COBBETT'S TWO-PENNY TRASH ·For the Month of February, 1831. 1. A Letter to the King's Ministers on the way to put a stop to the Fires. 2. A Letter to the Labourers on their Duties and their Rights. 3. A Letter to the Folks of Botley, on the Fire at Fleming's house at Stoneham Park. KING'S MINISTERS, Kensington, 17th January, 1231, BEFORE I proceed to point out to you the means alluded to in the title of this. paper, I shall endeavour to convince you of these three things:-1. That the fires have been set by the labourers, without instigation from any body; 2. That the means of terror, or of punishment, are not calculated to put an end to the fires; and, 3. That the fires, unless effectually put a stop to, may become far more extensive than they have hitherto been. It is necessary, first of all, that I make good these three propositions because unless you be convinced, and heartily convinced, of the truth of them, you will not listen, and it is not reason LONDON: Published by the Author, 11, Bolt-court, Fleet-street; and sold by all Booksellers. able that you should listen, to that which I have to offer with regard to the measures, which I think ought now to be adopted; and, therefore, the best possible proof that I can give of my sincere and anxious desire to cause to be effected the great object stated in the title of this my address to you, is, to endeavour to implant this conviction firmly in your minds. I "FIRST, then, that the fires have been set by the labourers, and without instigation. You must be convinced of this, or, you will not listen for a moment to the remedies which I have to propose. At first thought on the matter, it will appear to be absurd to state such a proposition as this, especially after the numerous trials that have taken place without there having appeared, throughout the whole country, one single particle of evidence to give countenance to the notion, that any one fire in any place had been set by any person but a farm labourer; or that any person whatsoever, except a farm labourer or farm labourers, had instigated the perpetrator to the act. SCOTT ELDON (I will always when speaking of this person retain the word ScoTT) is reported to have said distinctly that one of the country jails was full of foreigners, who had been committed for these crimes. PEEL, KNATCHBULL, and divers others, stated as a matter of course that the fires had been instigated by persons going about in gigs, curricles, post-chaises, landaus! There was a woman in Philadelpliia, who,as a quaker neighbour told me, imagined herself to be a tea-pot, stretched out one arm in the shape of a spout, put the other a kimbo to represent the handle, and cried out to every-body who came near her, "Pray dont break me!" "What," said my neighbour "would thee have done in that case, friend Cobbett ?" "Why," said I, "being a tea-pot, I could have taken care that nothing but water should have gone into her in the shape of liquid, and that no solids should have gone into her till she had washed all the dirty linen, and had scrubbed every floor in the house;" a remedy, by-the-by, which I beg leave to recommend to my readers in general, if they hap pen to be troubled with wives with imaginations so extrád ordinarily strong. 7 926uia Strong, however, as the indulgence of the husband had rendered the imagination of this lazy she-devil, it certainly did not surpass, in point of force, that of those persons who have ascribed these fires, or any part of them, to the instru mentality or instigation of any-body but the labourers themselves; and the wonder is how any one ever can have enter tained such an idea. For a good while I believed that no one was sincere in his professions upon this subject; but, at last, I met a gentleman, a country gentleman, a considerable land-owner and land-cultivator, a magistrate of long standing and great experience, a public-spirited man, not only a liberal but a generous man, a man singularly good, not only to his own labourers, but to all round about him, à considerate, a mild, an indulgent man; a man of sincerity and veracity as perfect as I have ever known to exist in man and this gentleman, while he was ready to make every apology for the other violences, ascribing them to the real, sufferings of the people, told me this, that as to the fires, the "people have certainly been instigated to those by a SET "OF CONSPIRATORS IN LONDON!" 66 I was astounded to hear him utter these words. I could account for Scott Eldon's foreigners; for, when he talked of the intelligence coming in a letter, one could see that it was a hoax. I could account, without much racking of my brains, for the strong imaginations of Peel and Knatchbull, and the rest; but I really was frightened when I heard this ⚫ gentleman talking of a conspiracy in London instigating the fires; and, in his case, I can account for the monstrous absurdity only by reflecting on the effect of the stories which the people in the country are continually hearing of the surprising dexterity and cleverness, and the profound wickedness that exists amongst the discontented spirits in London. If this gentleman were to dwell a little while in the vicinage of these surprisingly clever and discontented spirits, his alarm would pretty quickly cease: he would soon find, that if he could keep his wine decanter and brandy-bottle from them, that need be his only care; and that if he would let them have their run at them, he would find them some of the best-tempered fellows in the world. Men that talk very much are apt to do very little; and I; if I had ricks and barns at stake, should be more afraid of the vengeful feelings of one single labourer, whose son or brother I had caused to be imprisoned or severely dealt with for poaching, than I should be of the speeches, the writings, and the machinations of all the discontented spirits of London, who, besides all the rest, hardly know wheat from peas when they see them growing, hardly know a rick from a barn; and certainly do not know a barn from a stable; are totally ignorant of the state of the homesteads and of the means of assailing them; would be frightened out of their wits at the `idea of going along a dark lane or over a down by themselves; and, in short, are as incompetent to give instructions or suggestions in such matters as the labourers would be to give instructions with regard to getting up plays and farces at Covent Garden. byet, so loth are you to acknowledge; so loth are the land-owners, the parsons, the bull-frog farmers, aye, and the debt-owners, too; so loth are you all to acknowledge that these fires have proceeded purely from the minds of the fabourers, that you all still cling to this monstrous idea of extraneous instigation. The cause of this clinging is this; you cannot acknowledge that the fires have proceeded purely from the minds of the labourers, without tacitly ac than knowledging one of two things; namely, that they must have had some deep and irresistible provocation, or that Englishmen are become a totally altered people. There is not much to choose between these two; either of them looks - pretty angrily at the government which has existed for some years past. The fact is, that these dreadful acts, if ascribed to the mere movements of the fabourers, imply that they have been rendered desperate by hunger. This implies that they ought to have had higher wages; this implies thatite put a stop to the fires they must have higher wages; and this implies that many millions a year must now be taken from the aristocracy and the church, or that those many millions must be taken from the debt-owners. Therefore it is that every effort is made to ascribe the fires, first to fo reigners, next to people travelling in landaus and postchaises, next to conspirators in London, and, lastly, to writings of various descriptions, particularly" cheap publications," Why there are no cheap publications, that I know of, except my poor Two-PENNY TRASH, and this I am allowed to publish only once in a month. As to the Register a single number of it now amounts to nearly as much as the Wiltshire allowance for a week's food and clothing for a constantly hard-working man. I know of no cheap publi cation but this, that goes regularly forth, while the "Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge," while the church parsons with their pamphlet societies; and while the nasty, canting, lousy Methodists, who inveigle the pennies even from the servant girls; while all these are pouring out their pamphlets by millions, and all of them preaching up the doctrine, that bacon, bread and beer corrupt the spul of man, and that potatoes, salt and water, are sure to lead to eternal salvation. How, then, have the fires been produced by speakings to lliw |