"that they should wait to have the ad"vantage of the Report. It was his in"tention that all the surviving Members " of the Committee which was appointed "upon a similar subject in the year 1793, "should be upon the present, and that the "number of the whole should be 21. He "concluded with moving, That a Com"mittee should be appointed to enquire "into the State of Commercial Credit, and "to report it to the House, together with "its opinions and observations there"upon."A little debate ensued, during which it was thrown out, that the embarrassments of the country arise from over-trading. What is meant by overtrading? Why, surely, people making or importing more goods than they can find customers for. Chaffer about it as long as the pamphleteers will, this is the true meaning of the words over-trading. However, without going any further, let us take Mr. Perceval's own account of the thing." Disadvantages under which "trade suffers owing to the state of credit "and the condition of the markets, formerly open to the sufferers."- -State of credit! why, man, every body suffers from a want of credit, or, from having less of it than he formerly had. And, what is meant by the" condition of markets formerly "open;" why, to be sure, that these markets are now shut. And, this being the case, the remedy is very obvious, namely, the finding of new markets, which, of course, would, in an instant, remove the " disadvantages;" but, how or where or when to find these new markets, abroad, I, withall due deference, leave to George Rose and the Board of Trade, observing, in passing, that this description of Mr. Perceval does not seem to correspond very well with the opinions of SIR JOHN SINCLAIR as to the prosperous effects of an increase of Bank Notes. But, let us take a little closer view of the matter.--What is the object? For what have all these suffering merchants and manufacturers applied to the Treasury? Why, a loan of money. A very natural application. Most men, who are in distress, apply for money where they think it likely to get any one to lend it them.--What a very pretty system this is, which was begun by "the "great statesman now no more, to prop up the commerce in 1793; what an influence it must create; how completely dependent it must render these men upon the minister of the day; what very important effects it must produce in political and party matters, and how it accords with the principles of free representation and a responsible ministry, every man with only one grain of sense in skull will easily decide; but, it is not in that light that I now wish to view it. I wish to view it merely in a commercial light. The immediate object of the applicants is to obtain a loan of money out of that which the people have paid in taxes. To determine whether it be advisable or not to grant their request, we ought to consider many things; but, at present, I will only inquire what end such loan would be likely to answer. The distress arises from the want of markets for the sale of goods; which is only another name for a falling off in the value of the goods; or, to express it in another way, it is another name for losses in trade. And, pray, if the present applicants are to be, by gift or loan (for it, in the end, is the same;) if these applicants are to have their losses in trade made good, or lessened; if they are to be thus propped up by the government, or, more properly speaking, by the people at large, why should not the same sort of support be extended to the 1670 Bankrupts who appeared in the Gazettes of last year, and to the 3000 Bankrupts who will appear in the Gazettes of this year, if the rest of the year be as prolific in Bankruptcies as the first two months of it have been? I really should be glad to know why all these persons are to be overlooked, if the present applicants are to have mo ney lent to them to prop them up? The Bankrupts have failed from various causes; from indiscretions of one kind or another But, is not over-trading an indiscretion too? They have, at any rate, all failed from losses in trade; and, it is, state it how you will, from losses in trade that the present applicants have been reduced to the necessity of asking for a loan out of the produce of the taxes.Take this in another light. Inquire how many of the people are severely suffering in their pecuniary circumstances from the weight of the taxes themselves. Aye, how many have been reduced to the greatest distress; how many have received their last, their falling blow, from the taxes; and then what a thing is here? One part of the community sinking into ruin in the yielding of the means to prop up the credit of another part of that same community! But, though it is hardly possible to withhold the reflecting mind from diverging at every step into views of this it should be rejected, I shall, I flatter my- sort, let us, if we can, confine ourselves to the bare question, whether the proposed loan is likely to answer any good purpose, even as to the borrowers themselves. Now, suppose a sum of this money to be given to a great manufacturer, who has a large stock of goods and cannot sell any. What is he to do with the money thus borrowed out of the taxes? Pay his debts? Very well. But what good will that do him in the end? He has the money to pay back again to the Treasury, and where is he to get it? Why, "from "the sale of his goods, to be sure.' Aye, to be sure he must, if he can sell them; but, then, this argues the finding of a new market, or the re-opening of the old ones, which latter, so far from being re-opened, become daily more firmly closed.--Is he to use the money for the purpose of continuing his expenditure, either on himself and family or on his work-people? If the former, how is he to repay, and ought he not to reduce his expenditure as the only means of enabling him to keep out" stay here, I die!"- -New markets then of the Gazette; and,, if the latter, if the money you lend him is to be laid out upon labour in his manufactory, and upon materials, he will have more goods instead of less, and you will, by your loan, have insured that ruin, from which, if left to himself, he might have escaped; or, at least, you will have added to the weight of his fall, and have made it more destructive to all around him.It is exactly the same with the West India merchant. What good will you do him by enabling him to pay his debts from a loan for the repayment of which his goods are to be held, I suppose, as a pledge? I do not know what the terms of the loan are proposed to be; but, I know that if re-payment is to take place, that the merchant, who stands in need of the loan, must find the means of re-payment out of the sale of his goods; and, that this sale must necessarily suppose some out-let, or market, which he cannot now find; some market that does not now exist; for, if it did exist, he would not stand in need of the loan.This I am not afraid to assume as conclusive; and, therefore, the question is reduced to this simple point: is there the smallest probability of the old markets being re opened or of finding new ones? As to the former, I have, I think, submitted ample reasons for deciding it in the negative; but, as to the latter, the finding of new markets, I have myself a proposition to offer, for which, though we can have none, unless, in return for sugar and coffee which we cannot sell, and for which we cannot much longer find room, we send out our manufactures and clothe the negroes.This brings me, at once, to my project of a new market; a market capacious, convenient, sure, and durable, setting Napoleon and all the world at defiance.I have often been reproached with pointing out evils and not, at the same time, pointing out a remedy. This reproach is quite unfounded, though very catching, and it was always resorted to during the administration of the first successor of the great statesman now no more," Mr. Addington. But, must we find fault of nothing for which we cannot find a remedy? Who was to find a remedy for the Walcheren Expedition? Who were to bring the men to life again? And, therefore, was no one to find fault of it? I Must no man find fault with the state of the paper-money, unless he can make gold come back again? This would be a fine security for folly and vice of all sorts, and would suit the case of peculator or murderer as well as that of any political offender.Well, but, at any rate, have now my remedy, and shall, with all becoming deference to the superior wisdom of the Committee, propose to state it.It has been shown above, that all this commercial distress arises from the want of a market for our goods; that is to say, for sugar and coffee, and for divers articles of wearing apparel and household furniture; for, as to food, or, as it was called in Queen Elizabeth's days, vittal, we find none too much of that, having at home an abundance of mouths for dispatching it.-Aye, and have we not backs enough too for the cloths, and houses for the furniture?—The reader needs no more. His eyes are opened in a moment. Light bursts in upon him from every quarter. He sees all my plan in a moment; and wonders how it came to escape him. He has been looking abroad, seeking in foreign lands what was under his nose, as I have very often looked about the room for my pen while it was in my mouth.- -Bucks! Are we in want of them? Look at Ireland; look at Scotland; look at Wales; nay, look at many parts of England; look even at those very manufacturing towns where the goods are piled up to the cracking of the warehouses, and see if you can find no backs to cover! How many of these towns does the traveller pass through without being way-laid at the entrance and the exit by a swarm of children more than half naked, running and tumbling and bowing and praying and crying in the hope, often disappointed, of obtaining the means of buying an ounce of bread? Enter their dwelling places; see misery in all her horrors, hunger, filth, disease, the blood poisoned, and the heart hardened to a flint. Talk of national prosperity, Sir John Sinclair, look here, and say, if you can, that I have exaggerated the picture. Talk of improvements in roads and canals! What is that, while the misery of the people, as the poor-rates will tell you, are daily increasing?—Talk of roads and canals and bridges! These are no signs of national prosperity. They are signs of accumulated, but not of diffused property, and this latter alone can insure national prospevity, which, rightly understood, is only another name for the general happiness of the people.But, I have been led, I perceive, into another digression. To come back to my subject, why should not all the goods, which cannot find a market abroad, be disposed of in clothing the naked at home? A couple or three millions would shoe and breech the people of the Hebrides and the Highlands, and twice the sum might clothe the Irish, and about the same as the former might very well be disposed of for a similar purpose in England and Wales. Sugar and Coffer, though not much known amongst any of the persons in my view, would soon teach the possessors the use of them. And, as to the Houshold furniture, cloathing and the use of sugar and coffee would naturally call for tables and chairs and drawers and hooks and crockery ware and spoons and kettles and locks and keys; and hence the whole would go hand in hand.—— Here would be 12 millions of money laid out? but it would not be thrown away; it would not be sunk in the sea; it would not be sent abroad; it would not be swallowed up in distant lands; it would produce no misery any where; it would occasion nobody to bleed or to suffer in any way; it would give immediate and effectual relief to the merchants and manufactures, while it would give comfort to the hearts of millions of their countrymen, and might lay the foundation of permanent happiness amongst those who are smarting under keen and constant misery. Now, if Sir John Sinclair should tell me, that this is a foolish scheme, and that, in taking money out of the taxes to give to the poor to make up for the inadequacy of their means, I am acting contrary to all the sound principles of political economy, I beg leave to ask, whether this is not as reasonable as it would be to take money of the taxes to give to the rich to make up for the inadequacy of their means, especially as my scheme includes the effectual means of relieving both rich and poor ?At any rate here is my scheme; and, if Sir John, or any body else, docs not approve of it, let him find out a better; and, till that be done, let him not laugh. INFORMATIONS AND SPECIAL JURIES.I have, in a subsequent part of this Number inserted the speeches of Lords HoLLAND and ELLENBOROUGH, and their explanations.The subject is of vital importance; and, though these speeches have been published in the News-papers, in precisely the same words, I think it my duty to give them here, in order that they may be read more deliberately, and referred to; and, in order, too, that they may be read all over the world.—I beg my readers to omit no part of them.Lord ERSKINE's speech was of great importance, and I mean to give it in my next together with the answer of the Lord Chancellor. This is a subject which all men are interested in; and it is my duty to keep the public attention closely rivetted to it, if I am able. SOMERSETSHIRE MEETING.From a that day, who said he was sorry to bear letter inserted below, the reader will see witness to the truth of my statement, what was the nature and what the result of" that there was at this time a million and the meeting in this county, which, it seems," a half of paupers in England, subsisting 'has not, in the memory of man, seen a coun ty meeting of the people before this.A great deal was done. Many people were assembled; discussion took place; truths were uttered to them; they were told what they did not know and what they had no idea of; and, to prevent the Address proposed by the callers of the meeting from being carried, both INS and OUTS were obliged to unite, and to get together all that, with all their united means, they could muster, from every part of the county; and, after all, they carried their point by a majority of only about 7 to 5. This, therefore, I deem a great victory. The ground was new and untilled. It is now broken up; and the seeds of Reform are safely deposited in its bosom. The yeomanry and tradesmen have now seen that they are something; and, it shall go hard but they profit from the discovery. WM. COBBETŤ. State Prison, Newgate, Friday, March 8, 1811. TO THE INDEPENDANT FREEHOLDERS AND INHABITANTS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. GENTLEMEN; I cannot refrain from of fering you my congratulation on the effect of the first Public Meeting ever called in this County-Notwithstanding our opponents obtained a small majority against the Address which I had the honour to propose to you, on that day; yet I am clearly convinced, that you gained a more complete victory, in the full admission of the truth of all the leading parts of that Address, (by every one of those Gentlemen who spoke against its adoption) than you would have gained by a mere majority of numbers, without this unqualified admission of those facts. The Address pointed out, clearly and explicitly, the distressing situation of the country; and it stated, that the cause of all these distresses arose from a want of a fair and free Representation of the People in Parliament. These facts were explicitly acknowledged by Sir John Cox Hippesly, who appeared to be the principal orator of both the parties, that united against the People on "on parish allowance, which was 2lbs. of "bread per head per week less than the "allowance to felons confined in our jails." His only answer (if it might be called an answer) was, that there were 30 millions of paupers in France! He admitted that the cause of all the afflictions and misfortunes of this once free and happy nation, arose from the state of the Representation, and said, that he had always voted for that Reform, which was the object of our Address; but that he found "this to be an improper time to accomplish it.” On his being asked to name the proper time, he declined to make any answer. Now, as all the Gentlemen who spoke upon this subject completely agreed with Sir John, I contend it was a great victory obtained over the enemies of Reform; for, had we produced such an Address, and supported it in the same language of truth three years back, instead of having all our points admitted to be true, only that it was an improper time to enforce them; instead of this, all the facts would have been impudently denied, and the mildest appellations we should have been branded with, would have been jacobins and levellers. These three facts were clearly ascertained and allowed by all parties on that day; First, that it was proper the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the county of Somerset should assemble in County Meeting, for they all congratulated you upon your meeting; second, that, the country was in an awful and distressing situation; third, that it was highly necessary that there should be a Parliamentary Reform, only this was not the proper time for it, and that you, the Freeholders and Inhabitants of the County, were not the proper men to effect it. Pray, who are the proper men to effect it? Are Sir John Cox Hippesly, Sir Thomas Ackland, Col. Horner, the Rev. Mr. Trevillian, and Justice Goodfard, likely men to bring about Parliamentary Reform? Do you believe, Gentlemen, that they will ever call you together and tell you now is the time for Reform? You saw and heard them all on Monday last, and if after this, you still believe that they are the sort of men likely to procure you an equal and fair Representation in Parliament; if you wait for these leading men as they have been called in your County, to bring about a Reform, you deserve not even the chance of ever obtaining it. What could you discover in these Gentlemen to make you believe that they will ever attempt to tender you any relief from the load of taxes under which you groan? Did they promise you any such thing? Did they give you any reason to believe that they wish to have your opinion again? Although they have been called your leading men, did they ever assemble you in County Meeting? Will they ever do it? No, believe me, never. They heard too much of your sentiments that day, ever to wish to try the experiment again. That day the united influence of all the leading men, of all the magistrates, of all the men of large landed property, the coalition of both parties, the INS and the OUTS, and all their mighty influence, actively exerted for the last three weeks against you; and what has been the result? Why truth, unaccompanied by any influence, prevailed.Although you divided in a minority in the proportion of 3 to 2, yet truth prevailed, and, be assured, there is now a firm foundation laid, for establishing the future independance of the County of Somerset. I am, Gentlemen, Bath, March 6, 1811. LIBEL LAW. Speeches of LORD HOLLAND and LORD ELLENBOROUGH, in the House of Lords, on the 4th of March, 1811, on the Motion made by the former for an Inquiry into the Number of Informations Ex Officio, filed by the Attorney General. LORD HOLLAND (after some introduction) said:-It was well known that there were three modes of proceeding in cases of libels-the first was by action for damages, which had no reference to his Motion, nor had he the least intention of proposing any proceeding respecting actions, indictments or informations in cases of libel consisting of private slander, his intentions being confined to proceedings for public libels. The second mode of proceeding was by indictment found by twelve sworn men, after which there must be the verdict of twelve men to convict the party accused; and the third was by information. With respect to this latter mode of proceeding, the informations filed in the Crown Office against persons for libel, there was formerly scarcely any difference between informations at the suit of parties, in which the King was the nominal prosecutor, and informations ex officio by the Attorney General. Great abuses, however, having arisen in the practice of filing their informations, by which in many instances parties were oppressed by being put to great expence, without ever being brought to trial, the Act of William and Mary was passed, declaring in the preamble the grievances which had arisen, and enacting that with the exception of informations filed ex officio by the Attorney General, no information should in future be filed without leave of the Court, that the party obtaining the information should enter into recognizance to prosecute it, and should be liable in costs to the Defendant, if the charge was groundless. If he could shew that the power of filing informations ex officio had been abused, that parties had been fined without trial in the expence they were compelled to incur, although never brought to trial, then, he contended, he should lay an ample ground for his motion. He did not mean to question the legality of informations ex officio, he was aware that the power of filing them rested upon a continued stream of precedent and the admission of the law, and that though, according to Sir Francis Winnington, an obiter dictum of Lord Hale, directly questioned the legality of informations ex officio, yet there was every reason to believe that Lord Hale never delivered the opinion which he was thus supposed to entertain. Yet when a question upon this subject was when within the memory perhaps of some under consideration in Parliament, and who heard him, men of the greatest eminence, Serjeant Glynn, Mr. Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, and Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, had questioned the legality of informations ex officio, Mr. Dunning even throwing down the gauntlet, and decidedly stating, that an information ex officio was an abuse, it mignt surely be an apology for others not learned in the law of the land having doubts of the legality of this proceeding. He did not, however, intend to question the legality of informations ex officio; he admitted the force of a continued stream of precedent, and the admission of law; the Attorney General was considered a responsible officer of the Crown, and with a view to the safety of the government, a power was given to him to supersede the neces sity of a Grand Jury; but the implication |