notes but among the class of people I have just mentioned, and 
 the means of doing this could be best effected by coining Five Pound- 
 notes. But no new supplies of money can, as we said before, now 
 arrive at the Bank, as all the taxes will be paid in paper. What, then, 
 would be the consequence, were the Public Creditors to demand pay- 
 ment of their Dividends in Cash, or demand Cash for the bank notes 
 in which the Dividends are paid ; a circumstance always liable to hap- 
 pen." Fame. Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance. Pub- 
 lished in 1796. 
 
 " I should stop here, but there is a subject of so great importance, and so 
 nearly connected with the Coins of your Majesty's realm, that I should 
 not discharge my duty if I left it wholly unnoticed ; I mean what is 
 now caljed Paper currency; which is carried to so great an extent, 
 that it is become highly inconvenient to your Majesty's subjects, and 
 may prove, in its consequences, if no remedy is applied, dangerous to 
 the credit of the Kingdom. It is certain, that the smaller Notes of the 
 Bank of England, and those issued by country Bankers, have supplanted 
 the Gold Coin?, usurped their functions, and driven a great part of them 
 out of circulation : in some parts of Great Britain, and especially in the 
 southern parts of Ireland, small Notes have been issued to supply the place 
 of Silver Coins, of which there is certainly a great deficiency." Charle* 
 Jenkinson, Earl of Liverpool, Letter to the King. Published in 1805. 
 
 Progress from FIVE to ONE Pound-Notes Suspicion begun 
 soon after the FIVE Pound-Notes Paine' s Prediction as to 
 People going to the Bank Lord Liverpool's Opinion agree- 
 ing with that of Mr. Paine History of the Bank Stoppage 
 of Gold and Silver Payments Enormous increase of the 
 Debt in 1797 Other cause Alarmists Meeting of Parlia- 
 ment in Oct. 1796 Alarm of Invasion Arming Acts Mr. 
 Fox's Opinion of the Alarm Exaggerated Representations 
 of the Venal Prints French Fleet appears oil the coast of 
 Ireland Effect of the Alarm begins to be felt at the Bank 
 of England Venal Prints change their Tone all of a sud- 
 den, and accuse the Jacpbins of exciting Alarm Run upon, 
 the Bank becomes serious Increased by a Report of a 
 French Fleet, with Troops on board, being oil Beachy 
 Head Followed immediately by the landing of Tate and 
 his Raggamumns in Wales Bank receives its finishing 
 blow Vain attempts to check the Run upon the Bank 
 Order oC Council issued Disappointment of the Crowd at 
 the Bank, in Threadneedle- Street. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN the foregoing Letter, we traced the National 
 Debt, and the Interest thereon, in their progressive 
 
 
148 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 increase from the year 1793 to 1797 inclusive, m 
 which latter year we shall find that the stoppage of 
 Gold and Silver payments, at the Bank of England, 
 took place. We have seen that, in the course of the 
 aforementioned period, the amount of Debt and In- 
 terest was nearly doubled ; we have seen that the 
 Bank of England had, of course, nearly double the 
 sum to pay in dividends, or interest ; we have seen 
 how this increase of payments at the Bank of Eng- 
 land produced a new family of notes, so low in 
 amount as FIVE POUNDS j there having been, before 
 the Anti-Jacobin War, no Bank Notes under TEN 
 POUNDS ; we shall soon see how the same still-grow- 
 ing and ever-prolific cause brought forth, at last, a 
 still more numerous and more diminutive litter ; 
 and, when we have gone through the history of the 
 Two and ONE Pound Notes, we shall want scarcely 
 any thing further to convince us, that, in such a state 
 of things, it was next to impossible for Gold and 
 Silver to remain in circulation. 
 fr It was observed in Letter L, page 24, that when 
 notes, so low in amount as FIVE POUNDS came to be 
 issued ; when rents, salaries, yearly wages, and al- 
 most all the taxes came to be paid in paper ; when 
 this became the case, and when, of course, every 
 part of the people, except the very poorest, possessed 
 occasionally, bank notes, it was impossible that men 
 should not begin to think, that there was some dif- 
 ference between Gold and Silver, and bank notes, 
 and that they should not become more desirous to 
 possess the former than the latter. In other words 
 it was impossible that men should not begin to have 
 some suspicion relative to the bank notes ; and, it is 
 very clear, that the moment such suspicion arises, 
 there is an end to any paper-money which is conver- 
 tible into Gold and Silver at the will of the bearer, 
 who will, of course, lose not an instant in turning 
 that of which he has a suspicion ("however slight,) 
 into that of which it is impossible for any one to 
 have a suspicion. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 149 
 
 Thus it happened in 1797, as PAINE, in his pamph- 
 let, published only the year before, had foretold, in 
 the words of the first of my mottos to this Letter. 
 He there told his readers how the issuing of the 
 Five Pound notes would operate ; he pointed out 
 how this measure would keep real money from the 
 Bank ; and he asked what must be the consequence, 
 if (as it might any day happen) the people should 
 go to the Bank, and demand cash for the notes. 
 This did happen the very next year; and, as he 
 foretold in another part of his pamphlet, those who 
 went to present their notes first, came best off. Lord 
 LIVERPOOL, in the passage which I have selected for 
 my second motto to this Letter, had, when he wrote, 
 seen the thing happen ; he had seen the fulfilment 
 of what Mr. PAINE had foretold, and spoke, there- 
 fore, of the " dangerous" consequences of an ex- 
 cessive issue of paper, with the fact before his eyes. 
 Experience, which, says the proverb, "makes fools 
 wise," had taught his Lordship in 1805, what he 
 might have learned from Mr. PAINE in 1796. Ne- 
 vertheless, the opinions of Lord Liverpool have 
 some weight, and are worthy of attention with us in 
 England ; because, though his talents and mind 
 were of a cast quite inferior to those of such men as 
 HUME and PAINE and BURKE, and though there is 
 nothing in what he has said, which I had not said, 
 in the Register, years before ; still, as being a man 
 of great experience in business, as having, during 
 the whole reign, been a great favourite at court, 
 and, especially, as having, upon this occasion, ad- 
 dressed himself directly to the King ; his opinions, 
 though of no consequence elsewhere, are worthy of 
 some notice in this country, and may possibly, in 
 some minds, tend to produce that conviction, which, 
 in the "same minds, a stupid and incorrigible preju- 
 dice would have prevented from being produced, by 
 all the powers of HUME or PAINE. 
 
 But we must now return to the Bank, and see how 
 it happened, that the people went to demand money 
 13* 
 
 
150 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 in payment of the notes in 1797. That it did hap- 
 pen, we all know ; but, there are not a few of the 
 people forming the present population of the coun- 
 try, who have forgotten, or who have never known, 
 the true history of the Stoppage of Gold and Silver 
 payments at the Bank oj England ; yet, without 
 a knowledge of this history, and a thorough know- 
 ledge of it too. we cannot possibly pursue our inqui- 
 ries to a satisfactory result. 
 
 We have seen abundant arguments to prove, that 
 paper-money, that promissory paper of every sort, is 
 the offspring and representative of Debt ; that a Na- 
 tional, or Public Debt, never can fail to bring forth 
 bank notes, or paper-promises, of some sort or other ; 
 that, of course, as the Debt increases, and its inte- 
 rest increases, there will be, and must be, an increase 
 of the paper in which that interest is paid ; and, in 
 the last Letter, p. 141, we saw, in the Table of In- 
 crease of the Debt and Interest, from the beginning 
 of the Anti-Jacobin War, to the year 1797; we 
 here saw, in practice, the cause of the making of the 
 FIVE POUND bank notes. But, as we have since seen, 
 that measure was not sufficient. We saw, at p. 145, 
 that it was to avoid paying in Gold and Silver, the 
 sums, or parts of sums, from TEN to FIVE pounds, 
 which must have induced the Bank to make and 
 put out notes so low as FIVE POUNDS. If you look 
 again at that Table, gentlemen, you will see how 
 the increase went on; you will see that it \vzsgreater 
 and greater every year. In the year 1793, the ad- 
 dition of the annual interest was, (speaking in round 
 numbers,) only 250 thousand pounds ; but, in the 
 year 1797, the addition was, 3-}- millions ; that is to 
 say, a third part of as much as the whole amount of 
 the interest previous to the Anti- Jacobin war. Thus 
 did this war of PITT against the Republicans of 
 France cost, in only one year, nearly as much, in 
 addition to Debt, as the cost of the whole of the 
 American War, the extravagant expenditure of 
 which had, till now, been proverbial. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 151 
 
 There were, however, other causes at work, at the 
 time of which we are now speaking ; causes opera- 
 ting upon the paper system from without; causes 
 which must be here fully stated ; for, besides that a 
 knowledge of them is essential to our inquiry, it is 
 demanded by justice towards those who opposed the 
 ruinous measures of PITT, and who foretold their 
 consequences ; and this demand is, in a peculiar 
 manner, addressed to ME, who, from being so situ- 
 ated as to be unable to come at, or even suspect, the 
 truth, while many circumstances conspired to make 
 me take for truth that which was false, was not only 
 one of the dupes of the system, but who, unintention- 
 ally, contributed according to the degree of my ta- 
 lents, towards the extension of the circle of duplicity. 
 
 Credit is a thing wholly dependent upon opinio 
 The word, itself, indeed, has the same meaning \ 
 the word belief. As long as men believe in the 
 riches of any individual, or any company, so long 
 he or they possess all the advantages of riches. But 
 when once suspicion is excited, no matter from 
 what cause, the credit is shaken : and a very little 
 matter oversets it. So long as the belief is impli- 
 cit , the person towards whom it exists, goes on, not 
 only with all the appearances, but with all the ad- 
 vantages of wealth ; though, at the same time, he 
 be insolvent. But if his wealth be not solid; if he 
 have merely the appearance of wealth; if he be 
 unable to pay so much as he owes, or-, in other 
 words, if he be insolvent, which means neither 
 more nor less than unable to pay ; when an indivi- 
 dual is in this situation, he is liable, at any moment, 
 to have his insolvency exposed. Any accident that 
 excites alarm in the minds of his creditors, brings 
 the whole upon him at once; and he, who might 
 otherwise have gone on for years, is slopped in au 
 instant. 
 
 Thus it will happen to companies of traders, as 
 well as to individuals ; and thus it did happen to 
 the Bank Company, at the time we are speaking of, 
 
152 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 and at which time an alarm of invasion prevailed 
 through the country. 
 
 From the very out-set of the war, the inventors 
 and supporters of it had been, from time to time, 
 propagating alarms of various sorts ; by the means 
 of which alarms, whether they themselves believed 
 in them or not, they were enabled to do things, 
 which had never before been either known or heard 
 of in England. The mode of reasoning with the 
 people was this. You see, that, in France, the re- 
 volution has deprived the people of both property 
 and life ; there are those who wish to cause a revo- 
 lution in England : the measures taken, or proposed, 
 are absolutely necessary to prevent the accomplish- 
 ment of this wish : therefore, you have your choice, 
 either to submit quietly to these measures, whatever 
 portion of your liberty or property they may take 
 away, or let in upon you a revolution which will 
 take away all your property and your lives into the 
 bargain. There was no room for hesitation; and 
 thus were the people determined, and with this 
 view of the matter, did they proceed, until the time 
 above referred to ; the ministers being, probably, full 
 as much alarmed as the people, and certainly not 
 with less cause. 
 
 At times, however, especially after the war had 
 continued for three or four years, the effect of alarm 
 seemed to grow very faint. Danger had been so 
 often talked of. that, at last, it was grown familiar. 
 In the year 1796, however, things began to wear a 
 serious aspect. All the minister's predictions and 
 promises had failed ; his allies, to whom, and for 
 whose support, so many millions had been paid py 
 the people of this country, had all laid down their 
 arms, or had gone over to the side of France ; the 
 assignats in France had been annihilated without 
 producing any of the fatal consequences which PITT 
 had so confidently anticipated, and upon which, in- 
 deed, he had relied for success ; and a negotiation 
 for peace, opened at the instance of England, had 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 153 
 
 produced nothing but a convincing proof of the high 
 pretensions of the enemy, and of his confidence in 
 his cause and resources. 
 
 When the parliament met, therefore, in October, 
 1796, the ministers, and their adherents, seem to 
 have been full of real apprehension. They failed 
 not to renew the signal of a/arm, in which, indeed, 
 they were kept in countenance by the enemy, who 
 had openly declared his intention of invading the 
 country. The subject was mentioned in the King's 
 speech, upon a part of which a motion was grounded 
 on the 18th of October, for the bringing in of Bills 
 for the raising men with all possible speed, for the 
 purpose of defending the country against invasion. 
 In virtue of a resolution passed in consequence of 
 this motion, three Acts were passed with all possible 
 rapidity ; the first, for providing an augmentation 
 for the militia, to be trained and exercised in a 
 particular manner ; the second', for raising a certain 
 number of men in the several counties of England 
 and Scotland, (there were two Acts,) for the service 
 of the. regular Army, and the Navy ; and the third, 
 for raising a provisional force of cavalry, to be 
 embodied, in case of necessity, for the defence of 
 these kingdoms ;*' which Acts were finally passed 
 on the llth of November, 1796. When this mea- 
 sure was under discussion, Mr. Fox, Mr. SHERIDAN, 
 and others, opposed it upon the ground of its not 
 being necessary ; and Mr. Fox, who called it a re- 
 quisition, after the French manner, observed that, 
 if it was necessary to our safety, it was the conduct 
 of the ministers, and of the last parliament, who 
 confided in them, which had brought us into that 
 miserable situation, " a parliament," he said, " which 
 had done more to destroy every thing that is dear to 
 us, than in better days would have entered into the 
 mind of any Englishman to attempt, or to conceive ; 
 a parliament, by whom the people had been drained 
 
 37 George III. Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6. 
 
154 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 so much, and from whom they had had so little be- 
 nefit; a parliament that had diminished the dearest 
 rights of the people so shamelessly and so wickedly ; 
 a parliament, whose conduct it was that had given 
 rise to this measure." Mr. Fox added, that he did 
 not believe that invasion would render any such 
 measure necessary ; that the real resources of the 
 country consisted of the people's attachment to the 
 constitution, and that, therefore, the proper measure 
 to be adopted would be to allow them to possess the 
 spirit of that constitution. The minister and his 
 partizans contended, however, that there was real 
 cause for alarm ; and PITT said, that as to the con- 
 stitution, u it still possessed that esteem and admi- 
 ration of the people, which would induce them to 
 defend it against the designs of domestic foes, and 
 the attempts of their foreign alii eg;" thus, accord- 
 ing to his usual practice, proceeding upon the as- 
 sumption, that there was a party in the country in 
 alliance, as to wishes, at least, with the enemy. 
 
 While these measures were before parliament, the 
 venal part of the press was by no means inactive. 
 Representations the most exaggerated were made 
 use of in speaking of the temper and designs of the 
 enemy, always insinuating that the opponents of the 
 minister were ready to join the enemy, or, at least, 
 wished him success. The French were exhibited 
 as being quite prepared ; and a descent was held 
 forth as something almost too horrible to be thought 
 of. This was useful for the purpose of making the 
 Arming Acts go down ; but the alarmists did not 
 seem to be aware of its cutting another way ; and, 
 least of all do they appear to have imagined, that it 
 would set people to thinking of what effect invasion 
 might produce upon bank notes. 
 
 In the mean while, the negotiations for peace 
 were broken off by the month of December, which 
 gave rise to new alarm. This was soon followed by 
 the appearance of a French naval force, with troops 
 on board, off the coast of Ireland : and, though its 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 155 
 
 return back to France, without attempting a descent, 
 might, one would think, have tended to quiet peo- 
 ple's fears, it was, on the contrary, made ihe ground- 
 work of still more general and more vociferous 
 alarm. There were now no bounds to the exagge- 
 rations of the venal prints. From the first week in 
 January, (1797,) to the third week in February, the 
 people were kept in a state of irritation hardly to be 
 conceived. Addresses to them, in all shapes and 
 sizes, were published, calling upon them to arm and 
 come forth at once, not waiting for the slow process 
 of the Militia and Cavalry Acts. Already, were we 
 told, " the opposite coast was crowded with hostile 
 arms : forests of bayonets glistened in the sun ; de- 
 spair and horror were coming in the rear." It was 
 next to impossible that this should not make people 
 think of what was to become of them ; make them 
 reflect a little as to what they were to do in case of 
 invasion ; and it required but very little reflection to 
 convince them, that money, at all times useful, 
 would, in such a case be more useful than ever. 
 Whence, by a very natural and easy transition, they 
 would be led to contemplate the possibility of real 
 money being rather better than paper. That's 
 enough ! There needs no more ! Away, in an in- 
 stant, they go to the Bank, where the written promi- 
 ses tell them the bearer shall be paid on demand. 
 
 This effect of the alarm, an effect of which neither 
 PITT nor any of his adherents seem ever to have had 
 the smallest suspicion, and, indeed, when Mr. Fox 
 cautioned them against it, they affected to laugh at 
 what he said ; this effect of the alarm, raised and 
 kept up by the minister and the great Loaners and 
 men of that description ; this effect of the alarm be- 
 gan, it appears, to be sensibly felt, at the Bank of 
 England, immediately after the appearance of the 
 French fleet off the coast of Ireland ; and, as it after- 
 wards appeared from official documents, the drain 
 had become so great by the end of the third week in 
 February, that the Directors saw the impossibility of 
 
156 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 going on, unless something could be done to put a 
 stop, or, at least, greatly to check, the run upon them 
 for cash. The people were, in short, now doing 
 precisely what PAINE, only about ten or eleven 
 months before, had advised them to do, and the con- 
 sequence was precisely what he had predicted. 
 
 It was now extremely curious to hear the language 
 of the venal newspapers, who had, for months be- 
 fore, been endeavouring to excite alarm, and who 
 abused Mr. Fox and his party, called them Jacobins 
 and, sometimes, traitors, because they said that the 
 alarm was false, and was invented for bad purposes 
 These very news-papers now took the other side. 
 They not only themselves said, that the alarm was 
 groundless; but they had the impudence, the unpa- 
 ralleled, the atrocious impudence, to accuse the Ja- 
 cobins, as they called them, of having excited the 
 alarm, for the purpose of injuring public credit ! 
 
 This change of tone was begun on the 17th of 
 February by those notoriously venal prints, those 
 prints so far famed above all others in the annals of 
 venality ; the "TRUE BRITON," and the " SUN." 
 The thing was begun in " An Address to JOHN 
 BULL," in which the "most thinking people," who 
 were still in frying confusion to get on with the 
 levies of additional militia, and parish-men for the 
 army and navy, and the provisional cavalry ; the 
 " most thinking people," while all hurry and bustle 
 about this, were told by these shameless writers, who 
 had almost called the people traitors for not making 
 greater haste to arm ; the people were, by these 
 same writers, now told, that alarm might be pushed 
 too far ; that, if so pushed, it might do us an injury 
 equal to invasion ; that every one must see, that the 
 French wished to ruin our credit ; that, of course, 
 to show an eagerness to sell out of the funds was to 
 favour the designs of the enemy ; that it was, be- 
 sides, the greatest nonsense in the world for peo- 
 ple to suppose that their property was not safe in 
 the Bank of England ; that no apprehension need 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 157 
 
 be felt, and that the people who had money in the 
 funds, might safely rely upon the wooden walls of 
 Old England. Though, observe, the whole coun- 
 try was actually in movement, down to the very 
 beadles, in order to raise men for defence by land. 
 
 " The evidence of facts" was before the people's 
 eyes. The alarm was not to be allayed by assertions 
 like these. And though the venal prints grew more 
 and more positive in their assurances, that there was 
 now no danger from invasion; though they (on the 
 21st of February) assured the people, that it was " an 
 error to suppose that the enemy was at our gates," 
 and that " & panic might do infinite mischief to public 
 credit," people still keep carrying their notes softly 
 to Threadneedle-street, they kept on selling out of 
 the Stocks : and a report, on the day last mentioned, 
 of the appearance of a French fleet with Troops on 
 board, off BEACHY HEAD,* immediately followed by 
 the famous landing of TATE and his handful of rag- 
 gamuffins in WALES,! appears to have given confi- 
 dence in bank-paper the finishing blow. 
 
 * " PORTSMOUTH, FEB. 20. An account reached this place, 
 this morning at half past ten, A. M. of several French trans- 
 ports, convoyed by armed vessels, having been seen off B "eachy 
 Head. The intelligence came by the signal posts, and Admi- 
 ral Sir P. Parker, immediately on receiving it, ordered two 
 ships of the line and five frigates to slip their cables and pro- 
 ceed to sea. This squadron is now out of sight, and all the 
 other ships are getting in readiness. The sensation that this 
 made in the City may be easily conceived. It spread a 
 very general alarm ; but it was soon contradicted. Letters, 
 written as the post was setting out, stated that the alarm 
 had been occasioned by a mistaken signal, and that instead 
 of a fleet of 300 French transports, it was no more than a sig- 
 nal, that 3 privateers had been discovered oft'Beachy Head. 
 Such, however, are the consequences of the state of alarm 
 into which Government has thrown the country by a threaten' 
 ed Invasion." MORNING CHRONICLE, 22 Feb., 1797. 
 
 t "On "Saturday the public mind received the shock of a 
 new alarm. An express arrived from Lord Milford, inform- 
 ing the King's ministers that a body of French troops, amount- 
 ing to about 1200. had been landed at Fisgardoutof the ships 
 which we stated had approached the coast of Pembroke. 
 Ministers took the earliest opportunity of announcing the fact 
 to the Lord Mayor." MORNING CHRONICLE, 26 February, 1797. 
 
 14 
 
158 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 All, as appears from the documents, and as we 
 shall by-and-by see, was consternation in Thread- 
 needle-street. The diminution of the gold became 
 greater and greater every day. In vain did the ve- 
 nal prints cry out against alarm. They had cried 
 " wolf," 'till" the people had believed them. They 
 had called upon them to " stand forward in defence 
 of the constitution," 'till they had convinced them 
 it was time for every man to think a little about ta- 
 king care of himself. In vain did these venal wri- 
 ters now call aloud against alarm ; in vain did they 
 say, (24th February,) that the Beachy-Head report 
 " arose from a mistake in the signals ; that the resour- 
 ces of the country were undiminished ; that it was 
 degrading to suppose that we had not a sufficient 
 force to annihilate the enemy ; that the panic was 
 shameful, unmanly, mean, and dastardly ;" in vain 
 did they assert (24th February) that " invasion was 
 more to be desired than dreaded ;' : in vain did they 
 exclaim : " Let us, for God's sake, not give way to 
 our fears so as to injure public credit." In vain did 
 they (25th February) aver, " that the alarm was 
 groundless ; that they were sure no attack was 
 meditated ; and that they were convinced it never 
 would be." In vain did they again exclaim; "for 
 God's sake let not the gloomy despondency of a 
 few men in the city give a fatal blow to public 
 credit." 
 
 In vain were all these efforts : SUSPICION, to use 
 PAINE'S emphatical expression, was no longer ASLEEP. 
 It was broad awake, and to stay its operations was 
 impossible. To excite fears in the breasts of the 
 people was a task to which the venal prints had 
 been adequate ; but to remove those fears, or to im- 
 pede the progress of their effects upon the mind, was 
 too much for any human power to accomplish. The 
 run upon the Bank continued to increase, until the 
 day last mentioned, Saturday, the 25th of February, 
 1797 ; a day which will long be remembered, and 
 which will be amongst the most memorable in the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 159 
 
 annals of England, as being the last (hitherto at 
 least) on which the bank of England was compelled, 
 at the will of the bearer, to pay its promissory notes 
 in gold and silver, agreeably to the tenor of those 
 notes ; until the evening of that day the run contin- 
 ued, but, on the next, though it was Sunday, an 
 Order was issued from the PRIVY COUNCIL requiring 
 the Directors of the Bank to forbear issuing any 
 cash in payment, until the sense of Parliament 
 could be taken upon the subject ; which memorable 
 instrument was in the following words,* to which I 
 must beg of you, Gentlemen, to pay particular atten- 
 tion. 
 
 * At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, February 26, 1797. 
 By the LORDS of his MAJESTY'S Most Honourable 
 
 PRIVY COUNCIL.-(Present,) 
 The LORD CHANCELLOR (Rosslyn,) 
 LORD PRESIDENT, 
 DUKE of PORTLAND, 
 MARQUIS CORNWALUS, 
 EARL SPENCER, 
 
 EARL of LIVERPOOL (Charles Jenkinson,) 
 LORD GRENVILLE, 
 MR. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER. 
 
 Upon the representation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer^ 
 stating, that from the result of the information which he has 
 received, and of the inquiries which it has been his duty to 
 make, respecting the effect of the unusual demands for spe- 
 cie that have been made upon the metropolis, in consequence 
 of ill-founded or exaggerated alarms in different parts of the 
 country, it appears that unless some measure is immediately 
 taken, there may be reason to apprehend a want of a sufficient 
 supply of cash to answer the exigencies of the public service. 
 It is the unanimous opinion of the Board, that it is indispen- 
 sably necessary for the public service, that the Directors of 
 the Bank of England should forbear issuing any cash in 
 payment until the sense of Parliament can be taken on that 
 subject, and the proper measures adopted thereupon, for 
 maintaining the means of circulation, and supporting the 
 public and commercial credit of the kingdom at this impor- 
 tant conjuncture ; and it is ordered, that a copy of this minute 
 be transmitted to the Directors of the Bank of England, and 
 they are hereby required, on the grounds of the exigency of 
 the case, to conform thereto until the sense of Parliament can 
 be taken as aforesaid. W. FAWKENER. 
 
160 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 We shall, by-and-by, see whence it was that " Mr. 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer" received his inform- 
 ation, and what sort of information it was that he 
 did receive ; but, for the present, we will, in order 
 to avoid making this Letter too long, content our- 
 selves with seeing what the Bank Company did in 
 consequence of this Order not to pay their credi- 
 tors ; this requisition not to pay their promissory 
 notes when presented ; this Order to forbear issu- 
 ing cash in payment. 
 
 The run had been very great on the Saturday, 
 and people would scarcely suspect, that the Sunday, 
 especially by such a godly ministry as PITT'S was, 
 would have been spent in labour of any sort. It 
 would, however, naturally give people time to think 
 a little ; it would afford them leisure to reflect on 
 the consequences of being without a farthing ot cash 
 in case of invasion. Accordingly, on the Monday 
 morning, they appear to have been quite prepared 
 for furnishing themselves with real money, if it was 
 to be had at the Bank. Let us, however, as to this 
 fact, take the words of the venal writers themselves. 
 " Yesterday-morning," says the TRUE BRITON of 
 Tuesday, the 28th of February, " a great run seem- 
 ed to have been meditated upon the Bank, as A 
 CROWD OF PEOPLE ASSEMBLED THERE 
 AS SOON AS THE DOORS OPENED. This 
 design was HAPPILY defeated by a Resolution of 
 the Privy Council, transmitted to the Bank Directors 
 on Sunday ; and. in consequence, they^ had Hand- 
 bills ready for delivery, a copy of which, with the 
 Order of the Privy Council annexed, our readers 
 will find, as an Advertisement, in the front of our 
 Paper."* 
 
 * Bank of England, February 27, 1797. 
 In consequence of an order of his Majesty's Privy Council 
 notified to the Bank last night, a copy of which is hereunto 
 annexed. The Governor, Deputy Governor, and Directors of 
 the Bank of England think it their duty to inform the Propri- 
 etors of Bank Stock, as well as the Public at large, that the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 161 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, was the manner in which the 
 Stoppage of Gold and Silver payments at the Bank 
 of England took place ; such was the manner of 
 that event, which produced the evils, for which the 
 Bullion Committee have proposed a remedy. Upon 
 the Order of Council there is much to observe, be- 
 fore we proceed further ; but, having laid before you 
 a plain narrative of the event, it will be best to re- 
 serve those observations, till my next ; and, in the 
 meanwhile, 
 
 I remain. Gentlemen, Your sincere friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison Newgate, 
 
 Monday, 15th October, 18 10. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 " Every victim of injustice and cruelty," (speaking of the French Govern- 
 ment,) " bequeaths his revenge to his connexions, to his friends, and to his 
 relations ; or (if all these should be involved in the same common fate with 
 himself) every such execution raises detestation and abhorrence, even in 
 the breasts of ordinary spectators, and unites the public opinion against a 
 Government, which exists only by the daily practice of robbery and mur- 
 der. From this disgusting scene, let us turn our eyes toowr own situation, 
 THERE the contrast is striking in all its parts. HERE we see nothing of 
 f arbitra 
 
 . 
 
 the character and genius of arbitrary finance; none of the bold frau 
 bankrupt power; none of the wild struggles and plunges of despotism in 
 distress ; no lopping off from the capital of debt ; no suspension of interest; 
 no robbery, under the name of loan ; no raising the value ; no debasing the 
 substance of the coin. HERE we behold public credit of every description 
 rising under all the disadvantages of a general war; an ample revenue 
 flowing freely and copiously from the opulenc.e of a contented people." 
 Lord Morni7bgton (now Marquis Wellesley.) Speech in the -House of Com- 
 mons, 21st, January, 1794. 
 
 " The -interest of the national funded debt is paid at the Bank In the same 
 kind of paper in which the taxes are collected. When people find, as they 
 will find, a reservedness among each other in giving gold and silver for 
 bank notes, or the least preference for the former over the latter, they will 
 go for payment to the Bank, where they have a right to go. They will do 
 this as a measure of prudence, each one for himself, and the truth, or de- 
 lusion of the funding system, will be then proved." Paine. Decline and 
 Fall of the English System of Finance. Published in 1796. 
 
 general "concerns of the Bank are in the most affluent and 
 prosperous situation^ and such as to preclude every doubt as 
 to the security of its notes. The Directors mean to continue 
 their usual discounts for the accommodation of the Com- 
 mercial Interest, paying the amount in Bank notcs^ and the 
 Dividend Warrants will be paid in the same manner. 
 
 FRANCIS MARTIN, Secretary 
 14* 
 
162 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 " The great object, however, is to open the Bank of England, and to enable 
 it to carry on its pecuniary transactions to the extent which its resources 
 will admit of on the solid principle of giving either cash or paper at the 
 option of the applicant. Until that is done, neither public nor private credit, 
 nor agriculture, nor commerce, nor manufactures, nor the income of the na- 
 tion, can go on prosperously." Sir John Sinclair. Letter, published in 1797. 
 
 The Impression made upon the country by the Stoppage of 
 Gold and Silver Payments at the Bank Ridiculous Situa- 
 tion of the Ministers in complaining of False Alarms Ja- 
 cobins now accused of causing the Run upon the Bank- 
 Foolishness of this Accusation Mr. Wilberforce answered 
 by Mr. Fox Now was the Time for Mr. Pitt's Adherents 
 to leave him They had been warned by Mr. Fox and 
 others King's Speech, and Language of the Minister at the 
 Opening of the Session during which the Stoppage took 
 place If the Minister's Adherents had now quitted him it 
 migjit have prevented the present Dangers Mr. Pitt's Hu- 
 miliation in the House of Commons Questions put to him 
 upon the subject of the Legal Tender, by Mr. Combe and 
 Mr. Nicholl's His Inability to determine on what Measures 
 he should propose. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 HAVING, agreeably to the Intention expressed, 
 traced the increase of the Debt and of the Bank 
 Notes down to that grand and memorable effect, the 
 stoppage of Gold and Silver payments at the Bank 
 of England, our next object must naturally be to know 
 what impression that event produced upon the nation, 
 and what measures were adopted in consequence of 
 it ; in otber words, to continue the history of the stop- 
 page down, to the time, when the evil of paper-money 
 produced the forming of the Bullion Committee. 
 
 The impression made upon the nation in general 
 was such as might have been expected, after all the 
 flattering accounts which had been given of the na- 
 tional resources. The ORDER OF COUNCIL does, you 
 \vill perceive, ascribe the event to " ill-founded and 
 exaggerated alarms, in different parts of the coun- 
 try." But, supposing this to have been the chief, 
 and only cause, with what face could the ministers 
 complain of these alarms ; seeing that they them- 
 selves had done their utmost to excite them ? They 
 had not only proposed, and carried through, the 
 Arming Bills, but they had been writing to the ma- 
 gistrates, in every part of the kingdom, calling upon 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 163 
 
 them for internal preparations "while" (Morning 
 Chronicle, 22nd February, 1797) " Contractors had 
 put every town into commotion by inquiries into the 
 number of Ovens, the quantity of grain, and the 
 State of the Provisions" Nay, the preamble of 
 the Arming Acts itself proclaimed, that the mea- 
 sures were become necessary, "in order to prevent, 
 or repel, any attempt, which the enemies of the 
 country might make to effect a descent upon the 
 kingdom." After all this it was, that the Privy- 
 Council spoke, in a sort of complaining tone, of 
 " ill-founded and exaggerated alarms !" When 
 the matter came before Parliament, the Opposition 
 did, certainly, not spare the minister and his adhe- 
 rents, who had the confidence to hold the same tone 
 as to the alarm ; and whose opinion of the minds 
 of the people was such, that they scrupled not to re- 
 peat the assertions of the venal prints, and to ascribe 
 the injury (Tor they then acknowledged it to be an 
 Injury) which Public Credit had sustained, to un- 
 founded alarms, excited by the internal enemies of 
 the country, which, in, a contrary sense, some mem- 
 bers were malicious enough to believe. GENERAL 
 WALPOLE (in the Debate of the 1st of March) made 
 an admirable exposure of them in this way, to which 
 no answer was given, but that they were not always 
 to feel alarm, because they had once felt it ; though 
 the fact was that they were proclaiming alarm, with 
 all their might, 'till the Bank, as if afterwards ap- 
 peared, represented to them secretly, that the alarm, 
 if continued, would take away all their cash. Mr. 
 SHERIDAN, in adverting to the speech of GENERAL 
 WALPOLE, who had remarked upon Mr. WINDHAM'S 
 not having signed the Order of Council, said, " that 
 he believed it proceeded from the reflections it con- 
 tained Against the alarmists," and he added, that 
 " even amidst the wreck of public credit, it was im- 
 possible not to laugh at the juggling tricks and mi- 
 serable shifts to which Ministers had recourse." 
 The venal part of the press, now that it was im- 
 
164 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 possible any longer to disguise the state of the credit 
 of the Bank, began a regular new attack upon the 
 Jacobins, whom it had before reviled for endeavour- 
 ing to check the alarm, and whom it now accused of 
 causing the alarm. The notoriously venal prints 
 before mentioned, (TRUE BRITON and SUN,) which 
 had, to the last moment, abused the Jacobins for (as 
 they said) propagating the false notion of the Bank 
 not having gold to answer their notes. These prints, 
 never equalled in venality, I believe, by any prints 
 in the world, the MORNING! POST only excepted, now 
 abused those same unfortunate Jacobins for not ac- 
 knowledging the necessity of the Order in Council. 
 They (3rd March, 1797) again accused the Jacobins 
 of having caused " a distrust of the Bank," and of 
 having formed a design to ruin the credit of the 
 country, in which, " they had so far succeeded, at 
 least, as to persuade the people, in some parts oj 
 the country, that gold was preferable to bank notes. 
 Gentlemen, pause here for a moment, and contem- 
 plate the foolishness as well as the injustice of such 
 observations as these. You will bear in mind, that 
 the Jacobins, as they were called, were, by these 
 same writers, constantly represented as men without 
 learning, without sense, without property, and, of 
 course, without influence. How, then, were they to 
 have the power of producing such an effect upon the 
 minds of the nation ; and, upon the minds of those, 
 too, who held the bank notes and who owned the 
 Stock ? The Jacobins, as these venal prints had the 
 impudence to call them, had not been able to per- 
 suade the people to check Mr. PITT in his ruinous 
 career of war and expenditure ; they had not been 
 able to prevent any one of the measures of that 
 Minister ; they had not been able to persuade the 
 people to do any one thing that they wished them 
 to do, and, at the very time we are speaking of, they 
 were out-voted, in the Parliament, four to one. 
 Yet, to these same Jacobins was now ascribed that 
 run upon the Bank, which produced the Order in 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 165 
 
 Council ; which produced an order, issued by the 
 King's Privy Council, to encourage a Company of 
 Merchants to refuse, illegally, to pay their promis- 
 sory notes, when duly presented. The Jacobins, as 
 they were still called with a degree of impudence 
 not to be adequately described ; the Jacobins, who 
 were represented as defeated and put down, and as 
 being held in abhorrence by the people, were never- 
 theless, at the same moment, represented as having 
 such power over the mind of that same people, as to 
 cause them to make a run upon the Bank, which was 
 called " stabbing the country in its vitals." Mr. Fox, 
 in answer to Mr. WILBERFORCE, who (March 1, 1797) 
 attributed " much of the public calamity to the 
 conduct of the Opposition, and to the conduct of 
 those who had proceeded to lengths which the Op- 
 position would not avow,-" in answer to this Mr. 
 Fox said : " this reminds me of a scene in Ben John- 
 son, where it appears, that an Impostor had played 
 his tricks very successfully for a long time upon his 
 dupes, and, when he was detected, the dupes became 
 very angry, not at the Impostor, but at those who 
 had detected him." 
 
 Now was the time for those, who had been de- 
 luded into a support of Mr. PITT'S measures, to make 
 a frank and manly acknowledgment of their error, 
 and to join Mr. Fox in demanding a change of sys- 
 tem. They had, when war was first contemplated, 
 received the most solemn assurances, that the re- 
 sources for vigorous preparation (at first prepara- 
 tion only was talked of) were ample, even from the 
 excess of the revenue ;* they had been, when, after 
 the war had begun and had brought, at once, very 
 disastrous effects as to pecuniary matters, told that 
 those effects were completely removed, and that the 
 
 * " Gentlemen of the House of Commons, It is a great 
 consolation to me to reflect, that you will. find ample resources 
 for effectually defraying the expenses of vigorous preparations 
 from the excess of the actual revenue beyond the ordinary 
 expenditure" KING'S SPEECH, Dec. 13th, 1792. 
 
 
166 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 revenue was in a favourable state /* they had been 
 told, that the war could not he of long duration; 
 they had been told, that the situation of France, in 
 every respect, and especially in respect to her 
 finances, was desperate beyond description ; the 
 French system had been repeatedly described to 
 them as one that could not last above a few months, 
 having in itself the seeds of inevitable destruction ; 
 they had been assured, that all the powers of Europe 
 would join us against France ; they had been told, 
 that, if there were no other cause of ruin to our 
 enemy, that enemy must be ruined by the loss of all 
 his colonies (which we had taken,) and by the an- 
 nihilation of his naval force, which seemed to have 
 been nearly completed by the fourth year of the 
 war ; they had had, year after year, exhibited to 
 them such pictures of the Finances of France com- 
 pared with those of England, as to make them be- 
 lieve that France must speedily become bankrupt, 
 while England was (and partly in consequence of 
 the war) becoming, every day, more and more rich, 
 that her commerce was daily increasing, and that 
 her credit^ which was always firmly established, 
 was now built upon a rock ; they had, even in the 
 King's Speech, made at the beginning of the session 
 of which we are now speaking, and during which 
 the stoppage took place, at the beginning of that 
 very session they had been told, in the King's Speech, 
 of the SOLIDITY of the pecuniary resources of 
 the country,! while the Minister and his adherents 
 echoed back the assertion. Upon this last occasion, 
 
 * " I feel too sensibly the repeated proofs which I have re- 
 ceived of the affection of my subjects not to lament the ne- 
 cessity of any additional burthens. It is, however, a great con- 
 solation to me, to observe the favourable state of the Re- 
 venue, and the complete success of the measure which was 
 last year, adopted for removing the embarrassments affecting 
 commercial credit" KING'S SPEECH, 10th Jan., 1794. 
 
 t " It is a great satisfaction to me, to observe, that, not- 
 withstanding the temporary embarrassments which have 
 been experienced, the state of the commerce, manufactures 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 167 
 
 which, Gentlemen, is worthy of particular attention, 
 the time being only four months before the Bank- 
 stoppage actually took place ; upon this occasion, 
 Sir WILLIAM LOWTHER, who seconded the address, 
 and who is now a Lord, I believe, said, " if we re- 
 garded our finances, they were ABUNDANT in 
 the EXTREME, and such as were adequate to any 
 emergency of the country." Lord MORPETH, son of 
 the Earl of Carlisle, who moved the address to the 
 King in answer to his speech, said, i( As to our in- 
 ternal situation, we have witnessed it, for some 
 time past, with joy and exultation ; and have rea- 
 son to congratulate his Majesty, and the people at 
 large, upon our auspicious prospects in that respect." 
 And Mr. PITT himself said, " As to our resources^ 
 they furnish, indeed, in a moment like the present, 
 a subject of peculiar congratulation, and well- 
 grounded confidence Our re- 
 sources remain as yet, untouched, and we shall be 
 able to bring them into action with a degree of con- 
 cert and effect, worthy of the character of the Bri- 
 tish nation, and of the cause in which they will be 
 employed. These resources have in them NO- 
 THING HOLLOW OR DELUSIVE. They are 
 the result of an accumulated capital, of gradually 
 increasing commerce, of HIGH AND ESTA- 
 BLISHED CREDIT ; and they have been pro- 
 duced while we have been contending against a 
 country, which exhibits, in every respect, the reverse 
 of this picture"* 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, was the language of the Mi- 
 nister and his adherents at the beginning of that 
 session, during which took place the memorable 
 event, recorded in the foregoing Letter ; and before 
 you proceed any further, I beg you to look well at it. 
 
 nnd revenue of the country, proves the real extent and SOLI- 
 DITY of our resources, and furnishes you such means as 
 must be equal to any exertions which the present crisis may 
 require." KING'S SPEECH, 6th October, 1796. 
 * See Parliamentary Debutes, 6lh October, 1796. 
 
168 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 I beseech you to consider it well. If you do *>o, 
 you never will be deluded again by any high-sound- 
 ing assertions, let them come from what quarter they 
 will. These, which I have just quoted, are memo- 
 rable words. They are precious matter for history. 
 They go a great way in enabling any one to judge 
 of the character of Mr. PITT as a, statesman, and 
 especially as a political economist. Gentlemen, 
 there is no such thing as answering me here. No 
 one can contradict me. What I have laid before 
 you is indubitably true ; and, as such, I am sure it 
 will have weight upon your minds, whatever your 
 prejudices heretofore may have been. 
 
 The adherents of Mr. PITT had been told all that 
 we have now taken a hasty review of; arid, though 
 they ought never to have believed it, having con- 
 stantly been warned against the delusion by Mr. Fox, 
 Mr. SHERIDAN, Mr. NICHOLLS, Mr. HOBHOUSE, Mr. 
 GREY, Mr. TIERNEY, and others, but especially by 
 the three former ; though they ought not to have be- 
 lieved, and would not, had it not been for the blind- 
 ing influence of the fears excited in their minds, have 
 believed in those delusive assertions and predictions ; 
 still, if they did believe in them, they were not (if 
 they looked upon the principle of the war as being 
 just and wise) to be blamed for supporting the Mi- 
 nister ; but, when experience had undeceived them; 
 when they saw jthe proof of their error ; when 
 clearly established facts told them that they were 
 in the wrong course ; when they had before their 
 eyes, that which could not possibly leave a doubt 
 in any man's mind, that the system which they had 
 so long supported was ruinous to their country ; 
 when they saw the Bank of England stop payment 
 of its notes, and take shelter under an Order of the 
 Privy Council, immediately followed by an Act of 
 Indemnification, that is to say, an act to shelter the 
 parties concerned from the penalties of the law : 
 when the adherents of Mr. PITT saw this ; when 
 they beheld these effects, this mighty ruin, which 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 169 
 
 that adherence had brought upon their country ; when 
 they beheld this, they ought to have withdrawn, 
 their support; and, if they had done this, though I 
 am very far from saying, that they could have re- 
 stored Gold and Silver payments at the Bank, and 
 am still less inclined to say, that they would have 
 put a stop to the workings of the French Revolution, 
 I am decidedly of opinion, that there was yet time 
 to give such a turn to that revolution as to render it 
 less violent in itself, less severe towards Europe in 
 general, and infinitely less dangerous to this country; 
 as we, in all likelihood, never should have seen an 
 Emperor in France, and, of course, should not have 
 had to dread, and to guard against, the effects of his 
 ambition and his power. It must, I think, be now 
 clear to all the world, that to Mr. PITT, supported by 
 the great mercantile and monied bodies, BUONAPARTE 
 owes his rise and his greatness ; and that, instead 
 of being, as Mr. PITT once called him, " the child 
 and champion of Jacobinism" he may be truly 
 called the child of Mr. PITT and the Paper System, 
 that system, the effects of which we shall, every 
 day, feel more and more ; that system, of the evils 
 of' which almost every man seems now to be 
 thoroughly convinced ; that system, of which to 
 prevent, or, at least, retard the still greater evils, the 
 Bullion Committee have proposed that remedy ', into 
 which we shall, by-and-by, have to examine. 
 
 Mr. PITT, who was, in the House of Commons, 
 boldness personified ; who never seemed to feel as 
 men in general do upon being defeated in argument, 
 or at being detected and exposed as to points of fact ; 
 who always appeared to increase in boldness in pro- 
 portion as he has worsted in the contest, does, how- 
 ever, seem to have, for a while at least, felt himself 
 humbled upon this occasion, and to have been as the 
 vulgar saying is. completely chop fallen ; and, after 
 what we have seen him (in the above-quoted passa- 
 ges) assert, only four months before, well might he 
 feel humbled ; well might he feel afraid to open his 
 15 
 
170 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 mouth in the presence of those, who had so often 
 told him that such would be the result of his system, 
 and whom he had, as often, reproached with the 
 want of love for their country ; and even at whose 
 opinions not only himself but his underlings had 
 been accustomed to laugh. To come to the House 
 of Commons, that scene of his long enjoyed triumph; 
 to come to that bench, whence he had so long been 
 in the habit of dictating to all around him, and of 
 dealing out his sarcasms upon all who dared ques- 
 tion his infallibility; to come to the same bench, 
 and thence to deliver a Message from the King, 
 (27th February, 1797,) announcing the Stoppage of 
 Gold and Silver payments at the Bank of Eng- 
 land ; to do this, and to look Mr. Fox in the face, 
 seemed to be too much even for Mr. PITT ; to come 
 down to the House, and say, that necessity had com- 
 pelled him to issue an Order of the King's Council to 
 forbid, or to protect the Bank of England/ro?ft paying 
 the just demands of its creditors, was more than he 
 was able to do without faltering, and it is, perhaps, 
 more than any other man upon earth, under similar 
 circumstances, would have been able to do at all. 
 
 His confidence seems, for once, to have failed 
 him; and, what is upon record as to the debate, 
 clearly proves, that he did not know what to do ; that 
 he literally was at his wiVs end. Having delivered 
 the Message, and laid a copy of the Order of Coun- 
 cil upon the table, he moved for the Message to be 
 taken into consideration the next day ; and, at the 
 same time, gave notice of a motion for appointing a 
 Committee to inquire into the concerns of the Bank, 
 an inquiry, he said, which " would greatly tend to 
 confirm, the solidity of the Bank capital/' He also 
 said, that he meant to declare by law, that " notes 
 instead of cash would be taken by the public in pay* 
 ment of the sums due to them by the Bank" Mr. 
 ALDERMAN COMBE asked him, whether he meant 
 " that bank notes were to be taken only by the recei- 
 vers of the revenue, or that they were to become a 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 171 
 
 legal tender in all money transactions." He an- 
 swered, that, " in the first instance, he meant only 
 to propose, that they should be taken on the part of 
 the public, leaving future measures to be decided 
 upon, after the Committee should have made their 
 report. Mr. COMBE asked him " whether it was his 
 opinion, that this measure would be resorted to in 
 the end" He answered, that " he had no opinion 
 upon the subject. Mr. Fox asked him " if he dis- 
 claimed the opinion." He replied, that " he said no- 
 thing about it at all" 
 
 Look at him, Gentlemen ! See there the man, 
 who had the management of the affairs of this coun- 
 try for twenty years, and during whose administra- 
 tion more persons were, 1 believe, promoted to the 
 peerage, than during any century before. Look at 
 him. See him, who only four months before, had 
 boasted that our " resources were untouched" and 
 that there was nothing hollow or delusive in our 
 finances." Look at him now, not able to say ; nay, 
 not able to give an opinion, whether he shall pro- 
 pose Bank-notes to be made a legal tender, or not ! 
 Mr. NICHOLLS (of whose great understanding upon 
 this subject we shall see many proofs by-and-by) 
 " pressed him for an answer to the question which 
 had been put to him, whether it was his intention 
 that the notes of the Bank of England should be de- 
 clared a legal tender from the Bank to the public 
 creditor? If so, he was about to proclaim an act 
 of insolvency. And, considering it in this light, he 
 reprobated his silence, as an instance of most atro- 
 cious arrogance. After animadverting, in the seve- 
 rest terms, on the confiding majorities in that House, 
 who supported the Minister in every measure, how- 
 ever wild, and sanctioned every part of his conduct, 
 however insolent, he concluded with repeating the 
 question, whether or not bank-notes were to be de- 
 clared a legal tender to the public creditor." After 
 the treatment which this gentleman had frequently 
 received at the hands of Mr. PITT and his adherents, 
 
172 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 it could surprise no body to see him give way, upon 
 this occasion, to a degree of asperity, which, without 
 taking these circumstances into view, might not have 
 been fully justified by the conduct of Mr. PITT upon 
 this particular occasion, who, in answer to Mr. 
 NICHOLLS, said, that he was u perplexed by the obser- 
 vations and questions of the learned gentleman, who 
 to an intricacy which it was impossible to unravel, 
 added an exertion of voice much beyond what he 
 was accustomed to, and an asperity of language 
 which even exceeded that of the other honourable 
 gentleman (Mr. SHERIDAN.) He hoped that he 
 would not persist in thinking it atrocious arrogance 
 in him, if he did not attempt to answer what he con- 
 ceived it would be unpardonable arrogance in him 
 to attempt to understand. When a man obtruded 
 his opinion, with too much rashness or too much 
 positiveness, then he might be accused of arrogance ; 
 but he did not perceive that the man who altogether 
 declined giving an opinion, could incur the impu- 
 tation. But the learned gentleman seemed to be as 
 ignorant of the forms of the House as of the common 
 mode of business. He might have known that 
 though it would be sometimes convenient to ask and 
 to communicate information by question and answer, 
 that, no discussion can regularly take place, except 
 when a motion was before the House." 
 
 This was a very poor evasion ; but, in fact, he 
 could give no answer to the question, unless he had 
 been ready to make a full and fair acknowledgment 
 of his not knowing what to do. Nothing could be 
 plainer than the question ; nothing more distinct ; 
 nothing more intelligible to any man, who under- 
 stood the common meaning of the frightful words, 
 LEGAL TENDER. But, how was an answer to 
 be given ? Even if the minister had made his mind 
 up to go that length. Even if he had screwed his 
 courage up to the contemplation of such a measure, 
 how was he to find face to propose it all at once? 
 To propose such a measure required time, even with 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 173 
 
 such a man as Mr. PITT. It, at any rate, required 
 time for him to look round him in the House. It 
 required time for him to discover how his adherents 
 felt, and whether they were still to be depended 
 upon. It also required time to break the matter to 
 the public, and to afford an opportunity for the press, 
 and for the minister's monied friends outof doors, to 
 exert their influence. It not only required time to 
 see what could be done, but what dared to be at- 
 tempted. 
 
 To obtain this time the scheme of a Committee of 
 Inquiry was resorted to, the result of which inquiry, 
 and an account of the measures adopted, we shall 
 see in the next Letter. In the meanwhile, I am, 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, October 18, 1810. 
 
 "But it was ureec 
 
 LETTER XIIL 
 
 "But it was urged that the Bank had temporary difficulties to encounter, 
 and that it behooved them to adopt some mode of granting relief to that 
 important public body. The House of Commons, however, knew nothing 
 of this. No application was made to them by the Bank : nor did it appear 
 even that application had been made for the Order in Council ; on the 
 contrary, it appeared that this facetious Council, instead of examining 
 the Directors of the Bank, acted entirely upon the authority of the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer. Nay, what added to his surprise was, that not one 
 of the. Bank Directors who had seats in that House, had ever come for- 
 ward and expressed an opinion upon the subject. Some information was 
 certainly necessary before the House sanctioned so novel and dangerous a 
 measure. They had heard of the Bank a short time ago lending two mil- 
 lions to Government, and they had also heard of the dividends on Bank 
 Stock increasing. "Was it not material to be informed therefore how they 
 had come to stop payment at a time when their affairs seemed to be going 
 on so prosperously?" Mr. Sheridan, Speech 28th Feb. 1807. 
 
 Alleged Ability of the Bank Proceedings out of Doors for 
 what is called Support of Public Credit Mansion House 
 Meeting Brook Watson Quarter Sessions Resolutions 
 Privy Council Resolutions Representations of the Venal 
 Prints relative to these Resolutions Real Origin of the 
 
174 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Mansion House Meeting Directors prevail upon Mr. Pitt 
 to have a private Meeting of Bankers at his House Plan 
 of a public Meeting there laid Peep behind the Curtain 
 Meeting of the Bank Proprietors Declaration of the Go- 
 vernors, Mr. Bosanquet and Mr. Thornton These Decla- 
 rations compared with the private Minute of the Bank, 
 expressing their alarm for the Safety of the House, and for 
 calling upon Mr. Pitt to know when he would interfere. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 WHEN we look at the boast, referred to in the 
 words of my motto, and consider how many boasts 
 of the same sort the Minister had uttered, and which 
 he had continued in the habit of uttering, down 
 almost to the very hour of the Bank Stoppage, we 
 cannot help wondering that he could no longer en- 
 dure his existence. What, then, will be the asto- 
 nishment of posterity, to hear him, in a few months 
 after that event, speak of it and of the measures 
 growing out of it, as the happy means of safety to 
 the country ; and what will be their shame to find, 
 that he was still confided in and supported ? 
 
 As we proceed with the history of the measures of 
 remedy which were now adopted, we must not fail 
 to pay particular attention to the opinions and doc- 
 trines^ at this time expressed and laid down by the 
 Minister and his adherents, especially by those of 
 his adherents, who had a more immediate interest 
 in the concerns of the Bank of England. We must 
 take care to bear in mind what they then said as to 
 the origin of the Order of Council for the stoppage 
 of Gold and Silver payments at the Bank; what 
 they said as to the nature and necessity of the mea- 
 sure ; what they said as to the ability of the Bank 
 to resume its payments ; and what they said as to 
 the time of such resumption. What they then said 
 as to all these points, we must take care to bear in 
 mind ; because, we shall have to compare it with 
 what the same persons have said since, and have to 
 show how in this case, as well as in so many others, 
 the nation has been led on, by degrees, to acquiesce 
 in what, if proposed to it all at once, would have 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 175 
 
 made it shrink with affright, or fired it with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 Before the House of Commons met, the day after 
 the Message and Order of Council had been laid be- 
 fore it, that is to say on the 28th of February, 1797, 
 the Anti-Jackobin adherents of the Minister had been 
 hard at work out of doors. A meeting had been 
 called in the Mansion House of the City of London, 
 consisting of Merchants, Bankers, and others, the 
 Chairman being the Lord Mayor, whose name was 
 BROOK WATSON, who then or very soon afterwards, 
 filled the lucrative office of Commissary General 
 to the Army, and who was, in a very few years 
 after that, made a Baronet. The persons assem- 
 bled upon this occasion proclaimed their resolution 
 not to refuse bank-notes in payment of any sums 
 due to them, and to use their utmost endeavours to 
 make all their payments in the same manner;* 
 which, as you will perceive, Gentlemen, was neither 
 more nor less than resolving, that they would do 
 their utmost to keep up their own credit and conse- 
 quence, and, in fact, to preserve themselves from in- 
 stant ruin. 
 
 Similar Resolutions were passed in the country, 
 where the Quarter Sessions happening to be then 
 taking place, the Resolutions were sent forth from 
 the Bench, with, of course, something of a magis- 
 
 * MANSION HOUSE, LONDON. -February 27, 1797.- 
 Ata meeting of Merchants, Bankers, &c., held here this day, 
 to consider of the steps which it may be proper to take, to 
 prevent Embarrassments to Public Credit, from the effects of 
 any ill-founded or exaggerated Alarms, and to support it with 
 the utmost exertions at the present important conjuncture 
 The LORD MAYOR in the Chair ; RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, 
 That we^the undersigned, being highly sensible how neces- 
 sary the preservation of Public Credit is at this lime, do most 
 readily hereby declare, that we will not refuse to receive Bank 
 Notes in payment of any sum of money to be paid to us ; and 
 we will use our utmost endeavours to make all our payments 
 in the same manner. BROOK WATSON. 
 
 The resolution was left for signatures at several public pla- 
 ces in London. 
 
176 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 terial weight and authority, as will be seen in the 
 instance of the magistrates of Surrey, who, with 
 Lords Grantley and Onslow at their head, appear 
 to have led the way.* The Privy Council (pray 
 read their names all over) had also a meeting upon 
 the subject, and it was quite curious to see the 
 Judges and great pensioners, and even the Minis- 
 ters themselves, not excepting the Lord High Trea 
 surer, publishing their promises to receive and to 
 pay bank notes, and, as far as depended on them 
 individually, to support the circulation of those 
 notes. I 
 
 These Meetings and their Resolutions furnished 
 the venal prints with the pretence for asserting, that 
 the alarm was at an end ; that the people had had 
 time to reflect, and that reflection could not fail to 
 convince them, that there was no room for suspect- 
 ing the solidity of the Bank. The meetings and 
 resolutions (to which latter, in London, there were 
 
 * SURREY. At the General Quarter Session of the Peace 
 of our Sovereign Lord the King, holden at Saint Mary, New- 
 ington, by adjournment, in and for the said County, on 
 Thursday, the 2d day of March, 1797. We, whose names are 
 hereunto subscribed, being desirous to contribute, as far as 
 we can, to the support of the public and commercial credit of 
 the kingdom, at this important crisis, do hereby agree and 
 bind ourselves to receive the Notes of the Bank of England 
 in all payments as Money, and to support, as far as depends 
 on us individually, their circulation for the public benefit. 
 Here follow the names of twenty-nine signers. 
 
 Ordered, That the Clerk of the Peace do cause the above 
 to be forthwith advertised in the Morning Papers.^ the 
 Court, 
 
 LAWSON. 
 
 t At the Council Chamber, Whitehall, the 28th of February, 
 1797, Present The Lords of His Majesty's most Honour- 
 able Privy Council. We, whose names are hereunto sub- 
 scribed, being desirous to contribute, as far as we can, to the 
 6upp9rt of the public and commercial credit of this Kingdom, 
 at this important crisis, do hereby agree and bind ourselves 
 to receive the Notes of the Bank of England in all payments 
 as Money, and to support, as far as depends on us individually, 
 their circulation. Here follow the names of forty- three privy 
 councillors, omitted as being uninteresting to the American 
 reader. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 177 
 
 soon obtained thousands of signatures) were repre- 
 sented as having been perfectly voluntary; that 
 they were the spontaneous effects of pure public 
 spirit, working in the breasts of loyal and disin- 
 terested men, and, of course, that those who did not 
 come forward to resolve, or to sign, were disloyal 
 men. 
 
 Gentlemen, stop with me here for a minute. Some 
 of you may have been induced, by these venal 
 writers, to think ill of all those of your neighbours, 
 who disapproved of Mr. PITT and his deeds ; some 
 of you may have been thus led, by the representa- 
 tions of these writers, to hate your honest neigh- 
 bours, to stigmatize them as Jacobins, and to suspect 
 them, in fact, of treasonable designs ; some of you 
 may, from this corrupt and deadly source, have had 
 your minds so poisoned, and so perverted from their 
 natural bias, as to have contributed towards those 
 fatal divisions in the nation, the effect of which, it 
 is to be feared, your childrens' children will rue. Of 
 such of you, therefore, as answer to this description, 
 let me beg the earnest attention, while I develop the 
 true source of the above-mentioned meetings and 
 resolves, which, as you have seen, were described 
 by the venal writers, as being perfectly -voluntary, 
 and flowing from pure public spirit. 
 
 You will bear in mind, that the Order in Council 
 was signed on Sunday, the 26th of February, and 
 that it was laid before the House of Commons on 
 Monday, the 27th. on which last-mentioned day, the 
 Mansion House Meeting, Mr. BROOK WATSON in the 
 Chair, took place. The next, Tuesday the 28th, 
 the Minister, in opening the way for his first motion 
 about the law to sanction the Order in Council, said, 
 in allusion to this meeting : " With respect to the 
 first step" to be considered, the state of the Bank, that 
 already has, in a great measure, been ascertained by 
 the confidence of public opinion. Of this public 
 opinion, the most unequivocal and satisfactory 
 proofs have been afforded^ even 'within the short 
 
178 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 space that has elapsed since the minute of Coun- 
 cil has been issued. It has been clearly evinced, 
 that there is no doubt entertained with respect to the 
 solidity of the Bank to answer all the demands of 
 its creditors." Thus he appeared to consider the 
 resolution of the Meeting of the Bankers and Mer- 
 chants as expressive of the opinions and feelings of 
 the nation at large, and, of course, as being a volun- 
 tary act, an act of their own, an act not, by any 
 means, dictated by him, or by the Bank, nor hatched 
 or contrived by them. Thus the thing appeared to 
 the world ; thus it appeared to the " most thinking 
 people in all Europe;" this was its outside look; 
 but, let us now take a peep behind the curtain. 
 
 For a while, no official documents were laid before 
 Parliament, relating to the Stoppage. This was 
 avoided by one means or other. But it could not be 
 for ever avoided ; and at last, some of the papers 
 were laid before the House of Commons ; but by 
 the time that these got printed, the public was lulled 
 again, and the papers passed with little or no notice. 
 Amongst these papers was a minute of the BANK 
 DIRECTORS, respecting an " Interview with the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, (Mr. Pitt,) on the 24th of 
 February, 1797;" which you will observe, was on 
 the Friday before, the Bank having issued Gold on 
 Saturday for the last time. On the Thursday, the 
 run upon the Bank had been very hard ; and the 
 measure of Stoppage of cash payments seems to 
 have then been looked upon as settled. With this 
 measure in their eye, the Bank Directors and Mr. 
 Pitt did what we shall see recorded in the following 
 minute of the Bank Directors' proceedings, under 
 the date just mentioned, of the 24th of February, 
 1797. " The Governor and Deputy Governor this 
 day waited on Mr. Pitt, to mention to him, that it 
 would, in the present circumstances, be highly re- 
 quisite, that some general meeting of the bankers 
 and chief merchants of London should be held, in 
 order to bring on some resolution for the support of 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD 179 
 
 the public credit in this alarming crisis ; and they 
 took the liberty to recommend to Mr. Pitt> to have a 
 private meeting of some of the chief bankers at hi* 
 house to-morrow, at three o'clock, in Avhich the plan 
 for a more general meeting on Tuesday or Wednes- 
 day next might be laid ; in the propriety of which Mr. 
 Pitt agreed, and said he would summon a previous 
 'meeting for to-morrow accordingly. This was com- 
 municated by the Governor to the Committee." 
 
 Thus, Gentlemen, were " the most thinking peo- 
 ple in Europe" treated. Here you see the origin ; 
 here you see the real cause, of the public spirited 
 meeting at the Mansion House ; here you see how 
 those pure and disinterested persons were put in 
 motion. You have, heretofore, seen the show ; but, 
 you have now seen, as to this part of it, the funnels, 
 pulleys, pegs, and wires ; and the only misfortune 
 is, that you see them a little too late ; though, I trust 
 that the exposition may yet do some good, and at 
 any rate, it must, I should think, make you a little 
 less credulous in future, a little less inclined to be- 
 lieve every word that comes forth under appearances 
 like those above described. 
 
 While Meetings were going on in such a jovial 
 way, in all other quarters, it would have been strange 
 indeed if the Bank itself had not had its meeting. 
 This took place on Thursday, 2d of March. The 
 Order of Council had been issued on the Sunday, 
 26th of February ; it had been laid before the House 
 of Commons on the 27th ; on the same day the 
 Meeting had taken place at the Mansion-House ; on 
 the 2Sth (as we shall presently see) the conduct of 
 the Bank began to be discussed in Parliament, and 
 it had been asserted there, that the Order of Coun- 
 cil was the sole work of the Government, and not 
 of the Bank ; the manifest intention of which was 
 to cause it to be believed, that the government forced 
 the Bank not to pay its creditors agreeably to its 
 promissory notes ; and, that the Bank neither wanted 
 nor wished any such measure on its own account. 
 
180 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Declarations to this amount had been made in par- 
 liament ; but, it appears, that a repetition of them at 
 a Bank Meeting was thought necessary ; and accord- 
 ingly a meeting took place; or, to use their own 
 language, " A COURT OF PROPRIETORS was held" on 
 the day just mentioned, namely, the 2d of March. 
 
 At this meeting at the Bank, where one might 
 have expected to see the Directors and Proprietors 
 clothed in sack-cloth and ashes, the first thing done 
 was, the passing of a vote of THANKS to the Di- 
 rectors for having acted agreeably to the Order of 
 Council, that is to say, for having availed themselves 
 of this Order to refuse payment of their promis- 
 sory notes, to refuse payment of their just debts 
 legally demanded. They had been guilty of a vio- 
 lation of the law, and for that violation they were 
 thanked by their constituents, the Stock Proprietors, 
 who, in fact, were the Debtors of the holders of 
 Bank notes ! Having, with an unanimous voice 
 dispatched this part of the business of the day, the 
 GOVERNOR of the Bank took, it appears from the re- 
 port of the proceedings, the opportunity of publicly 
 declaring (in a way that might get into print) that 
 the Bank Directors had made no application to the 
 government for an order for the stoppage of Cash- 
 payments at the Bank. Mr. BOSANQUET, who, it 
 seems, was a Director, declared, that the measure 
 "was not adopted at the instance of those con- 
 cerned in the direction of the Bank ;" and Mr. 
 THORNTON, also a Director, said, " that he wished iv 
 to be understood explicitly, that the Order in Coun 
 cil was not issued at the instance of the Bank Di 
 rectors." Mr. BOSANO.UET called the stoppage " a 
 great state measure ;" a measure dictated by " na- 
 tional policy." He said it was " meant to operate 
 only for a short time;" and that " he earnestly 
 hoped" (how different from the language of Mr. 
 Randall Jackson and the present governor of the 
 Bank ;) yes, he EARNESTLY HOPED, " that 
 the Bank, which was quite able, would soon be 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 181 
 
 PERMITTED to pay its notes in cash, in the same 
 manner that it had formerly done."* 
 
 * The following is the Report, taken entire, from the Morn- 
 ing Chronicle of the 3d of March, 1797. 
 
 "Yesterday a Court of Proprietors was held at the Bank. 
 The GOVERNOR of the Bank, after the Order in Council, 9f 
 the 26th of February, was read, stated, that the Court of Di- 
 rectors had thought it their duty to acquiesce in the Order, 
 and hoped they had acted in conformity to the opinion arid 
 wishes of the Proprietors of Bank Stock. Mr. HERMAN 
 moved, " that it is the opinion of this Court, that the thanks 
 of the Proprietors of Bank Stock are due to the Court of Di- 
 rectors for their acquiescence in the Order in Council, and for 
 their speedy communication thereof to this Court." The mo- 
 tion was put and carried unanimously. Mr. ALLERDYCE asked, 
 whether the application, had been made from the Bank to 
 Government, for the Order in Council, to prohibit them from 
 issuing specie '? The Governor of the Bank replied, that no 
 such application had been made by the Court of Directors, 
 but that the Bank having experienced an unexampled drain of 
 specie for some time past, that Court had thought it their 
 duty to acquaint the Minister of the Country with the circum- 
 stance, that he might take what measures he might deem 
 necessary, and at the same time remove all responsibility for 
 such measures from the Direction. He added, that a Secret 
 Committee of the House of Commons had been appointed 
 to inquire into the state of the Bank accounts, and that the 
 Court of Directors were fully persuaded that the result of 
 that inquiry would be a report of the perfect solidity of the 
 Corporation. Mr. SANSOM wished to be informed whether 
 there was any precedent for the House of Commons appoint- 
 ing a Committee to inquire into the affairs of the Bank? In 
 his opinion, if a Committee was to be appointed, it ought to 
 be a Committee chosen from the Proprietary; but after the 
 assurance which they had from the Directors of the solidity 
 of the Bank capital, he saw no necessity for any inquiry at 
 all. A Proprietor stated, that there was a precedent for the 
 measure on the Journals of the House of Commons, in 1696. 
 Mr. MANNING said, he had examined into the proceedings of 
 the House of Commons, in 1696, and found that there was 
 not the smallest reseniblance between that and the present 
 measure. At that time the Bank had been established for 
 only two years, their Notes were at a discount all over the 
 Kingdom, and the Silver-coinage was called in, circum- 
 stances which were totally different from the present. Mr. 
 BOSANQUET begged leave to trouble the Court with a very few 
 words. He said that the Order in Council was to be consi- 
 dered entirely as a great state-measure, which was not 
 adopted at the instance of those concerned in the direction of 
 Hit Lank. The Court of Directors, in the present state of 
 16 
 
 
182 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 When, Gentlemen, you have read through the re- 
 port of the Bank Proceedings of the day here referred 
 to, and I beseech you to read every word of it, 
 you will, doubtless, be astonished at the hardihood 
 of men, who could, under such circumstances, hold 
 such language. What ! thank the Directors for not 
 paying their promissory notes ! Thank them for 
 this ! The Proprietors of Bank Stock, who were 
 the persons composing the Meeting upon this occa- 
 sion, were the persons who owed the amount of the 
 Bank notes ; they were the debtors of the note- 
 holders ; the Directors were their agents. So that, 
 here we see a parcel of people, who had issued great 
 quantities of promissory notes, assemble together, 
 and thank, aye, and publicly thank, their agents 
 for having refused, illegally refused, payment of 
 
 public affairs, had considered it to be their duty to keep the. 
 Minister of the Country informed respecting the situation of 
 the Bank. For sometime past there had been an unexam- 
 pled run for specie upon the Bank, and this they communi- 
 cated to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, leaving him to adopt 
 what measures he might think proper. The consequence was, 
 the Order in Council, of the 26th of February, was issued. It 
 would have been absurd in the Directors of the Bank to 
 have resisted this Order, because the Minister must have 
 been supposed to be in possession of a great deal of informa- 
 tion to which they had no access, and to be in the knowledge 
 of circumstances of which they were not aware; besides 
 that, there was no knowing what might have been the con- 
 sequences had the unusual drain for cash, which they had ex- 
 perienced, been continued for any length of time. They com- 
 plied, therefore, with the Order of his Majesty's Council, un- 
 derstanding it to have been dictated by national policy, and 
 meant to operate only for a short time. He had no hesitation 
 in saying, that the affairs of the Bank were in a state of the 
 
 freafest affluence and prosperity that they had even a consi- 
 erab\e surplus^ and that he earnestly hoped they would SOON 
 UE PERMITTED to pay their Notes in cash in the same manner 
 as they had formerly done. Mr. THORNTON wished it to be 
 understood explicitly, that the Order in Council was not issued 
 at the instance of the Bank Directors ; that their accounts 
 were not tendered to the House of Commons for examina- 
 tion, and that they neither asked nor wish for the partnership 
 and guarantee of Government. There being no other busi- 
 ness before the Court they adjourned to yesterday fortnight, 
 when the dividends become due. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 183 
 
 those notes! Gentlemen, our venal prints may 
 talk as they please ; they may refer us to what in- 
 stances they choose ; but any thing equal to this, any 
 such instance of cool assurance, I defy them to pro- 
 duce from the history of the world, or, even from 
 the works of imagination. 
 
 But, as yet, we have not seen these proceedings 
 in their true colours. We have seen them in colours 
 pretty strong ; but we have not seen them as they 
 will appear when we have taken another look at the 
 Bank documents, which were afterwards laid before 
 parliament, and which, as was before observed, ne- 
 ver got out fairly to the knowledge of the people. 
 We have seen these Bank Directors making public 
 declarations, that they had no hand at all in the 
 Stoppage ; that they did not apply for the Order in 
 Council ; that it was a measure of the government ; 
 that it was a state measure ; and that they earnestly 
 hoped soon to be PERMITTED to resume their 
 payments in cash. This is what they told the pub- 
 lic on the 2d of March. And, it was not only at the 
 Bank-meeting that this declaration was made. It 
 was repeatedly made in the House of Commons ; 
 but, we will, at present, confine ourselves to what 
 was said by the Bank Directors themselves. 
 
 Such, then, were their declarations on the 2d of 
 March. Now, then, let us see what they had been 
 at in secret with the Minister, during the nine days 
 before. On the 21st of February, they, observing, 
 with great uneasiness, the large and constant de- 
 crease in their cash, held a particular consultation 
 on the subject, and perceiving that their cash was 
 reduced to a certain sum, of which certain sum, be 
 it observed, they do not slate the amount, they came 
 to a resolution to go to Mr. Pitt, and tell him " how 
 their cash was circumstanced," they did so, and Mr. 
 Pitt observed to them, (and you will laugh heartily 
 at the observation,) " that the alarm of invasion 
 was now become much more general than he could 
 think necessary;" they then pressed Mr. Pitt to 
 
184 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 make some declaration in parliament, upon this sub- 
 ject, " in order to ease the public mind." This is a 
 pretty specimen enough of the intercourse that ex- 
 isted between these parties, and will serve to explair 
 the reason for many of the speeches that we have ai 
 different times heard.* Mr. PITT, however, did, it 
 
 * Resolution of the Court of Directors, and Deputation's 
 Interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 2lst Febru- 
 ary, 1797. 
 
 The Committee observing with great uneasiness, the large 
 and constant decrease in the cash, neld a particular consulta- 
 tion on that subject this day ; and on examination into the 
 state of the cash since the beginning of this year, they found 
 that in the course of the month of January, there had been 
 a decrease of Z. and since the beginning of this month 
 
 a farther loss of Z. and that the cash was now reduced 
 
 to between Z. and about Z. value, in bullion and 
 
 foreign coin, about the value of Z. in silver, bullion. 
 
 Perceiving also, by the constant calls of the bankers from all 
 parts of the town for cash, that there must be some extraor- 
 dinary reasons for this drain, arising, probably, from the 
 alarms of an expected invasion ; the Committee, after ma- 
 turely considering the matter, resolved to send a notice to the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, of the situation of matters at 
 the Bank : and to explain exactly to him how the cash is cir- 
 cumstanced, that he may, if possible and proper, strike out 
 some means of alleviating the public alarms, and stopping 
 this apparent disposition in people's minds for having a large 
 deposit of cash in their houses. The Governor, Deputy Go- 
 vernor, with Mr. Darell and Mr. Bosanquet, were deputed to 
 wait upon Mr. Pitt, who went to him; and after describing 
 to him the anxiety of mind which all the Directors were un- 
 der on this subject, they explained to Mr. Pitt the exact par- 
 ticulars above-mentioned. Mr. Pitt seemed aware that this 
 tinusual drain of cash from the Bank must arise from the 
 alarm of an invasion, which he observed was now become 
 much more general than he could think necessary. He said, 
 that by all his informations he could not learn of any hostile 
 preparations of consequence making in France to invade this 
 country, except the fleet which was refitting at Brest, after 
 being driven off from the coast of Ireland ; but that he could 
 not answer that no partial attack on this country would be 
 made by such a mad and desperate enemy as we had to deal 
 with. The deputation pressed on Mr. Pitt to declare some- 
 thing of this kind in Parliament, in order to ease the public 
 mind. Mr. Pitt also mentioned, that he hoped the Committee 
 would, in the present situation of matters, think it necessary 
 to endeavour at obtaining a supply of gold from foreign 
 countries, which the Governor told him they were considering 
 about, and should do what they could therein. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 185 
 
 seems, press them, in his turn, " to endeavour to ob- 
 tain a supply of Gold from abroad" and the Go- 
 vernor told him they would do what they could in 
 that way. 
 
 On the 22d of February they had another inter- 
 view with Mr. PITT, and they gave GOLDSMIDT and 
 ELIASON orders for the purchase of gold at Ham- 
 burgh. But we no where find any account of the 
 success of this order, which was, besides, rendered 
 useless by the Order of Council, which rendered 
 Gold unnecessary* 
 
 On the 24th of February they had another inter- 
 view with Mr. PITT ; and what they say as to this 
 interview we must pay particular attention to. At 
 a Committee consisting of the whole Court, it ap- 
 peared that the cash was going away faster than 
 ever ; " which gave such an alarm, for the SA FE TY 
 OF THE HOUSE" (mark the words) that no 
 time was lost in sending a deputation to Mr. PITT, 
 to ask him how far they might venture to go on pay- 
 ing cash, and " when HE would think it necessary 
 to INTERFERE." Mr. Prrr told them, that this 
 was an affair of such importance, that he must be 
 prepared with some resolution to bring forward in 
 the Council.! 
 
 * Interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 22d of 
 February, 1797. Messrs. Goldsmidt and Eliason attended 
 the Committee this day, and were directed to give farther or- 
 ders to Hamburgh for the purchase of gold; and were told 
 that an application would immediately be made, to the minis- 
 ter to order a frigate or armed sloop to go to Hamburgh to 
 take in such gold as might be bought, and also to desire that 
 the restriction on the captains of the packets, not to take any 
 gold on board at Hamburgh for this country, might be taken 
 off. The Governor and Deputy Governor waited on Mr. Pitt 
 on this subject, who promised, to apply to the Admiralty for 
 directions about sending out a frigate or armed sloop ; and 
 that he would apply to me Postmaster General to give the 
 orders to the captains of the packets. 
 
 t Interview with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 24th of 
 February, 1797. At a Committee of the whole Court hefd 
 this day, it appeared that the loss of cash yesterday was 
 above /. and that about I. were already drawn 
 
 out this day, which gave such an alarm for THE SAFE TY 
 16* 
 
186 EAPEft AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Thus, you see, Gentlemen, the Stoppage-measure 
 clearly originated in the representation of the 
 Bank Directors ; and, which is very well worthy 
 of your marked attention, Mr. BOSANQUET was one 
 of the persons deputed to wait upon Mr. PITT on this 
 last mentioned occasion. The shuffle of saying, 
 that the Bank Directors were afraid that the drain 
 might injure the " public service" is too paltry, in 
 any view of the matter, to have any weight ; for, 
 whose claim upon the Bank could be so good as that 
 of the holders of the Promissory Notes? And 
 who were " the public" but the holders of these 
 notes? But, as if it had been resolved to leave no 
 room even for this miserable attempt at excuse, the 
 Minute of the Directors of the 24th of February, 
 expressly says, that it was " alarm for the safety of 
 the HOUSE" that sent the deputation to ask for the 
 
 OF THE HOUSE, that the Deputy Governor and Mr. 
 Bosanquet were desired to wait on Mr. Pitt to mention to him 
 these circumstances, and to ask him how far he thought the 
 Bank might venture to go on paying cash, and when he 
 would think it necessary TO INTERFERE before our cash 
 was so reduced as might be detrimental to the immediate 
 service of the State. Mr. Pitt said this was a matter of great 
 importance, and that he must be prepared with some resolu- 
 tions to bring forward in the Council, for a Proclamation to 
 stop the issue of cash from the Bank, and to give the security 
 of Parliament to the notes of the Bank. In consequence of 
 which he should think it might be proper to appoint a Secret 
 Committee of the House of Commons, to look into the state 
 of the Bank affairs; which they assured him the Bank were 
 well prepared for, and would produce to such a Committee. 
 Mr. Pitt also observed that he should have no objection to 
 propose to Parliament, in case of a Proclamation, to give 
 parliamentary security for Bank-notes. The Governor and 
 Deputy Governor this day waited on Mr. Pitt, to mention to 
 him, that it would in the present circumstances be highly re- 
 quisite that some general meeting of the bankers and chief 
 merchants of London should be held in order to bring on some 
 resolution for the support of the public credit in this alarming 
 crisis ; and they took the liberty to recommend to Mr. Pitt, 
 to have a private meeting of some of the chief bankers at his 
 house to-morrow at three o'clock, in which the plan for a more 
 general meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday next might be laid, 
 in the propriety of which Mr. Pitt agreed, and said he would 
 summon a previous meeting for to-morrow accordingly This 
 was communicated by the Governor to the Committee. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 187 
 
 interference of Mr. PITT ; alarm for the safety of 
 the HOUSE, and not any motive at all connected 
 with the public service or the public good. 
 
 Having now pulled aside the curtain ; having laid 
 the whole thing bare to your view ; having placed 
 the application to Parliament in its true light; I 
 shall in my next, lay before you an account of the 
 measures, which the Parliament adopted, and which 
 have, under one pretence or another, been continued 
 in force to this day. 
 
 In the meanwhile, I remain, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, 25th Oct. 1810. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 
 " The question for the people to ask, and the only question, is this : whe- 
 ther the quantity of Bank Notes, payable on demand, which the Bank has 
 issued, be greater than the Bank can pay oft" in Gold and Silver." Pa ine. 
 
 The measures adopted by Parliament, in consequence of the 
 Bank Stoppage Names of the Bank Directors in 1797 
 King's Message Mr. Pitt's Motion for a Secret Commit- 
 teeMr. Fox and other Members wished- for an Inquiry in- 
 to the Cause of the Stoppage Mr. Pitt's motion carried 
 by a great Majorky List of the Minority Necessity of 
 a Parliamentary Reform Manner of appointing the Se- 
 cret Committee Names of the Committee Restricted 
 Powers of the Committee-Reports from the Committee 
 Not a word said about the Quantity of Gold and Silver in 
 the Bank Mr. Paine' s Assertion about the Inability of the 
 Bank to pay in Gold and Silver No attempt made to dis- 
 prove this Assertion Mr. Pitt's, Sir John Mitford's, and 
 L9rd Hawkesbury's Assertions Mr. Grey not satisfied 
 with the Evidence produced before the Committee Mr. 
 Sheridan's Answer to Lord Hawkesbury. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 I HAVE now to beg your attention to a very impor- 
 tant part of our subject ; namely, the measures, 
 which, by way of remedy, were adopted by the Par- 
 liament, in consequence of the run upon the Bank 
 and the stoppage of Gold and Silver payments there. 
 
183 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 The Letter immediately preceding this, put you 
 in possession of a thorough knowledge of the way 
 in which the Bank Directors and the Minister had 
 gone to work in order to prepare the way for the 
 Parliamentary Measures which were to follow. 
 You were there placed behind the curtain ; you saw 
 all the actors in their natural persons ;* all the 
 paints, patches, cloaks and visors ; all the trap-doors, 
 pulleys, pegs and wires. You not only saw the 
 Resolving arid Subscribing show acted, but you 
 saw it got up ; you saw the Showman and all his 
 people busy in making their preparations; and, after 
 that, you were let in to the rehearsal. 
 
 In Letter XII, at page 170, you have seen how 
 the matter was first brought before the Parliament, 
 on Monday, the 27th of February, 1797, in the form 
 of a Message from the King;t and, you have seen, 
 
 * Truth and Justice demand that as far as possible, the 
 NAMES of all the persons who took an active part, upon 
 this memorable occasion, should be recorded. Parliament 
 may yet revise the measures of that day ; and, then, the 
 names of all the parties, immediately concerned, ought to be 
 known, and must be known. From this opinion it is, that I 
 insert here the names of the persons who were the DIRECTORS 
 of the Bank of England at the time when the stoppage took 
 place, and amongst them we find our friend BROOK WATSON, 
 who was, as we have seen, in the Chair at the Mansion- 
 House Meeting. 
 
 Thomas Raikes, Governor. 
 Samuel Thornton. Deputy Governor. 
 
 T. Boddington. Jeremiah Harman. George Peters. 
 
 S. Bosanquet. Thomas Lewis. Charles Pole. 
 
 Alex. Champion Beeston Long. John Puget. 
 
 Edward Darrell. William Manning. James Reed. 
 
 Thomas Dea. Job Mathew. P. I. Thellusson. 
 
 George Dorrien. Sir R. Neave. Godfrey Thornton. 
 
 N. Bogle French. Joseph Nutt. Brook Watson. 
 
 Daniel Giles. John Pearse. John Whitmore. 
 
 t GEORGE R. 
 
 His Majesty thinks it proper to communicate to the House of 
 Commons, without delay, the measure adopted to obviate the 
 effects which misht be occasioned by the unusual demand of 
 specie lately made from different parts of the country and the 
 metropolis. The peculiar nature and exigency of the case 
 appeared to require, in the first instance, the measure con- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 189 
 
 that the Minister, the hitherto bragging Minister, 
 being upon that occasion pressed by Mr. COMBE and 
 others for an answer to the question as to what he 
 meant to do, had no answer to give. 
 
 On the 27th, PITT gave notice of a motion, to be 
 made next day, for the appointment of a Committee 
 to inquire into the ability of the Bank to pay the 
 demands upon it ; and also to inquire and make re- 
 port as to the necessity of continuing of the measure 
 adopted by the Council, that is to say, continuing" 
 the refusal of money payments at the Bank* 
 
 We shall have to speak more fully about this 
 Committee by-and-by ; but we must stop here a mo- 
 ment, and take a brief sketch of the debate that 
 ensued upon PITT'S motion. Mr. Fox and those who 
 were with him said, that they had no objection to 
 the appointment of a Committee, provided it was ap- 
 pointed fairly ; but they insisted, that it would dis- 
 cover a shameful disregard of their duty, if the 
 House moved an inch further without inquiring into 
 the causes which produced that alleged necessity, 
 upon which the Order of Council, sanctioning a vio- 
 lation of the law, was founded. They said, here is 
 the minister calling upon you still to confide in him ; 
 in him, under whom the Bank has been compelled 
 to stop paying its notes. Ought you not to inquire, 
 
 tained in the Order of Council which his Majesty has directed 
 to be laid before the House. In recommending this impor- 
 tant subject to the immediate and serious attention of the 
 House of Commons, his Majesty relies with the utmost con- 
 fidence on the experienced wisdom and firmness of his Par- 
 liament for taking such measures as may he best calculated 
 to meet any temporary pressure, and to call forth, in the most 
 effectual manner, the extensive resources of his kingdoms in 
 support of their public and commercial credit, and in defence 
 of their dearest interests. G. R. 
 
 * "That a SECRET COMMITTEE be appointed to ascer- 
 tain the total amount of the out-standing demands on the 
 Bank of England, and likewise of the funds for discharging 
 the same ; and that they do also report their opinion of the 
 necessity of providing for the confirmation and continuance 
 of the measures, taken in pursuance of the minute of Council 
 of the 26th instant." 
 
190 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 first of all, into his measures ? Ought you not to 
 inquire into the causes, of the fatal and disgraceful 
 necessity of this stoppage ? Here is a minister, who 
 has had a majority of your votes for years ; he has 
 had your unlimited and blind confidence ; he had the 
 absolute command of all the resources of the nation ; 
 he has done what he pleased for years past ; he has 
 within these very few weeks, told you himself, and 
 advised the King to tell you, in the most solemn 
 manner, that your pecuniary affairs were in the most 
 flourishing state, and rested upon the most solid 
 foundation ; and this same man now comes and tells 
 you, that necessity, that urgency, that something had 
 compelled him to issue an Order to sanction the 
 stoppage of cash payments at the Bank, and to 
 oblige the public creditor, contrary to law, to receive 
 his dividends in paper, instead of the Gold and Sil- 
 ver coin which the law gave him a right to demand. 
 This, said Mr. Fox and his friends, is what this 
 Minister now tells you ; and v will you not, before 
 you proceed to inquire into the propriety of continu- 
 ing the stoppage, inquire into the cause of\ the im- 
 perious necessity which is said to have produced it? 
 Will you attempt an expedient, will you attempt a 
 remedy, without inquiring into the cause of the 
 evil? Will you do that, which, even now, after all 
 that you have seen and felt, shall prove to the world 
 that your confidence is as blind as ever ? " Have 
 any three months, in the course of this war," said Mr. 
 Fox, " passed without the minister's producing some 
 new expedient? and have not all his expedients 
 proved erroneous ? Year after year he has been 
 amusing us with predictions with respect to France, 
 which was now on the verge and now in the gulf of 
 bankruptcy ; the assignats and the mandate could 
 not possibly continue, he said ; which was very true, 
 but while he was thus amusing us, he led us to the 
 very same verge, aye, into the very same gulf." 
 Mr. HOBHOUSE said, "that the assurances of the 
 minister would never beat down this plain dictate of 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 191 
 
 common sense, that by his conduct the Bank had 
 been obliged to commit an act of insolvency, by re- 
 fusing specie for its paper, and, therefore he wished 
 for a full inquiry into his conduct." Mr. SHERIDAN, 
 in a most admirable speech, laid the whole matter 
 open, completely exposed the motive of the proposed 
 Committee, and moved to Mr. PITT'S motion an 
 amendment, in the following words, " That the 
 Committee should inquire into the causes which pro- 
 duced the Order in Council." 
 
 In spite, however, of these speeches ; in spite of 
 all the arguments made use of on this side, and none 
 of which met with even an attempt at an answer 
 from any one but Mr. PITT himself : in spite of all 
 this, the House decided, by a majority of 244 to 88, 
 against Mr. SHERIDAN'S amendment, that is to say, 
 against inquiring into the cause of the alleged neces- 
 sity which induced the Privy Council to issue an 
 order, sanctioning a refusal, on the part of the Bank, 
 to pay their promissory notes in Gold and Silver. 
 The men, who voted upon this occasion, should be 
 known. We have only the names of the Minority 
 recorded. Those you will keep in mind, Gentlemen, 
 and, before we have finished the subject, we shall 
 come at the names of the Majority ; or, at least, we 
 can iret the names of all the members besides the 
 minority. Mr. Fox renewed the subject, on the 1st 
 of March, by a motion for the appointment of a sepa- 
 rate Committee " to inquire into the causes, which 
 produced the Order in Council of the 26th of Febru- 
 ary," for the stoppage of cash payments at the Bank ; 
 and he was left in a similar Minority. 
 
 Here it is, Gentlemen, that you see the real cause 
 of all the calamities that have fallen upon our coun- 
 try, and of all the dangers that now threaten it, and 
 these afe dangers that will not be frowned out of 
 countenance, that will not be made to hide their head, 
 at the sound of the voice of men in power ; dangers 
 that are not to be talked or voted away. You have 
 seen these dangers creep on upon us by slow de- 
 
 
192 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 grees, but you have seen their pace to be steady. 
 They have never stopped. They keep gathering 
 about us ; and he is a very foolish man, who expects 
 any remedy, till the great cause of the evil be re- 
 moved; that is to say, until there shall take place a 
 radical Reform of the Commons' House of Parlia- 
 ment, agreeably to the principles of the English 
 Constitution, which reform, to use the words of the 
 Kent Petition, is now more than ever necessary to 
 the safety of both the people and the throne. 
 
 The motions for a full inquiry being rejected, the , 
 minister proceeded in his work of getting a SE- 
 CRET COMMITTEE, who were to inquire into 
 the affairs of the Bank, and to report their opinion 
 relative to the necessity of continuing, by Act of 
 Parliament, the refusal of coin at the Bank. And 
 now, Gentlemen, I beg you to observe well the man- 
 ner of appointing this Committee. It was to con- 
 sist of fifteen members ; every member of the House, 
 who was present, might put fifteen names into a 
 box ; and, when all the names were taken out, the 
 fifteen persons whose names appeared oftenest upon 
 the tickets put in, were the Committee. Of course 
 that side which had a majority of tickets to put in 
 would choose the members of the Committee. The 
 custom, indeed, is, upon such occasions, to make out 
 a List, and send it round amongst the members, and 
 of course, all those who are on the side of the 
 minister, will take the Ministerial List ; so that, in 
 fact, whoever has a majority in the House, chooses 
 the Committee. Upon the particular occasion before 
 us, Mr. SHERIDAN, before the Report of who were 
 the Committee was made to the House, read the 
 names of them out loud in the House ; and, when 
 the report came to be made, it appeared that his List 
 was perfectly correct* Indeed, he had got hold of 
 
 * List of the Secret Committee. William Hassey ; Wil- 
 liam Plumer ; Thomas Powys ; Thomas Grenville; William 
 Wilberforce ; John Blackburne ; Thomas Berney Bramp- 
 ston ; Charles Bragge ; Sir John Mitford, (Solicitor General ;) 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 193 
 
 one of the Ministerial Lists, and, of course, he could 
 not be in error in this respect. 
 
 But even a Committee, thus formed ; a Secret 
 Committee chosen by the Ministers own party ; 
 even this Committee were, Mr. PITT said, (See De- 
 bates, 28th February,) " by no means called upon 
 to push their inquiries into circumstances, the dis- 
 closure of which would be attended with temporary 
 injury to the credit of the country, and with per- 
 manent embarrassment to the operations of the 
 Bank." Mr. PITT said, that his principal object in 
 appointing such a Committee was to have it ascer- 
 tained, that the affairs of the Bank were in a pros- 
 perous state ; that the Bank had abundant means 
 to answer all the demands upon it ; and that, there- 
 fore, the holders of bank notes ought to look upon them 
 as being equally good with Gold and Silver. Now, 
 the way, and the only way, to produce this so-much- 
 wished-for conviction was, one would have thought, 
 to let the .Committee ascertain that the quantity oj 
 Gold and Silver in the Bank was sufficient for pay- 
 ing off the notes ; or, at any rate, was in a due pro- 
 portion to the notes. But, so far from this being 
 done, the Committee did not make any inquiries at 
 all, relative to the quantity of Gold^and Silver in 
 the Bank. They merely inquired into the state of the 
 books at the Bank, setting their bank notes on one 
 side, and their Stock on the other side. The Bank 
 said : We .owe the holders the amount of our notes, 
 but the Government owes us still more ; and not 
 a word was said about Gold and Silver, though one 
 would have thought, that this was the great, and in- 
 deed, the only thing to make inquiry about ; espe- 
 cially as Mr. PAINE, in his pamphlet, published the 
 year before, had made statements, whence he had 
 
 William Wilberforce Bird ; John Pane ; Isaac Hawkins 
 Browne; Sir John Scott, (Attorney General;) John William 
 Anderson. 
 
 The three, first had voted with Mr. Pox for a full inquiry 
 but all the rest belonged to the party of Mr. Pitt. 
 17 
 
194 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 drawn a conclusion, that the hank, if put to the test, 
 " had not money to pay half a crown in the pound." 
 This was a charge, which, one would have thought, 
 it would he the grand object of the Minister and the 
 Bank to do away. But, no such thing was even at- 
 tempted, and the two Reports of the Committee,* 
 
 * FIRST REPORT, March 3, 1797. The Committee appointed 
 to examine and state the total amount of out-standing de- 
 mands on the Bank of England, and likewise of the Funds 
 for discharging the same ; and to report the result thereof to 
 the House, together with their opinion on the necessity of 
 providing for the confirmation and continuance, for a time to 
 be limited, of measures taken in pursuance of the minute of 
 Council on the 26th of February last ; and who are empowered 
 to report their proceedings from time to time to the House ; 
 have, pursuant to the order of the House, proceeded to examine 
 into the several matters referred to their consideration, and have 
 unanimously agreed upon the following Report, viz. Your 
 Committee nave examined the total amount of out-standing 
 demands on the Bank of England, and likewise of the Funds 
 for discharging the same ; and think it their duty, without 
 loss of time, to state those total amounts, and to report the 
 result thereof to the House. Your Committee find, upon such 
 examination, that the total amount of out-standing demands 
 on the Bank, on the 25th of February last, (to which day the 
 accounts could be completely made up) was 13,770,390Z. ; 
 and that the total amount of the Funds for discharging those 
 demands (not including the permanent debt due from Go- 
 vernment of 11,686,800^., which bears an interest of three per 
 cent.) was on the same 25th day of February last 17,597,2?OZ. ; 
 and that the result is, that there was, on the 25th day of Feb- 
 ruary last, a surplus of effects belonging to the Bank, beyond 
 the amount of their debts, amounting to the sum of 3,826, 890Z. 
 exclusiveof the above-mentioned permanent debt of 11,686,SOO/. 
 due from Government. And your Committee further repre- 
 sent, that since the 25th of February last considerable issues 
 have been made by the Bank in bank notes, both upon Gov- 
 ernment securities and in discounting bills, the particulars 
 of which could not immediately be made up; but as those 
 issues appear to your Committee to have been made upon 
 corresponding securities, taken with the usual care and at- 
 tention, the actual balance in favour of the Bank did not 
 appear to your Committee to have been thereby diminished. 
 
 SECOND REPORT, Tuesday, 7th March. Mr. Brampston 
 brought up the following Report : 
 
 The Committee appointed to examine and state the total 
 amount of out-standing demands on the Bank of England, 
 and likewise of the Funds for discharging the same ; and to 
 report the result thereof to the House, together with their 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 195 
 
 did accordingly not at all tend to the restoration of 
 that sort of confidence, which would have enabled 
 the Bank to open its doors to the applicants for 
 Guineas. It was in vain that Mr. PITT told the 
 House, that the reports of the Secret Committee were 
 highly consoling ; that the affairs of the Bank were 
 in a most prosperous state ; that persons most con- 
 versant (alluding to the Mansion House Resolvers) 
 believed in the solidity of its means ; that the public 
 had nothing to do with the internal economy of the 
 Bank; that it was sufficient for the public to know, 
 that the corporation was a rich corporation ; that the 
 solidity of the Bank was asserted in the report of the 
 Secret Committee then on the table ; that that report 
 left no doubt upon the subject ; that it was an impor- 
 tant consolation, that there were funds amply suffi- 
 cient for the ultimate security of those who could not 
 have their demands satisfied for a time ; and that as 
 to what was due from the Government to the Bank, 
 it rested upon the best possible security, because it 
 rested upon the aggregate powers of the country. 
 (See Debates, 9th March, 1797.) In vain did Lord 
 Hawkesbury, in answer to Mr. Fox, deny that the 
 term Bankruptcy applied to the situation of the 
 Bank or the Government. He said, what was very 
 true, that the embarrassments of the Bank were im- 
 puted to the scarcity or want of specie. But, in 
 vain did he question the truth of this proposition ; in 
 vain did he say that a scarcity of guineas might rise 
 
 opinion on the necessity of providing for the confirmation 
 and continuance, for a time to be limited, of measures taken 
 in pursuance of the Minute of Council on the 26th of February 
 last ; and who were empowered to report their proceedings 
 from time to time to the House ; have further examined into 
 the several matters referred to their consideration ; and have 
 agreed to^report to the House ; That, in their opinion, it is 
 necessary to provide for the confirmation and continuance, for 
 a time to be limited, of the measures taken in pursuance of 
 the Order of Council on the 2Gth of February last ; submit- 
 ting to the wisdom of Parliament to determine for what li- 
 mited time it may be necessary that those measures should 
 be continued. 
 
196 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 from an increase of trade, and not from the excess 
 of paper, (Debate 9th March, 1797 ;) in vain did 
 Sir John Mitford, then Solicitor General (same De- 
 bate) say that no man, however rich, would be able 
 to stand a run ; that it was unfair to call the stop- 
 page a Bankruptcy ; that the Bank was solvent, al- 
 though at this time unable to pay in cash ; that the 
 refusal to pay in cash could not be called a fraud, 
 because the public knew that such an event might 
 happen ; that the stoppage at the Bank was like 
 that which might be enforced by the door keepers of 
 a theatre, upon a false alarm of fire, in order to pre- 
 vent the people from rushing out all at once, to their 
 destruction or injury ; that if nothing had been done 
 to put a stop to the run upon the Bank, the Bank 
 must have been totally ruined ; that there were other 
 public creditors besides the Stock-holders, the army 
 and the navy ; that they were as much public cre- 
 ditors as the holders of bank notes could be, and 
 that they required payment in cash more so than any 
 other description of men in this country. 
 
 In vain was all this said. Mr. GREY, (now Earl 
 Grey,) said that the evidence brought before the 
 Committee had not satisfied him ; and the satisfac- 
 tion to the public was evidently not greater ; for, if 
 it had been satisfactory, or if the report of the Secret 
 Committee had been satisfactory, there could have 
 been no occasion whatever for continuing the power 
 of the Bank to refuse payment in specie. This was 
 told them by Mr. Fox and Mr. SHERIDAN, who asked : 
 if the Bank be in so prosperous a situation as you say 
 it is, why do you wish to pass a law to protect them 
 against the demands of the holders of their notes ? 
 If the Bank be so rich as you say it is, what 
 need has it of your assistance ? You tell us, said 
 Mr. SHERIDAN (alluding to the speech of Lord 
 Hawkesbury) that paper " is not only a cleaner, 
 neater, and more portable medium to represent pro- 
 perty ; but that it is the very essen-ce of wealth it- 
 self, and that the flourishing state of our commerce 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 197 
 
 is the cause of this inability to produce specie to 
 answer demands upon the Bank of England. 1 ' See 
 Debate of 9th March, where these observations are fol- 
 lowed up by an inimitable instance of what is called 
 by logicians the reductio ad absurdum. You tell 
 us, said he, that the public are of your opinion, and 
 that they reject our opinion; you tell us that the 
 public are satisfied with the report of the Committee ; 
 you tell us that the public like bank notes as well as 
 guineas. But, with these assertions upon your lips, 
 you pass a law to protect the Bank against the de- 
 mands of that public ; you pass a law to compel 
 that public to receive paper at the Bank, instead of 
 that gold, which you say they like no better than that 
 paper. 
 
 The truth is, Gentlemen, the public, generally 
 speaking, knew nothing at all about the transactions 
 between the Government and the Bank; they knew 
 nothing at all about the trade or the property of the 
 Bank ; they knew that they held promissory notes 
 issued by the Bank, payable to the bearer on demand, 
 and they looked upon these notes as being equally 
 valuable with gold, because, until now, they could, 
 at any time, carry them to the Bank, and receive 
 gold in exchange for them. Nothing, therefore, could 
 have the smallest tendency to convince them of the 
 solidity of the Bank, unless it, at the same time, 
 tended to convince them, that there was gold in the 
 Bank, sufficient to answer the demands of those who 
 presented notes for payment, or who chose to de- 
 mand gold in payment of their dividends, or interest 
 upon their Stock. And not a particle of conviction, 
 in this way, were the reports of the Secret Com- 
 mittee calculated to produce. 
 
 Mr. SHERIDAN (see Debate 28th February, 1797) 
 said that he was " convinced that if the Bank was 
 not able to resume its payments immediately, he 
 foresaw it never would be able afterwards to de- 
 fray its out-standing engagements in cash." And the 
 reason he gave was that the suspension of cash pay- 
 17* 
 
198 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 merits would produce the issue of a greater quantity 
 of paper. This reason was so manifest, that it was 
 impossible that the truth of it should not be felt, 
 though owing to the prejudices of the times, there 
 were few persons amongst the Merchants and Bank- 
 ers, by whom it would be acknowledged. The same 
 Was said by Mr. NICHOLLS and Mr. HOBHOUSE, in 
 whose speeches, together with those of Mr. Fox and 
 Mr. SHERIDAN, will be found predictions of all the 
 consequences which have already flowed, and which 
 are likely to flow, from the stoppage of gold and sil- 
 ver payments at the Bank. 
 
 We have now seen enough of the measures which 
 were, adopted as forerunners of the Acts of Parlia- 
 ment relating to the Bank Stoppage ; and, in my next 
 Letter, I shall, I flatter myself, be able to present 
 you with a complete, though a very concise, view of 
 those Acts, with which every man in this country 
 ought to be thoroughly acquainted. In the mean 
 while, I remain, 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday ', November 1st, 181CL 
 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 41 When the situation of the Bank of England was under the consideration of 
 the two Houses of Parliament, in the year 1797. it was my opinion, and 
 that of many others, that the extent to lohich Paper currency had been 
 carried, was the first and principal, though not the sole cause of the many 
 difficulties, to which that corporate body was then, and had of late years, 
 from time to lime been exposed, in supplying the Cash occasionally neces- 
 sary for the commerce of the Kingdom ; for the Bank of England being at 
 the head of all circulation, and the great repository of unemployed cash, 
 it necessarily happens, that whenever a sudden increased supply of Coin 
 becomes indispensable, in consequence of private failures or general dis- 
 credit, by which Notes of the before-mentioned description are driven out 
 of circulation, the Bank of England can alone furnish the coins which 
 are required to -make up this deficiency, and this corporate body is there- 
 by rendered responsible, not only for the value of its own noAvwhieh it 
 may have issued, but, in a certain decree, for such HS may be issued by 
 every private Banker in the Kingdom, Jet the substance, credit, or dis- 
 cretion of such a Banker be what it may." Late Earl of Liverpool. 
 Letter to the King. Published in 1805. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 199 
 
 " The quantity of Cash in the Bank can never, on the evidence of these cir- 
 cumstances, be so much as two millions ; most probably not more than 
 one million ; and on this slender twig hangs the whole funding system of 
 four hundred millions, besides many millions of bank notes. The sum in 
 the Bank, if Mr. Chalmers be correct, is nut sufficient to pay one fourth 
 of only one year's interest of the national debt, were the creditors to de- 
 mand payment in Cash, or to demand Cash for the Bank Notes in which 
 the interest is paid. A circumstance always liable to happen." Pain*. 
 Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance. Published in 1795. 
 
 A more minute View of the Affairs of the Bank necessary 
 State of the Case between the Bank and the People The 
 Property of the Bank The Statement of Debts and Cre- 
 dits in the Report of the Secret Committee The Bank ren- 
 ders its own Account The more detailed Statement pub- 
 lished by Mr. Allerdyce The Property of the Bank is in 
 Paper and not in Specie Amount of the Bank notes com- 
 pared with the Cash The great Question was, what Cash 
 and Bullion there was in the Bank Mr. Paine's Opinion 
 founded upon the Estimate of Mr. Eden and Mr. Chalmers 
 Error in supposing that the Minister took Specie out of 
 the Bank to send it abroad Mr. Pitt's answer to Mr. Hob- 
 house and Mr. Hussey Mr*. Pitt's Argument verifying the 
 Opinion of Mr. Paine The whole become a System of 
 Paper. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN the foregoing Letter, (at pages 194 and 195,) 
 we have seen the Reports of the Secret Committee 
 of the House of Commons, relative, FIRST, to the 
 state of the Bank's Affairs ; and, SECOND, relative to 
 the continuance of refusal of Cash payments at the 
 Bank. We shall next take a view of the ACTS, 
 passed by the Parliament, upon this memorable oc- 
 casion ; not, however, till we have looked a little 
 more minutely into the state of the Bank's Affairs. 
 
 It was before observed, that the Committee, that 
 even a Secret Committee, and that Committee, ap- 
 pointed, too, in the manner that we have seen (at 
 page 192 ;) that even a Committee like this were not 
 permitted (to use the phrase of Pitt) to " push their 
 inquiries into circumstances, the disclosure of which 
 would he attended with injury to public credit." 
 Accordingly, not a word do this Committee say about 
 the quantity of Gold and Silver in theBank, though 
 the great, and, indeed, the only cause of the Stop- 
 page, and of the whole of these proceedings, was, 
 
200 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the alarm felt by the Directors at the daily decrease 
 in their Gold and Silver. The question, and the 
 only question of any importance to the people, that 
 is to say, to the holders of the bank notes, was : " Is 
 there a quantity of real money in the Bank sufficient 
 to pay us the amount of our notes, when we may 
 choose to present them for payment ?" This was 
 the question, to which the people wanted an answer; 
 but with nothing relating to this question, were the 
 Committee to meddle. This question was, with as- 
 surance unparalleled, said to belong wholly to the 
 "private economy of the Bank, with which the pub- 
 lie had nothing at all to do." 
 
 Surely nothing ever was heard so impudent as 
 this. The holders of the bank notes, the creditors 
 of the Bank Company, the creditors of this company 
 of Merchants, carry their notes and demand payment; 
 the Company of Merchants apply to the Minister, 
 and he obtains from the Privy Council an Order to 
 authorise the Company to refuse to pay the just and 
 lawful demands of their creditors, and then the 
 Minister, when he comes to the Parliament for an 
 Act to sanction and to continue this refusal, tells the 
 House of Commons, that even a Secret Committee 
 of them, though chosen as we have seen, are not to 
 push their inquiries into circumstances, the dis- 
 closure of which might injure the credit of the Bank; 
 and yet he has the face to say, at the same time, that 
 the report of this Committee cannot fail to satisfy 
 the country of the ability of the Bank to pay all its 
 out standing demands. 
 
 Gentlemen, we will now look a little more minutely 
 into that report. It states, that the Government 
 owes the Bank Company 11,686,800, which bears 
 an interest of three per cent ; that is to say, that 
 the Bank Company, like our neighbour GRIZZLE 
 GREENHORN, is a Stock-holder and has its name writ- 
 ten in the GREAT BOOK ; which Great Book, you 
 will bear in mind, is kept at the Bank itself, and the 
 interest upon the said stock is paid by the Bank Com- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 201 
 
 pany to the Bank Company, and in bank notes made 
 at the order of the Bank Company ! This was all 
 very fine, to be sure ; but, it certainly did not go one 
 inch towards convincing the holder of a bank note, 
 that the Bank was able to pay him in Gold or 
 Silver. The Committee next state the means and 
 the Debts of the Bank, as follows : 
 Total amount of the Funds of the Bank 
 (exclusive of debt due to it from 
 the Government of 11,686,800) on 
 
 the 25th of Feb., 1797 17,597,280 
 
 Total amount of outstanding demands 
 upon the Bank on the 25th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1797 13.770,390 
 
 Surplus in favour of the Bank . . . 3,826,890 
 
 This was all very fine again ; but what was it to 
 the public ? What was it to the holders of the bank 
 notes, who wanted Gold for them ? Besides, whence 
 came the evidence of the truth of this ? The proofs 
 of a trader's solvency are not, I believe, generally 
 left to himself. The Bank Company had stopped 
 payment, and, when an inquiry was taking place into 
 the state of its affairs and especially with regard to its 
 ability to pay, how comes it that the inquirers were 
 content with its own statement and its own story ? 
 This is not the way that inquiries are made into 
 the affairs of other traders, when they stop payment. 
 Mr. GREY, as we have seen before, (See Debate of 
 9th of March, 1797,) said that, though one of the 
 Secret Committee, the evidence had not satisfied 
 him ; and, indeed, what was this report more or less 
 than the Bank's presentation of the state of its own 
 affairs-. 
 
 But supposing the statement to be correct, still 
 what was there to satisfy the people of the country ; 
 what to satisfy the holders of the notes, that the 
 Bank was able to pay those notes, that is to say, to 
 give gold and silver for them. For as to payment 
 
202 
 
 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 in any other way, it is nonsense to talk of it. What 
 was there, in this Report, then, to cause it to be be- 
 lieved, that the Bank was able to pay its notes ? 
 Here is very big talk ; high-sounding words, and 
 more high-sounding figures ; but if we put them to 
 the scrutiny, we find nothing at all in them : we 
 find not the smallest circumstance to induce any 
 holder of a bank note to suppose, that the Bank is, or 
 ever will be, able to pay that note off, agreeably to 
 the promise, expressed upon the face of it. 
 
 The statement, however, from which, it appears, 
 the Secret Committee made up their Report, was 
 more in detail. This statement was afterwards 
 given to the public by Mr. ALLERDYCE, a member of 
 the then Parliament, and a person who constantly 
 voted with the Minister. The statement thus given 
 was as follows : 
 
 STATE OF THE FINANCES OF THE BANK OP 
 ENGLAND, FEB. 25, 1797. 
 
 
 Particulars of Debt A 
 Drawing Account . 
 Exchequer Bills . . 
 Unpn id Dividends . . 
 Unpaid dividends, i 
 Bank Stock . . . 
 Do. in India annuities 
 Sundries unclaimed 
 Due from Cash on th 
 loan of 1797 . . 
 Unpaid Irish Dividend 
 Do. on Imperial Loan 
 
 Bank notes in circulation 
 
 ccount. 
 /.2,3S9,600 
 1,676,000 
 983,730 
 
 45,150 
 10,210 
 1,330 
 
 17,060 
 1,460 
 5,600 
 
 5,130,140 
 8,640,250 
 
 13,770,390 
 3,825,830 
 
 17,597,280 
 
 Particulars of Credit 
 Bills and Notes dis- 
 counted. Cash and 
 Bullion 
 Exchequer Bills . . . 
 Lands and Tenements . 
 Money lent to India Com- 
 pany ..... 
 Stamps 
 Navy and Victualling 
 Bills 
 
 Account. 
 
 4,176,080 
 
 8,228,000 
 65,000 
 
 700,000 
 1,510 
 
 15,890 
 54,150 
 5,320 
 24,150 
 795,800 
 1,000,000 
 
 1,512,270 
 376,000 
 88,120 
 
 740 
 
 554,250 
 17,597,230 
 
 American Debentures . 
 Petty Cash in House . 
 Sundry articles . . . 
 5 per Cent annuities 
 5 per Cents 1797 . . . 
 Treasury bills paid for 
 the Government . . 
 Loan to Government . 
 Bills discounted unpaid 
 Treasury and Exchequer 
 fees 
 Interest due on different 
 Loans advanced to 
 Government .... 
 
 
 * To convert these sums into United States Money, see 
 page 44. 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 03 
 
 Now what is all this ? Why, it is, with the ex- 
 ception of three of the items, a mere account of 
 paper between the Government and the Bank, and 
 in which the people, who held the bank notes, could 
 have no interest whatever. The Bank held Ex- 
 chequer Bills, and Navy and Victualling Bills, and 
 had lent money (that is to say bank notes) to the 
 East India Company, and had five per cent, stock, 
 and Treasury Bills, and had interest due upon loans; 
 all which might be very well for the Bank, but what 
 was it to a man, who held a bank note and who could 
 not get payment for it when he presented it to the 
 Bank? These fine articles of credit were very good 
 for the Bank Company ; but what good were they 
 to 'SQUIRE GULL, who, being alarmed at the pros- 
 pect of a Jacobin invasion, wished, in spite of his 
 loyalty, to turn his bank notes into guineas ? What 
 use were they to our neighbour GRIZZLE GREENHORN, 
 who now wished, of course, to put by a few guineas, 
 and who, of course, wished to receive her dividends 
 in gold, to prevent her from doing which by law, 
 this very report was a preliminary step? What 
 consolation was Grizzle to draw from this account 
 of debts due from the Government to the Bank, es- 
 pecially when it was clear, that, if the Government 
 ever paid the Bank, it must pay it in bank notes, 
 seeing that in bank notes the taxes were now paid ? 
 
 The three items to which the people would look, 
 were those expressing, on one side, the amount of 
 the bank notes in circulation ; and, on the other, the 
 amount of the cash, or coin and bullion in the Bank 
 Compamfs House, commonly called the Bank. Ac- 
 cordingly to the above statement these were on the 
 25th of February, 1797, as follow*; : 
 Amount of Bank Notes in circulation .... 8,640,250 
 
 Bills and Notes discounted, Cash and Bullion . 4,176 080 
 Petty Cash in the House 5,3-20 
 
 4,181,400 
 
 Difference 4,453,850 
 

 204 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 But, who is to say how much the Bills and Notes 
 discounted amounted to? Who is to answer, that 
 they did not make one half; who is to say, that they 
 did not make nine tenths of the sum of 4,176,080 ? 
 Why was the amount of the cash and bullion hud- 
 dled up in one sum along with the amount of Bills 
 and Notes discounted ! Why were things so differ- 
 ent in their nature confounded together ? If GRIZ- 
 ZLE GREENHORN wanted her bank notes paid at the 
 Bank, she would not take discounted bills in pay- 
 ment. What the nation wanted to see, was, how 
 much the Bank had of that sort of thing^ in which 
 bank notes could be paid ; how much it had of that 
 sort of thing, the value of which no invasion or re- 
 volution would destroy : how much it had of that 
 sort of thing, in which it had promised to pay upon 
 demand the bearers of its notes ; how much, in 
 short, it had of MONEY, and not of bills and notes 
 discounted, with which the people had nothing at 
 all to do, there being no man of common sense, who 
 could care a straw about how much of its paper the 
 Bank gave to others for their paper, so that he got 
 guineas for his bank notes ; and, if he could not get 
 this, what consolation was it to him to know, that 
 the Bank had lent but little of its paper to the mer- 
 chants ? 
 
 As to the exact quantity of cash and bullion in 
 the Bank, when the stoppage took place, Mr. ALLER- 
 DYCE gives a table, showing the amount at stated pe- 
 riods, for several years, according to which Table, 
 the total amount of the cash and bullion in the Bank, 
 at the time of the Stoppage, was 1,272,000/. Aye, 
 ONE MILLION, TWO HUNDRED AND SE- 
 VENTY-TWO THOUSAND POUNDS. He 
 comes at this sum thus. The Bank of England have 
 Numbers^ to denote their quantity of cash and bul- 
 lion. When they submitted their accounts to Par- 
 liament, in 1797, it was thought necessary to keep the 
 amount of the cash and bullion a secret from Par- 
 liament and the public. They, therefore, only gave 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 205 
 
 the Numbers for distinct periods in several years, 
 in order to show the proportionate increase or dimi- 
 nution of the cash and bullion. From these Num- 
 bers, however, a discovery was, it is said, made, and 
 the sum above-named, ascertained to be the amount 
 of the cash and bullion in the Bank at the time of 
 the Stoppage. But upon this, I wish to place no re- 
 liance ; nor do I care, whether the statement above 
 given, of cash and bullion, and discounted bills be 
 correct, or not. These are things of inferior conse- 
 quence compared with the great and well-known 
 facts ; namely, that no proof was produced, or at- 
 tempted to be produced, that ihe Bank Company had 
 gold or silver, or both together, sufficient to pay its 
 promissory notes ; and that no account was rendered 
 to the Parliament of the amount of the cash and bul- 
 lion in the Bank. 
 
 Mr. PAINE had, only the year before, said, in the 
 words of my motto, that the quantity of cash in the 
 Bank could never, on the evidence of circumstances, 
 be so much as two millions, and most probably, not 
 more than one million ; that, on this slender twig, al- 
 ways liable to be broken, hung the whole funding sys- 
 tem of four hundred millions, besides many millions in 
 bank notes ; that the sum in the Bank was not sufficient 
 to pay one fourth of only one year's interest of the Na- 
 tional Debt, were the creditors to demand payment in 
 cash, or to demand cash for the bank notes in which the 
 interest is paid: a circumstance always liable to hap- 
 pen. Mr. PAINE founded this opinion upon a state- 
 ment of Mr. EDEN (now Lord AUCKLAND) and Mr. 
 CHALMERS, Clerk to the Board of Trade, who had 
 given an account, or rather, an estimate, of the gold 
 coin circulating in the kingdom ; and, it is truly sur- 
 prising to observe how near Mr. PAINE was to the 
 exact truth as to this point, though at the time when 
 his pamphlet was published, its calculations and pre- 
 dictions were treated with scorn, and the work itself 
 was ascribed to a malicious desire to cause the ruin 
 of England ; just as if it were in the power of PAINE, 
 18 
 
206 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 or of any one else, to injure the credit of a nation; 
 or, as if any thing but the want, the real want of the 
 gold and bullion could shake the faith of the public 
 in such an establishment as that o'f the Bank. PAINE 
 might have written 'till this time without persuading 
 any one that a guinea was a thing not to be relied 
 upon. He never would haye written people out ol 
 their belief in the goodness of guineas. And, it 
 the Bank had stood a run for only one week, he 
 might have written his pen to the stump, but would 
 not have shaken the people's confidence. Credit 
 that has a solid foundation need fear no assaults. 
 
 At the time when this subject was under discus- 
 sion in the House of Commons, the Minister was 
 charged, by the Opposition, with having taken the 
 money from the Bank and sent it abroad in sub- 
 sidies. This was certainly a very great error, or, 
 it was made use of for the purpose of annoying the 
 Minister at the expense of truth. I am, however, 
 disposed to attribute it to error ; for, it was urged in 
 such a manner, and by such persons, as to obviate 
 all suspicion of its being a mere party weapon. Mr. 
 HOBHOUSE (Debate 2Sth February, 1797,) said, that 
 he suspected that the money had been buried in 
 Germany, and not by the people of England, in 
 dread of invasion. And Mr. HUSSEY, said, that the 
 Minister " had laid his rapacious hands upon the 
 su.ns destined for the payment of the public cre- 
 ditor. He knew that the public creditors had been 
 refused their just demands. He had witnessed the 
 truth of this woeful circumstance himself. He had 
 been told by a person who had applied for payment, 
 that, in payment of a sum of twenty- three pounds, 
 three pounds in cash had been offered, and the rest 
 only in notes. Such a melancholy day as this for 
 England he had hoped never to live to see. Let the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer pay the ten millions 
 Government owed the Bank, and then it would be 
 able to fulfil all its engagements. It was not that 
 the Bank was unable to satisfy its creditors, but it 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 207 
 
 was the continued demand of money to feed the ex- 
 penses of this ruinous and disastrous war, which 
 rendered it unjust to those who depended upon its 
 credit." 
 
 Mr. PITT, who seemed to have avoided this point 
 with all his care, and who, as I once heard Mr. 
 WINDHAM describe him, was so dexterous in the se- 
 lection and use of words, as to be able " to speak a 
 King's speech off-hand," could not remain longer si- 
 lent under this attack. He had been told nearly the 
 same by Mr. SHERIDAN ; but he seemed to be willing 
 to take the chance of that being ascribed to party 
 motives. When, however, he heard the same se- 
 riously urged by Mr. HUSSEY, and saw that the no- 
 tion was making its way amongst the public, and, of 
 course, that the whole of the calamity would be as- 
 scribed to him and his Anti-Jacobin war, he could 
 no longer refrain from declaring what was the na- 
 ture of the property of the Bank, and to avow, that 
 the whole of its transactions with Government, or 
 nearly so, were transactions of paper -, a fact of which 
 the country had, till that moment, been in complete 
 ignorance. 
 
 He said that Mr. HUSSEY was wholly in error, to 
 suppose that the Bank made advances to the Govern- 
 ment in specie ; he said, that the advances were 
 made in notes^ and paid in the same manner ; that, 
 if the Government were to raise money and pay the 
 Bank, the Bank would not thereby be supplied with 
 an additional guinea in cash ; that the taxes were 
 not paid in specie ; that loans were advanced with- 
 out any expectation of re-payment in specie ; that 
 the Bank never had it in contemplation, that every 
 quarterly dividend was to be paid in cash; that the 
 receipt of the revenue was in paper, and that the 
 whole "of Mr. HUSSEY'S observations were entirely 
 founded in mistake. 
 
 Mr. SHERIDAN, in answer to this, said, that the 
 deficiency, or inability, at the Bank arose, not merely 
 from the positive want of cash, but from the dispro- 
 
208 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 portion between the quantity of cash, and the quan- 
 tity of paper; and, of course, that if their lent paper 
 was returned to them, they would find themselves 
 at liberty to issue more of their specie. This would 
 have been true in a state of things where the differ- 
 ence between the quantity of specie and the quan- 
 tity of paper was less ; but in the present case, it 
 was too great for confidence to be restored, and, of 
 course, for the Ba^ik to return to its payments in cash. 
 Mr. PITT'S aimver was complete. It was the plain 
 truth, which he wcs obliged to bring out, in order to 
 divide the blame with the Bank. He was told to 
 borrow and to pay the Bank what he owed them. 
 What good will that do, said he, when my loan will 
 consist of bank notes, and I must pay the Bank in 
 those notes ? He was told to raise the sum in taxes, 
 and so pay the Bank. What good will that do, said 
 he, when my taxes ^Ul consist of bank notes, and 
 I must pay the Bank in those notes ? The answer 
 was complete towards h\r- adversaries in debate, and 
 not less complete as a drrno.lisher of his own repu- 
 tation as a Minister of finance. He now said pre- 
 cisely what Mr. PAINE had said the year before ; he 
 now confirmed with his ovn lips, what PAINE had 
 been so abused for saying.* He appears clearly to 
 
 * I speak here of those writings merely of Mr. PAINE, 
 which relate to Finance, withoit wishing to convey any 
 commendation of some of his oth^r w -kings, the subjects of 
 which, are in no-wise connected Witb ihis subject. In the 
 principles of finance he was deeply ski*L>a; ana, to his very 
 great and rare talents as a writer, he added on uncommon 
 degree of experience in the concerns of papsr-money, the rise 
 and fall of which he had witnessed in tho American states, 
 and in Fiance. Truth is truth, come fro.xi whom it may; 
 and there is no greater folly than that of renting it, that of 
 shutting one's eyes and ears against it, men. I/ because it pro- 
 ceeds from persons, of whose conduct, in oti.u.1 respects, one 
 may disapprove. The writings of LORD BACI^ are held, and 
 justly held, in great estimation ; though he wia, cs our ele- 
 gant and virtuous poet describes him, the metres*, of man- 
 kind." The iate Lord Liverpool, Mr. Pitt, Mi. fox, Mi 
 Sheridan, Mr. Nicholls, Mr. Hobhouse and otrui\ :MM\ .*< 
 we shall see by-and-by, a Committee of the House cf Ccc* 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 209 
 
 have perceived his dilemma ; hut to extricate him 
 from it was beyond the power even of his dexterity. 
 He was obliged to acknowledge, that the whole was 
 become a system of paper, or that he had taken the 
 gold from the Bank ; and, of the two evils, he chose 
 that, which would expose him to the least share of 
 public odium. 
 
 This view of the Bank's Affairs has led me fur- 
 ther than I expected, but it was quite necessary as 
 an introduction to that of the Acts of Parliament, 
 which will be the subject of my next. 
 
 I am, in the meanwhile, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Friend. 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 Monday, November 5lh, 1810. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 metals." Sylvius, on the American paper- money, 1787, 
 
 Introduction of the Bank Restriction Act into the House of 
 Commons -The Origin of this Measure The Bill moved 
 for by Mr. Pitt Suspension of the Two Acts Prohibiting 
 Small Promissory Notes The Title and Preambles of 
 those Acts The Principles of those Acts Title and Pream- 
 ble of the Bank Restriction Act View of the Provisions of 
 that Act The Legal Tender The Meaning and Applica- 
 tion of the Word Restriction. 
 
 mons, have since acknowledged the truth of the principles of 
 Mr. Paine' s work. Events have proved the truth of them, 
 and to point out the fact, is no more than an act of justice 
 due to his talents, and an act the more particularly due at my 
 hands. I having been one of his most violent assailants. Any 
 man may fall into error, but a fool or a knave will seldom 
 acknowledge it 
 
 IS* 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 WE have now to take a view of the Acts of Par- 
 liament^ passed in consequence of the Stoppage ot 
 cash payments at the Bank of England ; then, to 
 see what was, at the passing of these Acts, said by 
 the advocates of them, respecting their duration ; 
 and this will enable us to form a pretty correct judg- 
 ment as to the statesman-like wisdom of those advo- 
 cates, and also as to the probability of the Acts ever 
 being hereafter removed, except by a total annihila- 
 tion of the paper-money. 
 
 Until the time at which the Bank Stoppage took 
 place; until the 26th day of February, 1797, the 
 notes of the Bank Company were considered as good 
 as real money; because, if the holder chose it, he 
 could, at any moment, demand and receive real 
 money in excnange for them. But when the Bank, 
 in the manner that we have seen, refused payment 
 upon demand, the nature of the notes was wholly 
 changed. They were no longer equal in value to 
 real money ; and nothing but a species of compul- 
 sion would, of course, induce the people to receive 
 them in payment of any debt theretofore contracted 
 
 Now then came the pinch. Now came forth the 
 fact, that it was beyond all the pOAvers of hypocrisy, 
 trick x and confusing verbosity, any longer to disguise; 
 forth came the fact, that bank notes were to be, in 
 reality, forced upon the people ; that the man, who 
 had a debt due to him, must take them in payment; 
 or if he refused them, be unable to arrest his debt- 
 or : forth came the fact, aye, forth it came, aftei 
 all the railing against French assignats; forth came 
 the fact, that no man who held a bank note ; that no 
 man who held a note of that company of Traders, 
 payable on demand, could compel them to pay him, 
 except in other such notes. Forth came this fact, 
 and yet those who had brought the finances of the 
 country into such a state, were still kept in power; 
 to their management were the nation's affairs still 
 left : to their promises did the credulous and affright- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 211 
 
 ed people still listen ; and of their measures has the 
 nation ever since been feeling, and will, it is to be 
 feared, long feel, the consequences. 
 
 The Order of the Privy Council (see it in Letter 
 XI, page 159) required the Bank Company to stop 
 paying their notes in money. The words are, " to 
 forbear issuing any cash in payment." I beseech 
 "you, Gentlemen, to consider well the nature of this 
 transaction. Look back at the origin of the Bank. 
 Consider it as it really was, a mere Company of 
 Traders. Then view the holders of the notes, who 
 were so many legal creditors, so many persons 
 having a just and legal claim to be paid upon de- 
 mand. See all these creditors at once deprived of 
 their legal rights of payment by an order of the 
 Privy Council, of which the Minister himself was 
 a member. See here a Company of Traders, having 
 promissory notes out to the amount of many millions, 
 required by the Privy Council 9 to forbear*' to pay 
 off the said notes ; and above all things, observe, and 
 NEVER FORGET, that this order, or request, 
 was made in consequence, as we have seen from the 
 official documents, of representations made by this 
 Cow-pant/ of Traders themselves, who, as is stated 
 in those documents (Letter XIII, page 181) made 
 such representations in consequence of the drain 
 upon their cash, and of the alarm they therefore felt 
 " >r the safety of their House. 
 This was a fine spectacle to behold : it was a fine 
 ing to be held forth to the world by a Minister, 
 whose boasting about his financial resources, and 
 about his support of public credit, had been inces- 
 sant from the day he first vaulted into the saddle of 
 power. If this could be done with regard to one 
 Company of Traders, why not with regard to any 
 other Company of Traders, or any other single Tra- 
 der in the kingdom? If the Privy Council, avow- 
 edly upon the representation of the Minister, were 
 to protect this Company of Traders, against the law- 
 ful demands of their creditors ; what reason was 
 
 p 
 
 :: 
 
212 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 there, that other Traders, that other Debtors, should 
 not be protected in the same way ; if they should 
 " feel alarm for the safety of their house ?" We 
 must never lose sight of this fact, that the Order in 
 Council arose from a representation of the Minister ; 
 that representation arose from one made to the Mi- 
 nister, by the Bank Company ; and this latter repre- 
 sentation arose (See Letter XIII, p. 181) from the 
 drain of cash at the Bank, and from the alarm which 
 the Bank Company felt for the safety of their house. 
 This should be constantly kept in view. We should 
 never, for one moment, lose sight of the fact, that the 
 whole of this measure of protection to the Bank, 
 had its origin in representations made by the Bank 
 Company itself. And if we keep this fact steadily 
 in view, we shall be in no danger as to coming* at a 
 proper conclusion. 
 
 Thus far, then, we have seen the transaction going 
 no further than the Privy Council. We have seen 
 it originate with the Bank Company, the demands 
 of whose lawful creditors had given them alarm. 
 We have seen the Bank Company calling upon the 
 Minister, to know when he would interfere. And, 
 we have seen the Minister, after saying on the 24th, 
 that he would prepare a resolution of Council, go 
 to the Council on the 26th, and obtain the resolution 
 and order that we have seen. Thus the Privy 
 Council became a party to the transaction ; and we 
 are now about to see how the Parliament put the 
 finishing stroke to it, by giving to the Order of Council 
 the sanction of law ; we are now about to take a 
 view of the Legislative Acts, by which, to use the 
 expression of the late Lord Liverpool, paper-credit 
 was exchanged for paper-currency, by which bank 
 notes were moulded into paper-money. 
 
 In Letter XII, page 171, we have seen how the 
 minister first introduced to the House of Commons 
 the project of passing a law to sanction the Order in 
 Council ; that is to say, to sanction the refusal of the 
 Bank Company to pay their promissory notes. We 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 213 
 
 have seen, that upon being asked by Mr. ALDERMAN 
 COMBE, whether he meant to make the bank notes 
 a legal tender, he knew not what to answer ; that 
 he twisted and writhed in great apparent embarrass- 
 ment of mind ; but, that he knew not what to answer. 
 We have also seen, that before the House met the 
 next day (28th of February, 1797) the meeting at the 
 Mansion House had taken place, having been, as we 
 have seen, previously contrived, in private, with the 
 Minister. We have seen an account of the other 
 meetings through the country ; and we have seen, 
 in Letter XIV., the manner of forming the SECRET 
 COMMITTEE, from whom came Reports (Letter 
 XIV., p. 194, 195,) declaring the affairs of the Bank 
 to be in a most flourishing way, and that the 
 Company were possessed of a great surplus of 
 means. 
 
 Thus prepared, and perceiving, by this time, that 
 his adherents were resolved to stand by him, (See 
 Letter XIV., p. 195,) the Minister, on the 9th of 
 March, 1797, moved for leave to " bring in a bill to 
 confirm and continue the Order in Council of the 
 26th of February, for a time to be limited." This 
 was the first motion towards making of the law for 
 authorizing the Bank to refuse to pay its creditors 
 their just demands ; that law, which has filled the 
 kingdom with banks and with paper-money, and 
 which, as we shall by-and-by see, has produced no 
 small share of our present dangers and distress. 
 But, before we proceed any further in the history 
 of this ACT, which, you will bear in mind, is the 
 ACT, which the Bullion Committee have proposed 
 to repeal in J:\vo years from this time ; before we 
 proceed any 'further in the history of this Act, we 
 must shortly notice two other Acts, which were 
 passed before it, and which, though of inferior im- 
 portance, were the first-born of the Bank Stoppage. 
 
 The refusal of the Bank Company to pay their 
 notes was, as every one must naturally suppose, pro- 
 ductive of the consequence of driving all the gold 
 
214 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 coin out of circulation ; for, under such circumstan- 
 ces, the moment a guinea, or a half guinea got into 
 the hands of a person able to keep it, and not an 
 ideot, it would remain very quiet in the chest of that 
 person ; and, as the smallest notes then in circula- 
 tion were notes foi five pounds, the difficulty in ma- 
 king payments would necessarily be very great. 
 The distress arising from this cause, was so great, 
 that on the 1st of March, it was resolved by the 
 House of Commons, to bring in a bill to legalise the 
 issuing of small notes by private persons; and, on 
 the same day, a bill was read a second time, for en- 
 abling the Bank of England to issue notes under 
 jive pounds. 
 
 The reason for passing these Acts was this ; there 
 were in existence two Acts of Parliament, which 
 prohibited the negotiating of promissory notes and 
 other paper of an amount under Jive pounds. These 
 Acts are, upon this occasion, worthy of our particu- 
 lar attention ; because they were passed upon the 
 principle, that small paper promises were injurious 
 to the community. The first of these Acts was 
 passed in the year 1775, and, as will be seen from the 
 Title and Preamble, which I beg of you to read,* 
 
 * FIFTEENTH GEO. III. Chap. LI. An Act to restrain the 
 negotiation of promissory notes and inland bills of exchange 
 under a limited sum, witnin that part of Great Britain called 
 England. Whereas various notes, bills of exchange, and 
 draughts for money, for very small sums, have, for some time 
 past, been circulated or negotiated in lieu of cas/i, within 
 that part of Great Britain called England ; to the great preju- 
 dice of trade arid public credit; fyc. <fc. Be it, therefore, en- 
 acted by the King's most excellent majesty, by, and with the 
 advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and 
 Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the 
 authority of the same. That all promissory or other notes, 
 bills of exchange, or drafts, or undertakings in writing, being 
 
 negotiable or transferable for the payment of any sum or sums 
 of money, less than the sum of twenty shillings in the whole, 
 which snail be made or issued at any time from and after 
 the twenty-fourth day of June, one thousand seven hundred 
 and seventy-five, shall be, and the same are hereby declared 
 to be, absolutely void, and of no effect, any law, statute, usage, 
 or custom, to me contrary thereof, in anywise notwithstand- 
 
 ing. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 215 
 
 smalt paper currency was, at that time, declared by 
 law to be of " great prejudice to trade and public 
 credit." , There were in 1775, as we have already 
 seen, no bank notes for sums less than TEN POUNDS, 
 and, it was then supposed, that smaller notes would 
 be an injury. In two years after the above Act was 
 passed, the effect of it having been found good, ano- 
 ther Act was passed, carrying the prohibition to any 
 sum under Jive pounds. And, Gentlemen. I beg you 
 to pay particular attention to the language of these 
 Acts. The first says, that the circulation of notes 
 for very small sums, in lieu of cash, is to the great 
 prejudice of trade and public credit ; and, after the 
 Parliament have had two years experience of the 
 effects of this Act, they pass another, in which, after 
 declaring that the effects of the former Act have been 
 " very salutary" they extend the provisions of it 
 from the sum of twcMy shillings to the sum of 
 Jive pounds* Thus, then, small paper currency 
 was proved to have been an evil ; it was proved, by 
 experience, to have been injurious to trade and to 
 public credit ; and, therefore, while there were no 
 bank notes for sums less than ten pounds, the law 
 forbade that there should be any other circulating 
 or negotiable notes, under five pounds. 
 
 Thus, as to paper-currency, stood the law in 1797, 
 
 * SEVENTEENTH GEO. III. Cap. XXX. An Act for fur- 
 ther restraining the negotiation of promissory notes, and in 
 land bills of exchange, under a limited sum, within that part 
 of Great Britain called England. Whereas by a certain Act 
 of Parliament passed in the fifteenth year of the reign of his 
 present Majesty, (intituled an Act to restrain the negotiation 
 of promissory notes and inland bills of exchange under a 
 limited sum, within that part of Great Britain called Eng- 
 land,) all negotiable promissory or other notes, bills of ex- 
 change, or draughts, or undertakings in writing, f6r any sum 
 of moneyless than the sum of twenty shillings in the whole, 
 &c. &c. ; and whereas, the said Act hath been attended with 
 very salutary effects, and in case the provisions therein con- 
 tained were extended to a further sum t the good purpose of 
 the said Act would be further advanced. Be it, therefore, en- 
 acted, &c. And the Act extends the prohibition to any sura 
 under Jive pounds. 
 
216 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 when the Bank Stoppage took place ; and, as we have 
 already seen in the former part of this Letter, the 
 country was, in consequence of the Stoppage, thrown 
 into the greatest distress for the want of something 
 to represent small sums. The manufacturers, and, 
 indeed, all the journeymen and labourers through- 
 out the kingdom, could not be paid in the usual 
 manner. The coin had disappeared, as it natu- 
 rally would the moment a bank note would not fetch 
 its amount in guineas at the Bank ; and, the guineas 
 and half guineas having gone out of sight, which they 
 did instantly, there were no means of paying small 
 sums. Therefore, the very first thing to be done, 
 was to provide something to supply the place of the 
 guineas and half-guineas, and, indeed, the whole of 
 the coin, except the hammered-out shillings and six- 
 pences, such as we now see current. 
 
 For this purpose, it was necessary to pass an Act 
 to repeal, or, at least, to suspend, the two Acts, of 
 which we have just taken a view, and accordingly 
 a suspension Act was passed on the 10th of Maich, 
 1797, the title and preamble of which Act are here 
 inserted as worthy of attention, and as matter for 
 future remark.* This Act, by which the suspension 
 
 1 * THIRTY- SEVENTH GEO. III. Chap. XXXIL An Act to 
 suspend, for a limited time, the operation of two Acts o the 
 fifteenth and seventeenth years of the reign of his present 
 Majesty, for restraining the negotiation of promissory notes, 
 and inland bills of exchange, under a limited sum, within that 
 part of Great Britain called England. Whereas an Act of 
 Parliament was passed in the fifteenth year of the reign of 
 his present Majesty, intituled an Act to restrain the negotia- 
 tion of promissory notes and inland bills of exchange, under 
 a limited sum, within that part of Great Britain called Eng- 
 land ; And whereas another Act was passed in the seven- 
 teenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, intituled, an , 
 Act for further restraining the negotiation of promissory 
 notes and inland bills of exchange under a limited sum, with- 
 in that part of Great Britain called England; and whereas 
 IT IS EXPEDIENT that the said Acts^should be suspended 
 for a certain time, so far as the same may relate to any notes, 
 draughts, or undertakings made payable on demand : &c. 
 &c. &c. The Act then suspends those laws until the first 
 day of May t 1797. 
 
was to b< 
 
 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 217 
 
 5 to be continued only till the first day of the then 
 ensuing month of May ; that is to say, for forty days 
 only, was, as we shall by-and-by see, afterwards ex- 
 tended in its duration, and has continued in force 
 till this day. 
 
 But, this was nothing without giving a power of 
 making small notes to the Bank of England. The 
 Bank had dividends to pay ; and, of course, all the 
 sums, or parts of sums, under five pounds, (there 
 being, as yet, no notes under that sum,) they were 
 still compelled to pay in cash, which was what they 
 did not like, and, in fact, what they were not, per- 
 haps, able to do. It was, therefore, necessary, 
 above all things, to give them a power of making 
 small notes. There was a doubt whether the two 
 Acts of the 15th and 17th of George the Third, 
 above-mentioned, applied to bank notes ; and, it was 
 thought by some persons, that they did not so apply 5 
 but, an Act of Parliament, the great cure for all 
 doubts and difficulties, was passed to remove this 
 doubt ; and such was the haste in doing this, that 
 the Act was passed on the 3rd of March, though 
 the Bill was brought in only on the 28th of Feb- 
 ruary. This Act authorized the Bank to issue notes 
 for sums under five pounds ; and, accordingly, two 
 and one pound-notes were immediately issued.* 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, I beg you to stop here for a 
 moment, and take another look at the language of 
 these Acts of Parliament, these solemn declarations 
 of the Legislature. In the year 1775, they say, that 
 the circulation of small notes, in lieu of cash, is of 
 " great prejudice to trade and public credit" In 
 1777, they declare, upon the evidence of two years of 
 
 * THIRTY-SEVENTH GEO. III. Chap. XXVIII.-An Act to 
 remove doubts respecting Promissory Notes of the Governor 
 and Company of the Bank of England, for payment of sums 
 
 of money under five pounds. Whereas it is expedient for 
 
 the public service and for the convenience of commercial cir- 
 culation, that the Governor and Company of the. Bank of 
 England should issue Promissory Notes, payable to bearer, 
 for sums of money under five pounds ; &c. &c. 
 19 
 
818 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 experience, that their having lessened the quantity 
 of small notes had produced " very salutary effects." 
 And in 1797, under the ministry of PITT, whose debts 
 the public have paid, and for whom they are to pay 
 for a monument ; aye, under the ministry of this 
 man, the Parliament were brought to declare, that to 
 make small notes, that to do just the contrary of 
 what the above two Acts were intended to effect, 
 was u expedient for the public service, and for the 
 convenience of commerce." In 1775, and 1777, it 
 was enacted, that small promissory notes, in lieu of 
 cash, were " a great prejudice to trade and public 
 CREDIT." In 1797 it was enacted, that small promis- 
 sory notes, in lieu of cash, were " expedient for the 
 public service, and for the convenience of com- 
 merce" Gentlemen, when you have paid due at- 
 tention to this, you will hardly want any thing more 
 to enable you to answer those, who have yet the 
 folly or the impudence to attempt a defence of the 
 ministry of PITT, who, as it has been well observed, 
 in reply to one of his eulogists, found the country 
 gold and left it paper. 
 
 But, the grand measure was yet to come. There 
 was, as yet, no law to sanction the deed of refusing 
 to pay the bearers of the Bank's promissory notes. 
 This was a thing that the people had yet to receive 
 at the hands of those, who had plunged them into 
 the Anti-Jacobin war, and who had fed them with 
 the hopes of beating France through her finances. 
 Yes, the people of England, the " most thinking 
 people," had yet to swallow this ; they had yet to 
 gulph this bolus from the hands of those, who had 
 buoyed them up for so many years, by comparisons 
 of the flourishing state of the English finances com- 
 pared with those of France, which last nation they 
 still believed to be, as PITT told them, " in the very 
 gulph of bankruptcy." 
 
 This measure was, as we have seen, introduced 
 into the House of Commons, in form, on the 9th ot 
 March, 1797, in a motion made by PITT, for leave 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 219 
 
 to bring in a Bill for continuing, for a limited time, 
 what he called the RESTRICTION (pray mark 
 the word) upon the Bank, relative to its issue of 
 specie. This Bill, after undergoing the discussions, 
 some of which I shall have to notice more particularly 
 by-and-by, became a Law on the 3d of May, 1797.* 
 When you have read the Title and Preamble of 
 this Act, you will accompany me in a brief sketch 
 of its provisions, which you will find not only cu- 
 rious and interesting, as an object of public attention, 
 
 * THIRTY- SEVENTH GEO. III. Chap. XLV. An Act for 
 confirming and continuing for a limited time the Restriction 
 contained in the minute of Council of the twenty-sixth of 
 February, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, on 
 
 payments of cash by the Bank. Whereas by minute of his 
 
 Majesty's Privy Council, made on the twenty-sixth day of 
 February, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, 
 upon the representation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 stating, that from the result of the information which he had 
 received, and the inquiries which it had been his duty to 
 make respecting the effect of the unusual demands for specie, 
 that have been made upon the metropolis, in consequence of 
 ill-founded or exaggerated alarms in different parts of the 
 country, it appeared, that unless some measure was immedi- 
 ately taken, there might be reason to apprehend a want of 
 sufficient supply of cash to answer the exigencies of the 
 public service ; it was declared to be the unanimous opinion 
 of the Board, that it was indispensably necessary for the 
 public service, that the Directors of the Bank of England 
 should forbear issuing any cash in payment, until the sense 
 of Parliament could be taken on that subject, and the proper 
 measures adopted thereupon for maintaining the means of 
 circulation, and supporting the public and commercial credit 
 of the kingdom at this important conjuncture ; and it was 
 ordered, that a copy of the said minute should be transmitted 
 to the Directors of the Bank of England, and they were 
 hereby required, on the grounds of the exigency of the case, 
 to conform thereto until the sense of Parliament could be 
 j taken as aforesaid : And whereas, in pursuance of the minute, 
 the said Governor and Company of the Bank of England 
 have, since the said twenty-sixth day of February, one thou- 
 sand seven hundred and ninety-seven, forborne to issue cash 
 in payments, except for purposes for which the issue of cash 
 was deemed unavoidable ; it is necessary that the Restriction 
 in the said minute, although not warranted by Law^ should 
 be confirmed, and should be continued for a limited time, by 
 the authority of Parliament : Be it therefore enacted, &c. &c. 
 &c. 
 
220 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 but useful also to each of you as individuals, who 
 will hence learn, how far you are compelled to re- 
 ceive payment in bank notes, and in what way youi 
 previous contracts have been affected by this Act. 
 
 The Preamble of the Act having repeated whai 
 was contained in the Order of Council, and having 
 declared that to confirm and continue the refusal tc 
 pay in Gold and Silver, though such refusal was not 
 warranted by law ; having acknowledged the ille- 
 gality of the things done, and declared the necessity 
 of continuing' to do them ; having made this begin- 
 ning, the Act next proceeds, SECTION I., to indemnify 
 the Bank Directors, and all other persons, for having 
 done these illegal things ; that is to say, to protect 
 all such persons against any appeal to the law, that 
 any suffering party might be inclined to make. So 
 that, whatever loss, or hinderance, or injury, any man 
 might have suffered from the non-payment of the pro- 
 missory notes of the Bank Company, such sufferer 
 was, by this Act, at once deprived of all legal means 
 of obtaining redress. The Act next provides, in 
 SECTION II., that the Bank should be liable to no pro- 
 secution for the non-payment of any of their notes, 
 that they might be willing to exchange for other 
 notes ; arud, that in case the Bank were sued by any 
 one for the non-payment of their notes, they might 
 apply to the Court to stop proceedings in such ac- 
 tions, who might stop them accordingly, and without 
 costs to the plaintiff in any action brought against the 
 Bank for non-payment of its notes, unless the Court 
 should think the action necessary. SECTION III. 
 permits the Bank to issue cash in payment of any 
 sum under twenty shillings, or where less than 
 twenty shillings should be a fractional part of a sum 
 to be paid by the Bank. This was a very gracious 
 permission! The same Section allows them to 
 issue cash for the service of the Army, the Navy, 
 or the Ordnance, in pursuance of an order of the 
 Privy Council. SECTION IV. specifies that the Bank, 
 during the restriction or stoppage, shall not advance 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 221 
 
 to the Government any cash or notes exceeding in 
 amount 600,000 pounds. SECTION V. permits the 
 Bank to repay cash to those persons thai may choose 
 to lodge cash in the Bank. But, the Section per- 
 mits the Bank to repay in cash, only three fourths 
 of the amount of what shall be so lodged with them. 
 SECTIONS VI and VII. permit the Bank to advance 
 the sum of 125,000 pounds to the Bankers of Lon- 
 don and Scotland. SECTION VIII. treats of payments 
 between private individuals, and it provides, that all 
 payments which have been made, or which shall be 
 made, during the continuance of this Act, in Bank of 
 England notes, shall be deemed payments in cash, 
 if accepted as such. SECTION IX. contains the great 
 alteration made in the law between debtor and cre- 
 ditor. We have seen, that by the 2d Section, the 
 bank notes were made to be quite equal to cash in 
 the case of all demands made upon the Bank for 
 payment of its notes; which, therefore, made the 
 notes of the Bank, as far as related to debts due from 
 the Bank, on account of its notes, a LEGAL TENDER, 
 which words mean such money or currency as the 
 law regards as good in the payment of debts. Guineas, 
 for instance, are a LEGAL TENDER, because, the ten- 
 der, or offering of them in payment, is sufficient to 
 prevent any action or proceeding at law being en- 
 tertained against the person, who may have offered 
 them in payment, in quantity equal to the amount of 
 the debt. But, bank notes were not made a legal 
 tender, and they are not now a legal tender, between 
 private individuals. If a man owe me money, I can 
 still demand coin in payment; and the only differ- 
 ence is, that I cannot, if my debtor tender me the 
 amount of the debt in Bank of England notes, cause 
 him to be arrested and held to special 6ai7, as I 
 might have done, if this Act had not been passed. 
 This part of the Act every one should read, and. 
 therefore, I have put the 9th Section in a note.* 
 
 * SECTION IX. And be it further enacted by the authority 
 
222 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 SECTION X. provides that the collectors of the public 
 revenue shall accept payment in Bank of England 
 notes. SECTION XI. permits the Bank to issue cash, 
 in certain cases, upon giving five days' notice to the 
 Speaker of the House of Commons. SECTIONS XII. 
 and XIII. provide for the continuance of the Act to 
 the 24th of June, (a duration of only fifty-two days,) 
 and for the repealing or altering of it during the then 
 present session of Parliament. 
 
 aforesaid, that during the continuance of the restriction on 
 payments by the said governor and company in cash, impo- 
 sed by this Act, no person shall be held to special bail upon 
 any process issuing out of any court, unless the affidavit 
 which shall be made for that purpose, according to the pro- 
 visions in the Act of the twelfth year of the reign of his late 
 Majesty King George the First, for preventing frivolous and 
 vexatious arrests, shall not only contain the several matters 
 required by the said Act, but also that no offer has been 
 made to pay the sum of money in such affidavit mentioned, 
 and therein sworn to, for the purpose of holding any person 
 to special bail, in notes of the said governor and company, ex- 
 pressed to be payable on demand (fractional parts of the sum 
 of twenty shillings only excepted ;) and if any process shall 
 be issued against any person, upon which such person might 
 have been neld to special bail before the passing of this Act, 
 and no affidavit shall be made as aforesaid, that no such 
 offer of payment in notes of the governor arid company had 
 been made as aforesaid, such person shall not be arrested on 
 such process, but proceedings shall be had against such per- 
 son iii the same manner as if no affidavit had been made for 
 the purpose of holding such persons to special bail, under 
 the provisions of the said Act of his said late Majesty King 
 George the First; and all provisions in such Act, or in any 
 other Act of Parliament, for preventing frivolous and vexatious 
 arrests, shall be applied to the provisi9ns in this Act contained. 
 KG far as the same are capable of being so applied : Provided 
 always, that if affidavit shall be made, upon which any per- 
 son or persons might have been held to special bail upon any 
 such process as aforesaid, before the passing of this Act, and 
 it shall be likewise sworn in such affidavit, that such offer of 
 payment has been made as aforesaid, so that the person or 
 
 Eersons who might have been arrested and held to special 
 ail upon such process, if this Act had not been made, cannot, 
 by reason of such offer and of the provisions in this Act con- 
 tained, be so arrested and held to special bail, it shall be law- 
 ful for the court out of which such process shall issue, or for 
 any judge of such court, in a summary way, to order the de- 
 fendant or defendants in the action in which such process 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 223 
 
 This, Gentlemen, is what is called the Bank-RE- 
 STRICTION Act, a very convenient phrase, calcu- 
 lated to convey the notion, that the Bank is able and 
 willing to pay ; hut, that it is not permitted to do it. 
 I beg you to bear along with you the meaning of the 
 word Restriction, which implies an act done by one 
 party, to prevent another party from doing what he 
 would do if not prevented. To restrict is to limit 
 or confine. I am restricted, for instance, from going 
 out of Newgate. I am here in a state of restriction. 
 I should go home to my farm and my family, if it 
 were not for this restriction ; and so " the most 
 thinking people of Europe" think, of course, that 
 the Bank Company would pay their notes in Gold 
 and Silver, if they were not restricted in the same 
 manner. But of this we shall see more in the next 
 Letter, when we come to speak of the duration of 
 this restricting Act ; and, in the mean while, I 
 remain, 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Pinson, Newgate, 
 Monday, Nov. 12, 1810. 
 
 shall issue, and who might have been so held to special bail 
 as aforesaid, if this Act had not been made, 10 cause notes of 
 the said governor and company, expressed to be payable on 
 demand, to the amount of the sum of money for which such 
 person or persons might have been so held to special bail, if 
 this Act had not been made, to be deposited in such manner 
 as such Court or Judges shall direct, 10 answer the demands 
 of the plaintiff err plaintiffs in such action ; and if such depo- 
 sit shall not be made within the time limited by such order, 
 after such notice thereof, as shall thereby be directed to be 
 given, it shall be lawful, upon affidavit duly made and filed, 
 that such deposit has not been made according to such order, 
 to arrest sucn defendant or defendants, and hold him, her, or 
 them, to special bail, in such and the same manner as if the 
 said Act had not been made. 
 
224 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 Nothing but a law, declaring bank notes to be a legal tender of payment, 
 can relieve the bankers and the trading part of the community from the 
 hardships to which they are now liable ; and yet, the remedy must, in the 
 
 end, be worse than the evil." Mr. Hobhouse. Speech in the House of 
 
 Commons, 27th March, 1797. 
 
 The legal Tender Gold is the only Legal Tender for any 
 Sum above 25 Pounds Acts of the 14th and 39th of Geo. 
 III. Mr. Huskisson's Remark upon the Legal Tender 
 The Effects of a Legal Tender in Paper Illustrated by the 
 Case of New Jersey Act against Legal Tender in Paper, 
 4th Geo. III. chap. 34 Mr. Huskisson's Mis-statement as 
 to the Notions entertained respecting the Legal Tender 
 at the passing of the Act of 1797 Mr. Sheridan's Predic- 
 tion when the Act was moved for Sir P. Baring proposes 
 to make the Notes a Legal Tender Mr. Pitt declines it for 
 the present The Mansion House and other Meetings had, 
 in some sort, effect of the Law The Law as it now stands 
 as to the Legal Tender of the Bank of England Notes 
 Country Bankers may be compelled to pay their Notes 
 in Gold. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 BEFORE we proceed in our inquiries as to the DU- 
 RATION of the Act, which was the subject of the 
 foregoing Letter, and by which the Bank of England 
 was protected against the cash demands of the hold- 
 ers of their promissory notes ; before we proceed in 
 these inquiries, which will discover matter not a 
 little curious in itself, and very interesting as con- 
 nected with what is now going on ; before we thus 
 proceed, I must beg your attention to a few more 
 words upon the subject of the LEGAL TENDER. 
 
 The truth is, that gold, and gold only, is a legal 
 tender, in this kingdom, for any sum above 25 pounds, 
 unless the silver be tendered in weight. This was 
 settled by an Act, passed in 1774, (14 Geo. III. Chap. 
 42,) which Act provided, that no tender in pay- 
 ment of money made in the Silver Coin exceeding 
 the sum of 25 pounds, should be deemed a legal 
 tender for more than its value by weight, at the rate 
 of 5s. 2d. for each ounce of Silver. This Act con- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 225 
 
 tinued in force for two years, when it expired ; but it 
 was again revived in the year 1799, and made per- 
 petual. Thus, you see, that even Silver coin was 
 not, except in small sums, a legal tender, and is not 
 a legal tender to this day. 
 
 But, though the Bank of England notes were not 
 hy the Restriction, or Stoppage Act, made a legal 
 tender to all intents and purposes, they were made 
 so to a certain extent ; for, by the tender of them in 
 lieu of money, any debtor could escape arrest, and 
 also escape the giving of special bail ; and, as to 
 the Bank of England, the Act not only protected it 
 against the demands of its creditors ; that is, against 
 the holders of its notes, but by the same Act, the 
 Bank was to pay to the public, any thing due from 
 the former to the latter, in its notes, and not to be 
 compellable to pay in Gold or Silver. This was 
 going some way, at least, in making bank notes a 
 legal tender, and this seems to have been overlooked 
 by Mr. HUSKISSON, (a gentleman of whom we shall 
 have much to say by-and-by,) who in speaking of 
 the change created by the Act of 1797, in our money 
 system, observes, that that Act did not repeal any of 
 the former regulations relating to the coin, and that 
 it did not alter the Act of the 39th of the King. " It 
 did not," says he, " alter in any respect the existing 
 state of the law, either as to the weight or the fine- 
 ness of the gold coin ; or the Act of the 39th of the 
 King." I have quoted this gentleman's own words, 
 because I am not quite sure that I clearly understand 
 them. Mr. HUSKISSON is a member of Parliament, 
 and a pensioner, and such people are apt to talk in 
 a style that common men cannot comprehend. 
 Whether he means, here, that the weight and the 
 fineness of the Act of the 39th of the King remain 
 unaltered ; or, that the existing state of the law as 
 to the Act of the 39th of the King remain unaltered ; or, 
 that the Act of the 39th of the King did itself remain 
 unaltered ; which of these may be his meaning, I 
 cannot positively say; but, of this I am sure, that, 
 
226 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 in all the three suppositions it was quite unneces- 
 sary to express such meaning, seeing that the Act, 
 which he so positively and carefully assures us was 
 not altered by the Act of 1797, was not in existence at 
 the time, and was not passed till two years afterwards. 
 
 The mischievousness of forcing paper-money 
 upon a people is very well known. It has been most 
 severely felt in all the countries where it has been 
 resorted to, and it has never failed, sooner or later, 
 to annihilate the whole of the paper, attempted so to 
 be forced upon the people. This was the case in all 
 the States of North America, every one of which 
 has, first or last, had a public debt, a paper money, 
 a legal tender in paper, and a state bankruptcy. 
 The last of the States, I believe, that clung to a le- 
 gal tender in paper, was NEW JERSEY ; and, the con- 
 sequence was, that, even in the year 1792, when I 
 first went to the United States, that part of the 
 Union was still suffering from the disreputation 
 brought on it by the legal tender, which, before it 
 was put an end to, had not only produced a total 
 stagnation of trade, and had brought ruin upon thou- 
 sands of people, but it had begun to drive the people 
 out of the State ; and, had it not been put an end 
 to, the State would long ago have been wholly depo- 
 pulated. 
 
 But we need not go abroad for any thing to con- 
 vince us of the settled opinions of statesmen and 
 politicians as to the effects of a legal tender in pa- 
 per. We have only to look into our own Statute- 
 Book, where we shall find the thing sufficiently re- 
 probated, as in the Act passed in the year 1763, 
 which declares such a tender to be discouraging 
 and prejudicial to trade and commerce, and the 
 cause of confusion in dealings, and a lessening of 
 credit, in the Provinces where it was in use ; and, 
 having declared this ; having laid down these as 
 principles, the Act goes on to forbid the issuing of 
 any more such paper ; it makes void all Acts of As- 
 sembly thereafter passed to establish or keep up such 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 227 
 
 tender ; and it inflicts a fine of 1,OOOZ. (with imme- 
 diate dismission, and future incapacity to fill any 
 public office or place of trust) on any Governor, who 
 shall give his assent to such Act of Legal Tender.* 
 Mr. HUSKISSON, who was one of the Bullion Com- 
 mittee, of the labours of which we shall soon see a 
 good deal ; Mr. HUSKISSON, who enjoys a large pen- 
 sion, paid out of the taxes raised upon the people, 
 and who, therefore, ought to understand something 
 of such matters ; this Mr. HUSKISSON (of whom I 
 shall have to tell you a great deal before we have 
 done) has just published a pamphlet, under the title 
 of, " The Question concerning the Depreciation of 
 our Currency stated and examined ;" to the doing of 
 which he was, it would seem, like Rosa Matilda, 
 reluctantly forced by the pressing partiality of 
 friends. This Mr. Huskisson, in his pamphlet, 
 which is, apparently, intended to justify his conduct 
 as a member of the Bullion Committee, has said, 
 that " if it had been proposed, at once to make bank 
 notes a legal tender, and, in direct terms, to enact, 
 that every man should thenceforward be obliged to 
 receive them as equivalent to the gold coin of the 
 realm, such a proposition would have excited uni- 
 versal alarm, and would have forcibly drawn the 
 
 * FOURTH YEAR GEO. III. Chap. 34. An Act to prevent 
 Paper Bills of Credit, hereafter to be issued in any of nis Ma- 
 jesty's Colonies or Plantations, in America, from being de- 
 clared to be a legal tender in Payments of Money ; and to 
 prevent the legal tender of such bills as are now subsisting 
 from being prolonged beyond the periods limited for calling 
 
 in and sinking the same. Whereas great quantities of 
 
 Paper Bills of Credit have been created and issued in his Ma- 
 jesty's Colonies or Plantations in America, by virtue of Acts 
 Orders, Resolutions, or Votes of Assembly, making and de- 
 claring such Bills of Credit to be legal Tender in payments of 
 Money. And whereas such Bills of Credit have greatly de- 
 preciated in their value, by means whereof Debts have been 
 discharged with a much less value than was contracted for, 
 to the great discouragement and prejudice of the Trade and 
 Commerce, of his Majesty's Subjects, by occasioning Confu- 
 sion in Dealings, and lessening Credit in the said Colonies 
 j or Plantations : The Act then proceeds as above described. 
 
 
228 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 attention of the legislature and the public to the na- 
 ture of our circulation and to the consequences ot 
 r-uch an innovation. But, certainly, nothing of the 
 sort was in the contemplation of any man when 
 first the Suspension-Act was passed." But, is this 
 t rue, Mr. Huskisson ? Your memory fails you, I 
 hope ; for, not only was it in the contemplation of 
 many persons ; but several persons said, that, in 
 effect, the bank notes would become a legal tender, 
 and that they would, of course, depreciate. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is at all times right, that the truth 
 should be known, respecting the conduct and the 
 characters of men in any wise intrusted with the 
 management of the public affairs ; and, at this time, 
 and especially as relating to this most important 
 subject, it is right that no part of the truth should 
 be hidden. With this conviction in my mind, I 
 shall be rather minute in my references to what was 
 said at the time when the Act of 1797, which pro- 
 tected the Bank against the demands of the note- 
 holders, was under discussion. 
 
 The bill, as was stated in my last, was moved for 
 by Mr. PITT, on the 9th of March ; and, during the 
 debate of that very day, Mr. Fox contended, that, 
 if the bill passed, the property of the Stock-holder 
 must, at once, be depreciated in value ; and Mr. 
 SHERIDAN said, that " he believed we should not 
 long be able, after the inundation of paper to which 
 this system gave birth, to stop them from making 
 bank notes a legal tender, and then adieu to the ap- 
 pearance of specie at the Bank, and soon afterwards, 
 to the real value of the banknote." When the bill 
 was under discussion, on the 27th of March, Mr. 
 PITT having said, that the clause, respecting the bar 
 to arrests for debt, did not go the length of making 
 bank notes a legal tender, nor to take away the 
 power of the creditor to pursue the debtor in the 
 usual course of law, in order to obtain payment in 
 cash, Sir FRANCIS BARING said, that he saw no 
 means of avoiding the evil to be apprehended by 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 229 
 
 bankers and merchants, but that of making bank 
 notes a legal tender ; and Mr. DENT was for ma- 
 king bank notes a legal tender during the suspen- 
 sion of cash payments. Now, what did Mr. PITT 
 say, in answer to this suggestion from his friends? 
 He said, that "as to making bank notes a legal 
 tender, he thought, that, if it was possible to meet 
 the present difficulty without it, it ought to be met 
 without it ; that, upon a subject of so much difficulty 
 and uncertainty, no man could speak with confi- 
 dence ; but, that as long as the circulation rested 
 upon paper taken by consent, he thought it would 
 not be adviseable to have it taken by compulsion" 
 Upon this ground, the Act was passed ; and, it is 
 very clear, that one of the objects of the short du- 
 ration of the first Act, which was passed for only 51 
 days, was, to see whether people were inclined to 
 have recourse to the law, to compel payments in 
 cash for debts due from private individuals to other 
 private individuals. Every means, as we have seen, 
 had been taken to prevent this. A planned Meeting 
 of Bankers and Merchants had been held at the 
 Mansion House, in London, and its resolutions for 
 taking and circulating bank notes had been issued 
 under the sanction of the then Lord Mayor. Simi- 
 I lar resolutions had been issued from the several 
 1 benches of Justices at the quarter sessions, in all 
 the counties ; and, indeed, as these resolutions were 
 signed by the Clerks of the Peace, and had about 
 them all the air of acts of authority, the effect upon 
 the farmers and tradesmen, in general, was nearly 
 :he same as that of an Act of Parliament, making 
 3ank notes a legal tender. If these means had 
 failed, however, there can, I think, be very little 
 loubt, thaj; the measure of making bank notes a 
 legal tender would have been adopted ; for, the only 
 reason which PITT offers, as we see above, for not 
 doing it at once, is, that the people seemed, at pre- 
 vent, to be disposed to take the bank notes as cash, 
 tyithout compulsion; and, he very clearly meant, 
 20 
 
230 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 that, if the people refused to consider them as cash, 
 compulsion must and would be resorted to. 
 
 And yet, after all this, and with these facts re- 
 corded in the Parliamentary proceedings of the time, 
 Mr. HUSKISSON, who was actually in office under 
 PJTT, or DUNDAS, when the measure was discussed ; 
 with all this before his eyes, this gentleman tells the 
 public, that neither the making bank notes a legal 
 tender, nor any thing of the sort, was in the con- 
 templation of any man at the time when the Act 
 for the suspension of cash payments was passed ; 
 and that any proposition of the kind would have 
 excited universal alarm, and would have forcibly 
 drawn the attention of the legislature and the public 
 to the possible consequences of such an innovation ! 
 
 Here, gentlemen, we have an instance either of 
 the incorrectness, I might say, the ignorance, or 
 the insincerity, of Mr. Huskisson, who, to say the 
 truth, is not without his temptations, as we shall by- 
 and-by see, to draw a veil over the origin and the 
 conduct of the originators of the measure of pro- 
 tecting the Bank against the demands of the note- 
 holders ; to do which, it was absolutely necessary 
 either to make bank notes a legal tender, or to do 
 something that should answer the same purpose. 
 To makelhem a legal tender by law, at once, would, 
 indeed, have been a thing so shameful as not to be 
 endured, in the face of the principles laid down by 
 the Parliament, in the Act of the 4th year of Geo. 
 III. above quoted. To pass a law making English 
 bank notes a legal tender, putting English bank 
 notes upon a level with the colonial paper mentioned 
 in that Act ; to make bank notes the degraded thing 
 there described, was what could not be thought ofj 
 until all the means of avoiding it had been tried ; 
 but, it is, nevertheless, very clear, that if the circu- 
 lating ; if the promulgating (with all the appearance 
 of official authority) of the resolutions from the 
 Mansion House, and from the benches of county 
 Justices ; it is very clear, that if these had failed in 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 231 
 
 giving currency to the bank notes, these notes would 
 nave been made a legal tender in all cases, and to 
 all intents and purposes whatever. They are a legal 
 tender from the Bank itself. They are a legal 
 tender to the Stock-holder in payment of his divi- 
 dends. No man can sue the Bank Company on ac- 
 count of their refusing to give him gold for any of 
 their promissory notes, of which he may be the 
 holder ; nor can any Stock-holder sue the Bank 
 Company on account of a refusal to pay him the 
 amount of his dividends in cash. 
 
 They are certainly not a legal tender between 
 man and man, any farther than as far as relates to 
 the barring of an arrest and of the necessity of spe- 
 cial bail. You cannot arrest, or demand special 
 bail from, the debtor, who tenders you the amount 
 of your debt in Bank of England notes ; but you 
 may sue him in the other way. The tender of bank 
 notes secures the debtor from arrest, and from being 
 obliged to give special bail, in the first instance ; 
 but, it does not protect him against being finally 
 compelled to pay in cash. If, for instance, GRIZZLE 
 GREENHORN owes either of you a hundred pounds ; 
 or, which is a better illustration, perhaps ; if you 
 have in your hands a hundred and five pounds in 
 amount of the notes of Messrs. PAPERKITE and Co., 
 Country Bankers, and you have a mind to have gold 
 for those notes, looking forward to a time when you 
 may want them, and having a greater attachment to 
 the King's picture than to the arms and crests of 
 Paperkite and Co. In such a case, you go to Paper- 
 kite with his notes, and demand payment of them. 
 He tenders you, as a matter of course, Bank of Eng 
 land notes to the amount of those of his own which 
 you present for payment ; but you, in pursuance of 
 your design to be possessed of a hundred of the 
 King's pictures, demand gold, and stick to that de- 
 mand. If he cannot, or will not, pay you in gold, 
 you cannot arrest him, or compel him to put in spe- 
 cial bail ; but, you can bring the ordinary action of 
 
 
 
232 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 debt against him, the decision of which is sure to be 
 in your favour, with the usual costs, and, while the 
 action is going on, he is obliged to deposit the Bank 
 of England notes in court, as the ground of being 
 protected in the meanwhile against arrest and against 
 the demand of special bail ; and, if he does not 
 make this deposit, you can even arrest him, as in 
 any other case of refusal or inability to pay. 
 
 Thus, gentlemen, stands the law, with regard to 
 the legality of a tender of Bank of England notes. 
 The Tax-gatherer cannot refuse them in payment of 
 taxes; the Stock-holder cannot refuse them in pay- 
 ment of his dividends; and the note-holder cannot 
 demand coin for them of the Bank Company or of 
 any body else, of whom he has once received them 
 in payment ; but any private individual may refuse 
 them in payment of money due to him from any body 
 but the Bank Company ; and may proceed to recover 
 payment in real money, in the way above described. 
 
 Thinking it desirable to keep this subject of the 
 Legal Tender distinct from that of the Duration 
 of the Act of 1797, and having necessarily a good 
 deal to say upon the latter subject, and much inter- 
 esting matter to develop, I shall not enter thereon 
 till my next Letter, ; and. in the mean while, 
 I remain, Gentlemen, 
 Your faithful friend. 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Monday, November 19th, 1810. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 "He hoped gentlemen would direct their most serious attention to t'ne sub 
 ject. The bill was of the utmost importance; if a paper currency were 
 once established, how could it be got rid of? If gold and silver wore once 
 driven out of circulation, how were they to be recovered J The sure con- 
 sequences of paper currency would be a debt so enormous that, it. would 
 never be removed. The old debts and the new would vanish together, and 
 the funded property wpul I sink with them. A revolution in property mijrht 
 produce a revolution in Government, and all those scenes of blood which 
 liad disgraced Franco." Mr. Nicholls. Debate, 27th March, 1797. On the 
 Bank Restriction Bill. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 233 
 
 Duration of the Bank Stoppage or Restriction Act Reca- 
 pitulation of the Dates of the principal Occurrences leading 
 to the Act Apparent Reluctance with which the Bank 
 Company submitted to the Restriction They now discover 
 that they have no Objection to be restrained Mr. Huskis- 
 son says that the Duration could not have been foreseen 
 The probable Reason of this Mr. Huskisson's Places and 
 Pensions Such a person ought to have foreseen the con- 
 sequences of the Act Others did foresee them. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 WE now come to that subject which naturally 
 connects the proceedings and measures of 1797, 
 with the Report of the Bullion Committee, namely, 
 the DURATION of the Act of 1797; that Act, 
 which was made for the purpose of protecting the 
 Bank Company against the legal demands of the 
 holders of its promissory notes, and which Act, as 
 you will not fail to bear in mind, arose out of an 
 alarm felt by the Bank Company for the safety of 
 their House. It is very material to keep constantly 
 in view the progress which ended in the passing of 
 this Act, which, as you will have already perceived, 
 did, in fact, decide the fate of the paper-money in 
 England ; and, therefore, I will here, again, place 
 before you a recapitulation of the dates of the prin- 
 cipal occurrences. 
 
 February 21st, 1797, the Directors of the Bank "ob- 
 served, with great uneasiness, the large and con- 
 stant decrease in their cash;" a deputation of 
 them went to the Minister (Pitt) to make him ac- 
 quainted therewith \ and, as they attributed the 
 run to the alarm of invasion, they begged of the 
 Minister to say something in Parliament, " in or- 
 der to ease the public mind upon the score." 
 February 24th. At a meeting of the Directors, it ap- 
 peared that the " loss of cash yesterday, was above 
 , and that about * were already drawn 
 out this day, which gave such an alarm for the 
 safety of the House" that a deputation was sent 
 
 * There were no sums inserted. The statement of sums 
 was left in blank, as it is here. 
 20* 
 
 
234 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 to Mr. Pitt, to ask him when he would think it 
 necessary to interfere. At this meeting with the 
 Minister, it was agreed, that a resolution should 
 be by him prepared to bring before the Council, 
 for stopping payments in cash ; also, that a gene- 
 ral meeting of Bankers and Merchants should be 
 contrived, in order to pass resolutions to support 
 public credit; and the Minister, at the recommend- 
 ation of the Deputation, agreed to get a private 
 meeting of the chief bankers at his house, the next 
 day, in order then to lay the plan for a general 
 meeting. 
 
 February 26th. The Order of Council was issued, 
 stating, that the Minister had given the Council 
 such information relating to a run upon the Bank, 
 as induced the Council to require, and they, there- 
 fore, did require, the Bank Company to forbear 
 issuing 1 any cash in payments, until the sense of 
 Parliament should be taken upon the subject. 
 
 February 27th. An immense crowd of people as- 
 sembled early in the morning at the doors of the 
 Bank, and in Threadneedle-street, in order to get 
 gold for the notes they held ; but, instead of gold, 
 they received a notification, that they might have 
 bank notes lent to them in discounts, and that the 
 dividends, or interests upon stock, would be paid 
 in the same manner. Whereupon they retired, 
 shaking their long ears, and consoling themselves 
 with the hope, that they would get gold in a week 
 or two, 
 
 On the very same day, (27th February,) the general 
 Meeting of Bankers and Merchants, which had 
 been proposed to the Minister by the Bank Direc- 
 tors, was held at the Mansion-House, in London; 
 that is to say, the State-House of the Lord Mayor 
 (Brook Watson) the Chief Magistrate of the 
 City, who was Chairman of the Meeting, and 
 who signed the Resolutions, to which, therefore, 
 the air of authority was given. 
 
 February 28th. The Privy Council, including all 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 235 
 
 the Ministers, of course, had a Meeting, and sign- 
 ed an agreement to take and give bank notes in 
 the same way as the Bankers and Merchants who 
 had signed their resolutions. 
 
 March 2d. The Magistrates met at the Quarter 
 Sessions, for the County of Surrey, signed an 
 agreement of the same sort, which was promulga- 
 ted " by order of the Court" and was signed, like 
 any other magisterial act, by the Clerk of the 
 Peace. The like was done in all the other counties. 
 
 March 3d. At a meeting of the Bank Company, 
 consisting of the Bank Proprietors in general, was 
 passed an unanimous vote of thanks to the Di- 
 rectors, for having obeyed the Order in Council, 
 and for having refused to pay in cash. From 
 this Meeting, it was promulgated, that no appli- 
 cation had been made by the Bank Directors for 
 the order to withhold cash ; that the measure was 
 not adopted at the instance of those concerned 
 in the direction of the Bank ; that they complied 
 with the order, understanding it to have been 
 dictated by national policy, and meant to operate 
 only for a short time ; that their affairs were in a 
 state of the greatest affluence, and that they earn- 
 estly hoped they would soon be PERMITTED 
 to pay their notes in cash in the same manner as 
 they had formerly done. 
 
 March 9th. The Ministers moved in the House of 
 Commons, for leave to bring in a Bill to sanction 
 what had been done by the Privy Council, and by 
 the Bank Directors ; to protect both against any 
 legal proceedings for having done an unlawful 
 act ; and to authorize the Bank Company to 
 CONTINUE to refuse to pay their notes in cash, 
 for a certain time to be named. 
 
 May 3d. This Bill became a law ; and, by it the 
 Bank Company were authorised to refuse to pay 
 their promissory notes in cash, until the 2&th of 
 June, in that same year; that is to say, for fifty- 
 two-days. 
 
236 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, was the progress which ended 
 in the passing of the Cash Stopping Act, which is 
 generally called the BANK RESTRICTION Act, and 
 which, to those from whom the above facts have 
 been kept hidden, would, from this name, as well as 
 from the language of the Act itself, appear to have 
 been made without any application for such a mea- 
 sure on the part of the Bank Company, and even 
 against the wishes of that Company, who would, 
 from outward appearances, be looked upon as being 
 compelled, against their will, to refuse cash payments 
 of their promissory notes; and to yield to this com- 
 pulsion without remonstrating, merely from their 
 sense of loyalty and public spirit. 
 
 These outward appearances, however, have nearly 
 lost their effect ; and it certainly would be something 
 very wonderful, indeed, if they had not, seeing that 
 the advocates of the Bank now complain, not of the 
 " restriction," but of the Bullion Committee, who 
 have proposed to remove the restriction at the end 
 of two years ! Oh ! this is delightful. This is, 
 perhaps, the finest instance of putting professions to 
 the test that ever was heard of in the world. Here 
 are the Bank Company restrained; they are re- 
 strained from paying their promissory notes in 
 the current coin of the kingdom ; there is, which 
 seems very hard, a law to prevent them from paying 
 in gold ; they would seem to have been so eager to 
 do it, that it was absolutely necessary to pass a law 
 to hold in their hands. Well. You have, say the 
 Bullion Committee, endured this restraint for thir- 
 teen long years, which is long enough in all con- 
 science, and, therefore, we will remove this re- 
 straint ; we will permit you to pay in gold. This 
 kind proposition, however, instead of calling forth 
 expressions of joy and gratitude, throws the advo- 
 cates of the Bank Company into the utmost conster- 
 nation and dismay, and they abuse the Bullion Com- 
 mittee as men who have aimed a blow at the very 
 vitals of public credit. Alas ! what, then, the Bank 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 237 
 
 j 
 
 Company were not so uneasy as we thought under 
 this restraint? They did not complain and moan, 
 in secret, as we supposed they did, at being restrain- 
 ed from paying their promissory notes ? Nay, hy all 
 that is wonderful, it would seem that they like to be 
 restrained ? 
 
 To return from this digression, into which I was 
 drawn by this strange perversity of taste in the 
 Bank Company, let us now, after having refreshed 
 our memories as to the progress which led to the 
 passing of the Cash Stopping, or Bank Restriction 
 Act, see by what means, and upon what grounds, it 
 has been continued in force from the 3d of May, 
 1797, to this day ; and here, gentlemen, you will 
 find the most curious and most valuable part of this 
 most curious and most valuable history. 
 
 One of the objects which we ought to have in 
 view, is, to ascertain, and not only to ascertain, but 
 to put safely upon record, so that they may be turned 
 to at any moment, the names of as many as possible 
 of those, who had a hand, who really aided and 
 abetted, the measure -of what is called the Bank 
 Restriction, that is to say, the Act to bear the 
 Bank Company harmless in refusing payment of its 
 promissory notes. The Bullion Committee have 
 desciibed the consequences of that measure ; they 
 have plainly told us what mischiefs have arisen 
 from it; they have told us how very injuriously it 
 has operated towards creditors of all descriptions, 
 but they have been wholly silent as to the parties by 
 whom the fatal measure was promoted and brought 
 about, as well as to the parties by whom it was op- 
 posed ; and they have also been quite silent as to 
 the grounds, upon which the Act authorizing the 
 refusal of cash has, from time to time, been conti- 
 nued from May 3d, 1797, to the present day. Nay, 
 Mr. HUSKISSON, one of the members of the Bullion 
 Committee, who, not content with the share he took 
 in the labours of the Committee, has, as we saw in 
 Letter XVII., published a pamphlet upon the sub- 
 

 238 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ject ; has not only avoided to say who it was that 
 was the cause of the Act, hut would seem to wish 
 his readers to believe, that those who caused that 
 Act to be passed, could have no idea of its being 
 continued so long, and the inference he leaves to be 
 drawn is, that THOSE PERSONS have not been the 
 cause of such continuance. 
 
 To explain satisfactorily the probable reason why 
 Mr. HUSKISSON endeavours to give this turn to the 
 thing, it might, perhaps, be sufficient to tell you, 
 that he himself has been steadily on the side of the 
 Minister at the time when the first Act was passed, 
 in 1797, and, also, at every renewal of that Act. 
 This might suffice, in explanation of this part of 
 Mr. HUSKISSON'S conduct ; but I must not omit this 
 opportunity of introducing this gentleman to you in 
 form. He is one of the men, whom you help to 
 pay ; and it is possible that you will nave to pay 
 nim as long as he lives. Therefore, you have a 
 perfect right to know who and what he is ; what he 
 has done, and what he is likely to da, for the people 
 of England. 
 
 Mr. WILLIAM HUSKISSON, the author of the pam- 
 phlet mentioned in my last, owes what he has got, 
 not to any family connexion, but solely to his own 
 personal exertions, having, in his early days, been, 
 according to some, an Apothecary, and, according to 
 others, a Banker. He did not waste the precious 
 days of his youth at schools and colleges, learning 
 Latin and laziness. Like you and me, gentlemen, 
 he owes nothing to pedagogues, or to pedigree ; and 
 though he does not belong to that class of men 
 whom PAINE calls the Nobles of Nature, yet, were 
 Nature to give titles, she would certainly dub Mr. 
 Huskisson a Knight. This gentleman was in 
 France at the breaking out of the ANTI-JACOBIN 
 war ; that is to say, the war which began in 1793, 
 and which, as we have seen, produced such effects 
 upon the bank-note system. He appears, from a 
 French pamphlet which I have in my possession, to 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 239 
 
 nave been a very ardent friend of the French revo- 
 lution, at the outset, and a speech of his, delivered 
 in a Club at Paris, upon funds and tithes, it would 
 do your hearts good to hear. From Paris, however, 
 Mr. Huskisson returned to England, in 1793, having 
 come away upon the recall of our ambassador, Lord 
 Gower, now Marquis of Stafford, to whom, it is 
 said, he had been useful at Paris, and who is said in 
 return to have recommended him to the notice of 
 those two worthy associates in power, and never-to- 
 be-forgotten ministers, PITT and DUNDAS. They 
 found him useful ; and, though his outset was low, 
 he found himself, at the end of less than seven 
 years, an Under Secretary of State, in the Colo- 
 nial Department, and a Member of Parliament. 
 In the winter of 1801, when PITT and DUNDAS went 
 out of office, Mr. HUSKISSON followed them, but not 
 without taking care to cast a look behind him ; and, 
 by the advice of Mr. ADDINGTON, the successor of 
 Mr. PITT, our author had conferred on him a PEN- 
 SION, for life, to be paid out of the taxes raised on 
 the people, to the amount of 1200/. a year ; and, af- 
 terwards, a pension, to be paid from the same source, 
 was settled upon his wife, Mrs. ELIZA EMILY HUS- 
 KISSON, to the amount of 615 a year for her life, to 
 commence at her husband's death. What a nice 
 comfortable way this is, gentlemen, to make provi- 
 sion for one's wife and family ! Mr. HUSKISSON'S 
 pension was to be suspended whenever he should 
 be in possession of an office of the annual value of 
 2,000 a year, or upwards ; and, when he quitted 
 such office, he was again to receive the pension. So 
 that he made sure of 1,200 a year for life, and 615 
 pounds a year for the life of his wife, if she should 
 out live him. This shewed not only a very provi- 
 dent, but a very affectionate disposition. But, our 
 author did not stop here ; for he obtained the Agent- 
 shif) of the island of Ceylon, acknowledged by him- 
 sell to be worth 700 pounds a year, and this he still 
 held along with the office of Secretary of the Trea- 
 
240 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 sury, which he got in 1804, and which, at 4.000 a 
 year salary, he held, with an interval of about fifteen 
 months, till about October, 1809. So that, while in 
 office, he got 4,700 a year; and, while out of office, 
 1,900 a year; '1,200 of which he has for life^ 
 with a provision of 615 a year for the life of his 
 wife, if she should outlive him. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, is the history of the public life 
 of the author of the pamphlet, of which 1 am about 
 to speak. He is now one of the Members of Par- 
 liament for Harwich ; he was one of the members 
 of the BULLION COMMITTEE, and his pam- 
 phlet, the title of which was mentioned in my last 
 Letter, has been published for the purpose of ex- 
 plaining some parts, and defending other parts, of 
 the famous and immortal Report of that Committee. 
 
 But as perfection is not to be expected in any 
 thing human, this Report omits to say any thing 
 about the grounds of the continuance, or duration 
 of the Cash Stopping, or Rank-restricting Act ; 
 and Mr. HUSKISSON seems to think it incumbent 
 upon him to say some little matter upon that subject. 
 He put himself in a ticklish predicament, when he 
 took up his pen upon such a subject ; for, we have 
 seen, that he was in office ; we have seen, that he 
 was in the receipt of the public money from the 
 year 1793 to the time when he became a member of 
 the Bullion Committee ; we have seen, that, from 
 1804 to the end nearly of 1809, (with the exception 
 of about fifteen months,) he was a Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and it is perfectly notorious, that he was 
 what was called the Minister PITT'S right hand man ; ( 
 that he had, in fact, the chief actual management of ' 
 the pecuniary affairs of the Exchequer and Treasu- 
 ry ; that he was so closely intimate with Mr. PITT, 
 that he was one of the few persons with him when 
 he died ; and that he was one of the witnesses of his 
 Will, and one of his creditors. 
 
 A person thus situated, ought to have had some 
 knowledge of the financial affairs of the kingdom. 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 241 
 
 A person thus situated, ought to have known pretty 
 well, the nature and tendency of a measure like the 
 Cash Stopping, or Bank-restricting Act. A person, 
 to whom the people of England pay 4,700 pounds a 
 year while he is in office, and 1.900 a year when he 
 is cut of office ; a person, to whom, at the very least, 
 we are to pay, out of the taxes, 1,200 pounds a year 
 for his life, with a contingent 615 pounds a year for 
 the life of his wife. Such a person, gentlemen, 
 ought to have a mind capable of extending its in- 
 quiries and conclusions beyond the present moment; 
 and, in a case like that of the Stopping or Restrict- 
 ing Act, to be able to foresee the consequences that 
 will result. In short, the man, be he who he may, 
 that receives from the people such pay, ought, if his 
 department be that of the Treasury, to be ashamed 
 to plead ignorance as to any principle, or point, 
 connected with the subject before us. 
 
 Yet, what does Mr. HUSKTSSON say, as to the du- 
 ration of the Stoppage or Restriction Act? He is 
 in a dilemma. To pass over the matter in silence, 
 will not do, because he is compelled to speak of the 
 injuries arising from the long duration of the Act; 
 and to censure the passing of the Act will not do, 
 because it is so well known that he was in office 
 when it was first passed, and, also, when it was 
 twice or three times renewed. In this difficulty, he 
 has recourse to a plea, which he does not appear to 
 conceive makes against himself. He wishes his 
 reader to gather from what is said, that those uho 
 were the cause of the Act originally, never could 
 dream of its being continued in force so long. He 
 says, that that Act was, when first passed, " consi- 
 dered and proposed, as an expedient that should be 
 of short duration, the course of the proceedings of 
 Parliament abundantly indicates ; but if, in the 
 year 1797, it had been foreseen, that this temporary 
 expedient would be attempted to be converted into 
 a system for an indefinite number of years, and 
 that, under this system, in the year 1810, every cre- 
 21 
 
242 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ditor, public or private, subject or alien, to whom the 
 law, as it then stood, and as it now stands, had se- 
 cured the payment of a pound weight of standard 
 gold for every 46 14s. 6rf. of his just demand, 
 would be obliged to accept, in full satisfaction, about 
 IQf ounces, or not more than seventeen shillings in 
 the pound ; with a prospect of a still further re- 
 duction in every subsequent year : it is impossible 
 to conceive that the attention and feelings of par- 
 liament would not have been alive to all the indi- 
 vidual injustice, and ultimate public calamities, in- 
 cident to such a state of things ; and that they would 
 not have provided for the termination of 1he re- 
 striction, before it should have wrought so much 
 mischief, and laid the foundation of so much confu- 
 sion in all the dealings and transactions of the com- 
 munity." 
 
 Here are two questions : that of the duration of 
 the Act, and that of the depreciation of the bank 
 notes. The latter will form the subject of a subse- 
 quent Letter. As to the former, Mr. Huskisson 
 would evidently have us believe, the continuation of 
 the Act for any length of time was not foreseen, 
 either by him, or by any body else. HISTORY, TRUTH, 
 JUSTICE ; justice to the living and the dead : but es- 
 pecially to the dead, demand the proof of the con- 
 trary ; demand that you, gentlemen, and that the 
 whole of the people of England, should know, that 
 if PITT and his colleagues ; that, if those to whom 
 we have paid so many thousands and hundreds 
 of pounds, in salaries, pensions, allowances, and 
 fees ; that, if they did not foresee the consequences 
 of the Act of May 3, 1797, there were others who 
 did foresee those consequences, though, unfortu- 
 nately for the country, the parliament were deaf to 
 their predictions, and still supported Mr. Pitt and 
 his system. 
 
 It is now more than THIRTEEN YEARS since this 
 Act was passed ; since this deed was done ; since 
 the blow, under which credit is now staggering, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 243 
 
 was struck ; but it is not only necessary to justice 
 towards individuals, but to public safety, to show 
 who it was that did that deed, and who it was that 
 had endeavoured to prevent the measures which pro- 
 duced it, and foretold its fatal consequences. It is 
 now the practice of the PITT school, when they 
 speak of the Stoppage, or Restriction Act, to speak 
 of it as of a thing that nobody could help ; as men 
 speak of a flood, or thunder-storm, or any other ca- 
 lamity, in the causing or the preventing of which, 
 it is well known that mankind can have nothing to 
 do. But, we must not, Gentlemen, suffer them thus 
 to get off. They have had the sway in the country 
 for the last twenty-six years, fifteen months ex- 
 cepted. They have followed their own plans. They 
 have constantly insisted that theirs were the wisest 
 plans. They have made people feel that it was full 
 as safe to leave their plans unattacked. Well. We 
 have now the result before us. PITT, and his ad- 
 mirers and adherents, have possessed the places and 
 the powers of the state for twenty-six years ; and 
 we now see what are the consequences. Those 
 who like the consequences ; those who think the 
 present state of things a good one, will, of course, 
 be thankful that we have had such men in power ; 
 but those who, like Mr. HUSKISSON, are able to dis- 
 cover some grounds for apprehension, must excuse 
 me, if I point out those to whom we owe the dan- 
 ger ; or if, in the words of the old maxim, " I clap 
 the saddle upon the right horse." 
 
 This task must, however, be reserved for my next ; 
 and in the mean while, 
 
 I remain, Gentlemen, 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, November 26, 1810. 
 
 
244 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 ted wi 
 
 i of Commons. November 22, 
 
 " Thus, the measure of non-payment orieinated^with the persons hound to 
 pay." Mr. Tierney's Speech in the House < 
 
 The Reasons for the Stoppage, or Restriction, Act Mr. Pitt 
 and his Adherents represent it as of short Duration Mr. 
 Fox and others foretell that it will never be repealed -The 
 Dates of the several Renewals of the Act Pretence for 
 the first Renewal Resolution of the Bank Directors Re- 
 port of the Secret Committee Pretence for the second Re- 
 newal Exposure of this by Mr. Hobhouse Miserable An- 
 swer of the Minister Mr. Tierney's Exposure of the whole 
 Thing The Measure traced to the End of the last War. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 THE task first to be performed, agreeably to the 
 conclusion of my last letter, is, to point out to you, 
 and I natter myself, to your children's children, 
 those persons who bore a distinguished part in the 
 discussions of the Stoppage, or Restriction, Act ; 
 and, especially to show you, that that Act was not 
 a thing that came like a flood or like thunder, as Mr. 
 Huskisson appears to wish us to believe ; and that 
 its duration was a circumstance which was not 
 only foreseen, but distinctly foretold, by several of 
 those persons, who, by the party to which Mr. Hus- 
 kisson belonged, were represented as the enemies of 
 their country. The Bill was, as we have seen, 
 brought into the House of Commons on the 9th of 
 March, and became a law on the 3d of May. Be- 
 tween these days there were several debates upon 
 the subject ; and you will now see, whether, as Mr. 
 HUSKISSON would have the public believe, there was 
 nobody that could foresee or dream of this long 
 continuation of the non-payment of cash at the 
 Bank. Justice to the dead as well as to the living, 
 as was before observed, demands that the truth of 
 this fact should be well known ; but, besides that, 
 the knowledge of the truth here will be of great 
 utility in the guiding of our judgment for the future. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 245 
 
 I shall, therefore, give the very words of the several 
 speakers upon the subject, just as they stand in the 
 Reports of the Parliamentary Debates of that time ; 
 and, that any one may, when he pleases, examine into 
 the correctness of my statements, I shall give the date 
 of the Debate from which I make my quotations. 
 
 Mr. PITT, and his adherents, held a language of 
 great confidence in the solvency, and even in the 
 wealth of the Bank Company. You have seen, 
 that the first Act of Stoppage, or, as it is called, of 
 Restriction, was to last for only Jiffy-two days ; 
 which, of itself, amounted to a declaration, that the 
 Bank would be able to resume their payments in a 
 short time ; and, during the debates upon the bill, in 
 its several stages, every thing was said that could 
 be thought of, by the Minister and his adherents, to 
 cause the public to believe, that the suspension of 
 cash-payments would be very short indeed. In the 
 debate of the 23d of March, Mr. WILBERFORCE said, 
 that " Gentlemen did not consider how much of this 
 distress arose from the very nature of our commer- 
 cial dealings. The credit we gave was one year, 
 eighteen months, or two years, while we paid at six 
 months ; so that in the progressive increase of 
 trade it was some time before the balance flowed 
 in. The bad effects were passed, the good were yet 
 to come" On the 24th of March, Mr. PITT said, 
 that, " as to the exact period, he could make no po- 
 sitive conjecture : for he felt it difficult to say, whe- 
 ther one month, or two, or three, would be better. 
 But when he reflected, that it must require some 
 time for money to circulate back from the country 
 to the Bank, and also to be refunded from abroad, 
 and from all the other sources from which its wealth 
 may be derived, he could not entertain a firm hope 
 that the restoration of the Bank could be other than 
 gradual ; he would, therefore, limit the operation of 
 the present clause to the 24th of June, 1797." On 
 the 29th of March, Mr. LUBBOCK said, that " if no 
 particular day was fixed, and the Bank began to 
 21* 
 
246 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 pay specie without such notice, all would go on gra- 
 dually and smoothly ; that he was convinced, with 
 a very little assistance, that the Bank might go 
 on as usual immediately, and discount freely ; if 
 3,000,000 were added to their capital, it would ena- 
 ble the Bank to discount to a much larger amount, 
 which would more than accommodate the commer- 
 cial world : and he would venture to be d d, if 
 
 such a sum would not be subscribed in twenty-four 
 hours; this would put all to rights." On the 31st 
 of March, Mr. PITT said, " Leave the Bank and 
 them to exercise a discretion concerning it, which, 
 at all events, could do no injury, and might, more 
 than probably would, lead to the attainment of that 
 which the Right Honourable gentleman himself 
 seemed so anxious for, namely, the restoration of 
 cash payments at the Bank." And, again, on the 
 same day he said : " Probably then the cash in the 
 Bank on the 25th of February was not yet dimi- 
 nished then, if more cash came in, it would gradu- 
 ally enable the Bank to open again, and resume 
 its operations, by those slow and successive steps 
 which would make a resumption safe." On the 
 same day. Mr. SAMUEL THORNTON, one of the Bank 
 Directors, said, in speaking of the clause, which in- 
 vites people to carry gold to deposit in the Bank, 
 that, " on the whole he considered it as a most im- 
 portant measure, and that it would enable the Bank 
 to resume its usual general payments long ante- 
 cedent to the period fixed for its recovery" Thus 
 all of them spoke either of a gradual or a speedy 
 return to cash-payments ; and this last gentleman, a 
 most firm adherent of the Minister, and a Bank Di- \ 
 rector, expressed his opinion, that the Bank would 
 be able to pay even before the expiration of thejifty- 
 two days, for which the Act was made. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, hear the other side. You have 
 heard the Minister PITT and his adherents. Now 
 hear Mr. Fox and those who stood with him. But, 
 above all things, mark the words of Mr. Fox. Look 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 247 
 
 at his predictions; and, I need not point out to you, 
 how exactly they have been accomplished thus far, 
 and how manifest it is that the rest are in the way of 
 speedy accomplishment. Mr. Fox is no more ; but 
 his words will never die. The evils he foretold, and 
 that he laboured to prevent, have ail come upon us, 
 or noAV menace us with horrid aspect. 
 
 In the debate of the 7th of March, Mr. HOBHOUSE 
 said : " But we are told that this bill is to exist for a 
 short time only. Has the right honourable Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer considered what is likely to 
 take place when this bill shall expire ? Will not the 
 holders of Bank of England notes, the very moment 
 that the suspension of payment in specie is at an 
 end, rush in large bodies to the Bank and demand 
 specie ? Having been once deluded, will they ever 
 expose themselves to the risk of being deluded a 
 second time ; having once lost the opportunity of 
 converting their notes into specie by a sudden and 
 unexpected Order of Council, will they ever volun* 
 tarily become holders of such notes again? The 
 least wound given to public credit is not easily- 
 healed ; public confidence once lost, is not easily 
 recovered." What Mr. NICHOLLS said, in the debate 
 of the 22d of March, we have seen in the Motto to 
 Letter XVIII. In the same debate Mr. Fox said, 
 that " He knew not what the duration of the bill 
 was intended to be, whether for three weeks or for 
 three or six months ; but this he knew, that the 
 longer the duration, the greater our difficulty 'would 
 be; and he must be a sanguine man indeed, if he 
 thought the country would not be ruined in its cre- 
 dit, if this bill continued for six or eight months. 
 There were some persons who confessed that this 
 evil could not be removed during the war : he 
 agreed with them.; but he doubted whether it could 
 be removed EVEN IN PEACE, unless that desira- 
 ble event should take place very soon. Every hour 
 that it was delayed, diminished our chance of re- 
 moving the calamity. If we had not peace in the 
 
218 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 spring of 1797, what should we say in the autumn ? 
 This was a question which did not depend on the 
 taking of a town or a fortress. An enumeration of 
 many successes in that respect would be of no avail. 
 This was a time in which we should not conceal 
 any thing from the public. A new loan of several 
 millions was speedily wanted, which certainly would 
 not tend to improve the situation of paper credit. He 
 could not bring himself to state the circumstances 
 of this country without the most painful anxiety. 
 The House ought to consider that this country was 
 now on the brink of a dreadful precipice, and that 
 one false step might throw it into a gulf, out of 
 ^hich it never could rise" In the same debate, in 
 answer to a remark of Mr. PITT, " that an increase 
 of Bank notes would hasten the period of cash 
 payments" Mr. Fox said, that " to say that paper 
 differed from the nature of every thing else, and 
 that it was valuable in proportion as it was plen- 
 tiful, and not as it was rare ; and that the abun- 
 dance of paper would incline people not to hoard 
 guineas, but would induce people to carry them to 
 the Bank, were propositions so inconsistent with 
 sound reasoning, that he was ashamed of calling up 
 principles so merely elementary, and which were as 
 clear as the simplest propositions of mathematics." 
 In the same debate, Mr. SHERIDAN said, that " There 
 would be no end to the bill, should it be carried 
 into effect. He would repeat, therefore, what he 
 had said before, that it would be better to suspend 
 the proceeding altogether, than to hazard the evils 
 which its enactment, without the prospect of a li- v 
 mitation, would produce." In the same debate, Sir 
 WILLIAM PULTENEY said : " Does any man, in his 
 senses, imagine, that if this stoppage of payment in 
 specie is to be of long duration, that the merchant 
 will not advance the price of his foreign articles ? 
 This appears to me to be a great evil ; and I have 
 no idea of assenting to any bill of this kind, unless 
 the duration be fixed, and irrevocably limited to a 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 249 
 
 short period." In the debate of the 24th of March, 
 the same gentleman, Sir WILLIAM PULTENEY, said, 
 that " he was of opinion that the longer the period 
 was, the heavier would our difficulties grow. It was 
 useless to say, that cash might Jlow back from the 
 country and from abroad ; lor, while we were 
 waiting for that reflux of specie, our destruction 
 must ensue ; it was impossible to restore the Bank 
 by the balance of trade to which the right honour- 
 able gentleman, Mr. PITT, alluded. The theory was 
 false, and nothing solid could be expected from it. 
 Three weeks had already been given to the Bank, 
 and he was willing to grant it one month more ; if, 
 then, it could not pay, we must look for some other 
 remedy : for that now proposed would be found of 
 no avail. We should be only compelled to prolong 
 the restriction from one period to another, till our 
 paper met the fate of the French assignats" 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, were the opinions expressed, 
 upon this part of the subject, when the cash-stop- 
 ping bill was first before the House of Commons. 
 You see, then, that, while Mr. PITT and his adhe- 
 rents were full of confidence of the Bank being able 
 to return to its payments in cash ; while they saw 
 no danger at all from this measure ; while they 
 thought that the invitation contained in the Act for 
 people to bring money into the Bank Shop would 
 again fill the Shop with real treasure ; while they, 
 and especially Mr. WILBERFORCE, described the Stop- 
 page of cash-payments rather as a sign of prospe- 
 rity and riches than the contrary ; while they did 
 not, as Mr. HUSKISSON says, dream of the Act being 
 continued for a length of time ; while their opi- 
 nions, or, at least, their declarations, were of this 
 sort, the declarations on the other side of the House, 
 the declarations of those whom this " most think- 
 ing" nation would not believe, the declarations of 
 those whom this " most thinking" nation were per- 
 suaded to look upon as its enemies and as the friends 
 of France, were just the contrary. Mr. Fox and 
 
250 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 his party not only foresaw, but they foretold, what 
 has since come to pass. They said, that, if the Act 
 was once passed, it must go on ; and they gave rea- 
 sons for their opinion, reasons that were not attempt- 
 ed to be overset by other reasons, and that were op- 
 posed by nothing but abuse or foul insinuation. 
 
 Having, now, as far as relates to this point, done 
 justice to the parties who took a part in the debates 
 upon the occasion referred to; having shown that 
 Mr. HUSKISSON has not fairly represented the matter ; 
 having shown that Mr. PITT and his adherents either 
 meant to deceive the nation as to the ability and 
 willingness of the Bank to return to payments in 
 cash, or were themselves ignorant of the natural 
 consequences of the measure, and that they had ei- 
 ther less sincerity or less knowledge, than their op- 
 ponents; having placed this important part of the 
 subject beyond the power of future misrepresenta- 
 tion, we will now trace this famous Act of Parlia- 
 ment through its several renewals, from its first pass- 
 ing to the present day. In the whole, there have been 
 Six Acts passed ; the original Act, of which the seve- 
 ral clauses are mentioned in Letter XVI. p. 216, and 
 Five Acts of Renewal. There are, in some of these 
 Jive, trifling deviations from the original Act; but, these 
 are very unimportant. The great provisions about 
 stopping cash-payments, about protecting the Bank 
 Company against the demands of their creditors, and 
 about the protection from arrests in individual cases, 
 are all preserved, are now in full force, and, therefore, 
 the alterations are of no material consequence. 
 
 We have seen the title and preamble of the Act 
 before, at page 216, and it will be best, before I offer 
 you any observations upon the reasons, which at 
 the different renewals, were stated in justification 
 of the measure, to furnish you with the dates of 
 the six Acts, that you may, if your affairs should 
 require it, and opportunity enable you to do it, refer 
 to these Acts yourselves. 
 
 THE FIRST was passed in the 37th year of the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 251 
 
 reign of George III., and is, of the Statutes of that 
 year, Chapter 45. The date, according to the com- 
 mon way of dating, is 1797, and on the 23d of May. 
 To continue in force to the 24th of June, 1797 ; that 
 is to say, for only Jifty -two days. 
 
 THE SECOND: 37th year George III. Chapter 91. 
 That is, in 1797 ; and the day when the Act passed 
 was the 22d of June ; to continue in force 'till one 
 month after the commencement of the then next 
 Session of Parliament ! Mark this. See what a leap 
 was taken. But you will see a greater presently. 
 
 THE THIRD: 38th year George III. Chapter 1. 
 That is, 1797 ; and the day when the Act was passed 
 was the 30th of November; to continue in force, Hill 
 one month after the conclusion of the then war by 
 a definitive treaty of peace ! Bravo ! See how it 
 gains strength as it goes. Give them an "inch^ 
 and they'll take an ell" says the old proverb. But 
 we have not yet seen the boldest leap. This Act, 
 mind, was to protect the Bank Hill the end of the war; 
 and the reasons for that we shall see by-and-by. 
 
 THE FOURTH {Peace was now come, observe:) 
 42nd year George III. Chapter 42. That is, 1802; 
 and the Act was passed on the 30th of April ; to 
 continue in force (though peace was made) till the 
 1st of March, 1803. We shall, by-and-by, see the 
 reasons that were given for this. These reasons 
 are the interesting matter. 
 
 THE FIFTH (Peace still continuing:} 43d year 
 George III. Chapter 18. That is, 1803 ; and the 
 Act was passed on the 28th of February ; to continue 
 in force till six weeks after the commencement of 
 the then next session of Parliament. This was 
 the second renewal after the end of the war. The 
 second renewal during peace. 
 
 THE SIXTH (War was now begun again:) 44th 
 
 year George III. Chapter : That is, 1803 ; and 
 
 the Act was passed on the 15ih of December; to 
 continue in force till six MONTHS after a conclu- 
 sion of a definitive treaty of peace ! 
 
252 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 This last, gentlemen, is the Act which is now m 
 force. This is the Act, which now protects the 
 Bank Company against the demands of the holders 
 of their promissory notes. This is the Act, which 
 the BULLION COMMITTEE recommended to be repeal- 
 ed in such a way that the Bank Company shall be 
 compelled to pay again in cash in two years from 
 this time. You will now be so good as to recall to 
 your minds, that the main question for us to deter- 
 mine is, whether, if such a law were passed, it is 
 likely that it could be executed : in other words ; 
 whether it be likely that the Bank Company will 
 ever again be able to pay their noles in money. 
 This is the main question for our determination, 
 because upon that question hangs the whole paper 
 system ; and, in order the better to enable ourselves 
 to determine that question, and, also, to complete 
 the history of the Bank Company and the Bank, 
 Stoppage, or Restriction, as they call it, we must 
 now take a view of the REASONS, which, at the 
 several renewals of the Stoppage, or Restriction Act, 
 were urged in justification of the measure. 
 
 The FIRST Act was, as we have seen, proposed to 
 the Parliament by the Minister, and defended by him 
 and his adherents, upon the ground of necessity. 
 The drain of cash was said to have been sudden, 
 and unusual, arising from false alarms of inva- 
 sion. The emergence was said to be temporary. 
 The stoppage was acknowledged to be a great evil; 
 but it was maintained, that it was absolutely neces- 
 sary, as the only means of avoiding a greater evil. 
 It was, particularly by the then Attorney-General, 
 (now Lord Eldon,) and by the then Solicitor-Gene- 
 ral, (now Lord Redesdale,) urged, that the measure 
 was necessary to the safety of the public creditor, or 
 Stock-holder; because, if the run upon the Bank 
 had not been checked by force of law, the Bank 
 would have been totally ruined, and, of course, that 
 the Stock-holder would have lost his all. 
 
 But, (and I beg you to mark it well,) wl\en the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 253 
 
 SECOND Act came under discussion, in June, 1797, 
 the Minister, and his adherents, began to hold a dif- 
 ferent sort of language, and to speak of the Act, not 
 as the less of two evils, but rather as a measure 
 adopted from choice, and not from necessity. This 
 Act, which was thejirst act of renewal, had for its 
 forerunner, a correspondence between the Minister 
 and the Bank Directors. His letter to them was 
 dated on the 12th of June, and their answer on the 
 13th. These letters having been prepared, he, the 
 minister himself, moved, in the House of Commons, 
 on the 15th of June, that the said letters should be 
 laid before the House, which was done. And, what 
 do you think, gentlemen, that these letters contained ? 
 Why, the minister's letter told the Bank Directors, 
 that he did not think that it was expedient, that 
 they should begin again to pay in cash, at the time 
 specified in the first Act of Parliament ; and they, 
 very submissively, acquiesced in the minister's 
 opinion ! Now, pray do not laugh, gentlemen ; 
 for, you will find, in the end, it is no laughing 
 matter. 
 
 These two Letters, and nothing in the world be- 
 sides, were made the ground of a legislative pro- 
 ceeding ; made the ground, and the sole ground, for 
 continuing, for five months longer, an Act of Par- 
 liament, which protected the Bank Company against 
 the demands of their numerous creditors, the holders 
 of their notes. In the course of his speech, the Mi- 
 nister, the " heaven-born Minister," said, " that he 
 had the satisfaction to say, that there was, in the 
 affairs of the Bank, with regard to the means of 
 payment in cash, an improvement that was highly 
 consoling, and that the apprehension of their not 
 recovering their ability to pay in the accustomed 
 manner, had been greatly exaggerated, when the 
 subject first came before the House." He said, in 
 another part of his speech, that a he was still anxious 
 to come to the termination of the restriction; and, 
 although that could not be on the day appointed, yet 
 22 
 
254 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 it was a satisfaction to the public to find, that the 
 inconvenience of the measure was much less than 
 had been foretold, and that, indeed, the consequence 
 of the measure had been the reverse of what had 
 been predicted by its opponents." 
 
 Without more ado, the bill was brought m, and 
 was passed, as we have seen, in seven days after- 
 wards, without any further debate about the matter. 
 Four fifths of the House of Commons were still at 
 the back of the Minister ; he appears to have lost 
 not a single vote in consequence of the state to 
 which it was now manifest he had brought the af- 
 fairs of the nation ; there were still the same majo- 
 rities for him in the House, and there was still the 
 same shouting for him at Lloyd's ; the majority of 
 the nation, partly from folly, partly from fear, partly 
 from the influence of the paper system, were still as 
 loud in his praises as ever, and Mr. Fox. apparently 
 wearied with exertions, which afforded no hope of 
 success, left the people to feel the effects of their in- 
 fatuation. 
 
 But, when the THIRD Act came to be passed, 
 in November, 1797, a little more preparation was ne- 
 cessary ; and it was also necessary to find out new 
 reasons, a quite new doctrine, in justification of it; 
 or. to acknowledge, at once, that the Bank was una- 
 ble to pay. The refusal to pay their notes in cash, 
 had now lasted for nine months ; the alarm of in- 
 vasion was over; and it appeared difficult to con- 
 ceive any reason whatever for the continuation of 
 the Stoppage, or Restriction Act, other than that of 
 the inability of the Bank Company to pay their 
 notes in money. Other reasons were, however, 
 found out; but, by way of preparation, another SE- 
 CRET COMMITTEE was now appointed in the 
 House of Commons, which Committee were, as we 
 shall see, the vehicle through which the new doc- 
 trines first made their way into that House. 
 
 This Committee, by the hands of Mr. CHARLES 
 BRAGGE, (now Bragge Bathurst, and Member foi 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 255 
 
 Bristol,) made their Report to the House on the 17th 
 of November, 1797 ; and, I will venture to say, that 
 a more curious document never was produced in the 
 world. Every syllable of it is worthy of your at- 
 tention; and I beg of you to go carefully through it 
 before you proceed any further. The Report was, 
 in part, grounded upon a copy of a Resolution of 
 the Bank Directors, which had been passed some 
 time before, and which was laid before this Com- 
 mittee of Secrecy. I shall insert this Resolution 
 first ; and I must again beseech you to read every 
 word of both documents with attention; for, you 
 may be well assured, that the whole world never 
 saw such documents before.* 
 
 * Resolution of the Court of Directors of the Bank. 
 At a Court of Directors, at the Bank, on Thursday the 26th 
 October, 1797. 
 
 RESOLVED. That it is the opinion of this Court, That the 
 Governor and Company of the Bank of England are enabled 
 to issue specie, in any manner that may be deemed necessary 
 for the accommodation of the public ; and the Court have no 
 hesitation to declare, that the affairs of the Bank are in such 
 a state, that it can with safety resume its accustomed functions^ 
 if the political circumstances of the country do not render 
 it inexpedient : but the Directors deeming it foreign to their 
 province to judge of these points, wish to submit to the wis- 
 dom of Parliament, whether as it has been ONCE JUDGED 
 PROPER TO LAY A RESTRICTION on the payments of 
 the Bank in cash, it may, or may not, be prudent to continue 
 the same. 
 
 The Committee of Secrecy, appointed to inquire whether it 
 may be expedient further to continue the Restriction, con- 
 tained in two Acts, made in the last Session of Parlia- 
 ment, respecting payments in Cash by the Bank ; have in- 
 quired accordingly, and agreed upon the following Report ; 
 viz. 
 
 Your Committee have, in the first place, examined the total 
 amount of out-standing demands on the Bank of England, 
 and of the funds for discharging the same ; and find, from 
 the examination of the Governor and Deputy Governor of 
 the Bank, and the documents produced by them, that the to- 
 tal amount of out-standing demands on the Bank was, on 
 the llth day of this instant November, 17,578,910/. ; and that 
 the total amount of the funds for discharging the same (with- 
 out including the permanent debt due from Government, of 
 n.686,800/., which bears an interest of three per cent) was, 
 
256 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 This Report, this matchless, this immortal Re 
 port, having been laid before the House, having 
 been submitted " to the Wisdom of Parliament," the 
 
 on the same day, 21,418,460Z, ; leaving a balance of surplus in 
 favour of the Bank, (exclusive of the above-mentioned debt 
 from Government,) of 3,839,550Z. 
 
 Your Committee next proceeded to examine the principal 
 articles of which the above mentioned sum of 21,418,4GO/. t 
 being the credit side of account, is made up, with a view of 
 ascertaining how far the Bank might be enabled to resume 
 its accustomed payments in cash, in case the restriction at 
 present subsisting should be removed : and your Committee 
 find, that the advances to Government have, on the one 
 hand, been so much reduced, since the 25th of February last, 
 as to amount, on the said llth day of this instant November, 
 to no more than the sum of 4,258, 140Z. while, on the other 
 hand, the cash and bullion in the Bank have increased to an 
 amount more than Jive times the value of that at which they 
 stood on the same 25th of February last, and much above that 
 at which they have stood at any time since the beginning of 
 
 September, 1795. Your Committee farther find, that the 
 
 course of exchange with Hamburgh is, at present, unusually 
 favourable to this country, and that, from the situation of our 
 trade, there is good reason to imagine it will so continue, un- 
 less political circumstances should occur to affect it. Your 
 Committee next proceeded to examine the Governor and De- 
 puty Governor of the Bank ,as to their opinion of the inconve- 
 nience which may have arisen from the restriction imposed on 
 the Bank from making payment in cash, and of the expediency 
 of continuing such restriction; and your Committee find, that 
 they are not aware of any such inconvenience, and that they 
 are supported in that idea, by knowing that the bankers and 
 traders of London who had a right by the Act of Parliament to 
 demand three-fourths of any deposit in cash which they had 
 made in the Bank, of 500Z. or upwards, have only claimed 
 about one sixteenth : and your Committee find, that the 
 Court of Directors of the Bank did, on the 26th of October, 
 1797, come to a resolution, a copy of which is subjoined to 
 this Report. Your Committee having further examined the 
 Governor and Deputy Governor, as to what may be meant by 
 the political circumstances mentioned in that resolution, 
 find, that they understand by them, the state of hostility in 
 which the nation is still involved, and particularly such 
 apprehensions as may be entertained of invasion, either in 
 Ireland or this country, together with the possibility there 
 may be of advances being to be made from this country 
 to Ireland : and that from those circumstances so explained^ 
 and from the nature of the war, and the avowed purpose of 
 ike enemy to attack this coantry by means of its public credit, 
 and to distress it in its financial operations^ they are led to 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 257 
 
 {c heaven-born Minister" rose to move, at once, with- 
 out any time for printing the Report, to bring in a 
 bill to extend the duration of the Act of Stoppage, 
 or Restriction, as it is called. He said, that he 
 would, however, move for the printing of the Re- 
 port, " in order that all the Members might have 
 the satisfaction of informing themselves, in detail, 
 of statements so very pleasing and important; those 
 gentlemen, he said, who had now heard the report 
 read, would think with him, that after the full exa- 
 mination the subject had undergone in the Com- 
 mittee ; after the clear and decided opinion that 
 Committee had pronounced upon it ; and after the 
 distinct statement not only of them but of the Bank 
 Directors ; it would be unnecessary to detain the 
 business merely on account of the printing ; and that 
 it would be proper to proceed without delay to the 
 object of that Report ; and move for leave to bring 
 in a bill for that purpose." He further said, that it 
 was necessary to continue the restriction during the. 
 war to defeat the object of the enemy, which was 
 to destroy our credit ; that the further continuation 
 of the restriction could not reasonably produce any 
 alarm or apprehension, since they had now indis- 
 putable evidence before them, that, so far from the 
 gloomy predictions of the opponents of the measure 
 having been verified, the national credit had rapidly 
 
 think that it will be expedient to continue the restriction now 
 subsisting, with the reserve for partial issues of cash, at the 
 discretion of the Bank, of the nature of that contained in the 
 present Acts ; and that it may be so continued, without inju- 
 ry to the Credit of the Bank, with an advantage to the na- 
 tion. Your Committee t therefore, having taken into con- 
 sideration, the general situation of the country, are of opinion, 
 that notwithstanding the affairs of the Bank, both with 
 respect to the general balance of its accounts, and its capaci- 
 ty of making payments in specie, are in such a state that it 
 might with safety resume its accustomed functions, UNDER 
 A DIFFERENT STATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, yet, that 
 it will be expedient to continue the restriction now subsisting 
 on such payments, for such time, and under such limitatious, 
 as to the wisdom of Parliament may seem fit. 
 
258 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 risen to the high condition of prosperity which had 
 just been exhibited. At the end of this harangue, 
 he moved for leave to bring in a bill for continuing 
 the Stoppage of cash-payments, at the Bank, till a 
 month after the conclusion of a definitive treaty of 
 peace ; which, by the Representatives of " the most 
 thinking people in the world," was agreed to without 
 a single dissenting voice ! 
 
 When, however, the subject came to be discussed 
 again on the 22d of November, the thing was not 
 suffered to pass off in silence. Mr. HOBHOUSE ob- 
 served upon the new doctrine which was now brought 
 forward in defence of the measure : " He reminded 
 the House, that he had said on a former occasion, 
 that this would be the case ; and now the Minister 
 was making good his predictions, alleging as a rea- 
 son for so doing, that the nature of the contest in 
 which we are engaged demanded it, though this 
 was no part of the grounds for the former restric- 
 tion^ and though in comparing the war now with 
 its nature at that time, it did not appear there was 
 any material difference. Why the nature of the 
 war, then, made a restriction of six months only ne- 
 cessary, and its nature now made a restriction during 
 the contest necessary, he could not discover ; to him 
 it appeared absurd and irreconcilable to common 
 sense and sound policy." What answer was given 
 to this by the Minister ? What answer could he 
 give ? He had, in fact, nothing to say. He repeated all 
 the former assertions about the riches of the Bank, 
 though those assertions evidently made against him ; 
 and, as to the main argument, what did he do, but 
 rely solely upon the opinion of the Secret Committee, 
 a Committee, who had, in fact, been chosen by his 
 own adherents. He said : u As to the plan of con- 
 tinuing the restriction for the whole term of the war, 
 the reasons for it being stated distinctly in the Re- 
 port of the Committee, it was unnecessary for him 
 to say a word more upon the subject; it would be 
 found there distinctly set out that the Bank was in 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 259 
 
 a state which in ordinary times would enable it to 
 resume its cash payments and operations on the ac- 
 customed scale. But that the avowal of the enemy 
 to attack us through our finances, and to ruin our 
 public credit, was the motive (he presumed a suffi- 
 ciently cogent motive) to make an additional term 
 of restriction ; and when it was remembered that no 
 injury nor even inconvenience, had been sustained 
 by the restriction hitherto, the House could not but 
 think it a sufficient encouragement to adopt that now 
 called for." In a subsequent stage of the bill, the 
 next day, he said : " We were contending with an 
 enemy whose object was to attack the credit of the 
 country, and to embarrass its financial operations. 
 It was necessary to meet these attacks in a manner 
 that would defeat the object of the enemy. The 
 House should take every measure to ward off the 
 danger, and the present was, in his opinion, the best 
 that could possibly be adopted." Mr. HUSSEY ha- 
 ving pressed him closely upon this point, he further 
 said, that, " It was necessary to hold out to the enemy, 
 that the country was prepared to meet all its efforts 
 of desperation ; but it did not follow that the re- 
 striction would be continued during the whole of the 
 war. While, however, it was pursued in its present 
 shape, he certainly considered the restriction as ab- 
 solutely necessary." 
 
 These miserable reasons; these most pitiful pre- 
 tences, Mr. TIERNEY exposed, in his speech of the 
 22d of November, in a manner so complete, that one 
 is shocked at the thought of the House afterwards 
 suffering the measure to proceed ; one cannot help 
 wondering, that the Minister was able to sit and 
 hear him ; and, it is impossible to feel any compas- 
 sion for the people who still supported and extolled 
 him ; and who richly merit all that could, or can, be- 
 fall them from that cause, they having supported 
 him with their eyes open, and against the clearly 
 and loudly expressed dictates of reason and truth. 
 Mr. TIERNEY said : u that the enemy would aim a 
 
260 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 blow at our credit and finances, all would agree, for 
 all modern wars have been, without exception, car- 
 ried on upon that principle. Modern wars are made 
 upon resources rather than blood ; but was this the 
 way to prevent the enemy from succeeding ? most 
 whimsical expedient ! In order to leave the enemy 
 no credit to attack, they destroy credit themselves. 
 But at last, they speak plainly, at last, it comes out, 
 it will distress the financial operations of the coun- 
 try ; and then they deliberately weigh and find that 
 it will be expedient to continue the restriction with 
 the reserve of partial issues of cash at the discretion 
 of the Bank, and that it may be so continued with 
 advantage to the nation, and without injury to the 
 credit of the Bank. This was the result of the ex- 
 amination of the Governor and Deputy Governor of 
 the Bank of England. This was their advice. 
 This precious plan, which first originated in the dia- 
 bolical, but fertile mind of that monster Robes- 
 pierre." 
 
 Mr. TIERNEY, in this speech, which was one of 
 the best made upon the occasion, and to which I do not 
 pretend to do full justice, then showed how clear it 
 was, that the Bank Company and the Minister went 
 hand in hand through the whole of the transaction ; 
 that their operations were intended to screen one 
 another ; that the Bank Company called upon the 
 Minister for protection ; and the Minister made that 
 the pretext for his propositions to Parliament. He 
 observed, that the principal reason for continuing to 
 protect the Bank from paying their notes, came from 
 the Bank Directors themselves, who even before 
 the meeting of Parliament had come to a resolution, 
 that they were able to pay if the political circum- 
 stances of the country did not render it inexpe- 
 dient, but that the stoppage of payments in cash 
 having been ONCE judged proper, they submitted 
 to the wisdom of Parliament, whether it would not 
 be proper to continue the same. " Thus," said Mr. 
 TIEBNEY, " the measure of non-payment originated 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 261 
 
 with the persons bound to pay ;" and who, from the 
 language of the Act, the world would believe were 
 restrained against their will from paying. 
 
 From the Report of the Secret Committee, you 
 will have perceived that the Bank Company of 
 Traders, were the chief source of the Committee's 
 information; for the Committee say, that, having 
 asked them what they meant by those "political cir* 
 cumstances" of the country, mentioned in their Re-* 
 solution, the Bank people told them, that they al- 
 luded to the war in which the country was engaged ! 
 Upon this; aye, upon this ground, suggested by the 
 Bank Company themselves, did the Committee re- 
 port, that it would not be safe for that Company to 
 pay its notes during the war ; and upon the same 
 ground did the House of Commons come to a like 
 determination. 
 
 Gentlemen, were not these facts fresh in our me- 
 mories ; were they not capable of proof by living 
 witnesses ; nay, were they not proved by the exist- 
 ence of the Act of Parliament, of which we are 
 speaking, would they, could they be believed? could 
 they be believed to have taken place in any nation 
 upon earth ; and, especially amongst a people calling 
 themselves " the most thinking people in the world ?" 
 
 Thus have we traced down this Act of Stoppage, 
 or Restriction, as it is called, to the end of the last 
 war. We have seen that its continuation was at 
 last justified upon the ground of its being dangerous 
 for the Bank to return to money payments DURING 
 THE WAR. And now we have to see what rea- 
 sons were given for continuing the restriction, or re- 
 fusal to pay, AFTER THE WAR WAS OVER. 
 But this, by no means the least interesting part of 
 tjie subject, must be reserved for another Letter. 
 In the meanwhile, I remain, 
 
 Gentlemen, your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday, December 4, 1810. 
 
262 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 " The English are a sober, THINKING people, and are more intelligent and 
 more solid than any people I ever bad the fortune to see." Lord Stor- 
 mont's speech in the House of Lords, 1st Feb.,, 1792. 
 
 The War being now over, Mr. Pitt's Reasons ceased of course 
 The Peace brings no Golden Payments at the Bank Mr. 
 Addington becomes Minister Gives Notice of an Intention 
 to continue the Act of 1797 Mr. Robson calls for Papers, 
 which are refused He compares Bank Notes to Assignats, 
 and is himself called to Order Mr. Addington's reasons 
 for renewing the Act in April, 1802 His Reasons for another 
 Continuation of the Bill in February, 1807 Mr. Tiernev 
 calls for Inquiry The Act renewed again, in Dec. 1803, till 
 sixth Months after Peace. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN Letter XIX., page 244, we traced the Bank 
 Stoppage or Restriction Act, down to the end of the 
 last war, in the year 1802. We saw it introduced 
 under pretence of the absolute necessity of a tempo- 
 rary purpose ; we saw it passed, at first, for only 
 fifty-two days ; and with every expectation held 
 forth, that it would be repealed before the expira- 
 tion even of that time ; we then saw, that it not only 
 lived for the fifty-two days, but, at the expiration of 
 that time, was prolonged for Jive months ; and, when 
 the end of that five months came, we saw it pro- 
 longed for the duration of the war, upon the ground, 
 that the enemy had openly avowed his determina- 
 tion to effect the destruction of our public credit, 
 and that, therefore, it was necessary to keep upon 
 the defensive. This was the precise ground stated 
 by the Minister himself. The enemy had avowed 
 his determination to destroy our credit, and therefore 
 the Bank was to l)e protected from paying its pro- 
 missory notes, agreeably to the conditions on wliich 
 these notes had been received in payment. The 
 enemy had avowed his determination to blast the 
 credit of England, and. therefore^ the Bank of Eng- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 263 
 
 land was to stop payment with impunity, as long 
 as the war should last. 
 
 Such were the reasons, such the doctrine, to 
 which was at last driven the " Grand financier," Mr. 
 PITT, who had begun his career by bespeaking a co- 
 lumn to his memory, on which the words " PUBLIC 
 CREDIT," should be inscribed ; such was now the doc- 
 trine of the " heaven-born minister ;" " the Pilot that 
 weathered the storm ;" " the great statesman now 
 no more." He weathered the storm so ably, that, at 
 the end of only four years of his war against the Re- 
 publicans of France, during which four years he 
 had, perhaps, forty times foretold that France would 
 sink beneath the weight of bankruptcy, he himself 
 comes into the same House of Commons where his 
 promises to ruin France had been so often heard, 
 and there he calls upon the members to protect the 
 Bank of England in non-payment of its notes ; he 
 calls upon them for a law to compel the Public 
 Creditor to take his dividends in a paper not conver- 
 tible into gold ; and, his reason for this is, that the 
 French, that those same French, that the bankrupt 
 French, that the beggared French, threatened to 
 make war upon our finances ! Aye, he, the*boaster, 
 who had made so many, so many scores, of tri- 
 umphant comparisons between the situation of Eng- 
 land and France ; who had so many scores, I might 
 say hundreds of times, (for -he frequently did it seve- 
 ral times in one speech) represented England as so 
 highly blessed in wealth and credit, while France 
 was sunk into the lowest abyss of poverty, and threat- 
 ened with all the evils attendant upon a debased 
 paper-money ; he, this very same man ; the identical 
 " heaven-born-minister ;" now asked for a law to pro- 
 tect the Bank against the demands of the holders of 
 its notes, and to compel the Public Creditor to re- 
 ceive his dividends in that same sort of notes or not 
 at all ; and, all this he did, because those same poor, 
 ruined, beggared, and beaten French, had avowed 
 their intention of making war upon our finances. 
 
264 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 But, at any rate, this reason held good only ditr 
 ring the war. The " heaven-born man," as we 
 have seen in the last Letter, expressly stated, that 
 the measure was a mere war measure, intended to 
 meet the hostility of the enemy ; " to meet his ef- 
 forts of desperation" But, it did not follow, he 
 said, that the non-payment of cash would continue 
 during the whole of the war ; hut merely while the 
 enemy pursued the war in its then " present shape" 
 So that, at all events, it was believed, or, it was in- 
 tended to make this " most thinking people in the 
 world" believe, that the measure would last only for 
 the war at longest, and that when peace returned, 
 they would once more get guineas for their notes, 
 and that those of them who had dividends to receive, 
 would receive them in gold if they chose, as they 
 formerly used to do ; and, this, was one of the rea- 
 sons why the nation so anxiously wished for 
 peace. 
 
 Well, in 1802, Peace came ! But, alas ! it brought 
 no guineas in payments at the Bank. It brought 
 with it no golden payments to the Stock holder, or 
 Public Creditor^ as some people call him. Peace 
 brought no repeal of the Bank Stoppage, or Restric- 
 tion Act. On the contrary, it did, as we have seen 
 at page 251, bring an extension of the duration of 
 that Act from the 30th of April, 1802, to the first of 
 March, 1803. And thus it was that the promise was 
 kept. Thus it was that " the most thinking people 
 in the world" saw their "heaven-born Minister's" 
 doctrines verified. 
 
 But, what was now the pretence for continuing 
 this Act ? The war was over. The shoutings and 
 the bon-firings and the bell-ringings for peace had 
 taken place. Mr. ADDINGTON, the prime minister, 
 and Lord HAWKESBURY, the negotiator, had been 
 praised in all manner of ways for the " blessings of 
 peace." What, then, could be the pretence for 
 continuing the Stoppage Act ? You shall hear. 
 Gentlemen; for it is impossible to do justice to the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 265 
 
 reason except in the words of the Minister himself 
 and of those who supported him. 
 
 You must remember, Gentlemen, that just before 
 the peace was begun to be negotiated, the " hea- 
 ven bonr' and some others went out of office, and 
 that Mr. HENRY ADDINGTON, now LORD VISCOUNT 
 SIDMOUTH, succeeded him, as prime minister. To 
 his lot, therefore, it fell to propose the continuation 
 of the Stoppage Act, in peace ; but, you should 
 bear my mind, that this was, in fact, no change 
 of ministry ; it was merely a change of a very few 
 of the men in power. All those who had voted for 
 PITT, continued to vote for his successor, as did 
 also Mr. PITT himself. So that the continuation of 
 the Stoppage Act is not to be ascribed, in anywise 
 to this change of men, the people still in power 
 being the same people who supported all the mea- 
 sures of the minister, PITT, and who, indeed, brought 
 him back into power again in the year 1804. 
 
 It was on the 9th of April, 1802, that the continua- 
 tion was proposed by Mr. ADDINGTON ; but notice of 
 his intention having been before given, Mr. ROBSON, 
 on the 2nd of April, moved for certain papers, show- 
 ing the nature of the affairs of the Bank, which was 
 opposed by the Minister, ADDINGTON, who, without 
 more ado, moved the previous question upon it. 
 Whereupon Mr. ROBSON said, that this was using 
 him, and those who thought with him, very ill. 
 Notice had been given, he said, by the minister, of 
 his intention to bring in a bill to continue the Act, 
 which protected the Bank from paying in gold and 
 silver, and, he wished to know how the affairs of the 
 Bank stood, that he might be able to judge whether 
 he ought to consent to such a measure or not. " He 
 maintained that all Europe was contemplating the 
 payments of specie by the Bank, as the criterion of 
 the credit of the Country. If the Bank continued to 
 issue paper, country banks would do the same with- 
 out control ; they would issue their notes without 
 mercy. It was, in his opinion, THE COMMENCE- 
 23 
 
266 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 MENT OF A COURSE OF ASSIGNATS. 
 ( Order ! order I and question I was called from 
 every part of the House") 
 
 The question being put, it was carried against 
 Mr. ROBSON, without a division. He was not al- 
 lowed to have the papers he wanted. It was unne- 
 cessary, he was told ; and, when he ventured to com- 
 pare bank notes to assignats, he was called to order. 
 He was called to order for speaking irreverently of 
 those notes, which were by law rendered not pay- 
 able agreeably to promise, and which law it was now 
 proposed to continue. 
 
 Now we come to the Minister Addington's rea- 
 sons for continuing this Act after the end of the 
 war ; and to those reasons we must pay particular 
 attention. He prefaced his proposition, as his pre- 
 decessors always used to do, by very high language 
 about the ability of the Bank to pay in coin. He 
 said, in the debate of the 9th of April, " I have the 
 satisfaction of being convinced, that the measure 
 cannot furnish a pretence to the most timid man 
 in the House, to suppose the Bank does not possess 
 within itself the most ample means of satisfying 
 the full extent of the demands which may be made 
 upon it, by the payment of its notes in specie." 
 In the debate of the 2 1st of April, he said, that" on the 
 solidity of the Bank, he was entitled to say and as- 
 sume there was now no question either in that House 
 or elsewhere. On the DISPOSITION of the Bank 
 to make payments in specie, he was also entitled to 
 assume, nay, he owed it to the Bank to ASSERT 
 they had manifested a readiness to do so. It " was, 
 however, thought necessary to continue this restric- 
 tion for a while." Having said this, he said, that 
 it was, of course, quite unnecessary to enter into 
 any inquiry as to the state of the Bank's affairs ; 
 and, accordingly, it only remained for him to state 
 the grounds, upon which he proposed the continua- 
 tion of the measure. But, Gentlemen, pray bear in 
 mind, that this Minister gave the country to under- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 267 
 
 stand, that the Bank Company had, even at that 
 time, u manifested a readiness to make payment 
 in specie" and this was now nearly nine years ago. 
 Yet, Mr. RANDALL JACKSON now bestows something 
 very much like abuse upon the Bullion Committee, 
 because they recommended to the House to make the 
 Bank Company begin to pay in specie in two years 
 from this time. What should make the Bank Com- 
 pany angry with the Committee, if it was true, that 
 they wished to pay in money, so long as eight years 
 and nine months ago ? 
 
 The grounds which the Minister, ADDINGTON, 
 stated for the continuation, were as follows. In the 
 debate of the 9th of April, he said; " The grounds 
 on which I shall rest the proposition I have to make 
 to the House, are notorious ; and it will be for the 
 sober and dispassionate reflection of the House, whe- 
 ther the measure I shall submit does not necessarily 
 result from facts and circumstances too well known 
 even to require a particular statement of them. It 
 cannot be necessary for me to inform the House, 
 that the rate of exchange between this country and 
 foreign parts is disadvantageous, to ourselves. . . . 
 It cannot be necessary for me to prove, that while 
 the rate of exchange is disadvantageous to us, an 
 augmentation of the circulating cash would create 
 a trade highly injurious to the interest and com- 
 merce of this country. It is well known, that for 
 several months past there has been a trade carrying 
 on in purchasing guineas with a view to the ex- 
 
 portation of them In addition to these 
 
 reasons, the House will reflect upon the inconve- 
 nience which would unavoidably result from letting 
 loose such a proportion of the coin of the country as 
 would be circulated by taking off the restriction. I 
 am not aware of any inconvenience, that can possi- 
 bly arise from continuing it. We have had the sa- 
 tisfaction, arising from the experience of three or 
 four years of difficulty. We have had experience, 
 that during such period, the credit of the Bank has 
 

 268 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 undergone no diminution whatever. Bank notes 
 have maintained their reputation, and have been 
 every where received cheerfully and readily. . . . 
 Some Gentlemen are desirous that the Bank should 
 pay in cash for notes of small denomination; but 
 till there is a full and abundant supply of cash by 
 opening the Bank entirely, it is extremely conve- 
 nient to afford circulation to II. and 21. notes. By 
 the payment of them in specie, a general anxiety 
 would be introduced of obtaining cash at the Bank. 
 Notes of 1,000/. and 500Z. would be changed for 
 notes of II. and 21. in order that they might be 
 immediately changed again for cash. If a re- 
 straint was to be imposed with respect to the num- 
 ber of notes of small denomination, they would be 
 driven out of circulation altogether; and there would 
 be no small notes but those issued by Bankers." 
 
 There, Gentlemen, you have now before you the 
 reasons why this Act was continued after the war. 
 The Minister, Mr. PITT, told the nation, that it was 
 necessary during the war, in order to prevent the 
 enemy from executing his vow of destroying our 
 credit ; and the Minister, Addington, told the nation, 
 that it was necessary after the war was over, be- 
 cause the rate of exchange was against us, because 
 people were exporting guineas when they could lay 
 hold of them, because to repeal the Act would let 
 coin loose, because the experience of years had 
 shown that the stoppage of cash payments had done 
 no harm to the credit of the Bank, whose notes were 
 every where received cheerfully and readily, and 
 finally, because, (pray mark !) if a part of the notes 
 were to be paid in specie, that would give rise to a 
 general anxiety to obtain cash at the Bank, and that 
 people would change large notes into small ones, in 
 order immediately to change these latter for cash. 
 
 So, then, Mr. ADDINGTON, the people did, even in 
 your time, like gold better than the notes ? Though 
 you could not perceive, not you, any inconvenience 
 from the continuation of the Act ; though you had 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 269 
 
 seen with satisfaction the experience of the years of 
 suspension ; though the credit of the Bank had un- 
 dergone TIO diminution whatever ; though the Bank 
 notes had maintained their reputation and had 
 been every where received cheerfully and readily ; 
 yet, notwithstanding all this, you object to make the 
 small notes payable in gold, lest the holders of them 
 should run to the Bank and get cash for them ; lest 
 this taste for the sweets of gold should excite a ge- 
 neral anxiety of obtaining cash at the Bank ; and 
 lest large notes should be changed into small ones 
 for the purpose of again changing these latter into 
 cash. But why was this to be feared? The Bank 
 Directors, were surely, the best judges of this ; and, 
 you say, not only that they are able to pay ; but they 
 have manifested a readiness to pay their notes in 
 specie. Now, this being the case, what danger was 
 there of a run upon the Bank ; and, if there had 
 been a run, what danger was there in that ; seeing that 
 there were means amply sufficient to meet such run ? 
 
 Mr. ROBSON, whom we have seen called to order 
 for speaking so irreverently of Bank notes, opposed 
 the bill in its subsequent stages : he pointed out the 
 advantages which the Bank derived from the Act ; 
 he foretold what the Bullion Committee have now 
 declared to have come to pass ; in short, he did all 
 that it was in his power to do to prevent the conti- 
 nuation of a measure, which a Committee of that 
 same House of Commons have now declared to 
 have produced such fearful consequences ; and this 
 Mr. ROBSON did, while Mr. HUSKISSON, who now 
 tell us that no one foresaw the evil, not only suf- 
 fered the measure to pass in silence, but was one of 
 the majority of the Minister by whom the measure 
 was proposed and put in execution. 
 
 Well, but, after all, the Act was to last only ten 
 months ; only till the first of March, 1803 ; it was 
 only, as the Minister's brother, Mr. HILEY ADDING- 
 TON, called it, " a temporary provision, till the ef- 
 fects of the peace should have begun to operate." 
 23* 
 
270 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Only this. Nothing more. Yet did they, when the 
 1st of * March, 1803, came, renew the Act again. 
 Again did they pass a law to protect the able-and- 
 W-illing-to-pay Bank against the demands of the 
 note-holders ! Again did they pass an Act, to con- 
 tinue in force till six weeks after the commencement 
 of the then next session of Parliament, the measure 
 for preventing payments in cash, though peace had 
 been made a whole year, and though they said, that 
 the Bank was able and ready to pay. 
 
 Let us see, then, Gentlemen, what were the rea- 
 sons given now. " The most thinking people in the 
 world," were, as we have seen, told the last time, 
 that the Act of renewal was " a temporary provi- 
 sion^ till the effects of peace should have begun to 
 operate ;" and, as peace had now lasted a whole 
 year, what reason, what pretence, what excuse, what 
 apology was now to be found ? This is what we 
 ought to keep our eye upon. We know well, that 
 they renewed the Act ; but, in order to be able to 
 judge of what will be done in future, we must take 
 care to keep in view the reasons, which, at the dif- 
 ferent renewals, were given for the measure. 
 
 When he came to propose the second renewal af- 
 ter the war was over, it must be confessed, that Mr. 
 ADDINGTON did appear to perceive the light in which 
 he stood. He did appear sensible of his situation ; 
 and, doubtless, this was amongst the things, for 
 which, as it was asserted by a pamphleteer soon af- 
 terwards, Mr. PITT was under obligations to his 
 successor. It was on the 7th of February, 1803, 
 that he moved for leave to bring in this bill. He 
 began by saying, "that it was with the utmost reluc- 
 tance that he submitted the proposition to the House, 
 but the reasons which suggested it were too strong, 
 and the necessity too urgent, to be resisted ; that 
 necessity, however, he hoped would soon disappear; 
 and he anxiously and impatiently looked forward 
 to the day, which he trusted was not far removed, 
 when the Bank would be at liberty to resume its 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 271 
 
 payments in specie." The grounds for proposing 
 this measure he stated to be, that the course of ex- 
 change was still against this country ; and, as the 
 House " last year, considered that a sufficient argu- 
 ment for the measure, he would appeal to the can- 
 dour and good sense of the House whether it would 
 be expedient to allow the restriction to cease." He 
 also said, "that a sudden issue of cash from the 
 Bank would produce a run upon the country banks, 
 and a consequent run upon the Bank of England, 
 which might be productive of most serious conse- 
 quences." He further observed, " that the exchange 
 being against us, had arisen from the circumstance 
 of scarcity of coin, which of late years had caused 
 so much Bullion to be sent out of the country, and 
 that it was obvious, that we should wait the opera- 
 tions of a flourishing commerce to bring back some 
 proportion of this vast amount of Bullion, before we 
 attempted to permit the Barfk to issue specie." 
 
 The whole world never, in my opinion, heard, any 
 thing like this before. Were it not upon record, in 
 a manner not to be disputed, it would not. it could 
 not, be believed. Mr. TIERNEY and Mr. Fox spoke 
 against the motion, and particularly wished for an 
 inquiry, previous to the passing of such a bill. Mr. 
 Tierney said, "according to the report of the Com- 
 mittee of 1797, the proportion of cash and bullion 
 in the Bank amounted tv ONE MILLION, when 
 the Order of Council was issued ; and some short 
 time afterwards this sum was increased to SIX 
 MILLIONS. Was it not now a fit object of in- 
 quiry ; What had become of their six millions ? 
 If it was forthcoming to meet any exigency ; and if 
 it was, why should the Bank hesitate to resume 
 their operations ? They could not be afraid of a run 
 upon them, for who could now think of any mate- 
 rial advantage from hoarding gold ?" Nevertheless, 
 the bill passed ; and thus was the Bank protected 
 against demands upon them for cash, until six 
 weeks after the commencement of the then next 
 
272 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Session of Parliament, which Session began in No- 
 vember, 1803.* 
 
 After what we have now seen, we can hardly ex- 
 pect to hear of any more reasons. It would, I think, 
 have been utterly impossible to invent any pretext 
 that Mr. ADDINGTON would have made use of; but, 
 most fortunately for him, before Parliament met, and, 
 of course, before the Act expired, WAR had begun 
 again. That was quite enough ; and, without any 
 scruple, hesitation, or ceremony, the Minister brought 
 in a bill to prolong the Stoppage, or Restriction, till 
 the war should be over, and until six months after 
 a definitive treaty of peace should be concluded. 
 He said that, " though doubts had been entertained 
 as to the propriety of the measure, during a period 
 of peace. Under the impression, therefore, that no 
 doubts existed on the subject, he should take it for 
 granted, that not objection would be made, in the 
 present instance, to a renewal of the measure. It 
 was satisfactory to know that the credit of the Bank 
 had remained firm and unshaken, during the past 
 experience of the measure, and that its sufficiency 
 to make good its engagements, both was, and is, 
 unaffected by even the slightest suspicion"] 
 
 This was all. There was very little more said 
 about the matter. All the anxiety that he expressed 
 upon the former occasion, for the happy day of cash- 
 payments to come, was now forgotten ; or he had 
 got an entirely new view of the matter. There 
 were some very interesting debates upon the subject, 
 in the House of Lords, in which LORD KING and 
 LORD GRENVILLE took a part, and in which they 
 showed, that they were duly impressed with the 
 dangerous consequences of continuing this Act in 
 
 * The whole of this debate is very important, and als,o a 
 subsequent one of the llth of February, 1803. They will be 
 found at full length, and very accurately given, in the POLI- 
 TICAL REGISTER, Vol. III. pages 1243 and 1347. 
 
 t See Parliamentary Debates, Vol. I., page 52. Where the 
 reader will find Mr. ADDINGTON'S grave ideas respecting 
 hoarding money. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 273 
 
 force ;* but, what they said was of no avail. The 
 Act was passed ; it is, as you well know. Gentlemen, 
 in force to this day ; and the proposition of the Bul- 
 lion Committee is, that it shall be in force, to its 
 present extent, at least, only two years longer. 
 
 When we take a review of the reasons for the 
 passing of this Act, at the several times at which it 
 has been passed ; when we see how those reasons 
 have varied; when we see how many times the 
 expectation of a return to cash-payments has been 
 disappointed ; but, especially when we look well 
 into the part which the Bank Company themselves 
 have borne in these transactions ; when we look at 
 what passed between the Minister and the Bank 
 Company previous to the Stoppage ; when we look 
 behind the curtain and see the plan laid for a pri- 
 vate Meeting of the principal Bankers to settle upon 
 the scheme for a general meeting ; when we after- 
 wards hear the Minister, in Parliament, talking of 
 that Meeting as of a thing in which he had nothing 
 to do, and citing it as a mark of the public confi- 
 dence in the Bank Paper ; when we take this view, 
 Gentlemen, it is not, I think, possible, that any of 
 us can ever again be deceived by professions, pro- 
 mises, and outward appearance, as far, at least, 
 as relates to the subject of bank notes. 
 
 I have now gone through the whole history of the 
 Stoppage of money-payments at the Bank of Eng- 
 land, which history, though it has, Gentlemen, taken 
 up a good deal of time, will, I trust, be found well 
 worthy both of our time and our labour. Without 
 a knowledge of this history, it is impossible for any 
 one to form so correct an opinion, as to the future, 
 as he will be able to do with this history, fairly im- 
 printed on his mind. In this history he has before 
 
 * See Parliamentary Debates, Vol. I., page 152 to 156. And 
 page 304 to 319. These two debates are of great importance. 
 There is scarcely any thing to be found in the Bullion Report, 
 as touching the main points, which will not be found to have 
 been said, upon this occasion, by one or the other of these 
 two Noblemen. 
 
274 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 him the experience of thirteen years ; and, from 
 what has been, he will easily form his opinion as to 
 what, under the operation of similar circumstances, 
 is likely to be. We have, by toiling through this 
 history, furnished ourselves with all the knowledge 
 (of any real use here) possessed by the members of 
 the Bullion Committee ; and, perhaps, a little more ; 
 so that, we shall now enter into an examination of 
 their production without any dread of difficulty in 
 the progress, or of error in the conclusion. 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Monday, Wth December, 1810. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 Appointment of the Bullion Committee Quantity of Bank 
 Notes, compared with the quantity of Real Money Amount 
 of Bank of England Notes in 1797, and at this Time Num- 
 ber of Country Banks Probable Amount of their Notes- 
 Amount of Real Money in the Bank of England Probable 
 Amount of Real Money in the Hands of the Country Bankers. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 WE have now arrived at a point whence we can 
 see to the end of our discussion. We have seen how 
 the Bank and the Stocks and the bank notes arose ; 
 we have seen that they all grew up with the Nation- 
 al Debt and the Taxes ; we have seen, that, at last, 
 the bank notes became so large in amount that they 
 could no longer be paid in money at the Bank Shop 
 in Threadneedle Street; we have seen the means 
 that have, in the several stages, been resorted to,, in 
 order to protect the Bank Company against the de- 
 mands of its creditors, the holders of its notes ; and 
 we have a pretty fair view of the conduct of all the 
 parties concerned in these transactions. With the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 275 
 
 EVIL and with the causes of the Evil we are now 
 well acquainted : it only remains for us to obtain as 
 good information with respect to a REMEDY. 
 
 To discover and point out a REMEDY were the ob- 
 jects of the BULLION COMMITTEE, of whom 
 I must speak here a little more fully than I hitherto 
 have done. This Committee, consisting of twenty- 
 one members, was, as I stated in Letter I, appointed 
 by the House of Commons, during the last Session 
 of Parliament " to inquire into the cause of the high 
 price of Gold Bullion, and to take into considera- 
 tion the state of the circulating medium, &c. &c. 
 and to report the same to the House." They did so ; 
 and their Report was, by the House of Commons, 
 ordered to be printed on the 8th of June last. 
 
 This Report, after showing that the bank notes 
 have depreciated ; after giving very clear proofs of 
 this fact, and also of the fact that the depreciation 
 must continue to increase, unless put a stop to by 
 some means or other ; after this, the Report recom- 
 mends, as a remedy, that the Bank Company shall 
 be, by law, compelled to pay their notes in cash, as 
 formerly, in two years from this time ; and, there- 
 fore, the only great object which remains for our con- 
 sideration, is, whether this proposed remedy be prac- 
 ticable, or, whether it be one that cannot be put in 
 practice. 
 
 In order to arrive at a correct conclusion as to this 
 great question, upon which, as you must already 
 have perceived, the very existence, not only of the 
 paper-money system, but also of the Stocks or Funds, 
 entirely depends, we must, 1st. take a view of the 
 Quantity of paper-money now afloat, compared with 
 the quantity of real money and bullion in the hands 
 of the Bank Company and in those of the Country 
 Bankers ; 2d. we must inquire into the rate of the 
 depreciation of the paper-money ; 3d. we must in- 
 quire into the m.eans which the Bank Company 
 would have of obtaining real money, wherewith to 
 redeem, or pay off, their notes, or any considerable 
 
 
276 PAPER A&AINST GOLD. 
 
 part of them, and, if we shall find, that for them to 
 do this would be impossible, our conclusion must be, 
 that the Bank Company cannot return to their pay- 
 ments in gold and silver. 
 
 The discussion of these matters I shall divide into 
 three Letters, in this first of which I shall take a 
 view of the quantity of paper-money now afloat, 
 compared with the quantity of real money in the 
 hands of the Bank Company and in those of the 
 Country Bankers. 
 
 The amount of Bank of England notes in circu- 
 lation before the Stoppage of payments in Gold and 
 Silver, in the year 1797, was, as the Committee state, 
 between 10 and 11 millions of pounds. But, as it 
 was natural to expect, when the Bank Company was 
 protected by Act of Parliament against the demands 
 of their creditors, they immediately began to increase 
 the quantity of their notes ; and let me ask, what lo- 
 ver of gain would not do the same ? Where shall 
 we find a private person of that description, who 
 would not increase the issues of his promissory notes 
 as long as any one would take them, if there were 
 an Act of Parliament to protect him against the de- 
 mands of the holders of those promissory notes ? 
 
 That the consequence, which was naturally to be 
 expected, did take place, was very well known, and 
 had been clearly shown in the Register, and much 
 commented upon therein, long before, several years 
 before the Bullion Committee existed, the readers of 
 the Register need not be told. But, the Bullion 
 Committee have verified the facts and opinions gi- 
 ven, in this respect, in the Register ; they have pub- 
 lished to the world, through the channel of the House 
 of Commons, that, what had been before published 
 in the Register, relating to this matter, was sound 
 and true. 
 
 They state, with regard to the amount of the Bank 
 of England notes, that, previous to the Stoppage of 
 cash payments, in 1797, and the consequent Act of 
 protection to the Bank, the amount of these notes 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 277 
 
 " was between TEN and ELEVEN millions, hardly 
 ever falling below NINE, and not often exceeding 
 ELEVEN ;" and that in May, 1810, the amount was 
 upwards of TWENTY-ONE millions. 
 
 Gentlemen, you, who have so recently felt the ef- 
 fects of a paper-money, not convertible into gold and 
 silver, look at this. You see, that the amount of the 
 Bank of England notes has been doubled in the course 
 of thirteen years, even according to the account given 
 in by the Bank Company themselves. It is not my 
 intention to insinuate, that this account is not a true 
 one ; but, it is right that we should know, that this 
 statement has been made by the Bullion Committee, 
 from an account made out and presented to the Com- 
 mittee by the Bank Company themselves ; and that, 
 therefore, we may rest perfectly satisfied, that the 
 amount of the increase in their notes has not been, 
 stated too high. 
 
 But, as yet, we have seen only one limb, and per- 
 haps the least fruitful, of this paper-money tree. The 
 other, the Country Banks, has been, according to all 
 appearance, much more prolific. It appears from the 
 Report, that before the Stoppage or Restriction law 
 was passed, there were TWO HUNDRED AND 
 THIRTY Country Banks, and that, in April last, 
 they had increased to SEVEN HUNDRED AND 
 TWENTY-ONE ; which is an increase more than 
 threefold as to the number of Banks, and, if we al- 
 low, as it is reasonable to do, that the notes of the 
 old banks also increased in quantity, the addition in 
 the whole amount must have been prodigious. No 
 wonder that gold and crown-pieces disappeared ; for 
 how were they to be expected to remain in circula- 
 tion along with such masses of paper ? 
 
 As to the amount of the Country Notes at either 
 of the periods before-mentioned*, or at any period at 
 all, therBullion Committee say, that they are unable 
 to ascertain it with any degree of precision ; but 
 from certain returns obtained by them from the stamp 
 office, they show, that, after making all allowances, 
 24 
 
278 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 and taking the matter m the most favourable point 
 of view, there was, during the year 1809, in the Jive 
 and ten pound notes alone, an INCREASE to the 
 amount of more than THREE MILLIONS ; and, 
 from the other notes which appear to have been 
 stamped in that year, there could not be an increase 
 of less than TWO MILLIONS more in the Country 
 notes for other sums. In that same year there was 
 an increase of a MILLION AND A HALF in the 
 amount of the Bank of England notes ; so that, in 
 the year 1809, the total amount of the increase of 
 the notes of all sorts could not be less than six mil- 
 lions and a half. And yet " the most thinking peo- 
 ple" seem to be quite astonished, that they no longer 
 see any guineas ; that guineas are bought up and 
 sent abroad ; and that people in trade purchase, at a 
 premium, with bank notes, the things called shil- 
 lings and sixpences, from the keepers of the Turn- 
 pike Gates. 
 
 The amount of the country notes, though it has 
 not been ascertained by the Bullion Committee, and 
 though they were unable to ascertain it, may be com- 
 puted with a tolerable degree of accuracy, seeing 
 that they have ascertained and stated, that there was 
 in the five and ten pound notes alone, an increase to 
 the amount of three millions of pounds in the year 
 1S09, and in the whole of the Bank of England 
 notes to the amount of a million and a half; for, 
 unless any one can see, which I cannot, any reason 
 for a greater proportionate increase in the country 
 bank paper than in the London Bank paper, the 
 question is nothing more than a very plain one in the 
 Rule of Three, (if one ought, in such a case, to be 
 permitted to use the Golden Rule,) and which ques- 
 tion would thus present itself; if 1,500,000, of in- 
 crease require a total amount of issues of 21,249.980, 
 what total amount of issues will be required by an in- 
 crease of 3,095,340. The answer will be 43,000,000 
 and upwards. And if we make our computation upon 
 the increase of 5,000,000, we shall find the whole 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 279 
 
 amount of Country bank notes, in 1809, to have been 
 70,000,000 and upwards, which, there being 721 Coun- 
 try banks, is less than 100,000 for each ; and, it is 
 well known, that many of them have half a million 
 of notes out. Your great Bank, at Salisbury, had, I 
 believe, notes out to the amount of 600,000 pounds. 
 
 Now, I am not aware of any thing that can be 
 said against this mode of computation. I am, for 
 my own part, fully persuaded that it is fair, and, that 
 the result of it is not very far from the truth. But, 
 in order to leave no room for cavil, let us suppose 
 the amount of the Country notes to be only one half 
 what it is here computed at. Even in that case there 
 must be now in circulation paper promises to the 
 amount of 56 millions of pounds and upwards. 
 
 This, then, is the sum against which we have to 
 set the coin and bullion, the gold and silver in the 
 hands of the London Bank Company, and in those 
 of the Country Bankers. What is the exact amount 
 of this no one can tell, but every one must suppose, 
 that, comparatively, it is very small indeed; for if 
 this had not been the case with regard to the Bank 
 Company, even in 1797, why did they not state the 
 amount of their real money ? Why were they so 
 shy upon that score ? And, indeed, if their stock of 
 real money had been very good indeed^ why did they 
 apply to the Minister to know when he would inter- 
 fere ? If they could have stood a run of a week, 
 they would have needed no Act of Parliament to 
 protect them against the demands of the note holders. 
 But this they could not stand ; and there needs no 
 other proof of the smallness of the quantity of their 
 cash. 
 
 In Letter XV, page 203, we have seen, that the 
 whole amount of their Cash and Bullion and Bills 
 discounted was only 4,176,080 pounds, on the 25th 
 of February, 1797. As w r as there asked, who is to 
 say how much of this consisted of Bills discounted? 
 If more than half had consisted of cash and bullion, 
 they would not have been jumbled together with 
 
 
280 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Bills discounted. Indeed, the cash, at that time, in 
 possession of the Bank Company, was computed at 
 1,272,000 pounds, and, in a speech of Mr. TIERNEY, 
 quoted in Letter XX., page 271, it is stated at 
 1,000,000 of pounds. There is no certainty in this, 
 to be sure ; but, Gentlemen, we are quite certain of 
 one thing, and that is, that when men, whether sin- 
 gle, or in companies, have plenty of pecuniary means, 
 they never are very cautious to disguise the fact. 
 
 Is it probable then, that the quantity of cash in the 
 hands of the London Bank Company has increased 
 since 1797? Is it likely that, if they had but about 
 a million before they were protected against the de- 
 mands of the note-holders, they have increased the 
 quantity since? Will " the most thinking" people 
 believe this ? If they will, there is certainly no doubt 
 but they are prepared for the verification of the old 
 proverb about believing that the " moon is made cf 
 green cheese." 
 
 And, as to the Country Ban*s, to suppose that they 
 contain any thing worthy of notice, in gold or bul- 
 lion, would be too absurd to be treated seriously. 
 The moon-raking adventure, which has been ascri- 
 bed to a Wiitshireman, was thus applied by DEAN 
 SWIFT at the memorable time of the South Sea Bub- 
 He, when so many thousands and tens of thousands 
 of families were ruined by jobbers and dealers in 
 /unds and Stocks : 
 
 One night a fool into a brook 
 Thus from a hillock looking down, 
 
 The Golden stars for guineas took, 
 And Silver Cynthia for a crown. 
 
 The point he could no longer doubt, 
 He ran, he leap'd into the flood, 
 
 There sprawl'd awhile, and scarce got out, 
 All cover'd o'er with slime and mud. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, foolish as our poor countryman 
 was, in this case, he was not half so worthy of ridi- 
 cule as we should be, if we, with all the informa- 
 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 281 
 
 tion we now possess, or have, at least, had the 
 means of possessing, were still to believe, that Coun- 
 try Bankers have, or ever will have, gold or silver 
 sufficient to pay off a thousandth part of the notes 
 that they have issued. 
 
 After taking this view of the matter ; after com- 
 paring the amount of the bank notes with the amount 
 of the Cash and Bullion, in the hands of those by 
 whom the notes have been issued, ought we to won- 
 der, that those persons, and all their friends, depre- 
 cate the notion of paying again in cash? You have 
 seen, Gentlemen, in the course of these Letters, that 
 the Bank Company have been represented, upon se- 
 veral occasions, as being perfectly ready to pay again 
 in cash, and that they have upon all occasions, been 
 represented as able to pay again in cash. You have, 
 all along, heard the Stoppage spoken of as a tem- 
 porary measure ; as a measure to last only for a 
 t\me ; the pretences were lame, to be sure, but still 
 there were pretences. Now all this is thrown aside, 
 and they say, in plain terms, that not to pay in cash 
 is a very good permanent system. 
 
 With such a mass of paper, and so little coin and 
 bullion, it was not to be expected that the paper 
 would not depreciate or fall in value: but, as I 
 wish to make this depreciation the subject of a 
 separate Letter, I shall here conclude, by subscribing 
 myself 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Monday, December 17th, 1810. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 * Legal Tenders have been the cause of the overthrow of every financial 
 system into which they have been introduced." Essay on American Pu- 
 
 rer-money- 
 
 24* 
 
282 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 The Question of Legal Tender in Bank of England Notes- 
 Two Letters received from Correspondents as to the true 
 Constitution and Practice of the Act of 1797 How far the 
 Bank of England Notes are a Legal Tender They are so 
 far as relates to Debts due from the Bank of England inclu- 
 ding the Dividends Not so with regard to Debts and 
 Contracts between man and man Any holder of a Coun- 
 try Bank Note may compel the Payment of it in the Coin 
 of the Kingdom This proved by the Decision in the Case 
 of Grigby against Oakes The opinions of the four Judges 
 in that Case The Justice of this Decision The Reason 
 why People have not hitherto compelled the Country Bank- 
 ers to pay their Notes in Coin. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 THE proposed subject of this Letter was an in- 
 quiry into the rate of the depreciation of paper- 
 money / but two letters, which I have received, in 
 the last six days, the one from Glasgow, and the 
 other from the neighbourhood of Exeter, induce me 
 to devote this present Letter to the answering of 
 them, they being upon the very important subject of 
 the legal tender. 
 
 The writer of the first letter expresses his doubts 
 as to the correctness of my exposition of the Bank 
 Stoppage, or Restriction Act, (See Letter XVI., 
 page 210,) and his wishes that I would give him my 
 opinion again, after having taken time to revise what 
 I before said upon this part of the subject. My cor- 
 respondent near Exeter, who tells me that he is a 
 farmer, thanks me for the useful information that 
 he is so good as to say he has received from this se- 
 ries of Letters, and begs me, in a very earnest man- 
 ner, to tell him, whether I am quite sure, that I was 
 correct, when I said, that any holder of country bank 
 notes might compel the payment of them in gold 
 and silver. Both these gentlemen have put their 
 names to their letters ; but, as the same doubts and 
 uncertainties may have occurred to others of my 
 readers, I shall give my answer in this public man- 
 ner, and, after having done so, there will, I trust, 
 remain no doubt or uncertainty at all. 
 
 I stated to you, Gentlemen, in Letter XVI., that, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 283 
 
 as far as related to debts due from the Bank of Eng- 
 land, the notes of that Bank were, by the Act of 
 1797, called the Bank Stoppage or Restriction Act, 
 made a legal tender ; that is to say, that the credi- 
 tor was compelled to take those notes in payment, 
 or to go without any payment at all. If, for instance, 
 any one of you has a Bank of England note of ten 
 pounds, and carry it to Threadneedle-street for pay- 
 ment, the Bank Company may compel you to take 
 other of their notes in payment, or they may, if you 
 refuse such notes in payment, refuse you payment in 
 any thing else. 
 
 It is the same with regard to the payment of the 
 dividends) that is to say, the interest of the Stocks 
 or Funds. If, for instance, our neighbour, GRIZZLE 
 GREENHORN, when she goes to receive her half-year's 
 interest upon her Stock, which, you know, is paid 
 her by the Bank Company, were to say : " pay me 
 in good gold and silver," she would, or might, re- 
 ceive for answer, an assertion, that the law, the Act 
 of 1797, protected the Bank Company against such 
 an unreasonable demand. In a word, the Bank 
 Company might refuse, absolutely refuse to pay her 
 her interest in any thing but their own promissory 
 notes ; and then, if she tendered them those promis- 
 sory notes for payment, they might refuse to pay 
 them in any thing but other of their own notes ; 
 that is to say, they would be ready to give her fresh 
 promises to pay in lieu of the promises to pay 
 which they had given her before ; but, she could not 
 compel them to give her one shilling's worth of gold 
 or silver, except there might be due to her, in the 
 way of interest, any fractional part of a pound. 
 
 Thus far, then, the Bank Company's notes are a 
 legal tender. And, in the affairs between man and 
 man, if such notes be once accepted and received 
 in payment of any debt whatever, they are, after 
 such acceptance and receipt, to be considered as a 
 legal payment in that case. If, for instance, I owe 
 my neighbour a hundred pounds, and tender him 
 
284 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Bank of England notes in payment, and he receive 
 them in payment to the amount of the sum due to 
 him, he is paid, I am acquitted of my deht ; he can- 
 not afterwards sue me for the debt, upon the ground 
 that I have not paid him money, as he might do in 
 the case of other promissory notes, if there were no 
 particular agreement to bar him. 
 
 But here the legal tender of Bank of England 
 notes stops. They are not yet, in any other case, 
 put upon a footing with money. As to all the trans- 
 actions between man and man, except in the above 
 circumstances, which can occur only where the 
 Bank of England itself is a party, no person is 
 obliged to take Bank of England notes in payment 
 of any debt, or legal demand. And this is a thing 
 well Worthy of the attention of all those, who have 
 it in contemplation to enter into contracts which are 
 to have a future operation; for if the value of gold 
 and silver, compared with that of bank notes, should 
 continue to increase, those who now make contracts 
 for payments to be made some years hence, should 
 bear it constantly in mind, that the party to whom 
 they will have to make such payment, will, at all 
 times, have it in his power to insist upon gold coin 
 in payment. 
 
 If this be the law, without any other exceptions 
 than those above named, it follows, of course, that I 
 can have not the least hesitation in telling my De- 
 vonshire correspondent, that I am quite sure, that 
 any holder of a Country bank note has it, at all 
 times, in his power to compel the payment of it in 
 gold or silver coin from the King^s mint, and of 
 full weight and due fineness. I know that a differ- 
 ent notion has prevailed ; and I have heard it said, 
 or seen it stated in print, that this compulsion cannot 
 be effected ; because, it has been said, if you were 
 to bring your action of debt against Paperkite and 
 Co., they would pay the amount into Court in Bank 
 of England notes ; and that, upon proof of their 
 having done this being produced, the Court would 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 285 
 
 stop the proceedings, or, at least, throw all the costs 
 thereafter incurred upon you. 
 
 This would, indeed, make the Bank of England 
 notes a legal tender in fact, though not in law ; or, 
 in other words, it would make an Act of Parliament 
 a mere delusion, a shuffle, a cheat, a base premedi- 
 tated fraud. But this is all a mistake ; it is not 
 founded in fact ; the Courts would attempt to do no 
 such thing ; for, if one could, in any case, suppose 
 the inclination to exist, in the mind of a Judge, he 
 would not do it, or think of it, in the face of what 
 has already been done. 
 
 The question has been decided, and that, too, with 
 all possible solemnity, as will appear from the case 
 which I am now about to lay before you, and the pe- 
 rusal of which will remove all d.oubts whatever upon 
 the subject. There appears to have been no doubt 
 about the letter of the law, in the mind of either of 
 my correspondents ; but they both doubt of its inter- 
 pretation in the Courts; and the last mentioned 
 gentleman says, that, though upon the face of the 
 Act, there is nothing to warrant the supposition, that 
 a holder of a Country bank note could not compel 
 the payment of it in gold and silver, yet he thinks, 
 that such holder would, by the judicial construction, 
 of the Act, be defeated in any attempt to compel 
 such payment ; and, he seems to think, that this is 
 pretty clearly demonstrated, in the fact, (as he sup- 
 poses it to be,) that no one has ever yet attempted to 
 compel Country Bankers to pay their notes in gold 
 and silver. 
 
 He will, doubtless, be surprised to find, that the 
 attempt has not only been made but that it fully 
 succeeded. In the year 1801, four years after the 
 Bank Stoppage, or Restriction Act was passed, a 
 Mr. GRIGBY, in the county of Suffolk, went to the 
 Bank Shop of Messrs. OAKES and Co. of St. Ed- 
 mund's Bury, and in presenting them one of their 
 own Five Guinea notes for payment, demanded 
 money. The Bankers tendered him a Jive pound 
 

 286 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Bank of England note, and Jive shillings, which 
 he refused to receive, saying, that the five pound Bank 
 of England note was not money, and that he would 
 not take it. The Bankers told him, that if he wanted 
 specie for his accommodation, they would let him 
 have it. He declined to receive it in that way ; he 
 said that he stood in no need of it as an accommo- 
 dation; that he demanded it as a right; and that, 
 unless they paid him in the com of the kingdom, he 
 would bring an action, of debt against them. Upon 
 this ground they refused him payment in coin, where- 
 upon he brought his action and obtained a verdict in 
 his favour at the Assizes ; but the question of law 
 was, upon the motion of the Defendants' counsel, re- 
 served for decision by the Judges ; and the follow- 
 ing is the Report of the Case, as argued before, and 
 determined by the four Judges, of the COURT OF COM- 
 MON PLEAS, on the 19th of November, 1801. 
 
 GRIGBY against OAKES and another " This was 
 an action on a promissory note ; the Defendants as to 
 all but five guineas pleaded non assumps erunt, and 
 as to the remaining five guineas, they pleaded a 
 tender. The cause came on to be tried at the Sum- 
 mer Assizes for Suffolk, before Mr. Baron Hotham, 
 when a verdict was found for the Plaintiff, with one 
 shilling damages, subject to the opinion of the Court 
 upon the following case. The Defendants are 
 Bankers at Bury St. Edmund's, and issued the note 
 in question for five guineas, payable on demand to 
 the bearer. On the 31st of January last, the Plain- 
 tiff carried several notes to the shop of the Defendant, 
 and demanded payment. He first presented other 
 notes, to the amount of fifty guineas, for which he 
 received payment, partly in Bank of England notes 
 and partly in cash, the cash being ten pounds, and 
 being the proportion of money they usually Day. 
 He then presented the note in question, for which 
 the Defendants tendered in payment a five pound 
 Bank of England note and five shillings in silver. 
 This the Plaintiff refused, on the ground that the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 287 
 
 tender was partly in a Bank of England note, ob- 
 jecting to such note, and insisted on being paid 
 wholly in money. The Plaintiff* did not at the time 
 say he wanted money for his own particular accom- 
 modation, but stated that he came on purpose to have 
 cash for the note, or to bring an action if payment in 
 money was refused. 
 
 " The question for the opinion of the Court was, 
 Whether, under the circumstances before stated, the 
 Plaintiff was entitled to recover? 
 
 " Serjeant SHEPHERD, for the Defendants, urged, 
 that though unquestionably previous to the passing 
 of the 37 Geo, 3. c. 45, commonly called the Bank 
 Act, a bank note would not have been a legal tender, 
 yet that, since the passing of the above Act, such 
 notes must be considered as cash, for that the neces- 
 sary consequence of the above Act being to absorb 
 a vast proportion of the actual cash of the country, 
 the Legislature must have intended to give a new 
 character to Bank notes by way of substitute ; that 
 they had specifically declared them to be a good 
 tender so as to prevent an arrest, and yet if the same 
 spirit which actuated the present Plaintiff in the com- 
 mencement of this action was to continue to influence 
 his conduct, and that of others also, a Defendant, 
 though exempted from arrest, might ultimately be 
 taken in execution, though ready to pay in bank 
 notes, since he might possibly be unable to satisfy 
 the judgment obtained against him altogether in 
 money : because even if a sale of his goods took 
 place, the Sheriff might not be able to avoid receiv- 
 ing a large proportion of bank notes from the pur- 
 chasers; that, indeed, in some respects, bank notes 
 were privileged by the 37 Geo. 3. c. 45, beyond cash, 
 inasmuch as a tender of them in satisfaction of a 
 debt operated to discharge a party from arrest, which 
 was not the ease with a tender of money, which 
 must be pleaded in bar ; and that no contrary infer- 
 ence could be drawn from the 8th section of the 
 Act, which declared payments in bank notes to be 
 
288 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 equivalent to payments in cash, if made and ac- 
 cepted as such, because that must have been the case 
 before the passing of the Act, and therefore that 
 clause must be deemed nugatory. 
 
 " Serjeant SELLON, on the other side, was slopped 
 by the Court. 
 
 "LORD ALVANLEY, (Chief Justice.) The ques- 
 tion for the Court to decide is a mere question of 
 law, arising, as it has been contended, out of the pro- 
 visions of the 37 Geo. 3. c. 45. In fact we are called 
 upon to say whether it follows as a necessary con- 
 sequence from that Act, that a tender in bank notes 
 is equivalent to a tender in money ? It may be very 
 true that individuals may be occasionally subjected 
 to great inconveniences from the operation of that 
 Act ; but are we therefore to say that the Legisla- 
 ture has enacted that which the provisions of the 
 Act do not warrant ? If we were at liberty to refer 
 to our own private knowledge of the language that 
 was held in Parliament while this Act was pending, 
 no doubt could be entertained upon the subject. 
 We know that it was very much canvassed at that 
 time, Whether or not the Legislature ought to go 
 the length of declaring bank notes a good legal ten- 
 der ? If, therefore, it had been intended by the Le- 
 gislature so to make them, that intention would have 
 been expressed in such clear terms that no question 
 could have have arisen upon the subject. Indeed, it 
 is expressly provided, in the 2nd section of the Act, 
 that if the Governor and Company of the Bank of 
 England shall be sued on any of their notes, or for 
 any sum of money, payment of which in their notes 
 the party suing refuses to accept, they may ap- 
 ply to the Court in which such proceedings are in- 
 stituted, to stay proceedings during such time as they 
 are restricted from paying in cash. But with respect 
 to individuals it was not intended to prevent any 
 creditor, who should be so disposed, from captiously 
 demanding a payment in money, though such a cre- 
 ditor is deprived of the benefit of arresting his debtor 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 289 
 
 Thank God, few such creditors as the present Plain- 
 tiff have been found since the passing of the Act ! 
 But yet, whatever inconveniences may arise, and to 
 whatever length they may go, Parliament, and not 
 this Court, must be applied to for a remedy. Incon- 
 venience arising from the operation of an Act of 
 Parliament, can be no ground of argument in a 
 Court of Law; and even if it were, still I should 
 entertain no doubt, that it was the intention of the 
 Legislature to make bank notes a legal payment 
 only in certain cases by them expressed, and that in 
 all other cases they should remain upon the same 
 footing upon which they stood before the Act, ex- 
 cept as to the exemption from arrest, which they af- 
 ford to the party tendering them in payment. The 
 8th section of the Act, which has been treated as 
 nugatory in the argument, however it may enact 
 nothing new, still appears to me pregnant with the 
 intentions of Parliament, and to speak loudly the re- 
 solution not to alter the character of bank notes, but 
 in those cases which are specially provided for. 
 Without, however, referring to any of those specific 
 clauses, and arguing from them as to the intent of 
 the Legislature, I should be clearly of opinion, that 
 the present Plaintiff is entitled to our judgment in 
 his favour. 
 
 " Judge HEATH. I am of the same opinion. The 
 question for us to decide is, whether a tender in bank 
 notes is a good legal tender. Now the 37 Geo. 3. c. 
 45, appears to me to negative that question ; for the 
 several provisions of the Act making them a good 
 and legal tender in certain excepted cases, excludes 
 the idea of their being so generally in cases not pro- 
 vided for by the Act. It has been argued, however, 
 that the operation of the Act will in many cases be 
 very injurious, unless we determine it to be a neces- 
 sary inference from the Act that bank notes were 
 intended by the Legislature to be put upon the same 
 footing as cash. But whatever inconveniences may 
 arise, the Courts of Law cannot apply a remedy. 
 25 
 
290 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 I think, irrdeed, the Legislature acted wisely, having 
 the recent example of France before their eyes, to 
 avoid making bank notes a legal tender; for in France 
 we know that legislative provisions of that kind in 
 favour of paper currency only tended to depreciate 
 the paper it was designed to protect, and were ulti- 
 mately repealed, as injurious in their nature. 
 
 " Judge ROOKE. I am of the same opinion. 
 
 " Judge CHAMBRE. This case appears to me almost 
 too plain for argument. It has been thought that the 
 Courts went a great way in holding a tender in bank 
 notes to be a good tender, if not objected to at the 
 time. Certainly that was an innovation ; though 
 perhaps a beneficial one. But the Act upon which 
 the present question arises aifords nothing but argu- 
 ments against the inference attempted to be drawn 
 by it. Surely the observation that in some respects 
 the Legislature have put bank notes on a more fa- 
 vourable footing than cash, leads to a conclusion di- 
 rectly contrary to that which it was intended to sup- 
 port. If the Legislature have not gone far enough, 
 it is for them, not for us, to remedy the defect. In- 
 deed, by making bank notes' a good tender in cer- 
 tain cases, specifically provided for, they appear to 
 me to have negatived the construction we are now 
 desired to put upon the Act." 
 
 It will hardly be doubted, that I have copied this 
 report with great care. I have, indeed, given every 
 word of it ; but, for the satisfaction of my corres- 
 pondents, to whom I am really obliged for their in- 
 quiries, I will add, that the report is taken from a 
 well known law-book, entitled, " Bosanquet's and 
 Puller's Reports of Cases argued and determined in 
 the Court of Common Pleas and Exchequer Cham- 
 ber and in the House of Lords, from Michaelmas 
 Term, in the 40th year of the reign of George III. 
 (1799) to Michaelmas Term, in the 42nd Year of 
 the same reign, ( 1801,) both inclusive." 
 
 After reading this report, there cannot remain, in 
 the mind of any man, the smallest doubt upon this 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 291 
 
 subject. Here is the fact, in practice as well as in 
 theory, clearly established, that any holder of a 
 Country bank note, payable to bearer on demand, 
 or the holder of any such note, except of the Bank 
 of England, may, at any time when he pleases, de- 
 mand payment of such note in the gold and silver 
 coin issued from the King's mint, that coin being of 
 legal weight and fineness. And, if such payment 
 be refused, upon demand, the holder of such note 
 may immediately proceed to sue for such payment, 
 which, if the party sued has the means, he must 
 finally pay in coin, together with full costs of suit.* 
 And, indeed, if this was not the law, the Bank of 
 England notes would be a legal tender to all in- 
 tents and purposes ; for, the issuers of these notes 
 being protected by law against the holders of them, 
 the holder of a Country bank note would have no 
 claim upon the Country Banker, or upon any body 
 else, for coin. The man who chooses to take a 
 Bank of England note, does it, knowing that he 
 cannot force any one to pay him its nominal amount 
 in coin ; and, therefore, if he choose to take it, he has 
 no reason to complain. Persons who buy Stock, 
 know that they are to be paid their interest in Bank 
 of England notes ; and, therefore, they have no rea- 
 son to complain. But, if either of you sell your 
 corn, or your wool, and take a Country bank note 
 for it, that is to say, the .promissory note of your 
 neighbour, you expect to have the real worth of your 
 corn, or your wool ; and, of course, you expect to 
 be paid by your neighbour in the real money of the 
 kingdom, which money, as I have now shown you, 
 you have a legal, as well as a moral right, to de- 
 mand. 
 
 * The shilling damages, mentioned in the first part of 
 the above Report, is merely the nominal damages, which it is 
 the custom to lay, in cases where the object, as in this case, 
 is to ascertain me question of right. But, the Plaintiff' had 
 his costs of suit in this case, as every other Plaintiff' must 
 have, who brings an action in a similar way, and on similar 
 grounds. 
 
292 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Lest any one should raise a doubt upon the cir- 
 cumstance of Mr. GRIGBY'S demand having been 
 founded upon a note given for guineas instead of 
 pounds, I beg you to observe, that this circumstance 
 was not even alluded to by either of the Judges, or 
 by the Counsel who argued against Mr. GRIGBY. 
 You will perceive, besides, that the Judges speak 
 generally of all debts, except those only due from 
 the Bank of England itself. The decision is founded 
 upon the broad principle, that Bank of England notes 
 may be refused in all cases, except only those where- 
 in the Bank of England itself is the debtor, in- 
 cluding the dividends upon the National Debt, and 
 there the Bank is regarded as the debtor to the Stock- 
 holder. 
 
 It is also worthy of your observation, that, though 
 the Chief Justice seemed to think, that it might be- 
 come necessary to make the Bank of England notes 
 a legal tender in all cases, another of the Judges 
 expressed himself as decidedly of opinion, that such 
 a measure would be both unjust and impolitic ; and 
 indeed, that it would be, in part, at least, to imitate 
 the measures of ROBESPIERRE, who compelled the 
 people of France to take paper-money upon pain of 
 death. 
 
 If it should be asked, why other persons have not 
 done as Mr. GRIGBY did, the answer is, that the peo- 
 ple of this country, generally speaking, have really 
 thought, that, by the Act of 1797, the Bank of Eng- 
 land notes were made, to all intents and purposes, a 
 legal tender, and of course, that if a man refused to 
 take them in payment, he had not the means of for- 
 cing the debtor to pay him in any other sort of thing. 
 Nor is this generally prevailing error to be much 
 wondered at seeing what were the means made use 
 of at the time of the Bank Stoppage. When you .re- 
 flect upon the famous meeting and resolutions at the 
 Mansion House in London, the secret history of 
 which I have given you. When you reflect upon 
 the effect of these RESOLUTIONS, issued under the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 293 
 
 signature of the LORD MAYOR ; followed, as they im- 
 mediately were, by Resolutions of a similar purport, 
 from the PRIVY COUNCIL, and from the Justices as- 
 sembled in Quarter Sessions, in the several counties. 
 When you reflect on the official manner, and the 
 authoritative air of all these promulgations^ you 
 will cease to wonder, that the Resolutions to take 
 and pay the paper of the Bank of England were, hy 
 the mass of the people, regarded as having the force 
 of law. 
 
 Now, however, you know the true value of those 
 Resolutions ; you know what is, and what is not, 
 the law relating to this important matter, in which 
 every man of you is so deeply interested, and on 
 your judgment and discretion with respect to which 
 may depend the permanent welfare of yourselves 
 and your families, to assist in the advancement of 
 which welfare has always been, and always will be, 
 a principal object of the labours of 
 
 Your faithful Friend, 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Monday, 2th Dec. 1810. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 " It is in the last twenty years of the Funding System, that all the great 
 
 shocks begin to operate." Paine. 
 
 Events since the Date of the foregoing Letter Bank Notice 
 about the Dollar Various Reports of the Effect of that 
 Measure Proposals in Parliament respecting the Bullion 
 Report. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 IN reviving my correspondence with you, it will 
 
 be necessary for me to revert for a moment to the 
 
 point, at which I broke off, which was at Letter 
 
 XXII., in which, as you will recollect, it was shown, 
 
 25 
 
294 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 for the satisfaction of two correspondents in the 
 country, that any man, having country bank notes in 
 his possession, had (and he still has, of course) the 
 power of compelling the drawer of such notes to 
 pay t him in gold or silver, the lawful coin of the 
 realm. 
 
 But, that Letter was a digression from the main 
 track of our subject, which, at the close of Letter 
 XXL, was leading us into the great question as to 
 the depreciation, that is to say, fall, of the Bank of 
 England notes; a question which has caused more 
 discussion than any other that has been agitated for 
 many years past, and which, I think, we now look 
 upon as completely decided, seeing that, while the 
 dispute was going on, the Bank Company themselves 
 have done an act which can, in the mind of no man 
 out of a mad-house, leave the smallest doubt upon 
 the subject. 
 
 Nevertheless, as I wish that the series of letters 
 should contain the whole of what I have thought, 
 and still think, relating to this interesting matter ; 
 I shall treat of the question here spoken of, after I 
 have recorded the events, which have taken place 
 since I last addressed you; and which events are 
 important to a degree, that few persons, compara- 
 tively speaking, appear to imagine. 
 
 When, on the 24th of December, I wrote my last 
 Letter to you, I did expect, that the winter would 
 not pass over our heads without some striking change 
 as to the circulating currency of the country. It ap- 
 peared to me, as I had, upon former occasions, told 
 my readers, quite impossible, that things could go on 
 much longer without events that would strike the 
 impudent partisans of the paper system dumb. The 
 guinea had, for some time, been a marketable com- 
 modity ; and under such circumstances, the paper 
 will not continue much longer without being openly 
 at a discount in all transactions. The coin of every 
 denomination grew daily more and more scarce ; till 
 at last, change for a pound note was with difficulty 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 295 
 
 obtained ; and, as these difficulties increased, people 
 of course, felt an increased inclination to hoard "the' 
 
 As a remedy for this evil, the Bank Company is- 
 sued a Notice, raising the Dollar (which was in c r 
 culauon at the rate of 6..) to 5.5. 6d. and it was after 
 wards found, that this Notice had been issued wfth 
 the advice and approbation of the PR.VY COUNCIL or 
 at least, of a Committee of the Privy Counci an 
 pointed to watch over the affairs of Coin. This No" 
 tice, which was first published on the 18th of March 
 
 to take ten shi lings worth or 15 shillings worth of 
 halfpence in changing a poun d note, which half- 
 pence were, for the most part, mere raps, not worth 
 a tenth part of their nominal value 
 Many of the shop-keepers in London, in order to 
 
 tS^v th b i,r a ?- of ,K ca ^ on their wSrS! 
 
 tied, by bills put in their windows, that thev would 
 receive the Dollar, (the real value of which K2 
 than 4.. Qd.) at 5s. 9d. and some of them notified 
 hat they would receive it at 6s. The same continues 
 to be done now ; and that man must be blind, indeed 
 who does not perceive, that two prices have to a 
 certain extent, already taken place.^ ' * 
 
 e inconvenience arising from the want of mo- 
 
 ?hr y Ffe^T P Z Wnd H0te Was felt v y ^verely by 
 the Bankers, whose customers, drawing upon them 
 
 Suentlv" T 3 that , lhe yS^ 'happen To want C 
 quently of course, drew for parts of a pound. These 
 
 of Anril aV^ UDable to W5 and n the 9 h 
 * April, a circular paragraph appeared in the 
 
 e " 
 
 ,d exhor !J Dg peopl to to,d 
 
 pounds. On the same day it was stated, that in th 
 shops, markets, and public offices, people gave I 
 
296 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ten acknowledgments for the parts of a pound, and 
 left them thus unpaid. On the llth of April, Mr. 
 MANNING, the Deputy Governor of the Bank, and 
 who is also a Member of Parliament, informed the 
 House, that the Bank were about to issue a large 
 quantity of Dollars ; and he observed, that those 
 persons who were hoarding them, in the expectation 
 that they would rise in price, would he disappointed. 
 
 Some days before this (on the 4th of April) the 
 
 Bank thought it necessary to publish an advertise- 
 ment, that the report of great quantities of their notes 
 having been forged, and that the plates from which 
 the said notes had been taken, had been stolen, was 
 wholly false ; and, it seems, that this report was 
 spread very widely through the country ; the object 
 being to excite suspicion of the Bank of England 
 notes, and thereby to insure a preference for the 
 
 Country bank notes. On the 19th of April, it was 
 
 stated in the public prints, that a person had a pro- 
 missory note dishonoured because he could not pro- 
 duce to the person, who had to receive the payment, 
 
 the change of ISs. 3d. On the 23rd of April, a 
 
 prisoner, confined for debt in the Marshalsea Prison, 
 obtained his release, because his creditor, in paying 
 him his maintenance money, gave him a piece of fo- 
 reign coin instead of a sixpence. On the same 
 
 day, it was stated in the public prints, that at some 
 of the public offices, change was not only refused, 
 but that certain of the Clerks in those offices, were 
 dealers in the article, and supplied the bankers with 
 silver at 3 per cent. On the same day, 23rd of 
 April, JAMES KING, a Guard to a coach, was taken 
 before the Lord Mayor, upon a charge of having 
 
 bought guineas, and was held to bail. On the 
 
 26th of April, there was a paragraph, published in 
 all the London daily prints, stating, that the Chinese 
 had just discovered that gold and silver were too 
 abundant with them, and, it was added, that they 
 were going to send great quantities of it hither, 
 some of which might be speedily expected. In the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 297 
 
 public prints of the 27th, 29th, and 30th of April, it 
 was stated, that ten thousand pounds in gold had 
 been seized on board of a ship, about to carry it 
 abroad. Many statements of this sort had appeared 
 before, but this one was worthy of particular atten- 
 tion. Also that a riot, attended with acts of vio- 
 lence and killing, had taken place at Sampford, in 
 
 consequence of the scarcity of change. A circular 
 
 paragraph appeared at this time reprobating the prac- 
 tice of hoarding, and hinting that it would be proper 
 to punish it as a crime. At the same time ano- 
 ther circular paragraph appeared, advising people 
 not to hoard the change* for that a new silver coin- 
 age was just coming out that would sink the value of 
 
 the present coin. At the same time Mock bank 
 
 notes were circulated from the King^s Bench and 
 Fleet Prisons, by the means of which some unwary 
 persons were cheated. An account of gold lawfully 
 exported during one week, was published at this 
 time, from which it was manifest, that the gold and 
 silver were going to France and her dominions as 
 fast as possible. It was now announced that the 
 Bank had issued more Dollars, and that 300 worth 
 had been sent to each of the Banking Houses in 
 London. 
 
 Such, Gentlemen, were the symptoms of the effect 
 of raising the nominal value of the dollar ; and on 
 the 8th of May, it was stated in the public prints, 
 that another seizure of guineas had been made on 
 board a ship sent into Dover. The words of the 
 
 statement were these : " Four thousand and fifty 
 
 more guineas have been found on board the ship 
 sent into Dover last week. It is supposed she will 
 be pulled to pieces, as her very iron ballast is hol- 
 lowed to receive gold. She is called the New Union 
 of London." They may pull her to pieces, and burn 
 her; they may do what they like with her; but, 
 Gentlemen, as long as this paper-money exists in 
 England, the gold and silver will continue to go out 
 of it in some way or other. The Government may 
 
298 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 be ingenious, and we know it is able to employ great 
 numbers of artful men ; but, all their art put together ; 
 and all the powers of the government, not excepting 
 the power of life and death, will never make gold 
 and silver circulate at par with a depreciated paper. 
 
 I have thus filled up the history of the time since I 
 last addressed you. That time is hardly jive months, 
 and yet, what events are here I What a change is 
 here, in so short a space of time ! And, can you be 
 made to believe, that the thing will stop where it is 1 
 Is it possible that you can be persuaded to believe, 
 that the bank notes will now, or will ever, revive ? 
 The grand effort now, with all those who wish to 
 deceive the people, and to profit from their credulity, 
 is to persuade them, that it is not the bank note that 
 has fallen; but, the gold and silver that have risen. 
 This seems to be the last trick in the budget ; but, 
 what I have to say upon this head I must reserve till 
 I come to my intended Letter upon the subject of de- 
 preciation. 
 
 In the mean while we must see what has been 
 passing in Parliament, relating to this matter ; so 
 that, before we proceed upon the remainder of our 
 inquiries, we may have the whole history of the pa- 
 per money before us, down to the very day when we 
 shall come to our conclusion. In the foregoing Let- 
 ters, there will be found, I am convinced, the most 
 complete history of our Paper Money that has ever 
 yet appeared in print. We have there traced it from 
 its very outset to the day when the people of Salis- 
 bury became, all in a moment, destitute of the means 
 of getting a dinner. In this Letter its history has 
 been brought down to last Saturday ; and all that 
 we have now to do is to give, in as few words as 
 possible, the history of the BULLION DEBATE, 
 which, perhaps, would be unnecessary for our pre- 
 sent purposes ; but, this is a subject, every fact 'be- 
 longing to which ought to be so recorded, as to be 
 capable of being hereafter referred to ; and ought, if 
 possible, to be made known in every part of the world. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 299 
 
 The Report of the Bullion Committee, which was 
 printed last year, was laid before the House of Com- 
 mons but a short time previous to its rising. It was 
 ordered to be printed on the 8th of June, and I must 
 say, that it gives me great pleasure to reflect, that it 
 issued from the press on the very day that I was sent 
 to jail! I shall always remember this with satisfac- 
 tion. It will be a source of delight to me as long as 
 I have breath in my body ; aye, and it will be borne 
 in mind, too, long after the bank notes and all, yea 
 all, that thereon depend, shall have come to their 
 true level ; their proper state. 
 
 The time being so short, the House could not 
 take the Report into consideration, during the last 
 Session ; therefore, this part of the business was to 
 be performed during this Session. The Chairman 
 of the Committee, Mr. FRANCIS HORNER, was to pro- 
 pose some measure to be adopted in consequence of 
 the Report ; but, he being a lawyer and a placeman 
 at the same time ; having to go the Western circuit, 
 and to manage the Nabob of Arcot's debts, he, of 
 course, could hardly find time for this Bullion affair. 
 After many appointments and disappointments, how- 
 ever, he, at last, brought the matter forward on Mon- 
 day last, the 6th instant, when a Debate ensued, 
 which lasted during four successive nights; it being 
 the custom in this Assembly to carry on the greater 
 part of their works after it is dark. 
 
 Previous, however, to this Debate, Mr. HORNER 
 had laid upon the table of the House a string of 
 PROPOSITIONS, expressive of his opinions as to the 
 state of the coin and paper-money of the country, 
 and also as to the remedy to be applied. In a few 
 days after these had been before the House, Mr. NI- 
 CHOLAS VANSITTART, who took the other side of the 
 question, laid before the House a set of opposing 
 PROPOSITIONS; which he soon afterwards followed 
 by a set of Propositions being the former set amend- 
 ed ; and these were followed by another paper from 
 Mr. HORNER, containing Propositions in the form of 
 
300 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 amendments upon his brother lawyer's Propositions, 
 both of the gentlemen being " learned friends." 
 
 The way being thus prepared, all the preliminary 
 steps having been taken, the discussion was entered 
 upon on the day before mentioned, at the end of one 
 year, two months, and fourteen days from the time 
 that the Committee commenced its labours. I have 
 begun inserting this Debate, and I shall insert all the 
 principal speeches before I have done ; and I do it, 
 because I wish to afford all iny readers, and you, 
 Gentlemen, in particular, an opportunity of perusing, 
 at your leisure, what these persons have said upon 
 this important subject ; and, besides, my wish is to 
 place these speeches where they may be at all times 
 conveniently referred to, seeing that my conviction 
 is, that events are now hastening on apace ; events 
 that will set all low cunning, all chicanery, all trick, 
 at defiance ; and that, of course, will put the opi- 
 nions contained in these speeches, to the test. My 
 conviction is, that the time is not far distant, when 
 it will be impossible to deceive the people of Eng- 
 land ; when truth will reign ; and, at that time, it 
 will be of great advantage for us to know what have 
 been the opinions of men who have taken a part in 
 these discussions, and to what point, whether good 
 or evil, their endeavours have tended. 
 
 What we have to discuss is the question of depre- 
 ciation, or fall, in the value of the bank notes ; and, 
 after that, the remedy proposed by Mr. HORNER and 
 those who side with him. I shail, I trust, go to work 
 in a way very different indeed from that of these 
 gentlemen ; and, when I have written my opinion, 
 there the matter will rest, and the truth of our seve- 
 ral opinions will be tried by Time, which tries all 
 things. 
 
 I remain, Gentlemen, t 
 
 Your Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Friday, May 10^, 1811. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 301 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 Sauce for the Goose is sauce for the Gander." Old Proverb. 
 
 Injury to Commerce by Buonaparte He is said to have 
 caused the Gold to leave England. The fault is with our 
 Government Our Appeals to the French People absurd- 
 Forged Bank Notes sent into Kent from France Forged 
 Assignats Decision in the Court of Kings Bench. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 WE have now to discuss the question of Depre- 
 ciation. We have now to inquire, whether the 
 Bank of England notes have, or have not, depreci- 
 ated ; that is to say, fallen in value. After what 
 we have seen in the former Letters, and particularly 
 in that immediately preceding, it is, indeed, nearly 
 useless to put this question to any man of sense, and 
 much more so to make it a subject of serious discus- 
 sion. Nevertheless, it will be right so to do ; seeing 
 that these Letters are intended to treat of every part 
 of this great subject, and to put upon record all the 
 material facts and arguments appertaining to it. 
 
 In the House of Commons, during the Debate on 
 the Bullion Report, and on the Resolutions thereon 
 proposed, by Mr. FRANCIS HORNER on the one side, 
 and Mr. NICHOLAS VANSITTART, on the other, it was 
 contended by whose who were for Mr. VANSITTART, 
 that is to say, by the MINISTRY and their adherents ; 
 by this part of the House it was contended, that the 
 Bank paper had not depreciated* or fallen in value ; 
 and, being asked how they then accounted for the fact, 
 that a guinea was worth 26s. or 27s., they answered, 
 that it was very true, that Gold and Silver had 
 risen ; but that the Bank paper had not fallen. 
 
 They were then asked, how, since they would in- 
 sist upon it that it was a rise of Gold and Silver, it 
 had come to pass at this time above all others. Al- 
 26 
 
302 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 lowing, for argument's sake, that it was a rise in the 
 value of the guinea, they were asked how the value 
 of the guinea came to rise. Their answer to this 
 was, that it was owing chiefly to the injury done to 
 our commerce by the extraordinary, the cruel, the 
 savage measures of the inexorable tyrant, Buona- 
 parte, whom they designated by every appellation 
 characteristic of a despot, and even a fiend. 
 
 Gentlemen, we will stop here and make a few ob- 
 servations upon these charges against the Emperor 
 of France ; for it would be very foolish in us, who 
 call ourselves " the most thinking people in the 
 world," to suffer ourselves to be amused with charges 
 against Napoleon, when we should be considering 
 of the real cause of the mischief that is now come 
 upon us, and of the greater mischief that is still 
 coming, and will come with most dreadful effect, 
 unless we take timely measures for preventing that 
 effect ; this would be selling ourselves to laughter in- 
 deed, making ourselves an object for the contempt 
 of Europe, not excepting the Dutch, and those other 
 nations, whom, with empty insolence, our hireling 
 writers and others affect to pity. 
 
 We call upon the Bank for Gold and Silver in 
 payment of their promissory notes. They have no 
 Gold or Silver to give us ; or, at least, none do they 
 give. They are protected by law against our de- 
 mands. Some persons propose to remove this im- 
 pediment to our demands. The men in power and 
 a great majority of the House of Commons say no ; 
 and they, in objecting to the proposition, say, that 
 the Bank have not the gold and silver ; that they 
 cannot get it ; and that it is, therefore, impossible 
 to make them pay. This is a sorry answer enough ; 
 but, when we complain, we are told, that the fault 
 is not with the Government or with the Bank, an 
 that it is wholly with Buonaparte, by the means of 
 whose laws, edicts, and workings of one sort or 
 another, the Gold and Silver have been drawn out 
 of England. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 303 
 
 What should we think, Gentlemen, what should 
 we, " thinking people," think of a general, who 
 was to write home word, that he had been beaten 
 and routed, and lost half his army ; but that the 
 fault was none of his, and that it was wholly the 
 fault of the enemy's general, who had adopted 
 against him a series of extraordinary, cruel, and sa- 
 vage measures ? What would we, thinking people, 
 say to such a general ? What should Mr. Q,UIN, the 
 editor of the Traveller newspaper, in his sublime 
 orations, in the Common Council, say to such a ge- 
 neral ? Would he vote him thanks and a sword ? 
 I do not say that he would not ; but I think, that 
 you will agree with me, that such a general would, 
 amongst most men, meet with but a cold reception ; 
 and, that he would be told, that it was the business 
 of the enemy to beat him, to rout him, to break him 
 up, to ruin him ; and that it was his business to pre- 
 vent the enemy from so doing, and also to beat, and 
 break up, and ruin the enemy. 
 
 Just such, must, if we have a grain of sense left, 
 be our answer to the ministers and their adherents, 
 when they blame Buonaparte for having deprived 
 us of our Gold and Silver. It was their business 
 to prevent him from doing us this mischief. It was 
 their business to protect the country against the fa- 
 tal effects of the enemy's measures ; and. if they 
 found themselves unequal to the task, they should 
 have said so ; and, I warrant them, there would not 
 have been wanting others to take the labour off' their 
 hands. These ministers and their predecessors, for 
 the last twenty years, have had the complete com- 
 mand of all the means, all the resources, of this 
 kingdom, of every sort. They have carried all the 
 measures that they proposed. They have found out 
 the way of putting down all opposition, or, at least, 
 of rendering all opposition quite inefficient; and 
 therefore to them, and to them alone, the nation is 
 to look for responsibility for whatever mischiefs ex- 
 
304 PAPER ApAINST GOLD. 
 
 ist, or are likely to exist. If, indeed, all be well ; if 
 there be nothing to complain of; if the nation be in 
 no danger ; if there be no evil ; then, they have no- 
 thing to be blamed for ; but, if there be any thing 
 in our situation, the existence of which we have 
 cause to lament, to whom are we to look for respon- 
 sibility but to theml 
 
 But, to take another view of the matter, what, let 
 me ask, has Napoleon done against our commerce 
 and our currency, for which he will not easily find 
 a justification in our example? Have we neglected 
 any means in our power to injure the commerce and 
 the finances of France ? Did not Pitt, from the very 
 outset of the war against the French Jacobins and 
 Levellers, call it a war of finance ? And, were 
 not all our efforts bent down towards the beating of 
 France through her finances ? This is notoriously 
 the fact ; and, as to her commerce, it must be well 
 known to every one, that we risked a war with the 
 American States, for the purpose of intercepting 
 provisions in their way to the people of France, 
 when they were menaced with famine. Was this 
 fair and honourable warfare ? I shall be told that it 
 was. I will not discuss the point. But, if it was 
 so, what reason have we to complain now, when 
 France prevents us, not from receiving' corn from 
 her dominions, but merely from sending- our pro- 
 ducts to those dominions. This is the utmost that 
 Napoleon does, or that he can do ; and I put it, then, 
 to any reasonable man, whether we have real cause 
 of complaint. We may be sorry for what Napoleon 
 is doing ; and we must be sorry for the individuals 
 who suffer from his measures ; but can we complain 
 of him for not receiving our goods now, when we 
 recollect, that we would not suffer the people of 
 France to receive flour from America when we< 
 thought them in the midst of famine, and when we 
 further recollect, that we openly avowed the wish 
 and the endeavour to prevent their receiving Jesuit** 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 305 
 
 Bark, a drug so necessary, in many cases, to the 
 preservation of life ? This was fair in us, I shall 
 be told. Very well. That I am not questioning; 
 "but, if this was fair ; if a state of war tolerated this, 
 have we, I ask again, any reason to complain of 
 him ; any reason to call him tyrant, (as GEORGE 
 ROSE did,) because he will not now permit any part 
 of his people to receive goods which are our produce 
 or our property. 
 
 Oh, no ! We must expect that the people of France 
 have the same sort of feelings that we have ; and, 
 Gentlemen, mark it well, I pray you, we intercepted 
 the flour on its way to France long before Napoleon's 
 name was known to us. We, or, at least, our venal 
 writers, now affect a vast deal of compassion for the 
 people of France. These writers appear to lament 
 that the French people are subjected to so terrible a 
 despotism. But, either the people of France hear 
 what our writers say, or they do not : if they do not 
 hear it, then it cannot possibly produce any effect 
 upon them ; and, if they do hear it, they cannot fail 
 to call to mind, that we have been at war against 
 them through all their forms of government / and, 
 that while they were under a republican form, or 
 name, our hostility was much more decided and bit- 
 ter than at this moment ; for, we then declared war 
 against the principles of their constitution ; we de- 
 clared that no relations of peace were to be main- 
 tained with them ; and, now that they are under a 
 monarchy, (for that means a government by the will 
 of one person,) we affect to feel a great deal of pity 
 for them ; we sigh to see them free ; and call upon 
 them, as loudly as our venal writers can, to rise 
 against their tyrant. Had we begun war with them 
 only when their revolution had worked itself into a 
 monarchy, then, indeed, our appeals to them against 
 their ruler might have been of some avail ; but, how 
 is it possible for them to believe, that we are now 
 desirous of seeing them free, when they recollect 
 26* 
 
306 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 our conduct at the outset of the war, and for many 
 years during its continuance ? Ail our appeals, 
 therefore, from. Napoleon to the people of France 
 are absurd, and only bespeak the desperateness of 
 our situation. 
 
 To return more closely to our subject ; it appears 
 from the report of the Bullion Debate, that LORD 
 CASTLEREAGH said, that the tyrant of the Continent 
 had, thus far, been defeated in all his attempts 
 against us ; that he at first attempted invasion, that 
 he next endeavoured to excite rebellion, that he then 
 assailed our commerce; and, that having failed in 
 all these, he was now endeavouring to ruin our cur- 
 rency. 
 
 Now, how far this statement was true, I shall not 
 pretend to say ; and, indeed, except as to the last 
 point, it is beside my purpose to make any remark 
 upon what is reported to have been said by this 
 Lord. That that part of the statement is true, there 
 can, however, be little doubt ; for it has been stated 
 in the public prints, that there have been great quan- 
 tities of forged notes, purporting to be notes of the 
 Bank of England, sent into this country from 
 France and Holland, This interesting fact has 
 been very carefully kept out of the London daily 
 papers ; but the country papers have been less cau- 
 tious, owing, I suppose, to their being at too great a 
 distance from good advice and powerful argu- 
 ments. The following article, which I take from 
 the OXFORD MERCURY of the 4th instant, will be 
 quite sufficient to explain the nature of what is go- 
 ing on in Kent. " We are sorry to learn that a vast 
 number of forged notes, purporting to be those of 
 the Bank of England, are in circulation, particu- 
 larly on this coast, to an alarming extent ; we have 
 heard to the amount of 200,000/. having been re- ' 
 cently imported into this country from France and 
 Holland, where it is said they are manufactured ! 
 We know not to what extent the evil may extend. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 307 
 
 Several 5/., 10/., and even 20Z. of those notes have 
 already been detected ; and numerous I/., of the 
 same description } are in circulation ; indeed, at Folk- 
 stone, and some other places, the notes of the Bank 
 of England are almost generally refused in payment 
 from this circumstance; and we hope some steps 
 will be immediately adopted to put a stop to them. 
 Two 5/. were recently passed through the Dover 
 Union Bank ; and a 201. note was remitted to town 
 by a respectable tradesman in Dover, a few days 
 since, which proved to be a forgery. We should 
 recommend every person to keep the number of the 
 notes which pass through their hands, or have them 
 previously endorsed by the person who passes them ; 
 we look upon this to be a very necessary precaution, 
 as it is a matter of the most serious consequence to 
 tradespeople in general ; for if the Bank of England 
 notes can be so readily imitated, how easy must it 
 be to forge the Provincial notes of this and other 
 counties." 
 
 This is a war of finance with a vengeance ! But 
 even this I am not disposed to call an unfair and 
 dishonourable species of warfare. I am not disposed 
 to call this a cheating, swindling, base, and coward- 
 ly mode of attacking a nation ; indeed, I should not 
 dare to call it so, if I were disposed to it, seeing that 
 we did the same towards the French when they had 
 a paper-money. It is well known to us, but it 
 ought also to be known to our children, (some of 
 whom will, I dare say, read these Letters ;) that, in 
 the year 1791, the French people made a revolution 
 in their government ; that they chose representatives 
 to frame a new constitution for them; that they 
 changed their absolute monarchy, or despotism, into 
 a limited monarchy ; that they declared freedom to 
 De their birthright ; that the nobility, not pleased 
 with the change, left the country ; that the princes 
 of the blood did the same ; that the fugitives met 
 with protection and encouragement from foreign 
 
308 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Governments ; that these Governments afterwards 
 made war against the French ; that England joined 
 in that war ; that, some time after this war began, 
 the French put their King and Q,ueen to death, and 
 declared their country a republic ; that the French 
 had, at that time, a paper-money, called Assignats ; 
 that upon this paper-money, it was thought, depended 
 the fate of the French revolution; that, from the 
 speeches in the English Parliament, it will clearly 
 appear that the Government of England looked upon 
 the debasement of those Assignats as the sure means 
 of subverting the new order of things in France. 
 All this should be known to our children as well as 
 to ourselves ; and, when they have a thorough know- 
 ledge of these facts, they should be told, that false 
 Assignats, that forged Assignats^ that counterfeit 
 French paper-money ; that these things were fabri- 
 cated in England in quantities immense. They 
 were intended, of course, to be sent into France, 
 there to undermine the French finances, and to pro- 
 duce the overthrow of the Republican government. 
 The former of these objects they did effect ; or, at 
 least, assisted to effect ; and they, in all probability, 
 contributed towards those causes, which finally led 
 to the re-election of the absolute monarchy, in the 
 person of Napoleon. 
 
 I was always, after hearing of these forged As- 
 signats, very desirous of seeing one of them ; and, 
 some time ago, a gentleman gave me nine or ten, 
 which, with many others, were given to him at the 
 time that the fabrication was going on. He gave 
 me an Assignat for 90 Livres, one for 50 Livres, one 
 for 10 Livres, and several for 5 Livres. We cannot 
 have this fact too strongly imprinted upon our minds, 
 and cannot make the impression too strong upon 
 those of our children. It is a great point, not only 
 in the history of paper-money, but also in the politi- 
 cal history of the world. I will, therefore, give 
 here, as nearly as I can, a copy of one of these 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 309 
 
 irged As signals, but not of so large a size as the 
 original, from which I take it. 
 
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 The translation of this is : " Assignat of 5 Li- 
 
 vres, created 1 Nov. 1794. National domains. 
 
 Assignat of Five Livres, payable to the bearer by 
 the Extraordinary Chest." And the word " COR- 
 SET" was the name of the Cashier, I suppose, who 
 signed the Assignats in France. 
 
 Such were the means, which we made use of to- 
 wards the French nation ; and, therefore, I trust, 
 we shall not now hear of any complaints against 
 
310 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 them for their endeavouring to send us an ample 
 supply of Bank notes. u Sauce for the goose is 
 sauce for the gander," all the world over. 
 
 But, was this ; do I know that this was, the work 
 of Government ? That it was actually done by the 
 order of " the great statesman, now no more," and 
 paid for out of the people's taxes ? It was not a 
 trifling sum that these Assignats cost in the forging. 
 They were wrought with great care in France. 
 There was a very ingeniously contrived dry stamp 
 upon them. The engraving was of most exquisite 
 workmanship. To have effected the imitation, the 
 most ingenious artists in England must have used 
 their talents. But, how do I know, that this forging 
 work was carried on under the authority of the Go- 
 vernment ? Suppose it was not ? What do we, the 
 nation, get by that in the argument ? If it was not 
 the Government who ordered the thing to be done, 
 it was the people of England who did it them- 
 selves ; and, therefore, they have, in that case, still 
 less reason, if possible, to complain of the French 
 for sending over forged Bank Notes to England at 
 this time. 
 
 Whether, however, it was, or was not, the act of 
 the English minister and Government, you, gentle- 
 men, shall now have a fair opportunity of judging 
 for yourselves. I could here relate to you what I 
 have heard many persons say upon this subject; I 
 could state to you names and transactions upon 
 what I deem, and upon what you would, I dare say, 
 deem very good authority ; but, as to matters of this 
 sort, I always love to deal in undeniable evidence , 
 proof positive ; facts that leave no room for shuffle 
 So I shall do here. 
 
 It happened, some time after this forging work had 
 been going on, that there was a law-suit between* 
 two of the parties engaged in it. Law-suits are apt 
 to lead to exposures. So it happened now, as you 
 will see by the following Report, which I copy, 
 word for word, from the Law-Books, which are 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 311 
 
 daily cited as authorities in all our courts of justice. 
 " STRONGPTH'ARM against LUKYN. Case 
 on a Promissory Note. The Note was drawn by 
 the Defendant, payable to one Caslon, and, by Cas- 
 lon endorsed to the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff proved 
 the Defendant's hand-writing, and the indorsement 
 by Caslon. ERSKINE, for the Defendant, stated 
 his defence to be, that Lukyn was a Stationer, and 
 the Plaintiff an Engraver; and that the Note, upon 
 which the Action was brought, was given to Cas- 
 lon, for the purpose of paying the Plaintiff for the 
 engraving of Copper plates, upon which FRENCH 
 ASSIGNATS were to be FORGED; and con- 
 tended, that as the consideration of the Note was 
 fraud, that it contaminated the whole transaction, 
 and rendered the Note not recoverable by law. 
 Calson, the endorser, was called as the witness. He 
 proved that Lukyn, the Defendant, having it in con- 
 templation to strike off impressions of a considerable 
 quantity of Assignats, to be issued abroad, had ap- 
 plied to him for the purpose of recommending an 
 engraver for the purpose of engraving the necessary 
 plates ; and that Lukyn represented to him that 
 they were for the Duke of York's army. He said, 
 that he applied to Strongi'th'arm, the Plaintiff, who, 
 at first, declined the business totally ; but that, being 
 assured by the witness that it was sanctioned by 
 Government, and was for .the use of the Duke of 
 York's army, he then consented. The witness fur- 
 ther denied that it was ever communicated to the 
 Plaintiff that they were to be cirrulated for any 
 other purpose than as he had represented. LORD 
 KENYON said, that if the present transaction was 
 grounded on a fraud, or contrary to the laws of na- 
 tions, or of good faith, he should have held the Notes 
 to be void ; but that it did not appear that there was 
 any fraud in the case, or any violation of positive 
 law. Whether the issuing of these Assignats, for 
 the purpose of distressing the enemy, was lawful 
 in carrying on the war, he was not prepared to say , 
 
312 PAPER AGAIN3T GOLD. 
 
 or whether it came within the rule an dolus an 
 virtus quis in hoste requisit ? But let that be as it 
 might, it did not apply to the present case. It was 
 not in evidence, that the Plaintiff was a party in 
 any fraud, or that it was ever communicated to him 
 that the Assignats were to be used for any improper 
 purpose : on the contrary, he supposed that they 
 were circulated by the authority of the higher pow- 
 ers of this country ; and, therefore, did not ques- 
 tion the propriety or legality of the 'measure. His 
 Lordship declared his opinion, therefore, to be, that 
 the consideration was not impeached, and that the 
 Plaintiff was entitled to recover. The jury found a 
 verdict for the Plaintiff. MINGAY and MARRYAT, 
 for the Plaintiff. ERSKINE, and LAW, for the De- 
 fendant.* Having read this document, gentlemen, 
 you will want nothing from me to enable you to de- 
 cide who it was that caused the Assignats to be 
 forged ; nor will you want any one to assist you in 
 forming a correct opinion as to the conduct of either 
 the Plaintiff, the Defendant, or the Judge. The 
 thing is before you ; and it speaks for itself much 
 too plainly to be misunderstood. 
 
 Well, now, after this ; with this before our eyes ; 
 knowing that the world is well acquainted with this 
 fact, is it not a little too impudent in us to pretend 
 to find fault with the French for supplying our coast 
 with Bank Notes? I do not know any thing that is 
 more disgusting than this species of injustice, which 
 proceeds from self-conceit. It is the worst kind of 
 insolence ; and whoever has paid attention to its ef- 
 fects, must have perceived, that it never fails to ex- 
 cite contempt in men of sense. What, I should be 
 glad to know, is there in us that we should be justi- 
 fied in forging French paper-money any more than 
 the French should be justified in forging English 
 paper-money ? Upon what ground is it that we 
 claim the exclusive right of forging the paper money 
 of our neighbours ? 
 
 t See Espinasse's Reports, Mich. Term, 36 Geo. III. 1795. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 313 
 
 After what we have seen above, you will, I am 
 persuaded, agree with me, that it is childish in the 
 extreme, to say the least of it, for us to complain of 
 the Emperor of France for having, as LORD CASTLE- 
 REAGH said, set about a scheme for the ruin of our 
 currency. And, it is equally childish in us to sup- 
 pose, that he will not now, when we have proclaimed 
 the effects, persevere in his hostility to our commerce. 
 He is now told, by a majority in the House of Com- 
 mons, that it is his system, which has produced all 
 our pecuniary distress. We now say that it is he 
 who has filled the Gazette with the names of Bank- 
 rupts ; which has made one of the two " pillars of 
 the Stock Exchange" blow his brains out ; which 
 has raised the paper price of the Dollar ten per cen- 
 tum at a slap ; and which now makes the fund- 
 holder tremble. He is now told this by our Minis- 
 ter of finance ; aye, and by the vote of a majority, 
 and a very great majority, too, of the Honourable 
 House, upon whose Journals it now stands declared 
 and recorded, that the commercial system of Napo- 
 leon has produced the very effects that he intended, 
 and that he vowed, it should produce. And, yet, 
 there are men amongst us to call Napoleon a mad- 
 man ! 
 
 I have taken up too much of your time to enter 
 now upon the subject of Depreciation, which, 
 therefore, I must postpone till my next, begging you, 
 with reference to the above related facts, always to 
 bear in mind, that, at the outset of our war against 
 the Jacobins of France, we had plenty of gold and 
 the French had nothing but paper, and that now the 
 French have plenty of gold, and we have nothing 
 but paper. 
 
 I am, Gentlemen, 
 Your friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 Stale Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Friday, May 17th, 1811. 
 27 
 
314 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 *' Nothing is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain than the 
 time of dying ; yet we can always fix a period beyond which man can- 
 not live, and within some moment of which he will die. We are enabled 
 to do this, not by nny spirit of prophecy, but by observation of what has 
 happened in all cases! of human or animal existence. If, then, any other 
 subje t, siu;h for instance, as a system of finance, exhibits, in its progress, 
 a series of symptoms indicating decay, its final dissolution is certain, and 
 from those symptoms we may calculate the period of that dissolution." 
 Paine. Decline and Fall of the British System of Finance, published 
 in 1795. 
 
 The subject of Depreciation discussed Lord Stanhope's Bill 
 
 Lord King's Notice to his Tenants. 
 T 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 THE foregoing Letter we began with proposing to 
 discuss the question of depreciation, but were stop- 
 ped by the desire of showing how childish, and, in- 
 deed, how unjust it was in our Government to com- 
 plain of the endeavours said to be used by the French 
 for destroying our paper-money, seeing the endea- 
 vours which were used here to destroy the Assignats 
 in France. We will now resume the subject of de- 
 preciation, and see whether the paper-money of 
 England be, or be not, actually depreciated; and, 
 if we find that it is, we will inquire whether it can 
 be restored to its former value by any of the means, 
 called remedies, that have been pointed out by any 
 of those who are our rulers, or lawgivers. 
 
 To depreciate means to lower in value ; and the 
 word depreciation is used to signify that state in 
 which any thing is, when it is lowered, or has fal- 
 ~ttn, from its former value. Hence the term depreci- 
 ation, as applied to Bank Notes ; and, when we thus 
 apply it, accompanied with the affirmative of the 
 proposition, we say, that Bank Notes have fallen in 
 value, and, of course, that any given sum in such 
 notes is not worth so much as it formerly was. 
 
 Much puzzling has, upon this subject, arisen from 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 315 
 
 a very natural cause ; namely, that the note always 
 retains its nominal value ; that is to say, always goes 
 by the same name ; a pound note still is called a 
 pound note, whether it be worth as much as it for- 
 merly was, or not. But, to this point we shall come 
 more fully by-and-by, after we have spoken of the 
 way in which a depreciation of money, or the lower- 
 ing of the value of money, takes place. 
 
 Money, of whatever sort, is, like every thing else, 
 lowered in its value in proportion as it becomes 
 abundant or plenty. As I said upon a former occa- 
 sion, when apples are plenty apples are cheap ; and 
 cheap means low in price. The use of money is to 
 serve men as a sign of the amount of the value of 
 things that pass from man to man in the way of 
 purchase and sale. It is plenty or scarce, in propor- 
 tion as its quantity is great or small, compared with 
 the quantity of things purchased and sold in the 
 community ; and, whenever it becomes, from any 
 cause, plenty, it depreciates, or sinks in value. 
 Suppose, for instance, that there is a community of 
 ten men, who make amongst them 100 purchases in 
 a year, each purchase amounting to 1 pound. The 
 community, in that case, would possess, we will 
 suppose, 10 pounds, and no more, because the same 
 money might, and naturally would, go backwards 
 and forwards, and because, except under peculiar 
 circumstances, men do not hoard. Now, suppose 
 that the money in possession of this community is 
 doubled in quantity, without any other alteration 
 taking place, the quantity of goods and chatties and 
 the quantity of things, including services, purchased, 
 and the number of purchases all continuing the 
 same. Suppose this; and, we are here speaking of 
 money of any sort. No matter what sort. Sup- 
 pose it to be gold, and that its quantity is thus dou- 
 bled. The consequence would be, of course, that 
 at each of the hundred purchases, double the sum 
 would be given that was given before ; because, 
 if this were not the case, part of the money must 
 
316 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 be kept idle, which, upon a general scale, can never 
 be, there being no motive for it. Suppose that one 
 of the hundred purchases wa.s that of a horse. The 
 purchase, which was made with 1 pound before the 
 doubling of the quantity of money, would require 
 2 pounds after that doubling took place ; and so on 
 through the whole ; and, in such a state of things 
 people would say, that prices had risen, that com- 
 modities had doubled in price, that every thing was 
 twice as dear as it used to be. But, the fact would 
 be, that money was become plenty, and, like every 
 thing else, cheap in proportion to its abundance. It 
 would be, that money had fallen or had been de- 
 preciated, and not that things had risen; the loaf, 
 for instance, having a real value in its utility in 
 supporting man, and the money having only an ima- 
 ginary value. 
 
 Prices in England have been rising, as it is com- 
 monly called, for hundreds of years ; things have 
 been getting dearer and dearer. The cause of 
 which, until the Bank Note system began, was the 
 increase of gold and silver in Europe, in consequence 
 of the discovery of South America and the subse- 
 quent working of the mines. But the increase of 
 the quantity of gold and silver was slow. " Na- 
 ture," as PAINE observes, " gives those materials out 
 with a sparing hand;" they came, as they still come, 
 in regular annual quantities from the mines ; and 
 that portion of them which found its way to this 
 country was obtained by the sale of things of real 
 value, being the product of our soil or of our labour. 
 Therefore, the quantity of money increased very 
 slowly ; it did increase, and prices gradually rose, 
 but the increase and the rise were so slow as not to 
 be strikingly perceptible. During the average life of 
 man, the rise in prices was so small as hardly toat- 
 tract any thing like general attention. Curious men 
 observed it, and some of them recorded the progress 
 of prices ; but, as there was no sensible difference 
 in prices in the average life of man, the rise never 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 317 
 
 became an object of general interest, as long as gold 
 and silver were the only currency of the country. 
 
 But, when the funding system began, and paper 
 became, in many cases, a substitute for gold and 
 silver ; when the increase of the quantity of money 
 in the country was no longer dependent upon the 
 mines ; when the check which nature had provided 
 was removed ; then money, or its substitute, paper, 
 increased at a rate much greater than before, and 
 prices took a proportionate rise, as they naturally 
 would. The nature of the FUNDING SYSTEM has 
 been fully explained before ; we have also seen how 
 it would naturally cause the paper-money to go on 
 increasing. We have seen, that the Government, 
 as soon as it began to make loans, was compelled to 
 establish a Bank, or a something, in order to get the 
 means of paying the interest upon the loans. The 
 amount of the loans would naturally go on increas- 
 ing in order to meet the rise in prices, and thus the 
 increase of the paper would continue causing rise af- 
 ter rise in the prices, and the rise in the prices would 
 continue causing addition upon addition to the quan- 
 tity of the paper. This was the natural progress, 
 and it was that which actually took place. 
 
 Still, however, the paper passed in company with 
 the gold and silver. Money was more plenty; it 
 was of less value; and, of course, any given quan- 
 tity of it would purchase less bread, for instance, 
 than formerly ; but, still there was no difference in 
 the quality of the two sorts of money j metal and 
 aper both not only passed at the sums that they 
 ad usually passed at, but people liked the one just 
 as well as the other ; and it was a matter of perfect 
 indifference to any man, whether he took a hundred 
 guineas in gold, or one hundred and five pounds in 
 paper. And, the reason of this indifference was, that 
 the holder of a bank note could, at any moment, go 
 to the Bank, and there demand and receive payment 
 in guineas. This was the reason why the paper 
 passed in society with the gold. But. it was impos- 
 27* 
 
 p 
 h 
 
318 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 sible that this society should long continue after the 
 paper increased to a very great amount, and especi- 
 ally after the notes became so low in nominal value 
 as five pounds ; for then it was evident, that all the 
 taxes would be paid in paper ; that the Government 
 would receive nothing but paper; that the Bank could 
 get nothing but paper from the Government ; that 
 whatever gold went out of the Bank would never 
 return to it ; and, of course, that the Bank would, 
 in a short time, be unable to pay its notes in gold, it 
 called on for that purpose to any great extent. 
 
 A call of this sort was made upon it in 1797 ; 
 and, as we have seen, and now feel, the Bank was 
 unable to pay. Its creditors, that is to say, the hold- 
 ers of its notes, demanded their money ; the Bank 
 flew to the Minister Pitt for protection ; the Minis- 
 ter, by an Order of Council, authorized the Bank to 
 refuse to pay its creditors ; the Bank did refuse ; the 
 Parliament passed an Act to shelter the Minister and 
 the Bank Directors and all whc had been guilty of 
 this violation of law, and, at the same time enacted, 
 that, for the future, the Bank should not be compel- 
 lable to pay its notes in gold or silver. After this 
 memorable transaction, the full and true history of 
 which I have recorded in the foregoing Letters ; af 
 ter this, the whole concern assumed a new face and 
 indeed a new nature. The holder of a bank note 
 could no longer go and demand payment of it in 
 guineas : it was impossible, therefore, that he should 
 look upon 105Z. in notes as quite equal in value to 
 100 guineas. Still, however, in consequence of the 
 meetings and combinations of the rich, and of the 
 enormous influence of the Government, to which 
 may be added the dread in every man of being 
 marked out as a Jacobin and Leveller ; in conse- 
 quence of all these, and of the necessity of having 
 something to serve as money, the notes continued to 
 circulate ; and, as the alarm subsided, the guinea 
 returned and circulated in company with them ; but 
 not with that cordialitv that it used to do. It be. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 319 
 
 came much less frequent in its appearance in com- 
 pany with the notes ; it held itself aloof ; seemed to 
 demand a preference ; but not appearing to like to 
 assume this superiority over an old and familiar as- 
 sociate, and yet unwilling to pass for so much less 
 than its worth, it soon began to keep away alto- 
 gether, retiring to the chests of the hoarders, or go- 
 ing upon its travels into foreign parts, until such 
 time as it found itself duly estimated in England, 
 which would naturally be when people began to 
 make openly a distinction between paper and coin. 
 
 That time arrived about two years ago ; but, no 
 sooner was the distinction thus made, and acted upon, 
 than the Government began to prosecute the actors, 
 and commenced, I believe, in the well known case 
 of DE YONGE, who, under laws passed about two 
 hundred years before such things as bank notes were 
 ever heard of, was convicted, about a year ago, of 
 the crime of exchanging guineas for more than their 
 nominal value in bank notes. DE YONGE moved for 
 an arrest of judgment ; the case has been since ar- 
 gued before the judges; and their decision thereon, 
 has recently been promulgated. Other persons have 
 been prosecuted in the same way and upon the same 
 ground, the effect of which naturally has been tc deter 
 people from openly purchasing and selling guineas,and 
 also from tendering them generally in payment for 
 more than their nominal value in paper. But, it is very 
 notorious that the distinction is. nevertheless, made, 
 and that, in payments, men do take gold at its worth 
 in comparison with the paper. Two prices are not 
 yet openly and generally made ; but, they exist 
 partially, and the extent of them is daily increasing. 
 
 To this point, then, we are now arrived, and here 
 we see proof, not of a depreciation of money of all 
 sorts, arising merely from that general plenty of 
 money spoken of above ; but arising from the abun- 
 dance, or plenty, of paper, that is to say, the great 
 quantity of the paper compared with that of the coin. 
 Hence we say, that the bank notes have depreciated, 
 
320 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 or fallen in value ; and, that there should be found 
 any human being to assert the contrary, or to believe, 
 or to affect to believe, the contrary, is something that, 
 were not the fact before our eyes, no man could 
 think possible : but, we live in times when wonder 
 no longer seems to form a feeling of the mind. 
 
 This state of things it was easy to foresee ; but, 
 the nation has been deluded by the specious argu- 
 ment of the equal powers of gold and paper in 
 purchases. " Go to market," we have been told, 
 " and see whether the pound note and a shilling 
 will not bring you as much meat or cloth as a guinea" 
 This was conclusive with unreflecting minds, and 
 it quieted, or assisted to quiet, all those, who, though 
 they were capable of discerning, dared not look the 
 fearful truth in the face. I looked it in the face ra- 
 ther more than eight years ago, and strenuously la- 
 boured to prepare my countrymen for what has now 
 come, and what is now coming to pass. Upon one 
 occasion, this standing delusive argument was made 
 use of in answer to me : whereupon I made the fol- 
 lowing remarks : " The objection of my other corres- 
 pondent has more plausibility. These are his words : 
 * I think the argument, that Bank paper is depreciated, 
 drawn from the difference between the sterling and 
 the current value of a dollar, if it prove anything, 
 proves too much. That guineas are depreciated you 
 will hardly insist, yet I would sturdily maintain, 
 from your premises, that they are, since a guinea 
 will not purchase so many dollars as it formerly 
 would.' Yes, but I do insist though, that guineas 
 are depreciated: not in their intrinsic value, but in 
 their value as currency, that is to say, in their power 
 of purchasing commodities in this country. When 
 there is a depreciating paper in any country, the 
 current coin of that country depreciates in its powers 
 along with the paper, because it has a fixed nominal 
 value, and it can pass currently for no more than an 
 equal nominal value in paper, until the paper is at 
 an open discount. The metal is degraded by the 
 

 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 321 
 
 society of the paper ; but, there comes a time when 
 it will bear this degradation no longer ; it then rises 
 above its nominal value, or, in other words, the paper 
 is at a discount." 
 
 This was published so long ago as the 14th April, 
 1804. " There comes a time /" Aye, and that 
 time is now come. But, let me not be guilty of rob- 
 bery, and especially of the Dead, and more espe- 
 cially of one whose writings, and upon this very 
 subject too, as well as other subjects, I formerly, 
 through ignorance, condemned. I allude to the wri- 
 tings of PAINE, the abused, the reprobated, the ana- 
 thematized, TOM PAINE. In his work, from which 
 I have taken the perspicuous and impressive passage 
 that serves me as a motto to this Letter, and the 
 equal of which has seldom dropped from the pen of 
 any man ; in that work, PAINE thus exposes the de- 
 lusive argument of which I have just been speaking ; 
 " It is^aid. in England, that the value of paper keeps 
 equal pace with the value of gold and silver. But 
 the case is not rightly stated : for, the fact is, that 
 the paper has pulled down the value of gold and 
 silver to its own level. Gold and silver will not 
 purchase so much of any purchaseable article at this 
 day (March, 1796) as they would have purchased if 
 no paper had appeared, nor so much as they will in 
 any country of Europe, where there is no paper. 
 How long this hanging together of paper and money 
 will continue makes a new case ; because it daily 
 exposes the system to sudden death, independent of 
 the natural death it would otherwise suffer." Here 
 he lays down the principle ; and, if, instead of re- 
 viling his writings, the Government of England had 
 lent a patient ear to him, and taken a lesson from his 
 superior understanding and experience, how different 
 would have been our situation at this day. He pro- 
 ceeds thus ; " I have just mentioned that paper in 
 England has pulled down the value of gold and sil- 
 ver to a level with itself; and that this pulling down 
 of gold and silver money has created the appearance 
 
322 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 of paper money keeping- up. The same thing, and 
 the same mistake, took place in America and in 
 France, and continued for a considerable time after 
 the commencement of their system of paper ; and the 
 actual depreciation of money was hidden under that 
 mistake. It was said in America, at that time, that 
 every thing was becoming dear ; but gold and silver 
 could then buy those articles no cheaper than paper 
 could ; and therefore it was not called depreciation. 
 The idea of dearness established itself for the idea 
 of depreciation. The same was the case in France. 
 Though every thing rose in price soon after assig- 
 nats appeared, yet those dear articles could be pur- 
 chased no cheaper with gold and silver, than with 
 paper, and it was only said thnt things were dear. 
 The same is still the language in England. They 
 call it dearness. But they will soon find that it 
 an actual depreciation^ and that this depreciation 
 is the effect of the funding system; which by crowd- 
 ing such a continually-increasing mass of paper into 
 circulation, carries down the value of gold, and 
 silver with it. But gold and silver will, in the 
 long-run, revolt against depreciation, and separate 
 from the value of paper ; for the progress of all 
 such systems appears to be, that the paper will take 
 the command in the beginning, and gold and silver 
 in the end." 
 
 How well is this expressed, and how clearly the 
 truth of it is now verified! Yes: we talk about 
 dearness; we talk of high prices ; we talk of things 
 rising in value ; but, the fact is, that the change has 
 been in the money, and not in the articles bough 
 and sold ; the articles remain the same in value, bu 
 the money, from its abundance, has fallen in value. 
 This has till of late been imperceptible to the mass 
 of the people, who were convinced of the non-depre- 
 ciation by the argument built on the circumstance 
 of the guinea and the paper being upon an equal 
 footing at market. They did not perceive, that the 
 paper had pulled down the gold and silver along 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 323 
 
 with it ; they did not perceive that the coin was sliding 
 by degrees out of the society of the paper ; they did 
 not perceive that, in time, the coin would disappear 
 altogether ; they did not perceive that an open contest 
 would, at last, take place between the guineas and 
 the paper, and that, if the law came to the assistance 
 of the paper, the coin would quit the country. Now, 
 however, they do perceive this; the facts have all 
 now been established in a way that seems, at last, 
 to have produced conviction even in the minds of 
 this " most thinking" people ; but, there is reason to 
 fear, that this conviction will have come too late. 
 How happy would it have been for this nation, if the 
 opinions of Mr. PAINE, touching this subject, had 
 produced, at the time, their wished- for effect! No 
 man in England dared to publish his work. Any 
 man who had published or sold it would have been 
 punished as a seditious libeller. Yet, in my opinion, 
 does that work ; that little work, in the space of 
 twenty-Jive pages, convey more useful knowledge 
 upon this subject, and discover infinitely greater 
 depth of thought and general powers of mind, than 
 are to be found in all the pamphlets of the thre6 
 score and two financiers, who, in this country, have, 
 since I came into this jail, favoured the world with 
 their opinions upon the state of our money system. 
 The writings of these people would make twenty- 
 Jfive thick octavo volumes ; and in all of them there 
 is not so much power of mind discovered as in 
 PAINE'S twenty-Jive pages. Yet, no man would 
 dare to publish this little work in England. By ac- 
 cident I possess a copy that I brought from America, 
 but which I never read till after my return to Eng- 
 land. In 1803, when there was much apprehension 
 of invasion, and when great complaints were made 
 of the scarcity of change, I began to read some 
 books upon the subject ; and, after reading several 
 without coming to any thing like a clear -notion of 
 the real state of our currency, I took up the little 
 essay of PAINE. Here I saw to the bottom at once 
 
324 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 Here was no bubble, no mud to obstruct my view : 
 the stream was clear and strong : I saw the whole 
 matter in its true light, and neither pamphleteers 
 nor speech-makers were, after that, able to raise even 
 a momentary puzzle in my mind. PAINE not only 
 told me what would come to pass, but showed me, 
 gave me convincing reasons, why it must come to 
 pass ; and he convinced me also, that it was my 
 duty to endeavour to open the eyes of my country- 
 men to the truths which I myself had learnt from 
 him ; because his reasoning taught me, that, the lon- 
 ger those truths remained hidden from their view, 
 the more fatal must be the consequences. The oc- 
 casion of this work of PAINE is worthy of notice. 
 One of the motives of writing it was, as he says, at the 
 close, to retaliate upon PITT, who, in speaking of 
 the French Republic, had said, that she was " on the 
 verge, nay, even in the gulf of Bankruptcy" 
 PAINE said, that England would soon be in a worse 
 situation than France as to her finances ; and, in less 
 than twelve months after he wrote his work, the 
 Bank became unable to pay its notes in cash. 
 
 To return to the subject of depreciation, the fact 
 has now been established in all sorts of ways. 
 Gold coin has been, and is, sold at a premium : a 
 guinea will sell for 27 shillings, and the other coins 
 of the realm in the same proportion ; many persons 
 in London have written upon their shop-windows 
 notifications that they will take the coin at a higher 
 than the nominal value ; in numerous cases, a dis- 
 tinction is made in prices paid in coin, and prices 
 paid in paper. If these are not proofs of an actual 
 depression of the paper, what, I should be glad to 
 know, will ever be admitted as proof of that fact ? 
 Indeed, there is no longer any doubt remaining upon 
 the subject ; audj therefore, we will now proceed to 
 take a view of the REMEDIES that have been 
 proposed by our Rulers and Law-givers, who, if 
 they had followed the advice given in PAINE'S Se 
 cond Part of the " RIGHTS OF MAN," instead of pro 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 325 
 
 seeming the author, would not, I am convinced, 
 have had to lament the present state of our finances. 
 As to REMEDIES, Gentlemen, I, in the first of 
 this series of Letters, stated to you, that the Bullion 
 Committee had recommended to the House of Com- 
 mons, to pass a law to compel the Bank to pay their 
 notes in gold and silver at the end of two years. 
 This same proposition has been since made in the 
 House ; but the House have resolved, that no such 
 measure is necessary. Those who opposed the 
 proposition said, that the Bank had not the gold, and 
 could not get it, and that, therefore, they could not 
 pay in gold. This was a very sufficient reason : 
 and, I must confess, that I was, and am, as far as 
 this goes, exactly of the opinion of these gentlemen. 
 For, to what end pass such a law, if the gold was 
 not to be had? There were several sensible men, 
 belonging to the Bullion Committee, and the gen- 
 tleman who brought the measure forward in the 
 House, is looked upon as a person of good under- 
 standing. It, therefore, appeared astonishing to me, 
 that they should propose such a measure, seeing 
 that I have never been able to discover any way 
 whatever by which gold could possibly return to the 
 Bank, and remain there in quantity sufficient to ena- 
 ble that Company to pay their notes in gold, upon 
 demand. To resume payments in gold, would, in- 
 deed, be a complete remedy ; but, to do this, in my 
 opinion, and, for many years past, has been utterly 
 impossible. By what means are the Bank Company 
 to get the gold ? We are told, that there is gold 
 enough, if the Bank Company will but purchase it. 
 What are they to give for it ? Why, their paper, 
 to be sure ; and, as it would require 27 shillings in 
 their paper to purchase a guinea, this would be a 
 most charming way of obtaining the means of pay- 
 ing off the paper with guineas. Let us take an in- 
 stance. Suppose the Bank Company, by way of 
 preparing for cash payments, to be purchasing all 
 the guineas they can find, and, in such case, thev 
 28 
 
326 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 would, of course, apply to our old friend, Mrs. DB 
 YONGE, to whom, by the by, I here present my con- 
 gratulations on the late decision of the judges, in 
 favour of her husband ; the Bank Company would, 
 I say, naturally apply to this good lady, who, it being 
 now decided, that the old biting law, does not forbid 
 the buying and selling of bank notes and guineas, 
 would drive with them as good a bargain as she 
 could. Suppose them to buy 100 guineas of her at 
 the present price, 27 shillings each, they would, of 
 course, give her for them 135 pounds in their notes. 
 And, thus they must go on with other people. Ha- 
 ving, at last, got a good lot of guineas together, they 
 begin paying their notes in guineas. It is pretty 
 evident, that the vast increase of paper, occasioned 
 by the purchase of the guineas, would have caused a 
 new and great depreciation of the paper, and that, 
 therefore, the moment the Bank was open to de- 
 mands in coin, people would crowd to it in all di- 
 rections. I can fancy the eager crowd now before 
 me, pressing in from every quarter and corner ; and, 
 amongst the very foremost and most eager, I think I 
 see our friend, Mrs. DE YONGE. " What do you do 
 here, Madam," I think I hear a dejected Director 
 say, " what do you do here, you who sold us gui- 
 neas but the other day ?" " Aye, sir," says the lady, 
 " and for these very guineas I am come again, and 
 mean to take them away, too, with 105 pounds of 
 the 135 that you gave me for them." 
 
 Need I say any more upon this subject? Is it not 
 something monstrous to suppose, that it would be 
 possible for the Bank Company to buy gold in quan- 
 tity sufficient to be able to pay their notes in it? 
 " Well," say others, " but the Bank may lessen the 
 quantity of its paper by narrowing' its discounts" 
 To be sure, they might ; and the only consequence 
 of that would be, that the taxes would not be paid, 
 and, of course, that the soldiers, the judges, and all 
 other persons paid by the public, would have to go 
 without pay. The discounts make a part of the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 327 
 
 system ; and, if it be put a stop to, that is neither 
 more or less than one of the ways of totally de- 
 stroying the system. To lessen the quantity of the 
 paper is, therefore, impossible, without producing 
 ruin amongst all persons in trade and agriculture, 
 and without disabling the country to pay the taxes, 
 at their present nominal amount. 
 
 But, suppose all other difficulties were got over, 
 did these gentlemen of the Bullion Committee, ever 
 reflect upon the consequences of raising the value 
 of money to what it was before the Bank Stoppage ? 
 Sir FRANCIS BURDETT, in his speech, during the 
 Bullion Debate, told them of these consequences. 
 He observed, and very justly, that, if money were, 
 by any means, to be restored to the value it bore in 
 the year 1796, the interest of the National Debt 
 never could be paid by the people; that interest, he 
 observed, was now 35,000,00(U. a year ; and, if the 
 value of money was brought back to the standard 
 of 1796, this interest would instantly swell to 
 43,000,000/. of money, at the present value. All 
 the grants, pensions, fixed emoluments, pay of sol- 
 diers, judges, chancellors, clerks, commissioners, 
 and the rest, would be raised, in point of real 
 amount, in the same proportion ; so that, it would 
 be utterly impossible for taxes, to such an amount, to 
 be raised.* And, if it were possible, it would be fre- 
 
 * The above quoted speech is my property. I was in 
 Newgate at the time that it was made ; and, when the de- 
 bate, during which it was uttered, was about to come on, I 
 besought BURDETT to put on record these opinions, telling 
 him, that the time would come and must come, when he 
 would have to refer to them with triumphant exultation ; 
 that it was nonsense to hope to obtain reform, as long as 
 the paper arid funding system remained unhurt ; that it could 
 not so remain for a great many years; and that when it be- 
 gan to produce all the horrible calamities, that must, in its 
 last stages, be its natural fruit, it would be a proud thing for 
 him, and would give him great weight with the nation, to be 
 able to show, that, if his advice had been followed, these ca- 
 lamities would never have been known, or, at the least, 
 would have been greatly mitigated. Finding him willing to 
 follow my advice, I gave him the opinions on paper; he took 
 
328 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 quently unjust ; for, observe, all the money (making 
 nearly one half of the National Debt) that has been 
 borrowed since the Bank Company stopped paying 
 in gold and silver ; all the money borrowed since 
 that time ; all the loans made in the name of the 
 public since that time ; all the money lent to the 
 public, as it is called, has been lent in depreciated 
 paper ; and, that which has been so lent this year, 
 nas, if guineas are at 27 shillings, been lent in paper ; 
 27 shillings of which are worth no more than a 
 guinea. And, are the people to be called upon to 
 pay interest upon this money in a currency of which 
 21 shillings are worth a guinea ? This would be 
 so abominably unjust, that I wonder how any man 
 like Mr. HORNER, ever came to think of it. He ex- 
 pressly stated, that the paper was now worth only 
 155. Wd. in the pound ; of course, he must have 
 known, that this was the sort of thing of which the 
 loans, for some years past, consisted ; and yet, he 
 would have had a law passed, the effect of which 
 would have been to make the people pay interest for 
 this money at the rate of twenty shillings in the 
 pound. This is what never could have been sub- 
 mitted to : not because the people would have re- 
 sisted ; that is not what I mean ; but it is what 
 could not have been carried into effect, and, for the 
 same reason that the man could not have two skins 
 from the carcass of the same cat. If the quantity of 
 the Bank paper were diminished, its value would 
 rise ; and, if its value rose, the value of the interest 
 upon the National Debt would rise also; therefore, 
 
 the paper away, made it his own, and uttered the opinions as 
 above, almost m my very words. Since that time, he has. 
 in the hope of keeping me out of my country for life, published 
 my private letters, and has done every thing within his pow- 
 er to destroy my character, and my means of being useful to 
 my country. I have triumphed over him completely. He 
 has been baffled in all his base attempts against me ; but, 
 I think it right injustice to my readers, to pluck this shining 
 feather (out of scores that I might pluck) from the wing of 
 this ungrateful Jack-Daw. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 329 
 
 to enable the people to continue to pay the interest 
 upon the Debt, the amount of the interest must be 
 lessened, and what would that be but a partial 
 sponge. So that, turn and twist the thing, whate- 
 ver way you will, you still find it the same ; you 
 still find, that the system must go on in all its parts, 
 or be put a stop to altogether. 
 
 In most other cases, when men talk of a remedy, 
 they advert to the cause of the evil. If I find that 
 my .health is injured by drinking brandy, the first 
 thing I ought to do in order to recover my health, 
 would naturally be to leave off drinking brandy. 
 What a fool, what worse than idiot, must that man 
 be, who, feeling the fire burn his shins, still retains 
 his seat. Yet, in this important national concern, 
 never do you find any of our writers or legislators 
 dwelling upon the cause of the evil, of which they 
 appear so anxious to get rid. They tell us, indeed, 
 that the depreciation .of the paper is occasioned by 
 its excessive quantity ; but here they stop ; they 
 never go back to the cause of that excessive quan- 
 tity of paper ; or, if they do, they only speak of the 
 interests of the Bank Company. If they did go 
 back to the real cause, they would find it in the in- 
 crease of the national Debt, to pay the interest of 
 which, commonly called dividends, has required, 
 has rendered absolutely necessary, the present quan- 
 tity of paper. Indeed, one engenders the other. 
 Every loan occasions a fresh batch of paper to pay 
 the interest upon it ; that fresh batch of paper causes 
 a new depreciation and a new demand for paper again 
 to make up in the quantity what has been lost in the 
 quality. So that to talk of lessening the quantity of 
 the paper, while the national Debt remains undi- 
 minished, does really seem to me something too ab- 
 surd to be attributed to any man of sense. What, 
 then, must it be to talk of lessening the quantity 
 of paper, while the national Debt is increasing at 
 an enormous rate, and while it is notorious that that 
 Debt has been nearly doubled in amount during the 
 28* 
 
330 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 last fourteen years; aye, while it is notorious, 
 that, during the last fourteen years, that Debt has 
 increased as much as the whole amount of it was 
 before ; or in other words, that since 1796 as much 
 money has been borrowed by the Government as 
 was borrowed in the whole hundred years preced- 
 ing ? What must it be, then, to talk of lessening 
 the quantity of the paper, while the national Debt, 
 which was, and is, the cause of the paper, keeps 
 on in this manner increasing ? One really would 
 think that such a proposition could have originated 
 only in Bedlam. In 1798, the next year after the 
 stoppage, the amount of Bank of England Notes in 
 circulation was, 13,334,752/. ; and the amount of the 
 interest upon the national Debt, in that year, was, 
 17,750, 4Q2L In 1809, the amount of the Bank of 
 England Notes in circulation was, 21,249,9802. ; and 
 the amount of the interest upon the national Debt in 
 that year was, 30,093,447/. (exclusive of Irish loans.) 
 Now let this be tried by the rule of Three, and you 
 will see with what exactness the amount of the 
 Bank Notes keeps pace with the amount of the inte- 
 rest upon the national Debt, commonly called the 
 Dividends, which many poor creatures in the coun- 
 try look upon, or, rather, used to look upon, as some- 
 thing of a nature almost divine. Let us put this 
 down a little more distinctly. 
 
 In 1798, the Dividends amounted to .... 17,750,402 
 The Bank Notes out in circulation . . 13,334,752 
 
 In 1809, the Dividends amounted to 30,093,447 
 
 The Bank Notes in circulation . . . . 21,249,980 
 Here we have the real cause visibly before us. 
 What folly, what madness, is it then, to talk of lessen- 
 ing the amount of the notes, while we are continually 
 augmenting the amount of the Dividends, which are 
 the cause of the notes ? Here we have before our eyes 
 proof that the Dividends (by the use of which word I 
 mean to include all the annual charges upon the Debt) 
 and the Bank Notes have gone on increasing for 
 the last ten years, and I had before shown that they 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 331 
 
 had done so theretofore ; and, with this fact before 
 our eyes, we, the people of this "most thinking na- 
 tion," hear some of our legislators propose to lessen 
 the amount of the paper, while not a man of them 
 seems to dream of lessening the amount of the Debt. 
 We hear them propose to narrow the stream, while 
 they say not a word about narrowing the spring 
 whence it flows. They have seen, or you, at least, 
 have seen, Gentlemen, that the bank-paper arose 
 out of the national Debt ; you have seen that the 
 Bank was created in a short time after the Debt be- 
 gan ; you have seen the increase of the paper keep 
 an exact pace with the increase of the Debt ; and, is 
 it not then, to war against facts, against a century of 
 experience, against the nature of things, to propose 
 to narrow the issues of the paper without previously 
 narrowing the bounds of the Debt and its Dividends ? 
 If the authors of this proposition had read the work 
 of PAINE, they would never have offered such a pro- 
 position. Read this work they may, but they have 
 not duly considered its arguments, or they have shut 
 their eyes against the clear conviction that it is cal- 
 culated to produce. He pointed out in his Second 
 Part of the Rights of Man, the means of saving 
 England in the way of finance. That work was 
 written in 1791. So early as that he foresaw and 
 foretold what we have now before our eyes, and 
 what we have daily to expect. He there pointed out 
 the sure and certain means of effectually putting a 
 stop to further increase of the Debt, of insuring a 
 real diminution of it, and, at the same time of doing 
 ample justice to the fund-holders. For this pam- 
 phlet he was prosecuted, and having gone out of the 
 country, he was outlawed. A Royal Proclamation 
 was issued principally for the purpose of suppressing 
 his work, scores of pamphlets having been written 
 in answer to him in vain. He was burnt in effigy in 
 most parts of this his native country ; and his works 
 were suppressed by the arm of the law. Well, our 
 Government had its way ; it followed its own coun- 
 
332 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 sel and rejected that of PAINE ; he was overcome by 
 it, and driven from the country ; those who endea- 
 voured to cause his principles to have effect were 
 punished or silenced, or both: and, what is the re- 
 sult ? That result is now before us, and fast ap- 
 proaching us ; and, in a short time, in all human pro- 
 bability, events will enable us to form a perfectly 
 correct decision upon the respective merits and de- 
 merits of the then conflicting parties. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, if you have attentively read the 
 Letters, of which I now address to you the XXVth, 
 you will have no doubt at all, that the cause of the 
 influx of paper and of the consequent depreciation of 
 all money first, and then of the paper itself alone, 
 as compared to the money ; you will have no doubt 
 that the real cause of all this is, the increase of the 
 National Debt ; and, yet, in all the Parliamentary 
 debates upon the subject, you have heard of scarcely 
 any man who ventured to mention this cause. It 
 was a thing too tender to touch. It was what we 
 call a sore place ; and, the old proverb about the 
 
 failed horse applied too aptly. If the depreciation 
 ad been traced to the National Debt, as Mr. HORNS 
 TOOKE once traced it while he was in Parliament; 
 for. he then foresaw and foretold what was now come 
 to pass, and told the House, that, if they continued 
 the then expenditure, the fund-holder would not get, 
 in a few years, a quartern loaf for the dividend upon 
 a hundred pounds of stock ; if the depreciation had 
 thus been traced back to its real efficient cause, it 
 would have awakened reflections of an unpleasant 
 tendency ; it would have set men to consider what 
 was the cause of the increase of the Debt ; to look 
 back and inquire whither the money was gone ; for 
 what purpose it had been borrowed ; who were % the 
 persons that had profiled from that borrowing ; 
 who, in short, it was that had swallowed all that 
 money, the interest of which the nation was paying, 
 and had so long been paying. These reflections it 
 was not the desire of either party to awaken; but 
 
PAPER AGAIN3T GOLD. 333 
 
 they belong to the subject, they naturally present 
 themselves to every one, who looks only a little be- 
 neath the surface, and I venture to say, that, in the 
 end, they will become familiar to every man in the 
 kingdom. If this real cause of the evil had been 
 acknowledged, it would have saved a great deal of 
 time ; for, then, men would not have amused them- 
 selves with talking about such REMEDIES as that 
 of Mr. HORNER; and all the talk about the narrow- 
 ing of discounts and the purchasing of gold and 
 the improving of the exchange would have been 
 heard like the twice told tale of an idiot. The short 
 and the only question would have been this : can we, 
 by any means, diminish the amount of the Divi- 
 dends ? And if that question had been answered in 
 the negative, there was no course, for those who 
 wished to support the Pitt system to -pursue, but 
 that of letting things take their own course, and aid 
 the paper with their wishes. 
 
 So much for the REMEDY of the Bullion Com- 
 mittee ; but, our attention is now called to another, 
 founded on more imperious circumstances. I allude 
 to the proposition of EARL STANHOPE, which was, 
 on the 27th of June, brought forward in the shape 
 of a Bill, and which is, in that shape, now actually 
 before the House of Lords, where it has undergone 
 a second reading. Compared with this proposition, 
 all that has been said and done before is mere child's 
 play. This Bill brings the matter home to the pub- 
 lic mind ; it shows the most credulous that even 
 those, on whose stoutness they rested their faith, be- 
 gin to quiver. It cries, a truce with all pretensions. 
 It puts the sense and the sincerity of every disputant 
 to the test. The Minister told us, that he wished 
 the debate on the Bullion Report to come on, that 
 the matter might be set at rest. Set at rest! 
 Mercy on us! Set at rest! And so said OLD 
 GEORGE ROSE too. But what did they mean by set- 
 ting the matter at rest ? Is it possible, that they 
 could imagine, that this matter was to be set at rest ; 
 
334 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 that this great question of paper money ; that this 
 subject in which every human creature in the coun- 
 try is so deeply interested ; is it possible that they 
 thought this matter would be completely set at rest 
 by a vote for their majority ? No, noi This is one 
 of the things that that House cannot do. They can 
 do a great deal ; they can do more than I dare to 
 trust myself to describe ; but, they cannot set this 
 matter at rest ; nor have they, and all the branches 
 of the Government united, the power to stay the pro- 
 gress of the paper money only for one single hour. 
 The Minister and his people have now seen what 
 rest they insured for the subject ! I always said, 
 that the " first man of landed property who openly 
 made a distinction between paper and gold, would 
 put the whole system to its trumps, and compel the 
 bank notes ,io sue for the power of the Government 
 for their .protection." This has now been verified, 
 and the remainder of my prediction, which I need 
 not here repeat, is .not far from its accomplishment. 
 The grounds of LORD STANHOPE'S proposition were 
 stated by himself very explicitly, in moving, the 2nd 
 instant, the second reading of his Bill. He said, 
 that .he had long thought upon the subject, and had 
 long entertained the opinion, that some legislative 
 measure was necessary to preserve the bank note 
 system from total ruin ; that a notice recently given 
 by LORD KING to his tenants, signifying that he 
 would no longer receive his rents but in gold or in a 
 quantity of paper equivalent in powers of purchase 
 to gold,* had convinced him that there was no time 
 
 * " By Lease, dated 1802, you have contracted to pay the 
 annual rent of 471. bs. in good and lawful money of Great 
 Britain. In consequence of the late great depreciation of pa- 
 per money, lean no longer accept any bank notes, at their 
 nominal value, in payment or satisfaction of an old contract. 
 I must therefore desire you to provide for the payment of 
 your rent in the legal gold coin of the realm. At the same 
 time, haying no other object than to secure payment of the 
 real intrinsic value of the sum stipulated by agreement, and 
 being desirous to avoid giving you any unnecessary trouble, 
 I shall be willing to receive payment in either of the manners 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. , 335 
 
 to be lost, and that the measure in contemplation 
 ought to be adopted before the Parliament rose. He 
 said that the Ministers having declared, that their 
 only objection to the measure arose from an opinion, 
 that they thought no measure of the kind necessary, 
 being persuaded that nobody would be found to fol- 
 low the example of Lord King, it was only neces- 
 sary for him to show them that there were others to 
 follow that example, in order to convince the Minis- 
 ters, that the Bill was entitled to their support. 
 Having made these preliminary observations, he said, 
 that he had a bundle of instances of this sort, and 
 he only wished that a great many other persons 
 would declare their intentions at once, and then the 
 House would proceed to prevent the evil. He then 
 produced a number of letters, from which he read 
 extracts. One person wrote, that his landlord had 
 said, "what one landlord can do, all can do, and if 
 Lord King succeed, I will do the same." Another 
 letter related a recent transaction in Hampshire, 
 where a man bought an estate for 400/. and paid 
 down 100/. of the money, and afterwards laid out se- 
 veral hundreds of pounds upon the premises, and 
 when the time of payment came, the seller insisted 
 upon having payment in guineas, which the buyer 
 could riot obtain ; the seller, however, would have it, 
 or have his land back again, and the only consolation 
 left to the buyer was an intimation from a friend of 
 the seller, that he could inform him where he might 
 
 following, according to your option. 1st, By payment in 
 Guineas ; 2nd, If Guineas cannot be procured, by a payment 
 in Portugal Gold coin, equal in weight to the number of 
 Guineas requisite to discharge the rent; 3rd, By a payment 
 in bank paper of a sum sufficient to purchase (at the present 
 market price) the weight of .Standard Gold requisite to dis- 
 charge me rent. The alteration of the value of the paper 
 money is estimated in this manner : the price of Gold in 1802, 
 the year of your agreement, was 4Z. an ounce. The present 
 market price is 4Z. 14s. arising from the diminished value of 
 Paper ; in that proportion an addition of 17 1. 10*., per cent in 
 paper money will be required as the equivalent, for the pay- 
 ment of rent in paper." 
 
336 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 obtain the guineas at 27 shillings ea-ch. Another 
 letter stated that a lady, who was a land-owner, had 
 insisted upon her rent in gold, and that the tenant 
 apprehended a seizure of his goods, and was ready 
 to verify the facts if called on. Another informed 
 him, on the part of an attorney, that the practice was 
 become very common to sell guineas, and then pay 
 debts with the paper. 
 
 These were the grounds, stated by LORD STAN- 
 HOPE, of the measure that he proposed ; and, upon 
 his stating these grounds, the Ministers, who had, 
 at the first reading, said that they did not see any 
 necessity for the measure, or any measure of the 
 kind, allowed that there was such necessity, and 
 supported the second reading accordingly. 
 
 Now, Gentlemen, before I offer you any observa- 
 tions upon this measure itself, or upon the conduct 
 of LORD KING, whose notice to his tenants seems to 
 have given rise to it, it may not be amiss for me to 
 say, that, from all that has ever come to my know- 
 ledge, there is not a more disinterested man, or a 
 truer friend to freedom and to his country, breathing, 
 than LORD STANHOPE, whom I trace through the par- 
 liamentary proceedings of the last twenty years, al- 
 ways standing nobly forward in the cause of jus- 
 tice, liberty, and humanity, and, but too often stand- 
 ing forward alone. His protest against the Anti- 
 Jacobin war, which began in 1793, and which has 
 finally led to our present calamities, will live when 
 we shall all be in our graves. He there pointed out 
 all, yea all, that has now come to pass. That pro- 
 test, every sentence of which is full of wisdom and 
 of just sentiment, has these remarkable words : 
 " Because war with France is, at present, most im- 
 politic, extremely dangerous to our allies the Dutch, 
 hazardous with respect to the internal peace and ex- 
 ternal power of this country, and is likely to be 
 
 highly injurious to our commerce The 
 
 war may, therefore, prove to be a war against our 
 commerce and manufactures, against the proprietors 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 337 
 
 of the funds, against our paper currency, and 
 against every description of property in this 
 country" How completely has all this been verified ! 
 LORD STANHOPE was abused : he was called a jacobin 
 and a leveller, and now the nation is tasting the bitter 
 fruit of the spirit that dictated that abuse. Every 
 where was he to be found, in those horrible days, 
 where liberty was assailed. Not an act, which he 
 deemed injurious to the rights of Englishmen, es- 
 caped his strenuous opposition. In short, were I 
 called upon to name the peer, whom I thought to 
 have acted the best and truest part in those times, 
 and for the whole course of the last twenty awful 
 years, I should certainly name this very nobleman. 
 
 You will, therefore, Gentlemen, believe that, if I 
 dissent from the measure which he has now proposed, 
 that dissent proceeds from my conviction, that the 
 measure itself, is not calculated to produce that good, 
 which I am certain its author wishes it to produce. 
 
 The detail of the Bill I will not attempt to dis- 
 cuss. Its principles are what have struck me, and 
 these I gather from its chief provisions, which are, 
 that, in future, the gold coins shall not be tendered 
 or taken for more than their nominal value, and that 
 the bank paper shall not be tendered or taken for 
 less than its nominal value. This is LORD STAN- 
 HOPE'S REMEDY ; and this he appears to think will 
 prevent the possibility of a further depreciation of 
 the paper. We have seen the cause and the pro- 
 gress of that depreciation ; we have seen how the 
 paper pulled down the coin along with it, till the 
 coin could no longer endure the society ; we have 
 seen the time and the manner of their separation; 
 but, LORD STANHOPE appears to think, that, by the 
 means of this Bill, he shall be able not only to re- 
 store that harmony which formerly existed between 
 them ; but that he shall be able to chain them toge- 
 ther for ever after ; to bind them as it were in the 
 bonds of marriage, and to render the ties indissoluble, 
 If he do this, he will do what never was done before 
 29 
 
338 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 in the world ; he will destroy all the settled maxims 
 of political economy as far as they relate to finance ; 
 his achievement will be a triumph not only over the 
 opinions and experience of mankind, but over the 
 very nature of man, which incessantly impels him 
 to seek his own interest, and, at the very least, to 
 use all the means in his power to provide for his 
 own preservation. 
 
 After having said this I shall naturally be sup- 
 posed to be convinced, that the Bill would be utterly 
 inefficient for the purposes it contemplates. Indeed, 
 such is my decided opinion, and the reasons for that 
 opinion, I will now proceed to submit to you. A 
 guinea is not to pass for more than 21s. There must 
 be some penalty to prevent the passing of it for 
 more. LORD STANHOPE will propose nothing cruel ; 
 but for argument's sake, let the penalty be death. 
 What, then ? Why need any one risk any penalty, 
 as far as ready money transaction goes? One 01 
 you goes to market with a pig for sale. " What do 
 you ask for that pig, farmer?" Answer : " Twenty- 
 seven shillings." " I'll give you a guinea." " You 
 shall have him." Where is the possibility, then, of en- 
 forcing such a law ? The parties, in any case, have 
 only to settle, before they deal, in what sort of cur- 
 rency payment shall be made, and then they will, 
 of course, make the price accordingly. As to debts^ 
 indeed, whether book debts, or debts arising from 
 contract, in the payment of them, the gold and notes 
 must, if this Bill pass, be taken at their nominal va- 
 lue ; that is to say, the paper must; for, as to gold, 
 who will be fool enough to tender gold in payment 
 at its nominal amount, when it is notorious that it 
 will fetch a premium of six shillings upon the guinea ? 
 If the Bill become a law, therefore, any tenant who 
 has rent to pay, and who has guineas in his purse, 
 will first go and purchase paper money with his 
 guineas, and with the paper money, he will go and 
 pay his rent. This rent, for instance, is 105/. a year, 
 and he has a hundred guineas in his chest. But, he 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 339 
 
 will not be fool enough to carry these to his landlord. 
 He will go and buy 105 pounds worth of paper 
 money with seventy-eight of his guineas ; and will 
 then go and pay his rent, and will return home with 
 28 of his guineas still in his pocket. So that, as far 
 as the Bill will have effect, it appears to me that 
 it will bear almost exclusively upon landlords. 
 
 I shall be told, perhaps, that though guineas may 
 now be bought and sold, in consequence of the de- 
 cision of the judges, which, in the case of DE 
 YONGE, has been promulgated since I began this 
 Letter,* yet we are not to suppose, that the present 
 Bill will not provide against such traffic, by making 
 it penal to be concerned in it. But, as I have shown 
 
 * The following is the Report of this DECISION, as given by 
 the Chief Judge, Lord Ellenborough, in the Court of King's 
 Bench, on the 3rd instant. " THE KING against DE YONGE. 
 Lord ELLENBOROUGH communicated the Judgment of the 
 Court in this case, which along with another case, the King 
 y. Wright, coming from the Assizes for the County of Buck- 
 ingham, had been reserved for the opinion of the 12 Judges, 
 on a point of law. Both causes had been fully and ably ar- 
 gued before the Judges in the Court of Exchequer Chamber, 
 and the argument had occupied a number of days. The ques- 
 tion arising in the present case was, the Defendant having 
 been convicted of purchasing 52 Guineas at the rate, in Bank 
 Notes of 22s. Gd. per Guinea, whether, in so doing, he had 
 been guilty of an offence punishable under the Act of the 5th 
 and 6th of Edward VI. which prohibited the exchanging of 
 coined gold for coined silver, or for gold and silver, the party 
 giving or receiving more in value than the same was current 
 for at the time? All the Judges," except three, were present 
 at the whole of these arguments, and at the last of them the 
 whole of the Judges were present. The Court had no oppor- 
 tunity of knowing what was the opinion of the absent Judges 
 on that part of the case at the argument on which they were 
 not present, but they had no reason to presume that they 
 dissented from the opinion of the other Judges who were 
 present, all of whom concurred in opinion that the Defendant 
 in this case was not liable under the Act of the 5th and 6th 
 of Edward VI. The Judgment therefore, fell to be arrested; 
 and the Judgment was arrested accordingly." Thus. then, 
 this case is decided as I always said it must be, unless all 
 semblance of law was banished from the land. Many people 
 thought and said, that the conviction would be confirmed ; 
 but, I never thought so for a moment. Oh, no ! The Judg- 
 es knew a great deal better than to do that ! 
 
 

 340 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 above, men may go on with all ready money transac- 
 tions, and, with perfect safety, make a distinction 
 between paper and coin, which amounts to the same 
 thing as buying and selling the coin or the paper, 
 It will require but very little ingenuity to discover 
 the means of so managing the matter that the land- 
 lord shall never see a shilling's worth of coin from 
 the hands of the tenant. 
 
 But, suppose that the coin should not be permitted 
 to be bought and sold ; does any one believe, that 
 any law will prevent a private traffic in the article? 
 And, if that could be done, is any one mad enough 
 to suppose, that the guinea will still circulate at 
 par with the paper ? Pass this Bill, or any Bill, 
 that shall prevent men from passing the guinea for 
 more than its nominal worth, and the consequence 
 will be, that a guinea will never again be seen in 
 circulation. Those who have them will keep them 
 in their chests, waiting an occasion to export them, 
 or more patiently waiting till circumstances have 
 produced the repeal of the law which has driven the 
 guinea into the hoard. The cause that we see no 
 
 fuineas now in common circulation, is, as I said 
 efore, that they cannot obtain their fair value. 
 They would have been openly sold, long enough 
 ago, had there not been an opinion, that the traffic 
 was punishable by law. Now that obstacle is re- 
 moved ; but in all likelihood, another will be erected 
 by the present Bill. In that case, the guineas will 
 all either be hoarded or sent out of the country, and 
 paper must and will be made to supply their place. 
 The Dollars, the new things of three shillings and 
 eighteen pence, now coming out from the Bank, will 
 also be hoarded ; and to notes for shillings and six- 
 pences, we must come, I am convinced, in the course 
 of the year, if this Bill pass ; so that the Bill, w^hile 
 it will be wholly inefficient for the purpose of arrest- 
 ing the progress of depreciation, will be efficient 
 enough in producing a contrary effect. 
 
 The Bill does not, the author of it says, make 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 341 
 
 bank notes a legal tender. It does not do it in 
 words, but it appears to me to endeavour to do it in 
 effect ; and that being once done, all the usual con- 
 sequences of a legal tender must follow. It was 
 easy to see, that the system would come to this 
 pitch ; there is nothing in the state to which we are 
 come, that ought to surprise any one ; what has 
 happened, was to be expected, and was, indeed, long 
 ago foretold ; but, what might reasonably surprise 
 one, is, to hear this measure represented by the mi- 
 nisters as necessary to the protection of the fund- 
 holder : Can this be serious ! Is it possible, that 
 they can be serious when they say this ? If they 
 are, nothing that they say or do, can ever be a sub- 
 ject of wonder. Men, who are capable of believing 
 that the Bill of Lord Stanhope will operate as a 
 
 protection to the fund-holder, are capable 
 
 but, really, I want words to answer my purpose. 
 Imagination can frame nothing that such men are 
 not capable of in the way of belief. That the paper 
 would, at last, become a legal tender, or forced cir- 
 culation, it was easy to see. I did, indeed, for my 
 own part, expect this state of the paper to be appa- 
 rent long ago. The faith of this "most thinking 
 people," I knew to be almost passing conception; 
 but, still I did not think it adequate to the support- 
 ing of this paper-money for 14 years after the issuers 
 had ceased to pay in cash, and after they were pro- 
 tected by law against the demands of their creditors. 
 It was, however, certain, that the thing must come 
 to this point at last ; it was certain, that, if the Na- 
 tional Debt and the taxes continued to increase, the 
 time must come when landlords would see that they 
 must either starve, or demand their rents in coin ; 
 and, whenever this time came, it was, as I have ma- 
 ny times said, impossible to keep up the paper only 
 for six months, without making that paper a legal 
 tender, which might eke out its existence, perhaps 
 for a year or two, but which, in the end, must insure 
 its total destruction. I have several times been ask- 
 29* 
 
342 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ed, what reason there was why landlords should not 
 demand their rents in gold and silver; or in bank 
 notes to the amount of the gold and silver ; and, my 
 answer has always been, that there was no reason 
 at all against it now, but that there soon would be ; 
 for that the moment such demand was made, Bank 
 notes would be made a legal tender. This was na- 
 tural, and, therefore, the ministers are now doing 
 just what I always expected they would do, whene- 
 ver any land-holder did what Lord King has now 
 done ; but, to hear them speak of it as a measure 
 calculated to afford protection to the fund-holder, is 
 what I never could have expected. They will see 
 what sort of protection it will give him ; and he 
 will feel it ! What will be his fate, I shall not pre- 
 tend to say ; but, I hope, there is justice enough yet 
 in the country, real justice enough, to prevent him 
 from perishing, while there exist the means of such 
 prevention. I trust, that his claims will meet with 
 serious and patient consideration; that the question 
 of what is due to him, and to whom he ought to 
 look for payment, will be settled upon sound prin- 
 ciples of equity. I am for giving real protection to 
 the fund-holder ; but, to hear the Ministers say, that 
 he is to meet with protection from a measure such 
 as that now before Parliament, a measure that must 
 inevitably accelerate the depreciation of the paper, is, 
 surely, sufficient to fill one with surprise and dismay, 
 if, at this day, and after all that we have seen, any 
 thing ought to produce such an effect in our minds. 
 
 On the 2nd of July, a protest was entered in the 
 House of Lords, against Lord STANHOPE'S Bill, 
 which protest I here insert. " Dissentient, because 
 we think it the duty of this House to mark, in the 
 first instance, with the most decided reprobation, a 
 Bill, which, in our judgment, manifestly leads to 
 the introduction of laws, imposing upon the country 
 the compulsory circulation of a Paper Currency ; 
 a measure fraught with injustice^ destructive of all 
 confidence in the legal security of contracts, and, as 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 343 
 
 invariable experience has shown, necessarily pro- 
 ductive of the most fatal calamities: 
 
 GRENVILLE, LANSDOWNE, JERSEY, KING, 
 
 ESSEX, COWPER, GREY, LAUDERDALE. 
 
 " For the reason assigned on the other side, and 
 because the repeal of the law for suspending Bank 
 Payments in cash, is, in my judgment, the only mea- 
 sure which can cure the inconveniences already 
 felt, and avert the yet greater calamities which are 
 impending from the present state of the circulation 
 of the country : VASSALL HOLLAND." 
 
 In the protest of the eight peers I heartily concur j 
 but, I do not agree with LORD HOLLAND in his addi- 
 tion to it, if his lordship means to say, that it is pos- 
 sible to resume cash payments at the Bank. To 
 pay the notes in gold upon demand, agreeably to the 
 promise upon the face of the notes, is certainly the 
 only cure for the inconveniencies already felt and 
 the calamities now impending ; but, that it is utterly 
 impossible to adopt this cure is, to my mind, not less 
 certain. His Lordship proceeds upon the motion of 
 Mr. HORNER and the Bullion Committee, namely, 
 that the case of the depreciation consists in an ex- 
 cessive issue of paper, which is very true, if you 
 compare the quantity of paper with that of the gold, 
 or of the real transactions of purchase and sale, be- 
 tween man and man; but, which is not true, if you 
 compare the quantity of paper, with the amount of 
 the Dividends payable on the National Debt, and 
 I would be^ leave to put, with sincere respect, this 
 question to LORD HOLLAND: "If cash payments 
 were restored, and money, as must be the case, were 
 restored to its former value, where does your Lord- 
 ship think would be found the means of paying the 
 Dividends ?" 
 
 It is impossible ! The thing never can go back 
 without combustion ; no, not an inch ; nay, and it 
 musi keep advancing. This very measure, by has- 
 tening the depreciation, will cause a new addition, 
 and still larger than former additions, to the Nation- 
 
 
-344 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 al Debt, and of course to the Dividends. Those 
 additional Dividends must be paid in an additional 
 quantity of bank notes ; and thus the system must 
 go on, as PAINE foretold, with an accelerated veto- 
 city, until it can go on no longer. Having this opi- 
 nion so firmly fixed in my mind, I was quite sur- 
 prised to see the Marquis of LANSDOWNE endeavour 
 to mend the Bill of LORD STANHOPE by the intro- 
 duction of a clause for prohibiting the Bank Com- 
 pany from augmenting the quantity of their paper 
 after the passing of the Bill. This shows, that his 
 Lordship has, what I deem to be, and which, I think, 
 I have proved to be, a most erroneous view of the 
 real cause of the depreciation. If he thought with 
 me, that the cause is in the increase of the National 
 Debt and of the Dividends, he would have proposed 
 no such amendment as this. 
 
 As to the conduct of LORD KING, nothing could 
 be more fair or more laudable. He wished to take 
 no advantages of his tenants ; he only wanted a 
 fulfilment of his contract with them ; and, as the 
 spirit of the contract was more favourable to them 
 than the letter, he abandoned the letter, and only re- 
 quired them to hold to the spirit. To hear him, 
 
 therefore, charged with oppression^ and by ! 
 
 But, it is as well to keep ourselves cool. Let others 
 chafe and foam. And. if the House of Lords do 
 choose thus to determine, why, all that I can say 
 about the matter, is, that they are the best judges 
 whether they stand in need of their rents, and, if 
 they do not, I really do not see much harm in their 
 giving them to their tenants ; and, this act will be 
 the more generous as they are about to do it by law, 
 so that the tenants will keep the rents without having 
 to give the landlords even thanks in return. TJiat 
 such will be amongst the effects of the Bill, if it 
 pass, there can be no doubt ; and, as far as it ope- 
 rates in this way, a most popular Bill it will be. It 
 will act as a distributor of wealth ; of money, 
 lands, and tenements ; for, to suppose, that, in many 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 345 
 
 cases, the tenants will not soon become the proprie- 
 tors^ is to discover but very little thought on the 
 subject 5 and that, I am sure, would be a shame in 
 a body of HEREDITARY LEGISLATORS in the " most 
 thinking nation in the world." What a change this 
 will make ! Happy is the man who is a tenant I 
 Much better off is he than the man who tills his own 
 land ; because the former has given nothing at all 
 for his, whereas the latter has paid, at some time or 
 other, purchase money for what he possesses. The 
 letting of long- leases is out of fashion ; but, in ge- 
 neral, the lands of great proprietors are held upon 
 lease, and these leases are not, upon an average, for 
 less than seven years at the lowest. Some of these 
 leases are nearly expired, of course, but others will 
 naturally be but just commenced. So that, the ave- 
 rage time, for which the land is now let, I shall take 
 at three years and a half. All the Duke of Bed- 
 ford's estates, for instance, are let, then, for three 
 years and a half yet to come. Now, if the paper 
 depreciates three or four times as fast as it has hi- 
 therto done, the tenants of the Duke of Bedford will 
 have a brave time of it for these three years and a 
 half. But, if the Bill, which is now before Parlia- 
 ment, should send down the paper to the state of the 
 French assignats in 1794, what will^ in that case y 
 be the situation of the Duke of Bedford? There 
 are many landlords, who cannot hold out for three 
 years and a half, and who, therefore, must sell, in 
 whole or in part ; but there will, indeed, be this con- 
 venience, that they will every where find a pur- 
 chaser ready at hand in their tenant, and one, too, 
 who will not only know the real value of the pro- 
 perty, but who will have the money ready to pay for 
 it. This is nothing in the way of a joke. I am in 
 earnest ; it is what I am convinced will take place, 
 if the Bill of Lord Stanhope pass into a law ; but, 
 as I said before, if the Lords like it, nobody else can 
 possibly have a right to interfere. They may, sure- 
 ly, do what they please with their own property. All 
 

 346 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 that I wish to stipulate for is, that we Jacobins and 
 Levellers shall never be accused of this act of dis- 
 tributing the lands and houses of the rich amongst 
 those who are not rich ; that we shall not be accused 
 of this great act of pulling down, and raising up. 
 Hume remarked, that the funding system, in the 
 space of 500 years, would cause the posterity of 
 those now in the coaches, and of those upon the 
 boxes, to change places ; but, if this bill of LORD 
 STANHOPE pass, this change will be a thing of much 
 quicker operation. 
 
 I shall be told, that Lord King's example would 
 have operated even more quickly than this measure, 
 in destroying the paper. Granted. It would, there 
 is no doubt, have produced, in a very short time, that 
 which must have totally destroyed the paper sys- 
 tem, root and branch, namely, TWO PRICES, 
 against which, openly and generally adopted, no 
 
 Eaper-money ever did, or ever can, stand for any 
 >ngth of time. That that example would have 
 been generally, nay universally, followed, there can 
 be no doubt at all, for, no man voluntarily gives 
 away his rents, or, rather, lets another withhold them 
 from him. Some persons would have been a little 
 shy at first ; but, when they found that others did it, 
 they would have got over their shyness, and the de- 
 mand would have been universally made. Thus, 
 then, the TWO PRICES would have been estab- 
 lished ; and the gold and silver, finding that they could 
 pass current for their real worth, would have come 
 forth from their hiding places, some, while the rest 
 would have hastened back from abroad. " Surely !" 
 say you : " why then, are the Government alarmed 
 at the effect of Lord King's example, if it would 
 bring back gold and silver into circulation?" Oh! 
 there is good reason for their alarm ; for, observe, 
 THE TAXES WOULD CONTINUE TO BE 
 PAID IN PAPER ! When the tax-gatherer come 
 to the door of one of you, for instance, you would, if 
 you had only gold or silver in the house, beg him tu 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD, 347 
 
 call the next morning, or to sit down a bit, while you, 
 with your gold, would go and purchase paper-money 
 sufficient to pay him the amount of his demand ! There 
 needs no more to convince you that the Government 
 has good reason for alarm at the prospect of seeing 
 Lord King's example followed, as it assuredly would 
 be, if there were no law to prevent it. In short, that 
 example would annihilate the paper system in a year. 
 The next Letter will close the series. In the mean 
 while, I remain, 
 
 Gentlemen y 
 
 Your Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 Friday, ffl, July, 1811. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 " It is not that the nionei/ which the Public Creditor receives, as interest for 
 his capital, is less than it used to be ; it is that the quantity of goods he 
 receives tor his money is less ; and he will be still receiving less and 
 less, while your taxes will be rising more and more. If the next Admi- 
 nistration" (Addington was just at this time coming into power in p ace 
 of Pitt) "mean to go on like the last, it would be a good thing for the 
 country if no man would lend them a groat. Let them ta~:e three fourths 
 of a man's int-rr^st, or property, from him, and take off the taxes, and 
 the people would be doubly gainers. If you reduce the National Debt, we 
 may laugh and sing at home, and bid defiance to all the world ; if you 
 do not reduce it, the consequence will be, that, instead of paying the Na- 
 tional Creditor 120 quartern loaves for a years interest of his loot, you 
 will go on. till you only pay him 2 or 3 quartern loaves. Depend upon it 
 that it will be the fate of the National Creditor." Mr. Home Tooke'9 
 Speech, in the House of Commons, 2d March, 1801. 
 
 Mr. Home Tooke and the Reformers Effect of Lord King's 
 Example Two prices How these would affect the Go- 
 vernment, the Generals, the Judges, the Sinecure Place- 
 men and Pensioners Lord Mornington's Speech in 1794 
 Progress of the Assignats in France Mr. Perceval's Speech 
 in the House of Commons, 6th July, 1811. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 LOOK at the motto ! Look at the motto ; and, es- 
 pecially, if any of you should unfortunately be fund- 
 holders ! in that case, let me beseech you to look at 
 
348 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the motto. They are the words of a very wise man. 
 They were spoken, you see, rather more than ten 
 years ago. The speaker was laughed at by some, 
 and railed at by others ; but, I imagine, that, at this 
 time, those, who then laughed, are more disposed to 
 cry, though I by no means suppose, that the railers 
 have ceased, or ever will cease their railing, as long 
 as they have tongues or pens wherewith to rail. The 
 House of Commons passed an Act which, for the 
 future, excluded Mr. Tooke, soon after he made this 
 speech. They did so upon the ground of his being 
 a Clergyman in Holy Orders. No matter : they got 
 rid of him for the future ; but, they have not got rid 
 of the event that he foretold. Oh, no ! that is coming 
 upon them in spite of all their triumphs over Mr. 
 TOOKE, and Mr. PAINE, and Messrs. Mum, PALMER, 
 MARGAROT, GERALD, WINTERBOTTOM, GILBERT WAKE- 
 FIELD, and many others. The Government beat all 
 these reformers ; they not only put them down ; they 
 not only ruined the greater part of them ; but they 
 succeeded in making the nation believe that such 
 ruin was just. Well! The Government and the 
 nation will now, of course, not pretend, that the pre- 
 sent events have sprung from the Jacobins and Re- 
 formers. Mr. TOOKE told them to reduce the Na- 
 tional Debt. They rejected his advice. They des- 
 pised his warning. They kept him, for the future, 
 out of Parliament. Well ! Let them, then, not 
 blame him for what has since happened, and what 
 is now coming to pass. 
 
 I beg you, Gentlemen, to reflect well on these 
 observations ; for, such reflection will be very useful 
 in preventing you from being deceived in future, and 
 will enable you, when the utmost of the evil comes, 
 to ascertain who are the men who have been THE 
 AUTHORS OF THE EVIL, arid to whom, ac- 
 cordingly, you ought to look for a just RESPONSI- 
 BILITY. But, upon this vital part of the subject 
 I have some hints to offer to you hereafter : at pre- 
 sent I must return for a while, to the point where I 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 349 
 
 broke off in my last Letter, namely, the reason for 
 the alarm of the Government at the prospect of see- 
 ing Lord King's example followed. 
 
 I spoke of the TWO PRICES before ; but, let 
 me say a few more words upon that very interesting 
 part of our subject. Two prices have always proved 
 the death of paper-money. In this case it would 
 have been the same, and, in the end, it will still be 
 the same ; for, the Bill of Lord Stanhope can do no 
 more than retard the event for six or nine months, 
 and mind, I tell you this with as much confidence as 
 I would venture to foretel the arrival of Christmas 
 day. I do not say, that the event will come in six 
 or nine months ; but I say, that this Bill will not 
 keep it off for a greater length of time than that. If 
 TWO PRICES were generally made, we should 
 see the gold and silver back into circulation immedi- 
 ately ; but, none of it could get to the Bank, because 
 no man would pay his TAXES in gold and silver. 
 Consequently the fund-holder and the Government 
 would be paid in paper, while gold and silver would 
 be circulating amongst all the rest of the community. 
 As soon as there are two prices, the paper must de- 
 preciate at an enormous rate ; and as the Govern- 
 ment would have to pay its contractors and others 
 whose pay was not fixed, in this depreciated paper, 
 it must have a greater quantity of that paper, and 
 it must come from the Bank. It is so easy to see how 
 this must work ; how rapidly it must go on ; how 
 soon it must render the paper worth little more than 
 its weight in rags j all this is so easy to see, that I 
 will not suppose any one of you so very dull as not 
 to perceive it. 
 
 The Government, with nothing but paper at its 
 command, would soon begin to feel somewhat like a 
 person who has taken a powerful emetic. The big 
 round drops of sweat would stand upon its forehead ; 
 its knees would knock together ; it would look pale as 
 a ghost ; an universal feebleness would seize it. That 
 to say, all this would take place, if the Govern- 
 30 
 
350 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ment persevered in the Pitt system, and that it would 
 do so, who can doubt after what we have seen during 
 the last twenty years. If the TWO PRICES were 
 openly made, and became general, as they, in all 
 probability, would, in the course of six or eight 
 months, the paper would fall so low as that 5, or, 
 
 
 jvernrnent, 
 
 its way ; the Generals and Judges and others, having 
 a fixed pay, would, indeed, still be paid as they 
 were before, and, of course, the Government would 
 lose nothing by taking paper as far as this description 
 of expense went ; for, you will observe, that I hold 
 it to be impossible, that the parties I have just men- 
 tioned, namely, the Generals, the Judges, the Tax- 
 Commissioners, and the like ; I hold it to be impos- 
 sible, that these men should not all of them be ex- 
 cessively happy to take the paper-money, though at 
 a hundred for one, seeing that the greater the degree 
 of depreciation, the finer the opportunity for them to 
 give proofs of their devotion to public credit. But, 
 though my Lords the Judges, and Lord Arden and 
 Lord Buckinghamshire and Lord Liverpool and Lord 
 Bathurst and the Marquis of Buckingham and Lord 
 Camden and Old George Rose and Mr. Canning and 
 my neighbour the Apothecary General and Lord 
 Kenyon and Lady Louisa Paget, and, indeed, the 
 hundreds of those who h&ve fixed sums paid them by 
 the Government out of money raised upon the peo- 
 ple, whether in the shape of salary, sinecure, or pen- 
 sion ; though all these persons would, I dare say, 
 from motives of public spirit, cheerfully continue to 
 take the paper till a pound of it would not purchase 
 a pinch of snuff; still, there would be some things 
 and some services that must be paid for in money, 
 or they would not be obtained. Beef and Pork and 
 Biscuit could not be bought without real money. 
 These are commodities that do not move without an 
 equivalent. Whether the soldiers would be paid, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 351 
 
 under such circumstances, in paper so much reduced 
 in value, I shall not pretend to say, and will leave 
 the point to be settled by those who have lately said 
 so much about this useful and numerous class of ac- 
 tive citizens. But, one thing is certain : that THEY 
 must be paid in a kind of money that will purchase 
 eatables. They have bargained to receive a certain 
 sum per day; and, if the same should not purchase 
 half so much beer or beef as it does now, the bar- 
 gain will not be so good a one as it is now ; though, 
 observe, I am not supposing, that there would not be 
 found public spirit enough amongst the soldiers to 
 make them take the paper in preference to gold. At 
 any rate, this is a matter which belongs exclusively 
 to those who have the management of our affairs, and 
 who are paid very well for such management. 
 
 It would be useless to extend our remarks here. 
 It is as clear as day-light, that whenever TWO 
 PRICES shall be generally established, the death 
 of the paper is at hand, and indeed, the death of the 
 funding system; because, owing to the rapidity of 
 the depreciation, the fund-holders, our poor friend 
 GRIZZLE GREENHORN, and all the rest of them, would 
 soon be in the situation described by Mr. HORNE 
 TOOKE, in the passage taken for my motto ; that is to 
 say, a hundred pounds of their stock would yield 
 them a couple or three quartern loaves in the year; 
 and, it is within the compass of possibility, that 
 many persons, who are now enabled to ride in their 
 coaches by incomes derived from the funds, may end 
 their days as paupers or beggars. In short, it is quite 
 impossible for any man of common sense not to per- 
 ceive, that the establishment of TWO PRICES 
 would put an end, in a short time, not only to the 
 property of the fund-holders, but to the sinecures 
 and pensions, and also to great numbers of other 
 emoluments derived from the public revenue. Put 
 an end to all for a time at least, and subjecting them 
 to an after revision. 
 
 If we are of opinion 3 that this effect would have 
 
352 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 been produced by tbe example of Lord King being 
 followed, there is, I think, little room for wonder, 
 that the ministers were alarmed at the prospect. I 
 know it will be said, and with perfect truth, that, in 
 time, the same effect will be produced by Lord Stan- 
 hope's Bill ; but, supposing it to be produced full as 
 soon by the Bill, it does not follow, that the minis- 
 ters perceive that. On the contrary, it would seem, 
 that they do not perceive it at all ; and, it is evident, 
 that they have a sort of vague notion, that the Bill 
 will stay the depreciation. I am convinced, that it 
 will not; I am convinced, that it will hasten the de- 
 preciation, and though not quite so fast as the exam- 
 ple of Lord King would, still that, in the end, the 
 effect will be the same. But the ministers could, in 
 the one case, see the effect ; in the other they appear 
 not to have seen it ; and, this is quite sufficient to 
 account for their giving their support to the Bill. 
 
 I said before, Gentlemen, that this Bill was the 
 first of a series of measures, the object of which 
 would be to keep up the paper by the force of law. 
 This seems to be the opinion of all those who have 
 opposed it in the House of Peers : that it is merely 
 a step in the old beaten path of keeping up, by the 
 arm of power, a depreciated paper-currency. This 
 course has been before pursued, in other countries, 
 and it has, in every part of the world, led to the same 
 end ; the total destruction of the paper. Each ot 
 the Colonies, now moulded into an united nation in 
 America, had its debt, its paper-money, its legal 
 tenders, and its public bankruptcy, before their se- 
 paration from England, and even before the revolu 
 tionary quarrel began. But, it was in France, where 
 the thing was performed upon a grand scale ; and, 
 by taking a view somewhat more close than we have 
 hitherto done, of the progress of the measures in 
 France, we shall be able more correctly to judge of 
 the tendency of what is now going on here. 
 
 There are divers histories of what was done in 
 France, relative to the assignats; but I choose to 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 353 
 
 take for my authority one of the present Ministers. 
 The Marquis WELLESLEY, when he was Lord MORN- 
 INGTON, made a speech in the House of Commons, 
 which was afterwards published in a pamphlet, or 
 rather book, in which he gave an account of all the 
 pranks played with the assignats in France, up to 
 the time of his making the speech, which was on the 
 21st of January. 1794, just three years and a month 
 before the then ministry, whom he supported, issued 
 an Order in Council to protect the Bank of England 
 against the demands of cash for their notes. 
 
 In this memorable speech, manifestly drawn up 
 for the purpose of exciting horror in the people of 
 England at the wickedness of the French Rulers re- 
 lative to the assignats, and also to make the people 
 believe, that the state of the assignats must prove the 
 overthrow of France ; in this memorable speech, not 
 only facts are stated, but principles and maxims of 
 finance are laid down. We will take a cursory view 
 of them all ; for time, which tries every thing, has 
 now brought us into a state to judge correctly of 
 those facts, principles, and maxims. 
 
 Lord Wellesley told the House of Commons, that 
 the rulers of France were very wicked, but that they 
 were not less foolish, than wicked ; that their igno- 
 rance was, at least, equal to their villany, though the 
 latter was surprisingly great. He said, that " the 
 French Revolutionary Government, in order to sup- 
 ply an extravagant expenditure, had recourse, at 
 first, to increasing the mass of paper-money ; and, 
 that they declared, that they had no other means oj 
 sustaining the pressure of the war, than by the 
 creation of an additional quantity of assignats." 
 There, is then, nothing original in the declarations 
 of Lord Liverpool, and Perceval and Rose. Nothing 
 new in their recent assertions, that it was the paper- 
 money that enabled them to provide for the defence 
 of the kingdom, to make such great exertions against 
 the " enemy of the human race," to gain such victo- 
 ries in Spain and Portugal, and to add such glories 
 30 
 
354 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 to the English name ! This was all very fine and 
 full of comfort ; but, as you now see, Gentlemen, 
 there was nothing new in it. The same thing had 
 been said before by the revolutionary rulers of 
 France ; the same thing had been said by Danton 
 and Robespierre and their associates, in praise of 
 the revolutionary money of France. 
 
 The ministers have frequently denied that the coin 
 of the country is, or ought to be, the standard of value. 
 Rose and Lord Westmoreland, and several others of 
 them, have denied, that the Bank notes ought to be 
 looked upon as depreciated, merely because they 
 would not go for the same quantity of gold as for- 
 merly ; and the hireling writers have taken infinite 
 pains to decry and run down the gold and silver 
 coin. One of them calls guineas an incumbrance; 
 another says, that gold and silver are merely articles 
 of traffic, and that the Bank notes are the only 
 money fitting the country ; another has said, that, 
 were it not for the National Debt, the patronage, 
 and the paper-money, the Government could have 
 no existence, and that the Bank notes offer to the 
 government a most indestructible support, because 
 they make the daily bread of every individual de- 
 pend upon the Government ; and another has said, 
 that Bank paper is the best bond of individual and 
 public security, and the only medium of currency to 
 suit and exert the energies of an insular and com- 
 mercial people ! 
 
 What a similarity between this language and the 
 language of the Rulers of France in favour of their 
 assi gnats ! They called them, as Lord Wellesley 
 said in his speech, revolutionary money ; their Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer said, that it was a happy 
 thing for the people to have Republican assi gnats 
 instead of pieces of metal bearing the effigy of ty- 
 rants ; that the whole nation despised the corrupt- 
 ing metals, and that he would soon find a way of 
 driving back the vile dung into the bowels of the 
 earth. In another part of his speech, Lord Welles- 
 
I^H . 11 .1 
 
 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. - 355 
 
 ley tells us, that people were imprisoned and pun- 
 ished for their contempt of assignats. 
 
 Nevertheless, the people of France had, it seems, 
 still an unnatural hankering after gold and silver in 
 preference to assignats ; and they did, in fact, make 
 TWO PRICES ; the consequence of which was 
 an enormous rise in the price of all the necessaries 
 of life, the proprietors of which were reviled as ene- 
 mies of the country, and, as such, many hundreds of 
 them were put to death. This, however, was not 
 sufficient to put a stop to the rise of prices, and, in- 
 deed, did not check it at all. Then came the law of 
 of MAXIMUM, (as it will in England if the present 
 course be pursued,) fixing the highest price at which 
 any of the necessaries of life should be sold, and at 
 which men should work and render services. This 
 terrible law, Lord Wellesley tells us, had nearly- 
 starved the whole nation ; for the farmers would not 
 bring their produce to market, and tradesmen kept 
 their goods locked up. Then, he tells us, that these 
 persons were pursued as monopolists ; and thus, said 
 Lord Wellesley, " every farmer whose barns and gra- 
 naries are not empty ; every merchant and tradesman 
 whose warehouse or shop is not entirely unprovided 
 with goods, must be subject to the charge of mono- 
 poly. This crime is punished differently, accord- 
 ing to the enormity of the case ; but, most frequently 
 the punishment is death." So that it is time for far- 
 mers and tradesmen to look about them, and espe- 
 cially the farmers ; who, if they do not already see 
 the danger of their landlord's property being with- 
 held from him, will, perhaps be more clear-sighted 
 when their own natural fate is pointed out. They 
 hear LORD KING accused of black malignity ; they 
 hear him charged with selfishness ; they hear him 
 classed along with pedlers and Jews. This was, 
 as Lord Wellesley tells us, precisely the language 
 which Danton and Robespierre and their underlings 
 made use of towards the people of property in France, 
 who had a " contempt for assignats.'' They were 
 
356 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 accused of incivism ; they were called egotist, and 
 were, in almost the very words in which LORD KING 
 is now arraigned by the COURIER, told that they 
 " committed a robbery against the RIGHTS OF 
 SOCIETY!" And, this is what the people or 
 England are told, observe, after eighteen years of 
 war, after eighteen years of blood and taxation, in 
 order, as they were promised, to preserve their coun- 
 try from what they saw going on in France ! 
 
 " But our paper is at par," say some of the PITT- 
 ITES still ; " Our paper is not depreciated." So they 
 said in France. Yes, said Lord WELLESLEY, " the 
 French minister of Finance has boasted, that his as- 
 signats are at par ; but, the laws which have been 
 passed for punishing with long imprisonment any 
 person who takes, gives, or offers assignats under 
 par, sufficiently account for this circumstance." 
 Good God ! It would really seem, that every saying 
 is to come home to us ! that upon our devoted heads 
 are to be visited all that was felt, and, which is more, 
 perhaps, all that was, by our rulers, said to be felt, 
 by the people of France : aye, it really would seem, 
 that all, that all, to the very letter, is now to come 
 home to the people of England, who were led to 
 build their hopes of success and of safety upon the 
 ruin of the people, or at least, the Government of 
 France ! This very Bill now under discussion, will 
 impose a penalty, whether of imprisonment or not 
 I do not yet know, upon any person, who takes, or 
 gives, or offers, bank notes under par. The prohi- 
 bition was made in the Lords, and the Minister has 
 said, that he means to add the penalty ! 
 
 Let us now look, then, at the contrast which 
 Lord WELLESLEY drew, upon that memorable occa- 
 sion, between the situation of England and that of 
 France. " From this disgusting scene," said he. 
 " let us turn our eyes to our own situation. Here 
 the contrast is striking in all its parts. Here we see 
 nothing of the character and genius of ARBI- 
 TRARY FINANCE; none of the bold frauds of 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 357 
 
 bankrupt power : none of the wild struggles and 
 plunges of despotism in distress ; no lopping off from 
 the capital of the debt ; no suspension of interest ; 
 no robbery under the name of loan ; NO RAISING 
 THE VALUE, no DEBASING THE SUB- 
 STANCE of THE COIN. Here we behold pub- 
 lic credit, of every description, rising under all the 
 disadvantages of a general war; an ample revenue, 
 flowing /reefy and copiously from the opulence of a 
 contented people." 
 
 Gentlemen, read this with attention ; and, when 
 you have so done, draw yourselves the contrast which 
 the situation of England now presents with that of 
 France ! It is a fact perfectly notorious, that there 
 is no such thing as paper money in France ; it is 
 also notorious, that not only does France abound in 
 gold coin, but that the coin of this country, the 
 guineas of England, are now gone and are daily 
 going to France ; aye, to that same country, which 
 was to be ruined and overcome and subdued by the 
 failure of its finance ! This speech of Lord Welles- 
 ley, and all the numerous other speeches of the same 
 description, were intended for the purpose of gaining 
 the people's concurrence to the prosecution of the 
 Anti-Jacobin war, which war, by adding Jive hun- 
 dred millions sterling to our Debt, has produed the 
 fruit of which we are now about to taste. Year 
 after year the same means were made use of for the 
 same purpose, and with similar success. At the 
 opening of the Session of Parliament, in October, 
 1796, PITT himself told the Honourable House, 
 that, in his conscience, he believed, that, with finan- 
 ces so dilapidated, the French would not be able 
 to stand out another campaign ! " This DEPRE- 
 CIATION of the Assignats," said he, " is so severely 
 felt, that it has been repeatedly admitted, that means 
 must be found to employ resources less wasteful. 
 This principle has been recognised by every finan- 
 cier or statesman. Even at the period when the de- 
 preciation was only one half, it was declared, that 
 
358 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 unless some immediate remedy was applied, they 
 would be unable to maintain their armies. Months 
 have since elapsed, and no substitute has been em- 
 ployed. Resources thus strained to their utmost 
 fitch, and incapable of any renovation, must have 
 in themselves the seeds of decay, and the cause of 
 inevitable dissolution" 
 
 This, Gentlemen, was PITT'S reasoning as applied 
 to France. Little did that presumptuous and shal- 
 low man dream that, in less than four months from 
 that very day, he was doomed to come into that same 
 House of Commons, and from the same spot where he 
 then stood, announce that the Bank of England was 
 no longer able to pay its notes in the coin of the 
 realm, and that he had been guilty of a violation of 
 the law in issuing an order of Council to guarantee 
 the Bank Company against the consequences of re- 
 fusing to pay the debts due to their creditors ! J3ut, 
 as if this were not enough, he must, in the speech 
 just referred to, comment upon certain metallic 
 money then, it was said, about to be issued in France. 
 " Metallic pieces," said he, " are, it seems, to be put 
 in circulation ; but it is not said, whether these are 
 to be of the DENOMINATED VALUE : if not so 
 they are only METALLIC ASSIGNATS !" Yet 
 this same minister, who has been impudently called 
 "the great Statesman now no more," had, in a 
 short time afterwards, to propose to this same House 
 cf Commons, to sanction the issuing of Dollars at 
 4s. and 9rf. the real value of which was 4s. %d. ; he 
 lived long enough to propose to the same House of 
 Commons, to give its sanction to an issue of dollars 
 at 5s. ; if he had lived till now, (I always regret that 
 he did not !) he would have seen the Dollar at 5s. Qd. 
 And, what he would have seen it at, if he had lived 
 till a few years hence, I must leave TIME, the trier 
 of all things, the rewarder of all good deeds, and the 
 avenger of all injuries, to say. 
 
 You will now be able to judge how far our situa- 
 tion, in respect to paper-money, resembles that of 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 359 
 
 France at the time when the revolutionary rulers of 
 that country were endeavouring to keep up the Assig- 
 nats by the arm of the law, by the terrors of the jail 
 and the guillotine. Mr. PERCEVAL says, that there 
 is ?io resemblance whatever between the bank notes 
 and the assignats. I shall show you, that Mr. Per- 
 ceval is deceived ; that he does not understand this 
 matter ; and that, if he had read the works of PAINE, 
 at the time when his colleague Lord Eldon (then 
 Attorney General) was prosecuting the author, he 
 would not have hazarded any such assertion. 
 
 But, we must now take a look at the whole of this 
 speech of Mr. Perceval. I mean his speech in the 
 House of Commons, on Tuesday last, the 9th in- 
 stant, upon the first reading of Lord Stanhope's Bill 
 in the House of Commons. This speech will be a 
 memorable one. The child yet unborn will have 
 cause to think of this speech, and of the series of 
 measures, of which, as appears to me, it is the ne- 
 cessary forerunner. 
 
 Mr. Perceval (I have the report of his speech as 
 given in the COURIER) began by stating his reasons 
 for having come round to the support of Lord Stan- 
 hope's Bill, after having, at first, disapproved of it. 
 He says, that he, at first, thought it unnecessary, 
 because he did not think, that any body would fol- 
 low the example of Lord King ; but, that finding that 
 it was likely that the example would be followed, 
 he then thought it necessary to support the bill. 
 Thus, then, at any rate, it has been one individual 
 who has caused this Bill ; the Bill is made for the 
 purpose of preventing that individual and others 
 from obtaining in payment of rent what the law 
 now authorizes them to demand ; it is a Bill, in fact, 
 which, against the will of one of the parties at least, 
 alters contracts made years ago. Yes, says Mr. 
 Perceval, it does so; but,' the same was done in 
 1797 ! That is the answer. Because the thing was 
 done by Pitt, he may do it ! He said, that, until 
 now, this preference for coin before paper had been 
 
360 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 shown by none but Pedlers^ Jews, and Smugglers ; 
 and, in speaking, afterwards, about the possibility 
 of the Bill being inefficient, and a legal tender being 
 necessary, he said that, u he did, however, hope, that 
 the ODIUM attaching to the conduct which gave 
 rise to this Bill, WOULD PREVENT OTHERS 
 FROM FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE." 
 These are memorable words, especially considering 
 from whom they came. Aye, aye ! I know well 
 what workings of mind there must have been before 
 they were uttered. I would not have such workings 
 in my mind for ten times the worth of the reversion 
 of Lord Arden's sinecure. Oh ! a time is coming, 
 when all these things will be seen and felt as they 
 ought to be. 
 
 But, let us return to this memorable expression, 
 " the ODIUM !" A man, then, is, it seems, to incur 
 odium if he demands his due ; his due in equity as 
 well as in law ! Gentlemen, you are, for the most 
 part, tenants ; but, take care how you suffer your- 
 selves to be led to wish for any advantage from this 
 Bill, which will most assuredly operate, in the end, 
 to your injury, and, perhaps, to your utter ruin. 
 Let me explain to you, a little more fully than I have 
 hitherto done, the nature of Lord King's demand 
 upon his tenants. He let a farm, for instance, in 
 1802, to JOHN STILES for 100 a year, in good and 
 lawful money of the realm. He has until now, 
 continued to take the 100 a year in bank notes ; 
 but now he finds, that those notes are so far from 
 being good and lawful money of the realm, that 
 they have sunk in value 20 per centum, and that in- 
 stead of 100 he would, in effect, get only 80. If, 
 however, the thing was likely to stop where it is, he 
 might possibly go on receiving paper to the end of 
 the present leases, when he would take care to raise 
 his rent of course ; but, the thing is not likely to 
 stop ; it goes regularly on ; gold is purchased up ; a 
 guinea sells for 275. 6d. And is it not, then, time 
 for Lord King to begin to protect himself against 
 

 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 361 
 
 this depreciation ? JOHN STILES, you see, suffers no 
 hardship in this, because he raises the price of his 
 corn and cattle to meet the effects of the deprecia- 
 tion. Suppose, for instance, that the paper has de- 
 preciated 20 per centum, or five pounds in every 
 twenty, since 1805 ; and suppose, that wheat is now 
 25 pounds a load ; consequently, it will require only 
 four loads of wheat to pay 100 now, but it must 
 have required Jive loads to pay 100 in 1802. But, 
 is it not just and fair, that JOHN STILES should give 
 Lord King as much wheat for his rent in 1811 as he 
 contracted to give him in 1802 ? If he does not do 
 this, and if the paper go on depreciating, may it not 
 come to pass, that JOHN STILES will not give Lord 
 King more than a bushel of wheat in a year? 
 Aye, may it ; and a great deal sooner too than 
 many persons seem to imagine. And, because Lord 
 King wishes to avoid this ruin, is he to be lumped 
 along with Jews, pedlers, and smugglers, and are 
 we to be told of the odium attaching to his con- 
 duct ? However, upon this head, I shall always 
 say, for my part, that the Lords are the best judges 
 of whether they or their tenants are likely to make 
 the best use of the rents ; and, if they like to give 
 the rents to the tenants, I know of no one who has 
 any right to find fault with them. They and the 
 other great land-owners appear to have abundant 
 confidence in Mr. Perceval, in the Bank, and in the 
 East India Company ; and the Clergy appear to 
 have equal confidence in them. Well, then ; I really 
 see no good reason that we, the people in general, 
 have to find fault with what is going on. The mat- 
 ter seems, I think, to lie wholly between the land- 
 owners and this little sharp gentleman and his col- 
 leagues ; and to them I will leave it, being quite satis- 
 fied, that the former are now about enjoying the just 
 reward of their conduct for the last twenty-six years. 
 Mr. Perceval said, that those who supported the 
 Bank Restriction Act in 1797, were inconsistent in 
 not supporting this Bill ; and he talked a great deal 
 31 
 
3b2 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 about the inconsistency of those who proposed, the 
 other day, to continue the Restriction lor two years 
 longer. With these matters, Gentlemen, WK have 
 nothing to do. The affair is all their own. THEY 
 made the war that produced the loans that produced 
 the paper that produced the run that produced the 
 stoppage of cash payments that produced the de- 
 preciation that produced the sale of guineas and 
 thi'. hoarding and exportation of them. THEIR 
 work the whole of it is, and which set of them were 
 first at it, or which last, is of no consequence to us. 
 They have it all amongst them. They chose the 
 grounds of war, and the time for beginning ; they 
 put down all those who opposed them ; they have 
 been, for twenty-six years, the rulers of the country 
 and the masters of all its resources. One set, there- 
 fore, is and ought to be, just the same as the other 
 in the eyes of the people. Let them settle the mat- 
 ter of precedence between them ; let them bail one 
 another as long as they please; but let not us be, by 
 such baiting, amused and drawn away from the great 
 points ;tt issue. 
 
 The " object of the Bill," Mr. Perceval said, "was 
 to prevent the establishment of TWO PRICES, 
 which must be the case if Lord King's example 
 were generally followed." Now, you will be so 
 good as to bear in rnind, Gentlemen, that this is, Mr. 
 Perceval says, the object of the Bill ; and, I beg you 
 also to bear in mind, that I say, that in this object 
 the Bill will fail. Here we are, then, I and the 
 Minister, foot to foot in opposition. I say his scheme 
 will not prevent the TWO PRICES. I say it will 
 not: he says that such is its object: we shall sec 
 who is right. He ought to be ; for, I am sure, he is 
 paid money enough for thinking for this most think- 
 ing people in the world. He did, however, confess, 
 that it was possible, that this Bill might not be effi- 
 cient ; and, what was then to be done? W T hy, the 
 bank notes, he said, must, in that case, he. made a 
 legal tender I Bravo ! Come : toU again ! Once 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 363 
 
 more, and then comes the maximum! I always 
 said, that it would be thus. I always said, that the 
 moment any one put the paper money to the test, 
 the paper money would be made a legal tender. 
 This Bill it was (but I do not believe it now is) be- 
 lieved would have the same effect ; but, if it fail 
 of that effect, then the legal tender is, it seems, to 
 come. 
 
 Mr. Perceval says, that this may become neces- 
 sary. For what, Mr. Perceval 1 What may it be- 
 come necessary for ? Necessary to do what, thou 
 Minister of Finance ? Why, you will say, I sup- 
 pose, to prevent TWO PRICES, and to PRO- 
 TECT THE FUNDHOLDER. And, dost thou 
 really think ; dost thou, a disciple of the great 
 statesman now no more, think, in good earnest, that 
 a legal tender law would prevent two prices and 
 protect the fundholder ? Forgive me, but it is im- 
 possible for me to refrain from laughing at the idea. 
 You will say, I suppose, that it is " no laughing 
 matter." Cry then, if you like, but I will not ; nor 
 will any one belonging to me. But, how is the le- 
 gal tender to prevent TWO PRICES being made? 
 An Act of Parliament making the bank notes a le- 
 gal tender, would cause debts to be paid in paper ; 
 but it could not make the butcher or the baker give 
 their meat or bread for bank notes. They would 
 and they must and they will have two prices ; a 
 money price, and a paper price ; and this will be- 
 come general in spite of every thing that can be 
 done to oppose it. What protection then, will the 
 fundholder, or, "public creditor" as he is called, 
 derive from measures like these ? Mr. Perceval sup- 
 poses a case (of which I will say more by-and-by) 
 in which the lundholder of 6,000 capital rents a 
 house of 300 a year, and says that it would be ex- 
 tremely hard, if this man, who is obliged to receive 
 his 300 a year from the Government in paper, 
 were to be left exposed to the compulsion of paying 
 his 300 a year rent in gold. Where is the hard- 
 
364 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ship, if bank notes are as good as gold? Where is 
 the hardship, if the notes have not depreciated ? 
 And these assertions are daily and hourly made. 
 But, to return to the baker and butcher, for these are 
 the lads that it will be most difficult to manage ; 
 what will this fundholder do with them? How will 
 Mr. Perceval protect him against them ? Why, to 
 be sure, he will, and indeed, consistently, he must, 
 have recourse to maximum. And, it may not be 
 amiss here to explain to you, farmers and trades- 
 men, what a maximum means ; for, you will find it 
 a matter in which you are very deeply interested. 
 
 They had a maximum in France, in the times of 
 depreciated paper money. The rulers of that day, 
 finding the assignats depreciate very fast, passed a 
 law to put a stop to the depreciation, which only 
 made them depreciate the faster ; and, as the as- 
 signats were bought and sold, as our bank paper 
 now is, they passed another law to prevent the gold 
 from passing for more than its nominal worth, and 
 to prevent the paper to pass for less than its nominal 
 worth. This object, though attempted to be accom- 
 plished by the means of very severe penalties, was 
 not accomplished. There was still a money price 
 and paper price ; for when a man went to market, 
 he pulled out his paper, or his coin, and the article 
 was high or low priced accordingly. If the thing 
 to be bought was a quarter of mutton, for instance, 
 a crown piece in silver might be the price ; but, if 
 the payment was to be made with paper, then the 
 price might be ten pounds or fifty pounds, perhaps. 
 The next thing, therefore, was to prohibit the use 
 of coin altogether. But this did not answer the 
 purpose. The assignats still keep depreciating, and 
 the rate of depreciation kept on increasing, till, at 
 last, it required a hundred pounds to purchase a 
 pair of common shoes; and this was not at all 
 wonderful ; for, when once a paper money is got 
 into an acknowledged and notorious depreciation, it 
 always goes on with accelerated velocity. Well, 
 
what w 
 
 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 365 
 
 dial was now to be done ? If it took a hundred 
 pounds to purchase a pair of common shoes, what 
 - was the use of collecting taxes in such money ? 
 And what was to become of those whose incomes, 
 founded on former contracts, were paid them in 
 such money ? What was the Government to do ? 
 Why, to fix a price upon all the necessaries oj 
 life, and to compel people to sell their goods at 
 those prices. This was done, and all farmers, 
 bakers, butchers, and others, were compelled to sell 
 their commodities at the same price, in assignats, as 
 they used to sell them at in money, before any as- 
 signats were made. The consequence of this was, 
 that those who had corn or meat or other neces- 
 saries, did not bring them to market; the shopkeep- 
 ers shut up their shops, or hid their goods. To 
 counteract this, a law was passed to punish monopo- 
 lists, and every man who kept more corn, meat, or 
 necessaries of any sort, in his house, than was ab- 
 solutely necessary for the use of his own family, 
 became a monopolist, and, in many cases, such per- 
 sons were punished with death ! This was the last 
 of that series of measures, which was adopted in 
 France during the reign of terror and blood. The 
 guillotine was continually at work to enforce this 
 last measure. The market-place in every consider- 
 able town reeked with human blood. Hundreds of 
 thousands of innocent country people and shopkeep- 
 ers perished upon the scaffold and in prison, in con- 
 sequence of the laws made for the purpose of sus- 
 taining a depreciated paper money in France $ 
 and, wherever a similar project is attempted to be 
 forced into execution, similar consequences will 
 follow. 
 
 At last, however, the people of France, unable to 
 endure so hellish a system any longer, put an end to 
 it and to its authors. The paper money was totally 
 annihilated, and in a short time, gold and silver 
 came back into circulation. But, in the mean while, 
 what protection did any of these measures give to 
 31* 
 
366 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the man of fixed income, who might be compared 
 to our fund-holder ? How did he get any protection 
 from any of these measures ? Yet, he got full as 
 much as the fund-holder in England will get from 
 this measure of Mr. Perceval, who, though he may, 
 in part, ruin the land-owner, will not, thereby, do 
 the fund-holder the smallest good. The rent of the 
 fund-holder's house is the least article of his yearly 
 expenses. His servants, his upholsterer, his butch- 
 er, his baker, his haberdasher, his draper, his brewer, 
 his wine-merchant, &c. &c. will all be paid in gold, 
 or in paper upon the principle of TWO PRICES. 
 There is, therefore, no means of protecting the fund- 
 holder against these gentlemen, except the maxi- 
 mum. It is useless to talk about it, and for people 
 to attempt to buoy themselves up with a sort of 
 vague notion of the impossibility that an English 
 ministry should ever do what was done by Robes- 
 pierre. I hope they never will, indeed ; but, this I 
 am sure of, that, without doing what was done by 
 Robespierre, they cannot make the fund-holder's in- 
 come equal in value to gold and silver. This is 
 what Mr. Perceval wishes to do ; this is what he 
 calls protecting the fund-holder, and this would be 
 protecting him ; but this, I tell him, he cannot do, 
 nor can all the powers on earth do it. To stop 
 where we are is within the scope of possibility. 
 By an immediate stop to the increase of the National 
 Debt and the Dividends ; by an immediate stop to 
 all Loans and issues of Exchequer Bills ; by an im- 
 mediate reduction of the Taxes ; by such means, 
 immediately adopted, we might stop where we are ; 
 but, to restore is impossible. To make the divi- 
 dends worth their nominal amount in gold and 
 silver is no more possible than it is to bring ba^ck 
 yesterday. 
 
 When I closed my last Letter, I thought that in 
 this I should have been able to conclude the discus- 
 sion ; but the debate in the House of Commons has 
 created new matter, and as I wish to see the event 
 

 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 367 
 
 of the Bill now before that House, before I take my 
 leave of the subject, I must defer the conclusion till 
 next week. 
 
 I remain, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Friday, July \2tJi, 1811. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 "I maintain, that all Europe is contemplating the payment in specie at the 
 Bank, as the criterion of the credit of the country. If the Bank continue 
 to issue paper without Control, the Country Banks will do the same. 
 They will pour out their notes upon us without mercy ; and we are now 
 
 BEGINNING A COURSE OF A3SIGNATS Loud cries of Order . 
 
 Order! Question, Question^ Question, from every part of the House." 
 Mr. Robson's Speech in the Honourable House, 2nd April, 1802. 
 
 " By these WISE and provident measures (the measures relating to the Bank 
 Stoppage) all the apprehensions I hat were entertained are vanished : the 
 
 Mr. Robson's Proposition George Rose's " Blessed Com- 
 forts" The Nature and Extent of these Comforts Great 
 Use of ascertaining them Necessity of discovering who 
 has got the Money that has been borrowed on Account of 
 the Public Case of De Yonge. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 BEFORE I resume the thread of our discussion, 
 which was rather abruptly broken off at the close of 
 my last Letter, give me leave to beg your attention 
 to the two passages, which I have, upon this occa- 
 sion, taken as MOTTOS. 
 
 You see, that Mr. ROBSON was called to order; 
 that he was run down by all parts of the Honourable 
 House ; that he was hooted out of countenance, and, 
 you may see in the history of that day's proceedings, 
 that he was obliged to sit down and to hold his 
 
368 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 tongue. An< yet, what did he say ? What was 
 the folly he was guilty of? Why, foretelling pre- 
 cisely what has now come to pass. And, I beg you 
 to observe, that he recommended, upon the occasion 
 here referred to, a control as to the quantity of pa- 
 per to be issued by the Bank, a measure now recom- 
 mended by the whole of one party in the Honoura- 
 ble House, and by part of the other party and, 
 though I am not one of those who think that it 
 would have been possible to save the paper by the 
 means of any such control ; still the proposition is 
 now put forward as the only one that can restore the 
 paper to its former value. Yet did the members of 
 the Honourable House hoot Mr. ROBSON down; they 
 coughed, and laughed, and hallooed him off his legs. 
 Ah! but those times were very different from the 
 present. The enemies of the truth were then 
 strong. They had not, as yet, seen the guinea at a 
 premium, and the bank note at a discount. Faith! 
 they have a great deal more to see yet : what they 
 have to see, they can scarcely guess at ; much good 
 may it do them. They hooted down Mr. Robson ; 
 they had their own way ; and, therefore, let them 
 not complain when the days of their humiliation 
 shall arrive. 
 
 The second motto calls to our minds the means 
 that were, and that all along have been, made use 
 of to deceive the people as to the finances in gene- 
 ral, and, especially, as to the state of the paper mo- 
 ney, in which wort this GEORGE ROSE has borne a 
 principal part. He was, for many years, Secretary 
 to the Treasury under PITT, by whose authority this 
 publication was made in the name of ROSE. In 
 short, he has been a great actor in the drama, which 
 is now drawing to a close ; and he is one of the 
 men, of whose past conduct it will, hereafter, ' be 
 necessary, absolutely necessary, to give the history. 
 " Not the slightest inconvenience" No, not to 
 George Rose, perhaps ; but, could the rest of the 
 nation say so ? Could they say so, out of whose 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 369 
 
 taxes George Rose was getting about ten thousand 
 pounds a year ? But, there is another passage in 
 this same publication of GEORGE ROSE, to which I 
 must beg leave to solicit your attention, of which it 
 is well worthy. 
 
 " There is a time for all things," and now is the 
 time for reminding the people of England of the 
 means by which they have been deluded. It was in 
 vain to endeavour to open their eyes before ; but now, 
 perhaps, they may be induced to make use of their 
 senses. The following is a specimen of the means 
 employed to delude them, at once to wheedle and to 
 scare them into a quiet surrender of their money. 
 I beg you to read it with attention ; and you will, I 
 hope, be ashamed at having been deceived by lies 
 and hypocrisy so glaring. " As the amount of the 
 debt, which will be incurred in this and every sub- 
 sequent year of the war, will be so reduced by the 
 application of the money coming in from the tax on 
 income, (after ten millions shall have been raised 
 for the service of each current year,) as that the 
 permanent debt, which will be left as an addition to 
 the antecedent one, will not exceed the annual 
 amount of the whole produce of the Sinking Fund. 
 This is A TRUTH so important, that it cannot be 
 too often, or in too many shapes, exhibited for the 
 satisfaction of our country, for the conviction of 
 our enemies, and for the information of Europe. If 
 France has built hopes, (founded on ignorant or vi- 
 sionary calculations,) on the expected overthrow of 
 our financial system, and has trusted to the failure of 
 our resources, she may now perceive what means, 
 after so many years ot this arduous struggle, Great 
 Britain still possesses for maintaining it. It would 
 be a slander to the sense and virtue of the people, to 
 suppose an abatement of that spirit which has ena- 
 bled Government to call forth those resources. 
 The prosperous state of the empire, which affords 
 the power, furnishes all the motive, for continuing 
 the con test ; a contest, the support of which, to a 
 
370 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 successful issue, is to secure us in the enjoyment of 
 every national advantage, and to protect us from 
 the infliction of every national calamity. The im- 
 perious and awful necessity of the present crisis, un- 
 avoidably subjects us to heavy burdens. It has been 
 said, that they ought to be considered as a SAL- 
 VAGE for the remaining part of our property. In 
 the consideration of property, to which it was appli- 
 ed, the figure is sufficiently striking ; but, in other 
 respects, the metaphor, though just, is inadequate. 
 What Tariff shall settle the difference between na- 
 tional independence and inexorable tyranny ? be- 
 tween personal liberty and requisitions, prisons , 
 and murder ? between the BLESSED COM- 
 FORTS OF RELIGION, and the gloomy despair 
 of Atheism ?" 
 
 Well said, old GEORGE ROSE ! This was the 
 sort of language by which the nation was led on in 
 the former war. The cant does, indeed, no longer 
 take. It has not the powers that it possessed ten 
 years ago; but, still there is cant in the nation, and 
 we ought to be constantly upon our guard against it, 
 " Between the blessed comforts of Religion, and 
 the gloomy despair of Atheism /" Why this, gen- 
 tlemen? What had the blessed comforts of religion 
 to do with the matter ? How, if any of you had 
 had the spirit to put the question to him ; how were 
 the blessed comforts of religion to be taken from 
 you by the French Republicans? How were those 
 blessed comforts to be secured to you by a bloody 
 war against those Republicans? In short, what had 
 religion or Atheism to do with the matter? What 
 an impudent thing to tell you, that, if you did not 
 part freely with your money, you would be plunged 
 into the gloomy despair of Atheism! What an im- 
 pudent thing was this ! But, let us see what 
 GEORGE ROSE really meant when he was talking 
 about the blessed comforts of Religion, and the 
 salvage, upon your property. He says, " salvage 
 upon OUR property ;" but } we shall soon see what 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 371 
 
 sort of salvage he paid. You were to pay salvage* 
 but he did not tell you to whom. He did not tell 
 the " thinking people" that he, himself, was one of 
 the great receivers and pocketers of the said sal- 
 vage. Yet, at the time when he wrote, he and his 
 sons were, and they now are, in the receipt annually 
 of public money to the following amount: 
 OLD GEORGE ROSE, as Treasurer of the 
 
 Navy, 4,324 
 
 OLD GEORGE ROSE, as Clerk of the Parlia- 
 ments, which is a sinecure, and is for his 
 life, and is granted, also, for the life of 
 his eldest son, YOUNG GEORGE ROSE, 3,278 
 
 OLD GEORGE ROSE. Keeper of Records in 
 
 the Exchequer, another sinecure place, 400 
 
 WILLIAM STEWART ROSE, second son of old 
 George Rose, as Clerk of the Exchequer 
 Pleas, which is also a sinecure place, 2,137 
 
 10,139 
 
 Such was the sum which " the blessed comforts 
 of religion" yielded to this man : no wonder, then, 
 that he felt an uncommon degree of horror at the 
 thought of seeing those blessings supplanted by the 
 " gloomy despair of Atheism," which of course 
 being interpreted, meant the loss of this ten thou- 
 sand pounds a year ! So you, the people of England, 
 yea, " this most thinking people of Europe," as 
 Lord STORMONT (who by-the-by, had a fat sinecure) 
 called them, were to pay George Rose and his sons 
 ten thousand pounds a year in part of the means of 
 preserving themselves from the gloomy despair of 
 Atheism! But, observe, Gentlemen, OLD GEORGE 
 ROSE has been for nearly thirty years in the receipt 
 of large sums annually of the people's money. His 
 salary as Secretary of the Treasury he had before 
 he was Treasurer of the Navy, and that was 4,000/. 
 a year. It is si.rleen years, at least, since he got 
 the grant of the office of Clerk of the Parliaments, 
 at 3,27S/. a year, which is just so much money for 
 
372 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 doing nothing at all, the office being what is called 
 a sinecure. How long he has possessed the 400/. a 
 year as keeper of the Exchequer Records I do not 
 know; but, I believe, twenty years, if not more. So 
 that, I think, we shall not be far from the mark, if 
 we suppose him to have possessed the whole for 
 twenty years past. What other emoluments he may 
 have had, how much more of the public money he 
 may have received, I do not know. His son GEORGE 
 is, I believe, to have a large pension for life for his 
 trip to America ; where he did not remain a year, I 
 believe, altogether. But these will be matters for 
 another day's reckoning. For the present let us 
 see what the above sum amounts to in the course of 
 twenty years. The principal money is 202,780Z. In 
 words, two hundred and two thousand, seven hun- 
 dred and eighty pounds ; and if we add the interest, 
 the amount is about 323,000/. ; in words, THREE 
 HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE THOU- 
 SAND POUNDS, nearly two thirds of which have 
 been received for sinecure places, that is to say for 
 doing nothing. 
 
 Here are " blessed comforts of religion /" The 
 thinking people, " most thinking people in the world" 
 were desired to believe, that unless they paid this 
 and other such sums, they would lose all the " blessed 
 comforts of religion," and would be plunged into the 
 gloomy despair of atheism, ; that, in short, if they 
 did not continue to pay these sums of money, they 
 would all go to hell as sure they were born. Oh, 
 " most thinking people !" 
 
 But, Gentlemen, now let us apply what has here 
 been said to the subject before us. I observed to 
 you, before, and, indeed, proved to you, the measure 
 of Lord King was rendered necessary by the differ- 
 ence between the value of paper and that of coin, 
 and that that difference has arisen from the depre- 
 ciation of the paper, that that depreciation has arisen 
 from the abundance of the paper compared with the 
 quantity of gold in circulation, that that abundance 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 373 
 
 has arisen from the stoppage of the payments of 
 cash at the Bank, that that stoppage arose from the 
 vast increase in the amount of the National Debt 
 and the Dividends : all this I have before proved 
 to you, and in a manner, I trust, that you clearly un- 
 derstand ; but, there is still one stage further to go 
 back, and that is, to the CAUSE of the increase of 
 the National Debt ! Mark well; what I say here, 
 Gentlemen. Mark this well ; for this is now, or, at 
 least, it very soon must be, the great, and indeed, the 
 only object, connected with the paper system, worthy 
 of our attention. 
 
 In the common concerns of life, in the affairs of 
 individuals, where interest induces men to do the 
 "best they can for the prosperity of the concern, we 
 always find, that, in the case of embarrassment, 
 arising from debt, the cause of such debt is looked 
 well into by those who wish to retrieve the affairs 
 of the concern ; and, if they find, that the debt has 
 been incurred by this or by that species of extrava- 
 gance, they set to work to put a stop to such extra- 
 vagance, and, in cases calling for it, they inquire 
 who it is that has derived gain from the creation of 
 the Debt. And why, should not we do this ? Why 
 should not we, in our present state, inquire who have, 
 if any persons have, gained by this increase of debt; 
 or. in other words, whether there be any persons 
 who have been receiving, for the last twenty or 
 thirty years, (we may stop there,) large sums of 
 money out of the loans, which loans have added to 
 the Debt ? Why, in short, should not we look with 
 this sort of eye into our affairs ? The nation, this 
 " most thinking' nation," seems here again to be de- 
 luded. The public were getting into motion : it was 
 impossible to keep them perfectly quiet any longer : 
 but, it was easy to throw them off upon a wrong 
 scent ; and, for this purpose, the halloo against Lord 
 KING was set up. But, " steady" men of England ! 
 " Solid" men of England ! Thinking, " most think- 
 ing people" of England ! Do not, thus to the last, 
 32 
 
374 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 expose yourselves to the ridicule and contempt of 
 the world ! Let me beseech you not to be dupes 
 and gulls to the last moment ! 
 
 What, considering us as rational men; consider- 
 ing us as intellectual beings ; considering us as crea- 
 tures having souls in our bodies ; considering us as 
 something superior to the beasts that perish ; con- 
 sidering ourselves in this light, what, I ask, have we 
 to do with the manner in which Lord KING, one of 
 the landowners, wishes to settle with his tenants for 
 their rent ? Let him, in the name of common sense, 
 manage his affairs in anyway that he likes best; and 
 let us endeavour to retrieve our affairs. With this 
 laudable determination in our minds, and being con- 
 vinced that all our embarrassments arise from our 
 debts, let us look back into our books for the last 
 twenty or thirty years, and see how we have got rid 
 of our money. We have always had a large in- 
 come, and yet our AGENT, for the time being, has 
 been bor rowing money for us. This may possibly 
 have been necessary ; but, at least, let us not act the 
 part of careless men in common life, who, in spite 
 of circumstances enough to awaken suspicion in cre- 
 dulity itself, still confide in a plundering sharper. 
 Let us look into our books : let us look back into our 
 old accounts, and see what our AGENTS, in succession, 
 have done with our money. Our income they have 
 expended, they have made prodigious loans in our 
 name, and have charged us with interest upon them: 
 let us see, then, to whom and for what they have 
 paid away all this money; for, if we should find, 
 that they have taken any part of the money to them- 
 selves or given it away, that opens to us a most in- 
 teresting view of the matter. 
 
 Well, then, in looking over the account books of 
 the nation for the last twenty or thirty years, I $nd 
 several large sums paid to OLD GEORGE ROSE and 
 his sons, and I find, too, that the far greater part of 
 it has been paid to them for sinecure offices, that is 
 to say nothing-to-do- Offices. I put these sums to- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 375 
 
 gether, I calculate the interest upon them, and I find 
 these, together with the interest, amount to 323,000 
 or thereabouts. So ! say I, here I have, then, dis- 
 covered the cause, in part, of this embarrassment of 
 our affairs. If this money had not been given to the 
 ROSES, the nation would not, of course, have been 
 so much in debt, the dividends upon the interest of 
 the Debt would not have been so large, the Bank 
 Company need not have made so much paper to pay 
 the Dividends with, the run upon the Bank would 
 not have taken place so soon, the stoppage of cash 
 payments would not have been called for at so early 
 a period, the depreciation would not have come on 
 so fast, the gold would have been longer in arriving 
 at a premium, and LORD KING would not as yet, at 
 least, have given the notice which has led to the 
 Bill now before Parliament. 
 
 I shall be asked, perhaps, what signifies 323,000 
 when the whole of the Debt amounts to 800,000,000. 
 My answer is that millions are composed of ones ; 
 and that no sums are so large as those which grow 
 out of many small ones. But is this a small 
 sum ? Look at it ! It is a 2,500//& part of the 
 whole of the National Debt. Think of that ! I may 
 have had an error in my estimate ; the Roses may 
 not have had this income for so long a time ; and I 
 may have committed an error in computing the 
 amount of the interest ; but, if I am right, as I think 
 I am, and under the mark instead of over the mark, 
 then have these persons, this one family, and, indeed, ' 
 one member of it chiefly, received, from the nation, 
 in principal and interest, a 2,500th part of the whole 
 of the National Debt at this day in existence. 
 
 Here, we are upon the TRUE SCENT, Gentle- 
 men ; and I am quite satisfied, that all the hallooing 
 and hooting and doubling and luring in the world, 
 will never, in the end, prevent us from having suc- 
 cess in the chase. A 2,500th part of the whole Debt 
 mind ; but, of the Debt created within the last twenty 
 or thirty years, it will make about a 1,800th part. So 
 
 
376 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 that, if my calculation be correct, GEORGE ROSE and 
 his son (without meaning the value of the reversion- 
 ary grant or of the Envoy's pension) have, during the 
 last twenty or thirty years, received, in principal and 
 interest, a sum of money from the people equal to a 
 l,SQQlhpart of all that portion of the National Debt, 
 which has been created during the last thirty years. 
 
 When sinecures and pensions have been talked 
 of, you have observed certain persons set up an af- 
 fected horse-laugh, as if the amount was a mere 
 trifle, a thing to laugh at; but, you see, Gentlemen, 
 that these are not trifles ; that they are things worth 
 looking into ; and there are few persons, I believe, 
 who have ever had to do with embarrassed pecuniary 
 affairs, who will not think with me, that the sooner 
 we look into these things the better. For, if we 
 were, for instance, to find out, in searching the Na- 
 tion's old accounts, 1,800 persons, each of whom has 
 received of the public money, in the last thirty years, 
 a sum in amount equal to that received by GEORGE 
 ROSE, then the thing is made clear at once. There 
 is no more difficulty. We, at once, see the cause of 
 the increase of the National Debt ; or, at least, we 
 see the means that might have been employed to 
 prevent the stoppage of the Bank cash payments, 
 and the consequent depreciation of the paper-money, 
 
 I shall be told, may be, by some persons, that I 
 forget the services which GEORGE ROSE has rendered 
 to the country. That is a point upon which men 
 may differ in opinion ; but, then, that claim has been 
 satisfied by the salaries as Secretary of the Trea- 
 sury and Treasurer of the Navy ; so that, at any 
 rate, there are more than six-tenths of the whole 
 sum to be kept to the sinecure account ; and, as I 
 said before, there may have been many and large 
 emoluments of which I have, and can have, no know- 
 ledge. There is, indeed, the other claim mentioned 
 in the early part of this letter, namely, the preserving 
 to us, the " most thinking people in the world," the 
 "BLESSED COMFORTS of religion ; and really 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 377 
 
 I must confess, that, against those who thought that 
 paying taxes and creating National Debts were ne- 
 cessary to prevent them from being made Atheists 
 by French Republicans, this claim is good. Those 
 "who could be made believe that, must be of so stupid 
 and so base a nature as to make them wholly un- 
 worthy the attention of him, whose object is to be 
 happy and free ; because such people must have been 
 fashioned by nature to be slaves. What a degra- 
 ding idea ! Pay money to prevent myself from being 
 made an Atheist ! Pay taxes ; suffer in silence my 
 estate to be taken from me by piece-meal, and sit quiet 
 while I am told, that this is necessary in order that 
 the French may not take from me " the BLESSED 
 COMFORTS of religion !" Talk of credulity, in- 
 deed ! I defy any man to produce me, from the an- 
 nals of superstition, from any of the records of human 
 credulity or human cowardice, any thing which, to 
 the character of man, is so degrading, as this is. 
 
 Yet, this was the sort of language made use of by 
 the partizans of PITT, during the whole course of the 
 Anti-jacobin war. There were many tricks played 
 off; but the grand, the master trick, the never failing 
 fraud, was the alarm at the danger of seeing Athe- 
 ism introduced instead of the Christian Religion ; 
 the " gloomy despair of Atheism," says GEORGE 
 ROSE, instead of " the BLESSED COMFORTS 
 of religion !" What would I give to have seen 
 GEORGE just at the moment of his finishing that sen- 
 tence ! I should like to have watched his looks, and, 
 if possible, to have heard his soliloquy ! " BLESSED 
 COMFORTS of religion!" He seems totally to 
 have forgotten the ten thousand pounds a year ; 
 but, I trust, that the time is not far distant, when 
 that, and all other matters of the kind, will be well 
 and scrupulously attended to. 
 
 Upon a future occasion, Gentlemen, I intend en- 
 tering more at large into an inquiry as to what has 
 become of the money borrowed during the last 
 twenty or thirty years; but this I must defer till 
 32* 
 
 
378 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 another opportunity. In my next I intend closing 
 this series of letters, when I shall have seen the dis- 
 cussions upon the Bill, now before the Parliament, 
 brought to an end. That will be a natural point 
 for me and you, Gentlemen, to rest at, until some- 
 thing new and important shall arise, and that will 
 soon be the case, I am pretty certain. In the mean 
 while, I beg leave to subjoin a few remarks on the 
 case of DE YONGE, together with a Letter from him- 
 self to LORD VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE, and remain, 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT, 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Thursday >, July 18, 1811. 
 
 THE case of DE YONGE, the Jew, who, in the 
 month of August last year, was tried for selling 
 Guineas for more than their nominal value in Bank- 
 Notes, has proved, what I then said it would be, 
 " one of the most important that had taken place 
 
 for many years." 1 said, and published at the 
 
 time, my opinion, that, notwithstanding the prosecu- 
 tion had been ordered and carried on by the Attor- 
 ney General (Gibbs,) and though the man had been 
 found guilty by a Special Jury, and in coincidence 
 with the direction of the Judge (Ellenborough ;) 
 notwithstanding all this, I gave it as my decided 
 opinion, and maintained that opinion by argument, 
 that the Jew had been guilty of no crime in the eye 
 of the law of England. The case, as we have be- 
 fore seen, has since been argued before the Tivelve 
 Judges, and they have pronounced, that what the 
 
 man was charged with, was not a crime. It is 
 
 a long time since this man's prosecution began. No- 
 tice will be found of it in the Register a year and 
 a half ago. It was manifest, that the poor man 
 must have greatly suffered in purse as well as in 
 mind ; and, when the Judges had declared him 
 guilty of no crime, LORD FOLKESTONE, who had be- 
 fore interested himself greatly in the man's fate, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 379 
 
 and had given notice, that if the case was not 
 speedily decided upon by the Judges, he would bring 
 it before Parliament ; when the Judges had de- 
 cided, his Lordship complained, in the House of 
 Commons, that the poor man had suffered greatly, 
 and ought to have compensation made him. The 
 ATTORNEY GENERAL answered, that every man was 
 liable to the same sort of inconvenience and injury. 
 To be sure, said his Lordship, every man is liable 
 to have a false accusation preferred against him ; 
 every man is liable to be prosecuted without suffi- 
 cient grounds ; but this was a singular case : the 
 prosecution was ordered by the King^s own Attorney 
 General ; and, what is more, the crime, as it was 
 called, was, by the Government Solicitor, procured 
 to be committed ; so that the man was prevailed 
 upon by the prosecutors to commit what they deemed 
 a great crime ; they tempted him to commit the 
 crime ; they, in fact, made the crime, or the sup- 
 posed crime, that they intended to prosecute, and 
 that they actually did prosecute. This is by no 
 means a common case ; it is by no means one of 
 those vexatious and groundless prosecutions to which 
 any man is liable from the malice or mistake of 
 others. This was a prosecution by the law officers 
 of the Crown, and by the Attorney General in par- 
 ticular ; and, all the sufferings of DE YONGE have 
 arisen from the Attorney Qeneral's not knowing the 
 law upon this point. It is no crime, to be sure, to 
 ,be ignorant of the law upon any point ; nor is it to 
 be supposed that Attorney Generals are conjurors 
 any more than other men ; but, when they seek to 
 get the grounds of a prosecution ; when they get a 
 man to commit a crime, (or when those under them 
 do it,) they may have an opportunity of prosecuting 
 it ; when this is the case, there can be no doubt, I 
 think, that they ought to know the law before they 
 proceed. And, I am quite sure, that, in all sucn 
 cases, where there is an acquittal at last, the suffer- 
 ing party ought to be indemnified for his sufferings 
 
380 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 and losses. For if this be not so, what man is safe 
 from utter ruin ? Who may not be ruined ? What 
 DE YONGE has suffered we shall now see, in a Let- 
 ter, which he has had the gratitude to address to 
 LORD FOLKESTONE, and which, as being a very clear 
 and modest statement of his case, and as a docu- 
 ment connected with the great subject' of which we 
 are here treating, I here insert : 
 
 " My LORD ; I shall be wanting in gratitude were 
 I to omit returning you my most sincere thanks for 
 your disinterested endeavours on my behalf, and I. 
 assure your Lordship I do not feel less grateful be- 
 cause they were unsuccessful. Your Lordship will 
 perhaps excuse me if I mention a few circumstances 
 in my case of which I think I am justified in com- 
 plaining, and particularly as Mr. Attorney General 
 asserted that I had suffered no material hardships. 
 In the first place, I did not seek the barter or ex- 
 change which formed the subject of the accusation 
 against me ; the plan was laid by the Mint Solicitors 
 to tempt me to the bargain, and then to prosecute 
 me, Pursuant to this arrangement, a foreigner was 
 employed, who came to my house as the interpreter 
 to another man, in his company ; they stated, that 
 they were recommended to me to make the purchase, 
 and, after urging me to deal with them, officers came 
 into my house, seized me and my money, and, at a 
 late hour in the evening, I was hurried from my fa- 
 mily to a loathsome prison, (the Poultry Counter,) 
 and there kept three days and three nights in cus- 
 tody without bail being admitted. At length, on the 
 final examination, I was discharged on giving bail to 
 a large amount, which I had some difficulty in pro- 
 curing ; and had I not been able to obtain it, I must 
 have remained in custody 18 months, the- period 
 this question has been pending. Lastly, the expense 
 and anxiety I have sustained has been enormous, 
 some through the solicitors for the prosecution, for 
 after going through all the necessary forms of law 
 to bring the first Indictment against me to issue, and, 
 

 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 381 
 
 indeed, when it stood for trial, the prosecutors moved 
 to quash it and prefer another, because they had 
 misrecited the proclamation. A second Indictment 
 was accordingly found, and this also I proceeded in, 
 until it was coming on for trial, at the Old Bailey, 
 when, to my great mortification and astonishment, it 
 was removed by the prosecutors, into the Court of 
 King's Bench, by which means I had, as it were, 
 my defence again to commence. Being in very mo- 
 derate circumstances, and having a family to sup- 
 port, I have necessarily sustained many deprivations 
 in consequence of the great law expenses incurred 
 in defending myself against this accusation, and, I 
 fear, it will be a considerable time before I can re- 
 cover myself from the injuries I have sustained. I 
 will not further trouble your Lordship, but conclude 
 with observing, that I humbly conceive the Law 
 Officers of the great public bodies and of Govern- 
 ment, having, as they must, the best means of inform- 
 ation on legal points, ought to be somewhat more 
 circumspect and accurate in their expounding acts 
 of parliament, before they distress and bear down 
 an humble individual, and expend the public money, 
 by harassing and groundless prosecutions. I am, 
 my Lord, with the greatest respect, your most obe- 
 dient and very humble Servant, 
 
 " JAMES DE YONGE. 
 c 107, Hounsditchj mh July, 1811. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 "I looked upon the Bullion Report as likely toJead to what would be likely 
 to secure the country from the natural consequences of that overwhelming 
 corruption, which 1 regarded as the fruit pt the paper system ; and, as I 
 bave ths accomplishment of this great object deeply at heart ; as I look 
 upon the happiness and honour of my country asot far greater value tome 
 than any other worldly possession, I said, and I still say, that the Bullion 
 Report has given me more pleasure than I could derive from being made 
 tlii owner of the whole of Hampshire. As to any idea of a -party nature. 
 
3S2 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 I shall, I am Bure, be believed, when I say, that I do not care one traw 
 to what party the Committee belonged. If I had a wish as to party, it 
 certainly would be, that no change of ministry should take place; 
 for without prejudice to the OUTS, who, I think would do the tiling full as 
 well with a littie more time, I am quite satisfied, that the present people 
 will doit as ne.atly and as quickly, as any reasonable man can expect." 
 POLITICAL REGISTER, Vol. XV1I1. p. 427, Sept. 22nd, 1810. 
 
 Progress of Lord Stanhope's Bill Effects of its Provisions- 
 Mr. Brougham's ResolutionsThe Justice of Lord King's 
 Claim insisted on Illustrated hy the Grants to the King 
 and the Additions to the Pay of the Judges. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 THE Bill is past! And, be you assured, that the 
 die is cast ! When I wrote the passage, which I 
 have taken for my motto to this letter, I did expect 
 to see what I hinted at in the close of that passage ; 
 but, I must confess, that I did not expect the progress 
 to have been quite so rapid as it has been. For the 
 future my calculations will be more likely to keep 
 pace with events. 
 
 Well, the Bill of Lord Stanhope is now become 
 a law. We will, therefore, take a short view of the 
 rise and progress of it ; and, when we have so done, 
 we will examine its provisions, and endeavour to 
 point its consequences. The Bill was brought into 
 the House of Lords, and read a first time on the 27th 
 of June, when no division took place, and when an 
 intimation was given by the ministers, that they 
 should oppose it. On the second of July, it was 
 read a second time, and, being now supported by 
 the ministers, the question for the second reading 
 was carried, 36 for it, 12 against it. On the 8th of 
 July, it was read a third time and passed, 43 for it 
 and 16 against it. In the Honourable House, it was 
 read a first time on the 9th of July, and, upon a di- 
 vision on the question, there appeared 64 for it and 
 19 against it. On the 15th of July it was read a 
 second time, 133 for it, and 35 against it. On 'the 
 17th of July, it went through a committee of the 
 House, and, on the 19th of July, it was read a third 
 time, and passed with the amendments relating to 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 383 
 
 the penalties. On the 22nd of July, the amendments 
 introduced by the Commons were agreed to by the 
 Lords. On the 24th of July, it received the Royal 
 Assent by Commission ; and thus it is become A 
 LAW ; thus a new penal law has been added to the 
 almost endless number already in existence. Many 
 hundreds of the people of this country have been 
 banished, or put to death, for imitating" the promis- 
 sory notes of the Bank Company ; and now the peo- 
 ple are liable to be punished for passing them for 
 what they may deem their worth, though they be 
 their own property. 
 
 The provisions of the Bill are not numerous : it is 
 a pithy affair. The first part relates to the passing of 
 coin and paper, and the second to the recovery of 
 rents. It will be best to insert the words. Those 
 of the first part are as follows : " Be it enacted, that 
 from and after the passing of this Act, no person 
 shall receive or pay for any gold coin lawfully cur- 
 rent within the realm, any more in value, benefit, or 
 advantage, than the true lawful value of such coin, 
 whether such value, benefit, profit or advantage, be 
 paid, made, or taken in lawful money, or in any note 
 or notes, bill or bills, of the Governor and Company 
 of the Bank of England, or in any silver token or 
 tokens issued by the said Governor and Company, 
 or by any or all of the said means wholly or partly, 
 or by any device, shift, or contrivance whatsoever. 
 And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, 
 that no person shall, by any device, shift, or contri- 
 vance whatsoever, receive or pay any note or notes, 
 bill or bills, of the Governor and Company of the 
 Bank of England, as of less value in money, except 
 lawful discount, than the sum expressed therein, to 
 be thereby made so payable." Thus it stood as it 
 went from the Lords. There were, I believe, some 
 trifling verbal alterations made in the Honourable 
 House, who also added the penalty, and made it a 
 misdemeanor to disobey this part of the law : of 
 course, offenders against it may be punished by Jine 
 
384 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 and imprisonment, or, as I am, by both, at the dis- 
 cretion, perhaps, of the Judges ; but, of this I am not 
 sure, not having, as yet, seen the Act in its finished 
 state. 
 
 Thus, then, the Bank Company, after having ap- 
 plied to the Government to issue an Order in Council, 
 after having subsequently applied for acts of Par- 
 liament, to screen them against the consequences of 
 refusing to pay their promissory notes in coin, now 
 see a law passed making it criminal, for any one to 
 get rid of any of those notes that he may happen to 
 possess, for their real worth in coin ! 
 
 This law does what the laws already in existence 
 could not do in the case of DE YONGE ; or, at least, 
 it attempts to do it. It forbids and punishes the 
 selling of gold coin for more than its nominal worth 
 in Bank Notes, which was precisely what DE YONGE 
 did. But, do you believe, Gentlemen, that this will 
 put a stop to the traffick? I should think, that no- 
 body could believe this ; and, if any one were ift- 
 clined to believe it, he need only consider the little 
 effect produced by the conviction of DE YONGE, to 
 convince him of the contrary. That gentleman was 
 found guilty of the crime of selling guineas at 
 twenty-two shillings and sixpence each, and while 
 he lay under that conviction, the price of the guinea 
 rose to twenty- six or twenty-seven shillings. This 
 is a pretty good proof that the price of the guinea is 
 not to be kept down by penal laws. But, if the law 
 should put an end to all purchases of gold coin in 
 Bank of England notes, it cannot have any such 
 effect with regard to country bank notes. Suppose. 
 for instance, that one of you had a fancy for a hun- 
 dred guineas to lay snugly aside, and I had them to 
 dispose of; the price would be 1351. but, say we, the 
 bargain must not take place in notes of the Governor 
 and Company in Threadneedle street, for so says 
 Lord Stanhope's law. But the law does not say, 
 that such bargains shall not be made in country 
 bank notes ; and, therefore, you give me 135/, in the 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 385 
 
 notes of Paperkite and Co., which notes will, in 
 all probability, answer my purpose full as well as 
 the London notes, or better, if I want to pay them 
 awav in the country ; and, if they should not answer 
 my purpose quite so well, what have I to do but go 
 lo the country banker and get them changed for 
 Bank of England notes? I keep the country bank 
 notes if I please, and if I please I change them. 
 This is one way, then, and a most effectual way 
 too, of rendering the Bill of no use as to its main 
 apparent object. 
 
 But, how many are the ways, in which such a 
 law may, must, and will be evaded ? It is a law in- 
 tended to make people part with their property for 
 less than its worth in the one case, and to make them 
 obtain for it more than it is worth in the other case. 
 The old adage of " a thing is worth what it will 
 bring" is, by this law, to be totally destroyed after 
 having lived in the world ever since purchase, or even 
 barter, was known amongst men. According to this 
 law, a thing, in one case, will be worth more than 
 it is to be suffered to bring, and, in the other case, a 
 thing will not bring so much as it is asserted to be 
 worth. It is a law, in short, to compel men to dis- 
 pose of certain articles of their property (if they dis- 
 pose of them at all) at a price fixed on by the Go- 
 vernment ; and is such a law as never was heard of 
 before, except in France, during the times of Robes- 
 pierre, Danton and Marat. It is, as Mr. BROUGHAM 
 has called it, in his Resolutions, a law of maximum 
 as to gold coin ; but, it is a law, which cannot be 
 generally enforced, and which can have only a tem- 
 porary and partial effect, if any at all, in checking 
 the traffic in coin against paper ; and to whatever 
 extent it is efficient, it will be efficient in driving 
 all the coin out of the kingdom, excepting such por- 
 tion as people are enabled to hoard ; for, if I have 
 a guinea, or any thing else, that is worth 27 shillings, 
 and if there be a law which prevents me from get- 
 ting at present in England more than 21 shillings 
 33 
 
386 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 for it, I shall certainly hoard it till I can get the 
 worth of it, if I have no safe means of sending it 
 abroad. Where is the man who will not do this ? 
 I am sure that there is not a man amongst you who 
 would not do it. Yes, I am sure, that there is not 
 one single farmer in all England, who will not 
 hoard a guinea rather than exchange it for a bank 
 note of twenty-one shillings. So that, as I have ob- 
 served to you before, and as has been very well ex- 
 pressed in Mr. BROUGHAM'S Resolutions, this law 
 will, as far as it shall be efficient, drive the little re- 
 mains of gold coin into hoards or out of the country, 
 and, by preventing a free and open and unrestrained 
 competition between the coin and the paper, will, 
 as far as it has effect, prevent the operation of the 
 only cure for the evil of a depreciated paper money.* 
 
 * It was on the 19th of July, that Mr. BROUGHAM proposed 
 his RESOLUTIONS to the House of Commons. They were nega- 
 tived: and, gentlemen, I beseech you to compare them with 
 such resolutions as were agreed to by that House. These 
 Resolutions are well worthy of attention, containing'as they 
 do, what will become a memorable protest against the law, 
 which is now the subject of discussion, and which will be a 
 subject of observation with our children, if any trace of it 
 shall remain beyond our own times. 
 
 I. That by the Law and Constitution of these Realms, it 
 is the undoubted right of every man to sell, or otherwise dis- 
 pose of, his property, for whatever he deems to be its value, 
 or whatever consideration he chooses to accept. And that 
 every man possessed of a Bank Note, or other security, for 
 the payment of money, has an undoubted right to give it 
 away for nothing, or in exchange for whatever sum of money 
 he pleases; or if he cannot obtain what he demands, to re- 
 tain possession of it. 
 
 II. That any statute, having for its object to restrain this 
 right, would be contrary to the principles of the British Con- 
 stitution, and a flagrant violation of the most sacred Rights 
 of Property, and the ancient and inalienable Liberties of the 
 People. 
 
 HI. That any statute, having for its object to prevent the 
 Bank, or other Paper Currency of the Country, from being 
 exchanged against the lawful money of the Realm below a 
 certain rate, would, if it could be carried into effect, cause the 
 lawful money of the Realm to disappear, and would in pro- 
 portion to its efficacy, preclude the application of the most 
 appropriate remedies for the present derangement in the cir- 
 culation of the country. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 387 
 
 I have before observed, that, in all ready-money 
 transactions, this law must be nugatory, and I have 
 given an instance of a farmer having a pig to sell at 
 market. It will, of course, be the same in all other 
 bargains for ready-money ; and, even in cases of cre- 
 dit, amongst friends and neighbours^ the same will 
 take place. Some roguery may be, in this respect r 
 created by the law, but the law will never compel 
 men to give the guinea and receive the note at their 
 nominal value, one compared with the other. In 
 that place, where, of all others, one might expect 
 to see the dispositions of men concur with this law ; 
 I mean, the Stock Exchange, a distinction between 
 coin and paper is already made ; for Stock has fre- 
 quently been bought with guineas at a price much 
 lower than the rate of the day, which rate is regulated 
 upon the supposition that paper-money is to be the 
 
 IV. That the free exchange of the lawful money of the 
 realm with the paper currency, on such terms as the h9lders 
 of each may think proper to settle among themselves, is not 
 only the undoubted right of the subject, but affords the best 
 means of restoring the circulation of the country to its sound 
 and natural state, by establishing twp prices for all commo- 
 dities, whensoever the one currency is from any causes de- 
 preciated below the other. 
 
 V. That no law whatsoever can alter the real value of the 
 paper currency in relation to the lawful money of the Realm, 
 nor alter the real value of either kind of currency, in relation 
 to all other commodities ; and that any attempt to fix the 
 rates at which paper and coin shall pass current, must, in 
 proportion to its success, interfere with the fust and legal 
 execution of all contracts already existing, without the possi- 
 bility of affecting the terms upon which contracts shall be 
 made in time to come. 
 
 VI. That it is the bounden duty of the Commons House of 
 Parliament, as the guardians of the rights of the people, to 
 discountenance and resist a scheme which has for its imme- 
 diate objects the establishment of a maximum in the money- 
 trade of the realm, and the dissolution of the obligations al- 
 ready contracted by numerous classes of the community, but 
 which has for its ground work principles leading to a uni- 
 versal law of maximum, and the infraction of every existing 
 contract for the payment of money ; and that a Bill touching 
 the gold coin which has lately been brought from the Lords, 
 has all the said objects, and proceeds upon the said principles. 
 
388 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 medium. And, who is to prevent this, without a 
 general law of maximum ; that is to say, a law put- 
 ting a price upon all commodities whatever, and 
 punishing men for selling them for more than the 
 price so fixed? This present law, therefore, is no- 
 thing of itself. It is nothing unaccompanied with 
 a maximum of prices. Those who have begun in 
 this path, must keep on, and go the whole length, or 
 they do nothing at all, except drive coin out of the 
 country or into the hoards, and, perhaps, in many 
 cases, cause a breach of contracts between man and 
 man. To be a maximum they must come at last, or 
 what is done will be of no effect at all. 
 
 The other provision of the Bill relates to distress 
 for rent, and is as follows : " And be it enacted, by 
 the authority aforesaid, that in case any person shall 
 proceed by distress to recover from any tenant or 
 other person liable to such distress, any rent or sum 
 of money due from such tenant or other person, it 
 shall be lawful for such tenant or other person, in 
 every such case, to tender notes of the Governor 
 and Company of the Bank of England, expressed 
 to be payable on demand, to the amount and in dis- 
 charge of such rent or sum so due to the person on 
 whose behalf such distress is made, or to the officer 
 or person making such distress on his behalf ; and 
 in case such tender shall be accepted, or in case such 
 tender shall be made and refused, the goods taken 
 in such distress shall be forthwith returned to the 
 party distressed upon, unless the party distraining 
 and refusing to accept such tender shall insist that a 
 .greater sum is due than the sum so tendered, and in 
 such case the parties shall proceed as usual in such 
 cases ; but if it shall appear that no more was due 
 than the sum so tendered, then the party who ten- 
 dered such sum shall be entitled to the costs of all 
 subsequent proceedings : Provided always, that 'the 
 person to whom such rent or sum of money is due 
 shall have and be entitled to all such other reme- 
 dies for the recovery thereof, exclusive of distress. 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 389 
 
 such person had or was entitled to at the time 
 of making such distress, if such person shall not 
 think proper to accept such tender so made as 
 aforesaid : Provided also, that nothing herein con- 
 tained shall affect the right of any tenant, or other 
 such person as aforesaid, having such right to re- 
 plevy the goods taken in distress, in case, without 
 making such tender as aforesaid, he shall so think fit." 
 Now, what does this part of the Bill effect ? It has 
 frequently heen said, that the tenantry ought to be 
 protected, and Lord Stanhope has all along said, that 
 his object was to protect the tenant. What, then, 
 has this Bill done for the tenant? If the thing 
 leased be a farm, or lands of any sort, distress is not 
 the mode that the landlord would pursue. He has 
 other remedies, and those much more efficient than 
 that of distress. So that, in fact, this law affords no 
 protection at all to the tenant. 
 
 But, though this law will do the tenant no good, it 
 may, and, in some cases, will, do him a great deal 
 of harm, especially as the minister has avowed his 
 intention of making the bank notes a legal tender if 
 this law should prove insufficient for the object in 
 view. Under such circumstances, no man in his 
 senses, will let a new lease, or renew an old one; 
 for, though a corn-rent might possibly serve to guard 
 him against the total loss of his estate, still he will 
 be afraid, and he will think it the safest way to let 
 no lease at all. Tenants for term of years will, 
 therefore, become tenants at will, and will have 
 their rents raised upon them every year, agreeably 
 to the depreciation of money and the rise in prices ; 
 and, another consequence will be, that landlords 
 will, whenever it is practicable, take the lands into 
 their own possession and use, seeing that even a 
 yearly letting may, in the times that may arise, be- 
 come dangerous ; for, if a law be passed to-day in 
 consequence of a single landlord's demanding his 
 rent according to law, what have not landlords to 
 fear ? The safest course, therefore, that they can 
 33* 
 

 390 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 pursue, is to keep, as far as they are able, their farms 
 in their own hands ; and this, to a very great extent, 
 they certainly will do. So that this law, as far as it 
 is efficient, will produce a virtual violation of con- 
 tracts, and a discouragement to agriculture. 
 
 During the discussions upon this measure, several 
 hints were thrown out as to the courts of law set- 
 ting their faces against those who should demand 
 payment in gold. Sir SAMUEL ROMILLY observed 
 upon what Mr. Manning said about the law being 
 too strong for the landlords, that it alarmed him to 
 hear such language ; and that he thought it danger- 
 ous in the extreme to expose men to such an uncer- 
 tainty as to the real meaning of the law. But Mr. 
 FULLER and Lord STANHOPE, as appears from the re- 
 ports of the newspapers, came to the point at once. 
 The former is reported to have Said, in the debate 
 of the 9th of July, that " he wondered to hear any 
 doubt of the solvency of Government ; and Govern- 
 ment surely had ships and stores, and plenty of va- 
 luables besides. He (Mr. Fuller) did not under- 
 stand the objects of the persons who had brought 
 forward the question, but he was convinced they 
 were something sinister. (A laugh.) As to Bank 
 notes, if any landlord was offered payment in them, 
 and he wanted gold, he (Mr. Fuller) did not know 
 what might be done ; but of this he was sure, that 
 THE WHOLE TENANTRY OF THE COUN- 
 TRY WOULD MEET AND TOSS HIM IN 
 A BLANKET. (Laughing.") And the latter is 
 reported to have said, in the House of Lords, on the 
 22nd of July, that, " his Noble Friend (Earl of Lau- 
 derdale) had called the Bill a legislative HINT ; 
 but it was a pretty broad hint, too. He did not know 
 whether his Noble Friend had been educated at any 
 of the Universities ; but he believed not at Oxford. 
 There was a story there about a broad hint which 
 they called c John Kea.le's broad, hint.' There was 
 a man that John Keale did not like ; John gave him 
 a hint that he did not like his company: but he 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD, 391 
 
 would not go away. < What did you do then?' says 
 one to John. ' Do,' says John Keale, { why, I 
 kicked him down stairs.' ' That was a pretty broad 
 hint ! ! !' (Laughing.) So he, (Earl Stanhope,) 
 had given Lord King a hint ; and if he followed 
 up this business, why, when next Session came, he 
 would give him a BROAD hint !" (A laugh.) 
 " Quite a wit, I declare ; Quite a sea-wit, Mr. Ben- 
 jamin !" Well, you know, Gentlemen, that there is 
 a time for all things, and, of course, a time for 
 laughing. But, it is well worthy of remark, that 
 this war (for it is the same that began in 1793) was 
 waared in the "PRESERVATION OF LIBERTY 
 AND PROPERTY AGAINST REPUBLICANS 
 AND LEVELLERS," that was the title of the 
 Association at the Crown and Anchor. This is well 
 worthy of remark ; now is the time to make such 
 remark. This war has now been going on eighteen 
 years ; this war for the support of order and law 
 and property, and now, behold, we hear, in the two 
 Houses of Parliament, the supporters of this system, 
 talk of tossing a landlord in a blanket and kicking- 
 him down stairs, if he should persist in demanding 
 payment of his rents, agreeably to the contract in 
 his leases ! 
 
 Gentlemen, if you have read the reports of the 
 debates in Parliament, upon this subject, you must 
 have observed, that the people in the ministry have 
 very loudly disapproved of the conduct of LORD 
 KING for demanding of his tenants payment in gold, 
 or in notes in sufficient amount to make up for the 
 depreciation of money. Now, observe ; they have 
 brought forward, several times, propositions for large 
 grants to the King and to others, on account of the 
 rise in prices, which, as I have already explained 
 to you, is only another name for the depreciation of 
 money. I beg you to mark well what I am now 
 going to state to you ; because it will give you a 
 clear insight into this whole matter. 
 
 In 1802, eight years ago, a large sum of money, 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 392 
 
 no less a sum than 990,053Z. (why not have made it 
 a round million ?) was granted by Parliament " to 
 the King, to discharge the arrears and debts due 
 upon the CIVIL LIST on the 5th of January, 1802." 
 The Civil List, Gentlemen, is the King's establish- 
 ment of servants and officers of different sorts, and, 
 in short, of all his expenses. The King had a per- 
 manent allowance, fixed by Act of Parliament, of 
 800,000/. a year for these purposes ; but, in 1802 
 (the time we are now speaking of) the Civil List 
 had got into debt ; and the then Minister, Adding- 
 ton, taking advantage of the national satisfaction at 
 the Peace of Amiens, proposed a grant of the above 
 sum, for the purpose of paying off this debt. Mr 
 Fox and others opposed the grant ; but it was sup 
 ported by PITT, GEORGE ROSE, and the majority, and 
 upon a division there were 226 for it and only 51 
 against. And, let it be borne in mind, that the grant 
 was justified by PITT on this ground : that it did not 
 make an increase to the Civil List equal in proportion 
 " to the increase of the price of commodities, and 
 to THE DEPRECIATION OF MONEY." So 
 he said ; so they all said ; and the assertion was 
 sanctioned by a vote of the House granting 990,0532. 
 to the King. Now, then, if the King was to have a 
 grant like this, on account of the past depreciation 
 of money, why should Lord King be reviled, why 
 should he be tossed in a blanket, or kicked down 
 stairs, for demanding payment in such a way as to 
 give him some security for future depreciation of 
 money, especially when we consider, that he only 
 demanded the fulfilment of a bargain^ while the 
 grant to the King was over and above the fulfil- 
 ment of a bargain made with him by the pvblic ? 
 
 But, did the demands for the King stop here ? 
 Very far from it ; for, in the year 1804, (only two 
 years afterwards,) PITT, who was then come back 
 into power, called for another grant for a similar 
 purpose, to no less an amount than 591,8422. 3s. W^d. 
 .How scrupulously exact the Gentleman was ! To 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 393 
 
 a halfpenny, you see ! Oh, wondrous financier ! 
 This grant also was made, and without any division 
 of thu House ; though it was strenuously opposed by 
 SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, upon the ground of its being 
 a departure from a bargain with the public, and of 
 the practice of making such grants being calculated 
 to render the Royal Family absolutely dependent 
 upon the Minister of the day. This grant also was 
 justified upon the ground that morney had depreci- 
 ated and the prices of all commodities increased. 
 This grant was accompanied with a permanent ad- 
 dition to the Civil List of 60,OOOZ. a year ; and, in- 
 deed, the annual sum, now paid by the people on 
 that account is 958,0002. exclusive of 295,9682. Is. S%d. 
 in allowances and pensions to the Royal Family, be- 
 sides the amount of sinecure places and military 
 offices that some members of the Family enjoy ; the 
 propriety or impropriety of none of which I am dis- 
 cussing, but it is necessary to state them in order to 
 enable you to judge of the fairness of the attacks upon 
 Lord KING, who only wanted a bare fulfilment of 
 contract with regard to his own private estate ; who 
 only wanted to save himself from ruin from the 
 future depreciation of money, and who gave up to 
 his tenants all they had gained from him by the past. 
 Now, Gentlemen, I beg you to observe, that this 
 second grant to the King ; this grant of 591,842 
 was to pay off what he had lost in two years by 
 the depreciation of money; and, you will also ob- 
 serve, and mark it well, that these are two out 
 of the nine years that have elapsed since Lord 
 King- let the Estate, respecting the rent of which 
 you have seen his notice to his tenant. The 
 King, in 1802, had a fixed allowance of 800,000 a 
 year out of the public money ; and at the end of only 
 two years, his advisers find him to require a grant of 
 591,842 on account of the depreciation of money; 
 that is to say, 295,921 in each of the two years. 
 More than 30 per cent, per annum I And, is Lord 
 King ; after having silently suffered under the gradual 
 
 
394 PAPER AGAINST GOLIX 
 
 depreciation for nine years, to be attacked in this 
 manner ; is he to be lumped along with Jews and 
 Pedlers and Smugglers ; is he to have a hint that 
 he will be kicked down stairs or tossed in a blanket, 
 because he now, when he sees the guinea selling at 
 25, or 26, or 27s. is resolved to have a fulfilment of 
 his bargain, and not to be wholly ruined by this de- 
 preciation of money ? 
 
 But, Gentlemen, this principle of augmenting al- 
 lowances out of the public treasure, on account of ' 
 the depreciation of money, has not been confined to j 
 the King and his family. It has been acted upon 
 in almost all the departments under the Government, j 
 the army and navy excepted, where, as far as relates 
 to the Commissioned Officers especially, little aug- j 
 mentation has taken place. I will, however, here ] 
 confine myself to one particular class of persons, j 
 namely, THE JUDGES ; and I do it the rather be- 
 cause it has been hinted pretty broadly, that the j 
 Courts of Law would set their faces against the < 
 efforts of those, who might attempt to enforce pay- 
 ment in gold. 
 
 Be it known to you, then, Gentlemen, that the | 
 Judges' pay has had two lifts since the Bank stopped j 
 its payments in gold and silver. The first was in j 
 the year 1799, two years only after the passing of J 
 our famous Bank Restriction Act. The two Chief ] 
 Judges, whose incomes were very large, underwent j 
 no augmentation by Act of Parliament ; but, the pay j 
 of all the rest was augmented by the Act, Chapter 
 110, of the 30th year of the King's reign; and, no 
 trifling augmentation did their pay receive, it being \ 
 upon an average nearly, if not quite, half the whole 
 amount of their former pay. The Chief Baron of 
 the Exchequer had 1,000 a year added to his for- . 
 mer 3,000 a year ; and all the nine Puisne Judges 
 had 1,000 each added to their former pay, which j 
 was in some cases a little more and in some cases a I 
 little less than 2,000 a year before. And, besides 
 this, the Act enabled the King, that is to say, his 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 395 
 
 advisers, to make a permanent provision for any 
 judge that might become superannuated, and it fixed 
 on great pensions for them in this case, which pen- 
 sions can, in consequence of that Act, be granted 
 without any particular consent of the Parliament, 
 which was not the case before. Mr. TIERNEY op- 
 posed this measure in a very able manner. He said, 
 that the House of Commons would thus lose all check 
 and control as to such remunerations; and that the 
 influence of the Crown would be thus greatly and 
 most fearfully enlarged. The measure was, however, 
 j adopted ; and thus the Judges, in Scotland as well 
 (as in England, received an ample compensation, 
 for the depreciation of money, up to the year 1797. 
 Having gone on with this pay for ten years, it ap- 
 pears to have been thought time to give them another 
 lift, and, accordingly, an Act for this purpose was 
 passed in the year 1809, of which the people seem 
 to have taken not the least notice. It seems to have 
 escaped every body's attention ; but, indeed, the Acts 
 now passed are so numerous, that it is next to im- 
 possible for any single man to be able to pay atten- 
 tion to them all, or to a quarter part of them. This 
 Act, which is Chapter 127 of the 49th year of the 
 King's reign, makes an addition of 1,000 a year, to 
 the pay of the Chief Baron of the Exchequer ; also 
 an addition of 1.000 a year, to each of the nine 
 Puisne Judges ; and it gives an additional 400 a 
 year to each of the Welsh Judges. Thus, at the 
 end of twelve years from the time when the Bank 
 stopped paying in gold, the pay of the English Judges 
 was nearly doubled ; and, shall my Lord King be 
 represented as a pedler, a jew, and a smuggler, be- 
 cause, at the end of nine, years of depreciation of 
 money, he wishes to put a stop to the ruinous pro- 
 gress ? And shall he be threatened with the hos- 
 tility of these same Judges, in case he should attempt 
 to enforce his legal claim ? Shall he be told about 
 being fought off in the Courts, and about the law 
 being too strong for him? 
 
396 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 At the time when these Acts were passed for aug- 
 menting the pay of the Judges, one of the arguments 
 was, that such augmentation was necessary to sup- 
 port the DIGNITY of the office of Judge. Now, 
 in what way was an increase of pay to produce such 
 an effect ? Certainly in no other way than that of 
 enabling the Judge to augment his expenses of living ; 
 for, as to his authority, as to his powers, as to his 
 station, the money would make no alteration at all 
 in them. This being the case, there appears to have 
 been no good reason for augmenting the Judges' pay 
 any more than the pay of the officers of the Navy, 
 or of any other persons in the public employ. Mr. 
 TIERNEY used, at the time when the first augmenta- 
 tion was proposed, an argument very applicable to 
 our present purpose : " If," said he, " an augmen- 
 tation of income be necessary to support the station 
 of the Judge, has the country no interest in enabling 
 the officers of the Army and Navy, the Ministers of 
 the Church, or the Magistrates, to maintain their sta- 
 tion in society? If the circumstances of a Judge, 
 who has 2,000 a year, require that he should have 
 an additional 1,000, we know very well what must 
 be the situation of a private Gentleman with an in- 
 come of 2,000 a year." 
 
 This argument applies precisely to Lord King. 
 The answer to Mr. Tierney was, that the private 
 Gentleman, if his estate was in land, would, of 
 course, raise his rents in order to make his income 
 keep pace with the depreciation of money. But the 
 reply to this is, that if his estate was let upon lease, 
 as Lord King's is, he could not raise his rents, till the 
 expiration of that lease ; and if he let a farm upon 
 a fourteen years' lease in the year 1798, he has been 
 receiving money at the rate of that time, during the 
 last thirteen years, whereas the pay of the Judges 
 has been doubled in the space of twelve of those 
 years. This is, in fact, the situation of Lord King. 
 Either, therefore, it was not necessary, and it was 
 not just to augment the pay of the Judges in any 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 397 
 
 degree ; or, it is extremely unjust that Lord King 
 should be prevented from augmenting his income. 
 Indeed he has had, till now, all the legal means of 
 making his income keep pace with the depreciation 
 of money, by demanding his rents in gold ; that is 
 to say, agreeably to the terms of the contract, in good 
 and lawful money of the realm. 
 
 This legal, this equitable, this fair, this honest, 
 this indubitable claim, he was preparing to enforce, 
 when my Lord Stanhope steps forward with the 
 proposition of a law avowedly intended to prevent 
 him from so doing ; to throw impediments in his 
 way ; to interfere in the management of his estates ; 
 to take from him part of the legal means which he 
 before possessed of preserving his property ; and, for 
 having signified his intention to use those means, he 
 is held forth as a jew, a pedler, and a smuggler. I 
 have observed, that Mr. SHERIDAN has taken part 
 upon this occasion with those who have censured 
 Lord KING. And this is the more remarkable, as he 
 has seldom taken part in any discussion whatever. 
 Is Mr. SHERIDAN aware of the consequences to which 
 this may lead ? It is hardly necessary to tell him, 
 that the day must not be far distant, when the CIVIL 
 LIST will have to be settled anew ; and I should be 
 glad to know whether, in that settlement, it is likely 
 to be the wish of the parties concerned, that the sum 
 should be fixed as if it were to be paid in gold. 
 Whether, in short, the amount of the Civil List 
 would be fixed for the future, at its present amount. 
 But, if that were not to be the case, how could a 
 larger amount be proposed or supported by those 
 who have now railed at the conduct of Lord King ? 
 
 Endless are the difficulties, into which those have 
 plunged themselves, who have reprobated the con- 
 duct of this nobleman as unjust, or who have repre- 
 sented it as unwise. Such persons will hardly 
 muster up the resolution to make a frank acknow- 
 ledgment of their error; and yet, if they do not do 
 this, with what face can they propose, or support, or 
 34 
 
398 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 sanction, either expressly or tacitly, any measure 
 which shall have for its object, the preservation of 
 the Grown, the Royal Family, the Army, the Navy, 
 the Courts of Justice, or any department of the state, 
 against the effects of the depreciation of money ? 
 The measure of Lord King fell far short of the jus- 
 tice due to himself, for, though the money had de- 
 preciated considerably at the date of his oldest leases, 
 still, it has gone on depreciating further from that 
 time to this. He, therefore, would have been fairly 
 entitled to payment in Gold, and nothing else, for 
 the remainder of those old leases. But, pursuing a 
 moderate and liberal course, he restrained his de- 
 mands far within their legal bounds. With a con- 
 siderateness that does him great honour, he suffered 
 his tenants quietly to retain what they had gained 
 during the past, and only required of them a due ful- 
 filment of contract for the future, which was not less 
 necessary to the welfare of his tenants, than it was 
 to his own protection ; because without such a mea- 
 sure, it was impossible they ever could obtain a re- 
 newal of their leases. 
 
 Much, during the discussions upon this famous 
 Bill, has been said about patriotism : and Lord 
 King has been charged with a want of that quality, 
 because he made the demand, of which so much has 
 been said. But, if Lord King, in barely demanding 
 the fulfilment of a contract in order to protect him- 
 self against the effects of the depreciation of money ; 
 if Lord King, in barely appealing to the law already 
 in existence for his protection against this ruinous 
 effect of paper money ; if, for this, Lord King is to 
 be accused of a want of patriotism, and is to be 
 lumped with Jews, Pedlers, and Smugglers, what 
 will be the inference with regard to the King and 
 Royal Family, and my Lords the Judges, to protect 
 whom against the effects of depreciation, laws have 
 been passed, laws proposed by the minister of the 
 day and sanctioned by the majority. Lord King 
 comes for no law to protect him ; he asks for no law 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 399 
 
 against his tenants ; he only wants his due accord- 
 ing to the existing law; and yet, he is, and by the 
 very people, too, who approved of the above-men- 
 tioned large grants to the King and the Judges, ac- 
 cused of a want of patriotism ! 
 
 The venal prints have not failed to join in the ac- 
 cusations against Lord King, whom the COURIER, on 
 the 5th instant, charges with motives of " base lu- 
 cre" as the ATTORNEY GENERAL did me, and with 
 precisely the same degree of justice. The article 
 here referred to in the COURIER concludes with some 
 observations as to the duty of patriotism, in this 
 case ; and says, that, " On an occasion in which 
 ALL SUFFER, the man who first abandons the 
 general cause for his own personal interests, must 
 needs make a very sorry figure before the world, just 
 like the coward who is the first to fly in battle, 
 while victory is doubtful. But if this man were a 
 high officer, a Legislator, an hereditary Counsellor 
 of his Sovereign, whose peculiar duty it is to set an 
 example of bravery, of fortitude, of contempt for 
 personal consequences in the general cause, with 
 what feelings could we view his conduct ?" Now 
 it is to be observed here, that all this talk about the 
 public cause is most shocking nonsense, and what 
 no man in the world besides one of these hirelings 
 would be found to put upon paper. But, if to de- 
 mand merely the fulfilment of contracts in order to 
 preserve his fortune against the effects of deprecia- 
 tion of money, if this be to " abandon the general 
 cause for his own personal interests" if this be to 
 resemble " a coward who is the first to flee in bat- 
 tle" how will this venal man speak of the King and 
 Royal Family and the Judges? The King has, 
 since the year 1799, had two great grants in aug- 
 mentation of the sum allowed him, the Junior 
 Branches of the Royal Family have had one addi- 
 tional grant, (in 1806,) and the Judges have, as we 
 have above seen, had their pay doubled, actually 
 doubled, since that time. And yet this venal man 
 
400 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 accuses Lord King, of " BASE LUCRE," because 
 he is endeavouring to get what is his due ; because 
 he is endeavouring to get his own; because he is 
 trying to protect himself against that ruin which he 
 foresees will come upon him, if he does not now be- 
 gin to obtain the fulfilment of his contracts. 
 
 "On an occasion," says this venal man, in "which 
 ALL suffer." No : not all. The King has not suf- 
 fered from the depreciation, nor have the Judges, 
 whose pay has been, as we have seen, actually dou- 
 bled since the stoppage of cash payments took place, 
 and who, of course, would be now as well off as 
 they were before that time, if the pound bank note 
 were worth only ten shillings, and Mr. HORNER 
 tells us it is yet worth about sixteen shillings. 
 " ALL" do not suffer, then. The Judges, so far 
 from suffering have gained very greatly ; and yet, 
 no one has ever charged them with motives ot 
 " BASE LUCRE." The Judges of England alone 
 have received, since the year 1799, in virtue of the 
 two Acts above-mentioned, no less a sum than 
 120,000, that is, one hundred and twenty thousand 
 pounds of principal money, more than they would 
 have received had not these two grants been made 
 to them ; and if we include the interest, as in all 
 such calculations we must, they have received, since 
 1799, over and above their former pay, about 145,000. 
 And yet, my Lord Kins: is, by this venal scribe, ac- 
 cused' of motives of "BASE LUCRE," because he 
 wishes to prevent the whole of his income from be- 
 ing sunk in the depreciation of money. The Judges 
 have actually put in their pockets this large sum of 
 money ; they have actually touched it since the year 
 1799, and, of course, the National Debt is so much 
 the greater on that account ; the interest upon that 
 Debt is so much the greater on that account ; the 
 quantity of bank notes to pay the Dividends is so 
 much trie greater on that account ; and, of course, 
 these two Acts of Parliament have tended, in some 
 degree, to hasten the depreciation, and to produce 
 
PAPER AGAIN3T GOLD. 401 
 
 the very effect which now threatens to ruin Lord 
 King, and to find out a remedy for which, puzzles 
 so many men who think themselves wise. Lord 
 King's measure does not tend to add to the National 
 Debt ; it tends to produce no addition to the Divi- 
 dends or the bank paper ; it is a mere measure of 
 management of his private affairs which does not 
 trench upon the public good in any way whatever ; 
 and yet, he is lumped along with Jews, Pedlers, 
 and Smugglers, and is accused of a want of pa- 
 triotism ! 
 
 This writer tells us, that it was the duty of such 
 a man as Lord King to set an example of "'contempt 
 of personal consequences" meaning, of course, pe- 
 cuniary consequences, But, was it more his duty, 
 than it was the duty of the King, the Royal Family } 
 and the Judges ? He says that Kord King ought to 
 have done it, as being an hereditary counsellor of 
 the Crown. If Lord King had had much to do in 
 counselling the Crown, the present subject would, 
 perhaps, never have been discussed ; but, be that as 
 it may, was it more his duty to set an example of 
 contempt of pecuniary consequences than it was of 
 the King ? Was it more his duty than it was the 
 duty of the Judges ? Was no example of this sort to 
 be expected from them, while it was to be expected 
 from him ? And, I beg you t.o observe the wide differ- 
 ence between the case of the Judges and that of 
 Lord King* No new law is made to favour the in- 
 terests of the latter ; but, a new law is made, and 
 afterwards another new law, to favour the interests 
 of the former. Lord King does not attempt to ob- 
 tain any real addition to his original rents ; but 
 there is granted to the Judges a very large real ad- 
 dition to their original pay. The COURIER rails 
 upon LORD KING to suffer quietly for the good of his 
 country. His suffering would not do the country 
 any good, but a great deal of harm. But, upon the 
 supposition that it would do the country good, what 
 does the same man say about the augmentation of 
 34* 
 
402 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 the pay of the Judges ? When the augmentation to 
 the pay of these persons was under discussion, Mr. 
 PERCEVAL (who was then a barrister) argued, that 
 the Judges ought to have quite enough to maintain 
 them in all their state without touching their pri- 
 vate fortunes; and, observe, this he said at the 
 very time, in that very year, 1799, when Old George 
 Rose, who was then one of the Secretaries of the 
 Treasury at 4,000 a year, and who had another 
 good 4,000 a year in sinecure places, was preach- 
 ing up to " the most thinking people of all Europe," 
 his doctrine of sacrifices and salvage, a specimen of 
 which I gave you in my last Letter. " The impe- 
 rious and awful necessity of the present crisis," 
 said GEORGE, " unavoidably subjects US to heavy 
 burdens. It has been said, that they ought to be 
 considered as a SALVAGE for the remaining part 
 of OUR property. The metaphor, though just, is 
 inadequate; for what Tariff shall settle the differ- 
 ence between the BLESSED COMFORTS OF 
 RELIGION and the GLOOMY DESPAIR OF 
 ATHEISM." George talks of " US" and of 
 " OUR" property ; but HE was gaining all the 
 while ; aye, and he got his great sinecure place, 
 with reversion to his eldest son, while " imperious 
 and awful necessity" was calling upon the nation 
 for sacrifices. GEORGE'S doctrine of SALVAGE 
 was for the use of others, and not at all for his own 
 use ; nor did this doctrine of SALVAGE apply to 
 the Judges, who, we have seen, received an addition 
 to their pay out of the public money, during the 
 times of this " imperious and awful necessity ;" du- 
 ring the time that George Rose was calling upon the 
 people, for the love of God, not to spare their mo- 
 ney. " Oh !" said George, " it would be a slander 
 to the sense and virtue of the people to suppose an 
 abatement in that spirit which has enabled the 
 Government to call forth those resources" And, 
 at this very time he was receiving upwards of 8,000 
 a year out of the taxes raised upon that same peo- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 403 
 
 pie, and Mr. TIERNEY, who opposed the augmenta- 
 tion to the pay of the Judges, was told, that they 
 ought to be enabled to maintain all their dignity and 
 state ; that is to say, to live and keep their families, 
 without touching- their private fortunes. And yet, 
 Lord King is to be lumped with Jews, Pedlers, and 
 Smugglers ; he is to have a hint about tossing in 
 blankets, and kicking down stairs ; and, what is still 
 more serious, he is to see a law passed avowedly to 
 counteract his measures with regard to the manage- 
 ment of his own estate ; he is to be accused of mo- 
 tives of base lucre; he is to be held forth as an ene- 
 my to his country ; and all this because he wishes 
 to obtain what is legally and equitably his due ; what 
 is his due as fairly as the produce of their fields is 
 the due of his tenants. 
 
 I have now, Gentlemen, to apologize to you for 
 having taken up so much of your time in illustrating 
 what was so clear itself. The additional grants to 
 the Civil List, and the augmentation of the pay of 
 the Judges, did not properly belong to our subject ; 
 but, when my Lord King was reviled, and when a 
 law was avowedly levelled at him, because he 
 sought, in 1811, to protect himself and family against 
 the ruinous effects of depreciation, justice demanded 
 of me, if I wrote at all upon the subject, to show 
 what has been done in behalf of the King and the 
 Judges in 1799, 1802, 1804, and 1809, and especially 
 as these measures in behalf of the King and the 
 Judges were approved of, and supported by some of 
 those who now reprobate the conduct of Lord King. 
 
 In my next Letter, which will be the last of the 
 series, I shall have to offer you some observations of 
 a more general nature, and in the mean while, 
 I remain, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your Friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Friday, July 26th, 1811. 
 

 404 PAPER AGAINST GOLB* 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 " The true way of convincing your enemy, that his war upon your finance* 
 will he useless, is, to sta^e explicitly to the word, that you are not at 
 all afraid of the consequences of a national bankruptcy : lor, while you 
 endeavour to make people believe, that su :h an event cannot possibly 
 happen, they will certainly think, that, you regard it, if it should happen, a* 
 irretrievable ruin and destruction; and, therefore, as you never can 
 quite overcome their apprehensions, the best way is to be silent upon the 
 subject, or to set the terrific bugbear at defiance. "Political Register. 
 18th, June, 1803. 
 
 What is to be the end of all this? Paper- Money is not the 
 cause of Sunshine and Showers We may exist without 
 Paper-moneyEngland did very well before Paper-Money 
 was heard of What is to become of the Fund-holders? 
 The Sale of the Royal Plate and of the Church Property in 
 Austria Let what will happen in England, the Jacobins 
 and Levellers will not merit any share of the Blame Con- 
 clusion. 
 
 GENTLEMEN, 
 
 WHAT, then, is to be the end of all this ? What 
 are to be the ultimate effects produced upon the na- 
 tion by this depreciation of the paper money ? The 
 PITTITE party tell u&, that there is not gold to be 
 had ; that the Bank cannot pay in gold ; and that 
 the matter must be left to better times and to better 
 fortune. The other party tell us, that, if they had 
 the power of adopting what measures they pleased, 
 they would cause the Bank to pay again in gold ; 
 that they would restore the paper to its former esti- 
 mation ; and, in short, retrieve the whole system. 
 I have, I think, shown you very clearly, that to cause 
 the Bank to pay again in gold is impossible ; and 
 that, let what will happen, let what will take place 
 as to commerce, or as to war, the Bank Paper will 
 never regain any part of what it has lost, as long % as 
 the National Debt shall exist ; or, rather, as Jong 
 as the dividends shall be paid upon the interest of 
 that debt. 
 
 Now, if I have shown this to your satisfaction, the 
 question, and the only question, that remains to be 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 405 
 
 discussed, is, what would be the CONSEQUENCES 
 of a cessation in the payment of the dividends ; that 
 is to say, the total destruction of the National Debt ; 
 the total breaking up of the Funds and the Bank 
 Note System. This is the only question that now 
 remains to be discussed ; but a very important ques- 
 tion it is, and one which, I hope, will receive your 
 patient attention. 
 
 To hear the greater part of people talk upon this 
 subject, one would imagine, that the bank notes 
 were the meat, drink, and clothing of the inhabitants 
 of this island ; and, indeed, that they gave us sun- 
 shine and showers and every thing necessary to our 
 existence. One would really suppose, that the gene- 
 ral creed was, that the Bank Directors were the 
 Gods of the country, that they were our Sustainers, 
 if not actually our Makers, that from them we de- 
 rived the breath in our nostrils, that in and through 
 them we lived, moved, and had our being. No won- 
 der, then, that there should be an apprehension and 
 even a horror inspired by the idea of a total destruc- 
 tion of the paper money ; no wonder that when I be- 
 gan, about eight years and a half ago, to write against 
 the Funding system, I should have been regarded as 
 guilty of blasphemy, and should have been accused 
 thereof by that devout man, Mr. SHERIDAN ; no won- 
 der that some men's knees should knock together, and 
 their teeth chatter in their head, upon being told, that 
 the day is, probably, not far distant, when a guinea, 
 a real golden guinea, will buy a hundred pounds' 
 worth of three per cents. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, is there any ground for these ap- 
 prehensions ? Are such apprehensions to be enter- 
 tained by rational men ? No : the corn and the 
 grass and the trees will grow without paper-money ; 
 the Banks may all break in a day, and the sun will 
 rise the next day, and the lambs will gambol and 
 the birds will sing, and the carters and country girls 
 will grin at each other, and all will go on just as if 
 nothing had happened. 
 
406 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 " Yes," says some besotted Pittite, " we do not 
 suppose, that the destruction of the paper-system 
 would put out the light of the sun, prevent vegeta- 
 tion, or disable men and women to propagate their 
 species : we are not fools enough to suppose that." 
 Pray, then, what are you fools enough to suppose? 
 What are you fools enough to be afraid of? For, 
 if the destruction of the paper produces, and is cal- 
 culated to produce, none of these effects, how can it 
 be a thing to excite any very general apprehension. 
 Who would it hurl ? " Oh ! it would create univer- 
 sal uproar and confusion : it would destroy all pro- 
 perty ; it would introduce anarchy and bloodshed, 
 and annihilate regular government, social order ^ 
 and our holy religion" These are the words that 
 JOHN BOWLES, the Dutch Commissioner, used to 
 make use of. This is the declamatory cant, by the 
 means of which the people of this country have been 
 deceived and deluded along from one stage of ruin 
 to another, till, at last, they have arrived at what 
 they now taste of. If, when JOHNNY BOWLES, or any 
 of his tribe, had been writing in this way, a plain 
 tradesman, who gets his living by fair dealing, and 
 who has no desire to share in the plunder of the 
 public, had gone to the writer, and, taking him fast 
 by the button, had said to him : " Come, come ! tell 
 me, in definite terms, what you mean, and show me 
 how I should be a loser by this thing that you ap- 
 pear so much to dread. None of your rani ; none 
 of your horrifying descriptions ; but come, JOHN, tell 
 me HOW I should be made worse off in this world, 
 and HOW I should be more exposed to go to Hell, 
 if that which you appear to dread were actually 
 to take place ;" if any such man had so addressed 
 this Treasury scribe, the scribe would have been puz- 
 zled much more than he was by his per cents, about 
 the Dutch Commission. 
 
 Why, Gentlemen, should the total destruction of 
 tke paper-money produce any of these effects ? Why 
 should it destroy all property / why produce blood- 
 
P 
 b; 
 
 e ; 
 
 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 407 
 
 shed; why destroy our holy religion? I have be- 
 fore told you, that the paper-money was unknown 
 in England, till within about 107 years. England 
 did very well before that time. The people of Eng- 
 land were brave and free, happy at home and dreaded 
 abroad, long before paper-money was heard of. 
 Why, then, should they now believe, that, without 
 iaper-money, they would be reduced to a state of 
 larbarism and slavery ? The Church, as is now 
 established, existed long before paper-money was 
 thought of, and so did all those laws, which we yet 
 boast of as the great bulwarks of our freedom ; and, 
 what is more, I defy any man to show me one sin- 
 gle law, in favour of the liberties of the people, 
 which has been passed since the establishment of 
 the Paper-Money System, while numerous laws 
 have been passed hostile to those liberties. Before 
 the existence of the National Debt and the Bank, 
 the House of Commons used frequently to refuse to 
 grant the money called for by the Crown ; since 
 they have existed, no grant of the kind has ever been 
 refused by that House. Before the Paper System 
 existed, there was no standing army in England. 
 Before the Paper System existed, there were not more 
 than two hundred thousand paupers in England 
 and Wales : there are now twelve hundred thousand. 
 Why, then, should we alarm ourselves at what 
 appears to indicate the approaching destruction of 
 this System ? " Oh, but," says the Minister, (Perce- 
 val,) "without the Paper System we could not have 
 had the victories recently won in Spain and Portu- 
 gal ;" to which he might have added the achieve- 
 ments at Quiberon, at Dunkirk, at the Helder, at 
 Ferrol, at Buenos Ayres, in Hanover, in Leon and 
 Gallicia, at Corunna, at Watcher en, $c. $c. The 
 list might be swelled out to three times this length ; 
 but this is long enough. If what the Minister calls 
 the " recent victories" are the fruit of the Paper 
 System, so are all the achievements to which I have 
 here called your recollection. Indeed, they were 
 
408 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 so; for, the wars themselves proceeded from the 
 same source. The American War grew out of the 
 Paper System; and so did the Anti-jacobin war, 
 which began in 1793, and which has finally produced 
 the state of things which we now have before us. 
 So that, as to the use of the Paper System in this 
 way, there can, I think, be very little doubt. 
 
 " Well, but, after all," some one will say, " what is 
 to become of the Fund-holder ? How is he to get re- 
 paid ?" My answer to this is, that it does not ap- 
 pear to be a matter in which the people, I mean the 
 mass of the nation^ have much to do or to say, for, 
 what is the Fund-holder or Stock-holder ? Why, 
 he is a man, who, choosing a large rather than a 
 small interest for his money, has lent it to some per- 
 sons in power, under an agreement, that he shall be 
 paid interest upon it out of the taxes raised upon the 
 people. A man who lends money, knows, of course, 
 or, at least, he ought to know, the sufficiency of the 
 borrower; or, if he does not know that, he, of 
 course, takes the risk into his calculation ; and he 
 can have no right to complain if the chances should 
 happen to turn up against him. Upon this principle 
 SIR JOHN MITFORD, (now Lord Redesdale,) went, in 
 defending the first Bank Restriction Bill, when, in 
 answer to those who contended, that it would be a 
 breach of faith to compel the Fund-holder to take 
 payment in paper, he said, that the Fund-holder, 
 when he lent his money, knew that a case like this 
 might happen, and that, therefore, he had no reason 
 to complain. Till I read this, I thought that I was 
 the only one who had held the doctrine, so that my 
 satisfaction at seeing my opinions corroborated by 
 such high legal authority was somewhat diminished 
 by the reflection, that I had lost what I had deemed 
 my undivided claim to originality. 
 
 I do not, however, see any reason why the Fund- 
 holders, or, at least, that part of them, who have 
 been compelled to suffer their property to be thus 
 vested, should not, in any case, have a just compen- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 409 
 
 sation. And how ? Whence is this compensation 
 to come ? In Austria, our old and faithful and au- 
 gust ally, the Emperor, is acting the part of a very 
 honest man. The paper-money in Austria has fallen 
 to a fourteenth part of its nominal value, in spite of 
 several Edicts prohibiting the passing of it for 
 less than its nominal value. A hundred jlor ins in 
 silver were worth fourteen hundred andjijty-three 
 florins in paper when the last advices came away ; 
 and, perhaps, one florin in silver, is, by this time, 
 worth Jlfty florins in paper. Of course the Govern- 
 ment creditors, or Austrian Fund-holders, must be 
 ruined, unless something be done to obtain a com- 
 pensation for them. The Emperor, therefore, like 
 an honest man, has, as the newspapers tell us, sent 
 all his plate, ail his gold and silver, in whatever 
 shape, to the mint to be melted down and turned 
 into coin for the payment of the people, who have 
 lent him and his Government their money. And, 
 besides this, the Clergy, animated by a zeal for their 
 sovereign truly worthy of example, have given up 
 their estafes to be sola for the sam,e honest purpose, 
 which, doubtless, they have been the more disposed 
 to do, when they reflected, that the debts of the Go- 
 vernment were incurred in carrying on a war for 
 "regular government, social order, and their holy 
 religion," and in the producing and prolonging of 
 which war, they themselves had so great a hand, as 
 well as in persecuting all those who were opposed 
 to the system. Accordingly, we see accounts in the 
 public prints of the SALES OF CHURCH LANDS 
 going on in Austria. They are said to sell remark- 
 ably well ;* and, it is stated, that these sales, toge- 
 
 * VIENNA, JULY 6. "A second sale of ecclesiastical estates 
 will soon take place. On the 23d will be sold, the estate of 
 Keixeridorf; antlon the 24th, those of St. George and Baum- 
 garten. As there are many competitors, the sums produced 
 by these sales have greatly surpassed what the lands were es- 
 timated at. The body of merchants in this city published, 
 some days since, a memoir in their defence against the char- 
 gesobjected to them, of having contributed to the deprecia- 
 35 
 
410 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 ther with the meltings of the Royal Plate, will yield 
 enough to satisfy all the Government Creditors ; or, 
 at least, to afford them the means of living beyond 
 the reach of misery. 
 
 But, methinks, I see start forth a Courtier on one 
 side of me and a Parson on the other, and, with 
 claws distended ready to lay hold of my cheek, ex- 
 claim : u What, cold-blooded wretch ! are these, 
 then, your means of compensation for the English 
 Fund- holder ?" Softly ! Softly ! Give me time to 
 speak. Do not tear my eyes out before you hear 
 what I have to say. Stop a little, and I will tell you 
 what I mean. 
 
 Now, why should you be in such a rage with me ? 
 If I were to propose that the same should be done 
 here as is now doing in Austria, what would there 
 be, in my proposition, injurious to either the station 
 or character of the King or the Clergy ? Am I to 
 suppose, that the Crown depends upon the possession 
 of a parcel of plate by the King and the Royal Fa- 
 mily ; that a throne, the seat of kingly power, is sup- 
 ported by a wagon load, perhaps, of gold and silver 
 dishes and plates and spoons and knives and forks 
 and salvers and candlesticks and sauce boats and 
 tea pots and cream-jugs ? Good Heavens ! What 
 a vile opinion must they have of the throne, who 
 look upon such things as tending to its support ! 
 And then, as to the Church, what could her sons 
 wish for more earnestly than an opportunity of giving 
 us a proof of their disregard of things temporal ? Be- 
 sides, there would be, in this case, a striking proof 
 of the truth of the good maxim, that " Justice, though 
 slow, is sure ;" for, it is well known, that the Paper 
 System, which would thus draw upon the Church, 
 was the invention of A BISHOP of that same 
 Church ! 
 
 But, the Courtiers and the Clergy may be Iran- 
 
 tion of the paper-money. The memoir has been transmitted 
 to the Minister of Finance, and presented to his Majesty the 
 Emperor." 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 411 
 
 quil ; for I do not think it at all likely that such mea- 
 sures will become necessary in England, though 
 they have been adopted at Vienna, and, as would 
 seem, with singular success. I am of opinion, that 
 there would be found ample means, elsewhere, for 
 a due compensation to those Fundholders, who had 
 been compelled to vest their property in that way. 
 In short, I am quite satisfied, that we have nothing 
 at all to fear from the destruction of the paper sys- 
 tem if that should take place ; and, as the friends of 
 the system assert, that we have nothing to fear from 
 its continuing to exist, we are, I think, tolerably 
 safe. The RUIN of America and France was 
 foretold, because their paper-money was falling ; but, 
 the prophecy proved false. They were both victo- 
 rious, both became prosperous ; and, what is odd 
 enough, both have since become receptacles of the 
 coin that is gone from England ; aye, from that 
 country which hoped to triumph over them by the 
 means of that same coin ! How many times did 
 PITT predict the time when France would be what 
 he called exhausted, and how was he hallooed on by 
 his numerous understrappers of all sorts, verbally as 
 well as in print ! Has she been ruined ? Has she 
 lost in population or in power ? Is she exhausted ? 
 Has she become feeble ? We are still struggling 
 with her; and do we find her grow weaker and 
 weaker ? 
 
 Well, this doctrine of RUIN from a depreciated pa- 
 per-money is a false doctrine. It was engendered in 
 a shallow brain, and brought forth by arrogant empti- 
 ness. But, suppose it to be sound as applied to us ; 
 suppose, for argument's sake, that the destruction of 
 the paper-system should take place, and should prove 
 the utter ruin of the country ; or, suppose, at any 
 rate, that it should send all the Fundholders into 
 beggary, should cause all the Church and Collegiate 
 property to be sold, as in Austria, should send the 
 Royal Plate to the Mint, should annihilate all the 
 remaining rights and tenures ; and, in short, should 
 
412 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 produce a species of revolution. I say, that it need do 
 none of this : I say, that not one of these is a ne- 
 cessary consequence of the overthrow of the pa- 
 per system ; but, for argument's sake, suppose the 
 contrary, and suppose that such overthrow were 
 to take place ; WHO, in that case, would be to 
 blame ? 
 
 This is a question that every man ought, as soon 
 as may be, to answer in his own mind ; for, if any 
 of these consequences were to come upon us, it 
 would be of the greatest utility to be able to say, at 
 once, who it was that had been the real authors of 
 the calamity. Certainly, then, the Reformers, com- 
 monly called Jacobins and Levellers, have had no- 
 thing to do with the matter. They have had no 
 power. They have been carefully shut out from all 
 authority. They have filled no offices of any sort. 
 They have been held forth as a sort of enemy in the 
 bosom of the country. There is no creature who 
 has had power, of any sort, no matter what, who has 
 not employed that power upon them. They have 
 been either killed, banished, ruined, or, at the least, 
 beaten down, and kept down. Well, then, they will 
 not come in for any of the blame, if things should 
 turn out wrong at last. They have had no hand in 
 declaring war against the regicides of France ; they 
 have had no hand in forming leagues, in voting sub- 
 sidies, in sending out expeditions ; they have had no 
 hand in making loans or grants ; and, therefoie, they 
 will, surely, not come in for any share of the blame 
 which shall attach to the consequences. They have 
 been represented as an ignorant and factious herd, 
 " a low, degraded crew ;" while those who have 
 thus described them have had all the powers and the 
 resources of the country at their command ; and. 
 therefore, let what will happen, the Reformers will 
 have to bear no portion of the blame. The full- 
 blooded Anti-Jacobins ; the members of the Pitt 
 Club ; ail the numerous herd of the enemies to Re- 
 form, may be fairly called upon for a share of respon- 
 
PAPER AGAINST GOLD, 413 
 
 sibility ; but, to the Reformers who had no power, 
 and who have been hardly able to exist in peace, no 
 man can reasonably look. 
 
 I shall now. Gentlemen, after nearly a twelve- 
 month's correspondence, take my leave of you, and 
 with the conviction, that I have done much towards 
 giving you a clear view of the subject of which I 
 have been treating. I had long entertained the 
 design to make the subject familiar ; to put my 
 countrymen in general beyond the reach of decep- 
 tion on this score ; to enable them to avoid being 
 cheated, if they chose to avoid it ; and a suffi- 
 ciency of time for the purpose being furnished me, 
 it would have been greatly blameable in me, if I 
 had neglected to avail myself of it : I have not 
 been guilty of this neglect ; I have, with great care 
 and research, brought together what appears to me 
 to be the whole, or very nearly the whole, of the 
 useful information relating to the paper system ; 
 I have laboured most zealously and anxiously for 
 the accomplishment of the great object in view ; 
 and it more than repays me for every thing to 
 hear, to see, to know, that / have not laboured in 
 vain. 
 
 In the course of this work, I have clearly ex- 
 pressed my opinions as to the final fatal effect of 
 the paper-money : those opinions are in direct op- 
 position to those of the Ministers and the Parlia- 
 ment. TIME, the trier of all things, must now 
 decide between us ; and, if I be wrong, I have, at 
 least, taken effectual means to make my error as 
 conspicuous and as notorious as possible ; while, 
 on the other hand, if I be right, I have laid the 
 sure foundation of complete triumph over my haugh- 
 ty, supercilious, unjust, and insolent foes. One 
 tning, above all others, however, I am desirous of 
 leaving strongly impressed upon your minds, and 
 that is, that it is my decided opinion, that, let what 
 will be the fate of the paper-money, that fate, how- 
 ever destructive, does not necessarily include any, 
 35* 
 
414 PAPER AGAINST GOLD. 
 
 even the smallest, danger to the independence of 
 England, or to the safety of the throne, or to the 
 liberties or the happiness of the people. 
 I remain, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 and obedient Servant, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 State Prison, Newgate, 
 
 Friday^ August 2d, 1810. 
 
 

 TO THE 
 
 LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, 
 
 On the projects for getting them out of their native 
 country. 
 
 Kensington, 25th June, 1831. 
 MY FRIENDS, 
 
 THE London newspapers tell us, that the news- 
 papers in the country are full of " forebodings as to 
 the designs of the labourers ;" and the " Morning 
 Chronicle" of the 25th June, having told us this, 
 adds these words, " There is an article in the Kent 
 Herald, of Thursday, which is worthy of particular 
 attention. Dearly, do we fear, will England yet rue 
 the having, of late years, legislated only for the high- 
 er classes, and abandoned the lower to every descrip- 
 tion of tyranny." This Morning Chronicle is a 
 paper on the sid>e of the ministers, and, therefore, it 
 says what k pleases : if I, who am on the side of no 
 men in power, were to write this, I should be prose- 
 cuted for it. However, why does not this paper give 
 us this famous article from the Kent Herald ; and 
 why does it not give us some of those dismal fore- 
 bodings of the country newspapers with regard to 
 your designs? I, however, want no information 
 upon the subject, for I know your designs, and I high- 
 ly approve of them ; namely, first, to secure for 
 yourselves, in return for your labour, a belly-full of 
 meat and bread; and, next, to obtain some good 
 wholesome beer, to wash them down ; and also to 
 obtain good and decent clothes, and clean bedding, 
 such as your grandfathers had. These are your de- 
 signs, and God send that they may be accomplished, 
 instead of being a subject of " ominous forebodings." 
 But now, upon these projects for getting a part of 
 you out of the country. Those that are for these pro- 
 
416 TO THE LABOUHER3 OF 
 
 jects say, that you are too numerous ; that you breed 
 too fast ; and that there is not work enough for you ; 
 and they say this at the yery moment when the farm- 
 ers, all over the country, are complaining that they 
 shall not be able to get in the harvest without the 
 assistance of Irish labourers ! I have often proved 
 that there is plenty of employment for you ; that the 
 farmers wish to give you that employment, but that 
 they have not the money to give you ; and this has 
 also been stated recently by Lord STANHOPE before a 
 committee in the House of Lords. The cause of the 
 farmers not having money enough to give you is, that 
 they are compelled to pay tithes and taxes to an 
 enormous extent ; and you want higher wages than 
 you otherwise would want, because you pay taxes on 
 your malt, hops, sugar, soap, candles, tobacco, and, 
 in short, on every thing that you consume ; while the 
 numerous enclosure-bills have taken from almost the 
 whole of you the means of keeping cow, or pig, or 
 goose. 
 
 I have frequently told you, that there is a man of the 
 name of MALTHTS, who "is a church parson, who was 
 the great inventor of the doctrine, that it is your 
 breeding so fast that is the cause of your misery. 
 This man has long been a great favourite with the 
 greater part of the law-makers and ministers, and it 
 has recently come to light, that he has been, and is in 
 the pay of the government, and that he has been re- 
 ceiving, and is receiving, a hundred pounds a year 
 for his literary services. That which he has' re- 
 ceived would have wholly maintained nine or ten 
 labourers 5 families. Such transactions as this form 
 part of the cause of your misery ; but, though this is 
 as clear as day -light to me and to every man of sense 
 in the kingdom, still the schemers are at work to get 
 some of you away; to get some of you out of that 
 country in which you were born, while they suffer 
 swarms of Italians. Jews, and Germans, hurdy-gur- 
 dy grinders, broom-sellers, and Scotch pedlers. to 
 swarm over the land, like lice upon the body of a dis- 
 
 
TO THE ULBOUAER3 OF E*GLA*D. 417 
 
 eased animal. They suffer all these to remain and 
 wander whither they like, and are busy about no- 
 thing but getting out of the country those who till ike 
 land and make die clothe? and the houses. Swarms 
 of pensioners and sinecure-holders, paid out of the 
 taxes ; swaiias of retired clerks, and military officers, 
 and doctors ; saims of idlers, of all descriptions, 
 they suffer to remain, and wish to get rid only of 
 those who do the work, and who, if necessary, are 
 able to defend the country. In a farmer number I 
 endeavoured to amuse TOO. 'under the form of a farce, 
 with an exhibition of the folly of these people. Upon 
 the publication of that farce, a man calling himself 
 EDWABD LCDU>W, who is a partisan of these getters- 
 rid of the people, wrote me a very abusive letter, at 
 the close of which he put to me five questions rela- 
 tive to population. I answered these questions, 
 which contained the doctrine of the whole crew ; 
 and those questions, together with my answer, I will 
 new lay before you. I pray you to read the whole 
 with great attention, and to hand it about from one 
 to the other; and when you hare read this, I shaU 
 have other, and, to you, still more important matter 
 to lay before you. 
 
 * LCDLOW'S QJ7E3TKMH." 
 
 " 1. Stock a farm of 1000 acres, of the richest pas- 
 ture land, with one breeding pair of the ox, horse, 
 and sheep tribes of animals ; leave them to multiply, 
 in obedience to the unrestrained instincts of nature, 
 and will they not multiply until the said pasture is 
 usable to maintain the augmented numbers otherwise 
 than in a state of the most severe privation under 
 which animal life can possibly exist? 
 
 ** 2. Would not the same result inevitable occur if 
 the whole island of Great Britain were of the richest 
 posture, and similarly stocked? 
 
 "3. To keep down the mouths on his pasture to a 
 level with its capacity to feed them, does not the gra- 
 
418 TO THE LABOURERS OP ENGLAND. 
 
 slaughtering the animals of all ages, removing them 
 away from his land, incapacitating them from breed- 
 ing, by separating the sexes, and by other means ? 
 And if he were not so to do, would not his farm in- 
 evitably in time be overstocked ? 
 
 " 4. Is not the multiplication of all classes of ani- 
 mal nature, biped and quadruped, or man and beast, 
 governed by the very same laws or principles ? 
 
 " 5. If the aforesaid violent means of physical pre- 
 vention, applied, as aforesaid, to the multiplication of 
 four-legged creatures, cannot be applied to that of 
 two-legged creatures, will not the latter inevitably 
 overstock the country, unless their excessive multi- 
 plication be prevented by some moral restraint 
 thereon ? 
 
 " When you show that you clearly understand the 
 preceding very simple questions, and the proper an- 
 swers to them, I may probably propound some others 
 which may lead to the elements of the momentous, 
 complex, and beautiful science, that treats of the 
 multiplication of the human species, viewed with 
 reference to its highest attainable state of well-being. 
 
 " You are at liberty to publish this letter, but / 
 guess you will take good care to do no such thing. 
 'EDWARD LUDLOW." 
 
 " COBBETT*S ANSWER." 
 
 Now, nasty feelosofer, I answer the four Jirst 
 questions with a YES ; but the fifth I answer with 
 a NO. Here we have, then, the grand argument 
 of the shallow and nasty beasts ! Here we have the 
 basis of their "momentous, complex, and beautiful 
 science." The nasty creatures know, that nobody 
 can deny the truth of their observations, as they ap- 
 ply to stock, kept upon a farm ; and not being able 
 to discriminate between that case and the case of 
 a nation, they think that their conclusion is unan- 
 swerable, and they rush on to it with all the eager- 
 ness and glee of a conceited fool who imagines that 
 
TO THE LABOURERS OE ENGLAND. 419 
 
 he has discovered some hitherto-hidden idea that he 
 is bringing forth. 
 
 If the mind of this fellow were not as stupid as it 
 is nasty, he would have perceived that there is no 
 analogy in the two cases ; that a nation, or people, 
 have to provide for their own wants, have to create 
 by their own skill, care, and toil, that which they eat, 
 drink, wear, and are warmed and lodged with ; where- 
 as the stock upon a farm have their wants provided 
 for by others; they create nothing-; they use no 
 skill, no care ; they labour not at all ; but have every 
 thing provided for them by the skill and labour of 
 man, and the labour of those other animals that man 
 calls in to his assistance. 
 
 It is curious to observe how this nasty-minded fel- 
 low, resting upon the propensities and tendencies of 
 nature, flies off, at once, for an illustration, into a 
 state wholly artificial, and talks of the multiplica- 
 tion of animals in this state, instead of animals in a 
 state of nature, where they have to provide for their 
 own wants, and to seek for the means of their own 
 defence and preservation. What ! nasty, impudent, 
 and stupid beast, you want to show us how fast ani- 
 mals would increase, if left to the " unrestrained in- 
 stincts of nature," and as a proof of it, you cite 
 what would be the increase of a flock, guarded during 
 the day by the shepherd and his dog, folded at night, 
 and pampered upon grass, clover, and turnips, cre- 
 ated for them and almost put into their mouths, by 
 the labour of men and horses ! You are a pretty 
 beast to reason upon analogy ! you are a pretty beast 
 to show us what would be the effect of leaving ani- 
 mals to the " unrestrained instincts of nature !" 
 
 To make your argument of analogy worth a straw, 
 you ought to have gone for an illustration, not to 
 flocks and herds, tended and fed and nursed and phy- 
 sicked by the hand of man, but to those untamed 
 animals which acknowledge no owner, and which 
 provide for their own wants and their own protection. 
 Of these the sparrow, the rook, the rabbit, the hare, 
 
420 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 the pheasant, the wood-pigeon, the partridge, and 
 some others, are, in part, provided for by man ; yet it 
 is not without great difficulty that some of them can 
 be made to increase. But the foxes, the badgers, the 
 otters, the weazels, the stoats, the pole-cats ; why do 
 they not overrun the country ? They are killed by 
 man and other animals ; aye, now and then one, but 
 not in so great a proportion as men are killed in va- 
 rious strifes, and by accidents arising out of their state 
 in civil society. And why do not these animals 
 (all great breeders) cover the land then? They are 
 left to the " unrestrained instincts of nature ;" aye, 
 but they are also left to get their own living ; to 
 work for what they eat. Mice and rats, indeed, ab- 
 solutely demand cats and traps to " check the popu- 
 lation" of them ; and, why ? because the food on 
 which they live is provided for them by the hand of 
 man. Take that artificial provision away, and there 
 will be no need of cats and traps to keep them down. 
 And magpies, now, why do not they fill the woods 
 and devour us ? Who ever kills a magpie ? The 
 most artful of birds, the most vigilant, so nearly a 
 match for the hawk, that the latter never attacks 
 him. Seldom is his nest molested ; and yet this is 
 rather a rare bird. And why ? Because he is compell- 
 ed to pass his time in watchings and in labour. Feed 
 the magpies, and take care of them, and they will be 
 as plentiful and as insolent as pensioners, and you 
 must soon begin to eat them, (sweet morsels !) or to 
 kill them at least, or they \\ill fill the air with their 
 chattering. I found, at Barn-Elm, a dove-house with 
 about fifty pair of pigeons. I let them get their own 
 living : in the three years they did not give \isfifty 
 young ones, and their population fell ofl', at last, to 
 about fifteen pair. I had a little pigeon-house at 
 Kensington, set out with four pair, that soon began 
 to take enough young ones for a pigeon-pie once a 
 week ; and yet, in about two years, they increased 
 to such numbers, that I was compelled to slaughter 
 the whole by shooting, and to begin again. But 
 

 TO THE LABOURERS OP ENGLAND. 421 
 
 here they were fed three times a day abundantly, 
 and whenever they went from home it was tor di- 
 version, and not to seek food. Here was u surplus 
 population;" and here was the cause. These lazy 
 devils at Kensington got all the food and none of 
 the work ; and therefore I was compelled to " check 
 their population," and finally to destroy them. 
 
 The hiackbirds and thrushes sometimes rob a man 
 a little, but the torn-tits, goldfinches, nightingales, 
 swallows, martens, hedge-sparrows, and peckers, and 
 numerous other birds, live wholly on worms and buds 
 and insects and seeds of weeds. There is never any 
 overstock of them, though nobody kills them ; but 
 there would be an overstock of all of them, if man 
 were to feed them, and to provide them with nests 
 and protection, and were never to destroy any of 
 them. My little farm-yard at Kensington, contains, 
 at present, two cows, a bull calf, two old sows, five 
 male pigs, and seven females, all these about three 
 months old, two cocks, ten hens, and about seven- 
 teen pigeons. Here, if I were to let them all remain 
 in their natural state, to pursue the "unrestrained 
 instincts of nature," and to go on calving, pigging, 
 and hatching, there would be a goodly assemblage 
 in a short time: there would be a "surplus popula- 
 tion" indeed ! But, then, 1 must continue to feed 
 them all: I must continue to draw from my garden 
 subsistence for them,/rom the fruit of my care and 
 the labour of my men in the raising of the cabbages, 
 turnips, mangel-wurzel, and corn, on which they all 
 live. Upon this, and this alone, I ground my right 
 to " check their population," by killing the calf as 
 soon as he is fit, by taking the milk from the cows, 
 by altering, (as the Yankees call it,) and, afterwards, 
 killing the pigs, by taking the eggs from the. hens, 
 and by taking the young pigeons from their nests and 
 putting them into pies. If I were to leave them to 
 provide for themselves, their population would need 
 no checking ; and if they were to be so situated as 
 to be able to get their own living, they would hardly 
 36 
 
422 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 breed too much, because their numbers could increase 
 only in proportion to the subsistence that they obtain- 
 ed, and that, too, without injury to others ; for, if they 
 committed such injury, they would be destroyed in 
 proportion to the amount of that injury ; and this de- 
 stroying would keep their numbers within due 
 bounds. 
 
 It is exactly the same with human beings, who, if 
 they labour, never CAN breed too fast, because they 
 create food and clothing and other necessaries in 
 proportion to their numbers, and because, indeed, 
 the subsistence must precede the population. But if 
 there be a government to step in, and wrest the sub- 
 sistence from those by whose labour it is created, 
 and hand it over to others who, like my farm-stock, 
 create nothing, then the poor souls that do the work 
 must suffer from want. This is the situation of 
 England at this moment ; and here is the real foun- 
 dation and motive of all that we hear about " surplus 
 population." Those who labour, those who create 
 all the food and all the raiment, seem, at last, resolved 
 not to live any longer in a state of half starvation ; 
 and, therefore, those who live in idleness on the fruit 
 of their labour, are using all sorts of endeavours to 
 make us believe that the working people are too nu- 
 merous, and these devourers are worrying the Go- 
 vernment to death to adopt some scheme for thinning 
 their numbers, not caring a straw about what the 
 country must thereby lose in point of resources and 
 strength. These idlers are, in one respect, not like 
 my farm-stock, for they yield nothing- in return for 
 what they devour. They are like the nags and plea- 
 sure fillies, who, finding the clover run short, pe- 
 titioned the master to sell off, or kill, some of the 
 cart-horses, of whom they alleged that the population 
 was " surplus." " Oh, no !" said the master, " if 
 there be not enough for all, I must get rid of some of 
 you ; for you create nothing, and without the cart- 
 horses, we shall all be starved together." 
 
 There may, indeed, be a real " surplus popula- 
 
TO THE LABOURERS OP ENGLAND. 423 
 
 tion" of idlers ; and this is the case in England now , 
 a real surplus of nags and fillies ; these are crying 
 out for a diminution of the number of the cart-horses, 
 and, contrariwise to the farmer, our Government is 
 listening to the clamour of these luxurious idlers, and 
 seems to be as busy as bees in contriving schemes 
 for checking the breeding and getting rid of those 
 who do all the work and create all the resources of 
 the country, while, at the same time, that same Go- 
 vernment does not one single thing to check the 
 breeding, or to get rid, of those who live in idleness 
 out of the fruit of the working people's labour, and 
 who are mere consumers and wasters of the nation's 
 resources. 
 
 Let us try this a little, as the Yankees say ; let us 
 resort to an illustration, and see if we cannot find a 
 better one than that of this nasty feelosofer, " EDWARD 
 LUDLOW," who, by-the-by, does not tell us where he 
 is to be seen or heard of. If "EDWARD" should 
 happen to know JOHN CAM " HOBHOUSE, ESQ.," who 
 is a member under SIR GLORY,* for the city of West- 
 minster, and who, along with his master, was so pelted 
 with cabbages and turnips, at the election in Covent 
 Garden, last summer; if "EDWARD" should happen to 
 know "John Cam, Esquire" that will be just the thing; 
 for then he will have the illustration. complete. John 
 Cam married a JULIANA HAY, who was a pensioner 
 from her infancy. There were two broods of these 
 Hays standing on the pension list ; but one will be 
 enough for our purpose. 
 
 " Grant, dated 1807, to James Earl of Lauderdale 
 and others, in trust for 
 
 Mary Turner Hay, per year, - - 100/. 
 Dorothy Frances Hay, ... - 100 
 Hannah Charlotte Hay, - - - 100 
 Elizabeth Hay, - 100 
 
 James Hay, 100 
 
 Juliana Hay, 100" 
 
 * Sir Francis Burdett. 
 
424 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Now it is very clear that u EDWARD LUDLOW'S" 
 doctrine would apply here ; for here the parties 
 create nothing. I will not compare such delicate 
 ladies to " stock upon a farm, ;" but " like the lilies 
 of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." 
 They do no work, they create nothing useful, they 
 make come neither food nor raiment nor fuel nor 
 bedding nor houses ; therefore, they may easily be 
 too numerous ; because they do not, like the working 
 classes, create subsistence in proportion to their 
 numbers ; they draw their subsistence, or, rather, the 
 exciseman draws it for them, out of the fruit of 
 the labour of others, just as the farmer brings the 
 food to his pigs out of the fields which have been 
 ploughed and sowed by him and the horses. Such 
 people, therefore, if left to follow the " unrestrained 
 instincts of nature," and if fed in proportion to their 
 numbers, must soon actually cover the face of the 
 earth, and devour up every thing upon it. 
 
 But suppose that LADY JULIANA had not had the 
 exciseman to draw subsistence for her from the fruit 
 of the labour of the Scotch people, (it is a Scotch af- 
 fair,) how would the case have stood then? She 
 must have worked for what she ate and wore ; she 
 might at this moment have been weeding in the corn, 
 and by-and-by hay-making, reaping, and then hop- 
 picking, and in the winter, spinning and knitting. 
 In that case, she would have created as much as she 
 consumed ; she would have been no surplus ; and 
 if she had increased there would have been no harm, 
 because her increase would, in the usual course of 
 things, have brought " a proportionate increase of 
 subsistence." Let " EDWARD LUDLOW" go and ask 
 JOHN CAM (if he be acquainted with him) whether 
 this be not sound doctrine; and when he is about it, 
 to make the illustration more ample, he may ask the 
 Squire how the case stands with regard even to the 
 Squire himself who is one, they say, of a family of 
 TEN CHILDREN, and whose father has, as " Com- 
 missioner of Nabob of ArcoCs Debts" (O Lord !) 
 

 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 425 
 
 received about fifteen hundred pounds a year for near- 
 ly, or quite, the last thirty years ; and, of course, 
 about forty-jive thousand pounds on the whole, 
 [216,000 dollars.] 
 
 Here again the doctrine of " LUDLOW" applies : 
 here is Cl surplus population :" here, if the parties 
 were left to the " unrestrained instincts of nature," 
 they would certainly devour up the earth itself in 
 time. But if these ten persons were not thus pro- 
 vided for out of the fruit of other people's labour, 
 they might now be all engaged in occupations in 
 which they would, in some way or other, be producers 
 of food, clothing, houses, ships, or some other things 
 necessary to man ; and then the addition that they 
 would make to the population would be no surplus ; 
 because they would, by their labour, cause a propor- 
 tionate addition to the food and other things neces- 
 sary to man, and necessary to the support of the 
 power of the country. 
 
 The conclusion, then, is this : that of those who 
 create useful things by their labour, either of hands 
 or head, there never can be too many in any country ; 
 because they will create subsistence in proportion to 
 their numbers, and there will be less population in a 
 given space of unproductive land than in the same 
 space of productive land, because the subsistence 
 must exist before the new mouths can come; but 
 that, of those who create nothing useful, there may 
 be, as there is now in this country, a great surplus 
 population, and this may be so prodigious as to pro- 
 duce something very nearly approaching to general 
 famine, as is the case at this moment in Ireland, 
 whence the idlers bring away so much as to leave not 
 a sufficiency even of the accursed root to keep the 
 producing classes from starving. 
 
 To bar all cavil upon the subject, let me add, that 
 I do not include amongst the idlers, lawyers, doctors, 
 or teachers of any sort, as far as they be necessary in 
 a country ; nor the makers and administrators of the 
 laws ; nor soldiers, nor sailors, necessary for the de- 
 36* 
 
426 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 fence of the country. These assist those who create 
 and who convey from hand to hand the things cre- 
 ated by securing to them protection and peace, and 
 the enjoyment of the things created. The owner of 
 the land is no idler ; for the land is necessary to all ; 
 and without an owner it could not be advantageously 
 used. But those who draw their subsistence from, 
 those who labour, without adequate services in return ; 
 these are the idlers ; and they do not deserve to be 
 put on a level with stock upon a farm, because these 
 we, first or last, turn into meat, shoes, or coats ; 
 whereas the idlers, like the vermin that suck our 
 blood, or those that eat up our victuals in our cup- 
 boards, are, in their lives, our torment, and, in their 
 deaths, our disgust. 
 
 There, nasty "EDWARD LUDLOW ;" now go and 
 put forth your scheme for sending the working-peo- 
 ple away, or for " incapacitating them from breed- 
 ing ;" and then go to some farm-yard in the north of 
 Wiltshire, and, as the reward for discovering your 
 " beautiful science," have your brains knocked out 
 by the milk-maids against the posts of the cow-cribs. 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 TO THE LABOURERS, 
 On the folly of their putting their Money into Clubs. 
 
 Kensington, Jan. 1, 1832. 
 MY FRIENDS, 
 
 It is the general practice of those who invent some- 
 thing to delude and cheat other people, to give a good 
 name to the thing which they invent ; and, accord- 
 ingly, those who have invented this scheme for inr 
 ducing you to give up your earnings, to prevent them 
 from paying poor-rates, have christened these clubs 
 " BENEFIT clubs," instead of calling them, as they 
 ought to have done, clubs to wheedle money out of 
 the hard-earned pence of the working-peoplej in 
 
TO THE LABOURERS OP ENGLAND. 427 
 
 !er to spare the purses of the landowners, big 
 farmers, and other rich men. It was not till about 
 seventy years ago that clubs like these were ever 
 heard of in England. Before this Protestant Church 
 of England sprang up, the poor were relieved out of 
 the tithes. Since that, the parsons, the bishops, the 
 deans and chapters, and the nobility and gentry, have 
 taken all the tithes to themselves; and the poor have 
 been relieved by what are called the poor-rates. The 
 same may be said with regard to the church-rates, 
 which also formerly came out of the tithes. 
 
 There needed no clubs before this Protestant 
 Church establishment came, because the priests re- 
 lieved all the poor out of the tithes, and out of the 
 rents of lands, and other property, which had beea 
 bequeathed to the clergy for that purpose. There 
 was therefore no occasion for poor-rates, for all poor 
 persons were sure to be taken care of, whether in 
 sickness or in health, to the end of their days ; and 
 besides, so happy was the state of the country, that 
 there were few persons poor in any one parish ; the 
 wages paid to labourers were so good, that no man 
 who was able to work, ever stood in need of relief; 
 and in case of sickness, people in general were so 
 well off, that there were few who could not be con- 
 veniently relieved by their relations. This fatal 
 change took place about two hundred and fifty years 
 ago; and it is about two hundred and thirty years 
 ago that the poor-rates weie enacted. For many 
 years poverty was not so great, wages were not so 
 low, in proportion to the price of provisions, as to 
 compel many persons to apply for parish relief. 
 When I was a boy, it used to be deemed a shame 
 to apply to the parish. But the desolating and ex- 
 travagantly expensive, and long and bloody, wars of 
 George III. plunged the nation into debts, so great, 
 made the taxes so heavy, and made wages so low, 
 in proportion to the price of provisions, that labour- 
 ing men were compelled, in case of sickness espe 
 cially, either to expose their families to be starved, 
 
42S TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 or to obtain assistance greater than their relations 
 'were able to give them. In this state of things the 
 cunning fellows, who had to pay the poor-rates, in- 
 vented what thej called " BENEFIT clubs," which 
 was a scheme for drawing out of the wages of the 
 labourers, who were able to work, the means of re- 
 lieving those who were unable to work; or, in other 
 words, to make the healthy labourers pinch their 
 bellies and their backs, in order to relieve the sick 
 labourers, and thus save the pockets of these cun- 
 ning rich fellows. 
 
 Every penny that a labouring man pays into these 
 clubs, is a penny given to the rich ; and, besides that, 
 it is a penny given to uphold Sturges Bourne's 
 bills, and to pay hired overseers, and in short to nay 
 for causing himself and his neighbours to be put into 
 harness and to be made to draw carts and wagons 
 like beasts of burden. If you could have any doubt 
 in your minds about the tendency of these clubs, you 
 would only have to look at the persons who are the 
 most eager to promote such clubs, and to uphold 
 them and perpetuate them. There was a fellow, 
 some years ago, a Scotch fellow, named OLD GEORGE 
 ROSE, who had been a purser in the navy ; who was 
 a famous tool of the famous Pin ; from a PURSER he 
 became a right honourable privy councillor / he 
 received for many years not less than ten thousand 
 pounds a year of the public money ; he got a sine- 
 cure place settled upon him for life of three thousand 
 pounds a year, and settled upon his son, GEORGE 
 ROSE, for his life also. This man became, about 
 forty years ago, the great promoter of benefit clubs ; 
 he lived at Cufihells. in the New Forest, in Hamp- 
 shire ; he was himself a member of a club there ; 
 he used punctually to pay in his pennies ; he used 'to 
 dint with the club ; and thus he drew in, thus this 
 cunning Scotchman humbugged, all the poor chop- 
 sticks about that country, taking good care never to 
 tell them that his carriages, and horses, and fine park, 
 and deer, all came out of their labour. 
 
TO THE LABOURERS OP ENGLAND. 429 
 
 Another great patron of benefit clubs is that FLEM- 
 ING, (whose name was WILLIS,) who was lately a 
 member for Hampshire, and who was so pelted off 
 the hustings at Winchester. Can this man want to 
 do good to the people ? Can he be the friend of the 
 working people ? Can he, who was the tool in the 
 hands of the parsons in Hampshire, mean to do the 
 working people any good ? Besides, you see all the 
 greediest of the big farmers, the most eager to pro* 
 mote and uphold these clubs. 
 
 Then, again, mark the conduct of the Govern- 
 ment ! What business had it and the Parliament to 
 meddle with the affairs of these clubs ? W r hat right 
 had they to interfere with the management of these 
 concerns ? What right had they to meddle with the 
 management and distribution of money belonging to 
 the members of a club, any more than with money 
 belonging to any partnership whatsoever ? Yet 
 they have interfered ; they have passed laws to give 
 their magistrates a superintending power over these 
 clubs ; they have passed laws to prevent the mem- 
 bers from dividing the money at their own pleasure ; 
 they have passed laws which, in effect, take the 
 money from under the command of the members of 
 the club ; and, in a great measure, take it away and 
 make it a part of what is called the national debt. 
 
 The savings banks, as they are called, were in- 
 vented by that same cunning Scotchman, old GEORGB 
 ROSE. The money collected by these things is, what 
 is called, put into the funds, and the poor people 
 imagine thai the funds mean a chest or box where 
 the money j* locked up. Alas ! my poor friends, 
 there is no such chest or box ; the funds mean the 
 national or government debt ; and the putting of 
 money into the funds is the lending of money to the 
 Government ; and the Government pays the interest 
 of it, not out of any fund that it has, but out of the 
 taxes, a part of which you pay in every gallon of 
 malt, pot of beer, pound of sugar, bit of soap, or can- 
 dle, that you consume, and upon every bit of tobacco 
 
430 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 that goes into your mouth ; so that, first, you put 
 your earnings into the clubs, or the hanks ; next, the 
 Government borrows it; and next, if you ever get 
 any interest, you get it out of the taxes that you your- 
 selves have paid ! Nothing that ever was heard of 
 in the world before is equal to this delusion and folly 
 on your part ; and to the craft of those who induce 
 you to put your money into these clubs and banks. 
 
 When a club man is ill, the parish give him no re- 
 lief; because he has an allowance out of the club. 
 When a man becomes seventy years old, he has an 
 allowance from the club for the rest of his life ; and, 
 whether sick or well, the parish never give him any 
 relief to the day of his death ! One would think that 
 this was enough to open your eyes : one would think 
 that here was enough to make you see why the big, 
 the grasping, the grinding farmers, are so eager to 
 get you into clubs, " into benefit clubs ;" that is to 
 say, into clubs that are of great benefit to them, and 
 of great injury to you ; here is enough to make you 
 see why they do you the honour to come and dine 
 with you once a year, though all the rest of the year 
 they treat you far worse than they treat their dogs. 
 
 If a man earn more money than is necessary to 
 supply him with food and with raiment and the other 
 things that he wants, cannot he keep Ms money him- 
 self? Cannot he take as good care of it, as the grinding 
 farmers and the Government can ? yes, and if he 
 happen to be sick, he has relief from the parish, and 
 his own money too, and he ought to have both ; for 
 the money that he has saved he ought to keep till 
 old age, as the just reward of his extraordinary in- 
 dustry and frugality. A drunken and dissolute life 
 produces illness ; and as there will naturally be 
 some drunken and dissolute persons in the club, they 
 will be sick oftener than the rest ; so that the sober 
 and orderly man has to work to maintain the profli- 
 gate in his sickness. Then, again, some men have 
 hereditary diseases, such as consumption and king's- 
 evil. These unfortunate persons aare entitled to 
 
TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 43 I 
 
 compassion from the healthy labouring man ; but 
 they are entitled to support from the lands of the 
 parish, and ought not to be made in this manner to 
 extract their maintenance from the healthy labouring 
 men. 
 
 The depositing of money in this way, has a very 
 bad moral effect ; it makes men less careful to ad- 
 here to such conduct as is necessary to the preser- 
 vation of health. It tends to make them drunkards, 
 and to be less cautious how they expose themselves 
 to bodily harm. In many cases it makes them suc- 
 cessful hypocrites ; makes them either sham illness 
 altogether, or to affect its existence after it has ceased. 
 
 But, after all, and if all the other objections were 
 removed, what sense is there in the thing? What 
 is there in it but pure folly ? What is there in it but 
 giving away your money ? All the men that enter 
 the club must be young and healthy at the time ; 
 and why should a young and healthy man give his 
 money to any body else to keep for him against a 
 day of sickness ? Either he pinches his back or his 
 belly for the sake of lodging this money in the club, 
 or he has this money over and above that which he 
 wants for his back or his belly ; if the former, then 
 he enfeebles himself; makes himself a poor mean- 
 looking fellow ; undermines his health and strength, 
 solely for the advantage of those who live in luxury 
 and splendour on the fruit of his toil: if the latter, 
 why not keep the money in his own chest ? In the 
 course of the year he pays thirty or forty shillings 
 into the all-swallowing club. In the course of five 
 years he pays in ten pounds perhaps. But suppose 
 it to be only twenty shillings a year, how many times 
 does a man see an occasion in which, by the means 
 of this little bit of ready money, he could, to very 
 great advantage, purchase a pig, plant a bit of ground, 
 or do something by which the money would produce 
 him more to eat, drink, or wear, than two pounds laid 
 out from hand to mouth ? Many are such occasions 
 that present themselves ; but you cannot avail your- 
 
432 TO THE LABOURERS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 self of them, for your money is locked up in the club. 
 You cannot brew without malt, and hops ; the club 
 has got your money, and you must go to the ale- 
 house, and purchase your beer by the pot. So that 
 these clubs, view them in what light you will, are 
 injurious to the working people, and serve no other 
 purpose than that of making their lot harder than it 
 would have been without them. Young men deem a 
 bastard child a great burden ; but, not to mention, 
 that, in this case, there has been something like value 
 received, and that time, and reasonable time too, takes 
 the burden from your shoulders, which, besides, you 
 may at any time remove by doing justice to the 
 mother : whereas the club sticks to you all your life 
 long, while you have health and strength sufficient 
 to enable you to sit all the day and crack flint stones 
 with a hammer. 
 
 Therefore^ my advice to all young men is, Never 
 give a farthing to one of these clubs ; and if you 
 have begun to give, cease to give immediately ; to 
 have been foolish, is no reason for being foolish still; 
 and be you well assured that the first loss is the best. 
 Stuck on to one of these clubs, you cannot remove 
 out of the kingdom ; nor even very well from one 
 part of the kingdom to the other, without losing all 
 that you have put into this craftily-contrived trap. 
 Get out of it if you be in ; keep out of it if you be 
 out ; and trust to God, to your own industry, and so- 
 briety, and to the law of the land, for aid in case of 
 sickness ; and thus merit the commendation of 
 Your friend, 
 
 WM. COBBETT. 
 
 THE END. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 RENEWALS ONLYTEL. NO. 642-3405 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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