room for it this time. It would have been a shame to curtail my matter on that subject for the purpose of bestowing ridicule on this poor thing. I must, however, insert two articles respecting him, which I have published before. He seems to be very much afraid that the Honourable House will swallow him up, as the children do the gingerbread cocks-and-breeches!

HUNT.

THE hackerings, the stammerings, the bogglings, the blunderings, and the cowerings down of this famous Cock I should not have noticed, though they have given a shrug to the shoulders, and a lifting of the hands and the eyes, of all those who expected any-thing from him; but the following paragraph, which I find in the Morning Herald of to-day, given as the report of a speech of his made in the House of Commons last night, has made me determine to bestow a few words upon him, after inserting the paragraph as follows:

"The honourable member also presented a petition from a "meeting at the Rotunda, Blackfriars, against the prosecution "instituted against Mr. O'CONNELL. He was convinced that pro"secutions of this kind did not tend to check the opinions against "which they were instituted, and unless the Government should

get a packed jury in Dublin, Mr. O'CONNELL would be acquitted. "He could not help adverting to an expression which fell from "LORD ALTHORP last night respecting civil war. He must say,

"it was a cold-blooded expression, and ought not to have fallen "from any member of the Government. He disclaimed all con"nexion with Messrs. CARLILE, TAYLOR, JONES, and COBBETT, "at the Rotunda meetings.'

With regard to his disclaimer of all connexion with me, every one will congratulate me upon that, after the exhibition which he has made in parliament. No man knows better than himself that I have never had the smallest connexion in the world, with either Messrs. Carlile, Taylor, or Jones, the first of whom I never saw but five times, the latter but once, and the second never in my life that I know of. But, the shaft at me is merely venomous; in the other cases it is base beyond description. I can defend myself. But they, he well knows, cannot defend themselves; and one of them whom for years he called his friend, he knows to be

shut up in a prison under a sentence which has made even the most intolerant of the people shudder. For myself, I would have thanked him for thus dragging in neck and heels, and apropos of nothing, a disclaimer of me; I should have interpreted it as an act of justice due to me; but, as for them, it is perhaps, though that is saying a great deal, the foulest thing that ever escaped a pair of lips even in that house.

Is this the use to which he means to turn the power which the people of Preston have put into his hands? Was it for this that the good and sincere and generous people of Preston sent him to the parliament house? I have not room for more at present, except this, that if the reporter have misrepresented him, these remarks do not apply to his conduct; but, let me be understood, that a recantation with regard to myself only, would not diminish, in my eye, but rather augment, the baseness of this unprovoked, this uncalled-for, this ferocious attack, this at-once cowardly and ferocious attack, on three men, neither of whom is in a situation to defend himself nor to call him to account, and one of whom is doomed to sufferings, the thought of which would soften the heart of a tiger. If he shall be able to disclaim the whole, I shall, for the honour of human nature, be happy to promulgate the disclaimer; if not, I shall show him up in the next Two-penny Trash.

PRESTON COCK.

THE Parliamentary report, in the Morning Herald of the 15th instant, contains the following passage: "RO"TUNDA MEETINGS.-Mr. HUNT, in presenting a 66 petition from certain persons meeting at the Rotunda, "said that it complained of the conduct of the judges on "the late commission.. He felt himself called upon to "observe that he had been threatened and denounced by "the party to which the petitioners belonged, solely because " he had on a previous occasion disclaimed in that House "all connexion with them, or participation in their ❝ views. So far, however, from being intimidated by "these threats, he now reiterated his former assertion, "and should the House not protect him, he knew very "well how to protect himself— (a LAUGH)." This

216

TWO-PENNY TRASH; 1ST MARCH, 1831.

"laugh" was, as I am told by a gentleman who was present, not a horse-laugh nor a merry laugh, but a sort of ha! laugh, uttered with the chin twisted, the lips lifted, and the nose drawn up, as if the olfactory, as well as the risible, nerves had been affected.. This report may be a fabrication on the part of the reporthers, for any-thing that I know to the contrary; but I find the thing published, and, as a publication, I remark on it. What! the Preston Cock call for the protection of others, and those others that very body too whom he so becalled and so expressed his contempt of, when on his progress from Preston to London! It can never be! It must be an invention of the reporther! What! he, who is called the "Preston Cock," because, in that town, his flags represented him as a red game cock, clapping his wings and crowing, while STANLEY was, upon the same flags, represented as a yellow dunghill cock, running away. HE call on the House for protection! But, then, as to the feasibility of the thing called for, how is the House to protect him againstthe tongues or pens of those whom he, or his reporther, chooses, by name, to stigmatize in publications, being, or purporting to be, reports of speeches made in that House? He is not "intimidated" (ooh! ooh who-o-ose afraid!), and he knows" very well how to defend himself." Nobody says the contrary; but I do remember that, at county meeting at Winchester, in 1817, there was a good-fornothing saucy fellow, under the Grand Jury chamber-window, who, as soon as he began to open his mouth, held up a long wand with a white feather tied on at the end of it; and I did not see any body able "to protect" him against that. I did not see any punishment inflicted, or attempted to be inflicted for that daring breach of privilege. As to his disclaiming all connexion with these petitioners, and all participation in their views, I leave them and him to settle that matter between them, until, at least, I know what their petition contained; and this I beg some one or other of them to have the goodness to let me know as soon as possible, as I shall want it for my "Letter to the people of Preston," which will be published on the 1st of April, in No. 10 of the Twopenny Trash.

WM. COBBETT.

[Printed by Wm. Cobbett, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street.]

COBBETT'S

TWO-PENNY

TRASH

For the Month of May, 1832.

Published monthly, sold at 12s. a hundred, and for 300, taken at once, lls.

TO THE

WORKING. PEOPLE OF ENGLAND

ON THE

EMIGRATION THAT IS NOW GOING ON,

MY FRIENDS,

Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London, 1st May, 1832.

THE government is at work to get people to emigrate, that is to say, to get people to go away out of the country. I shall, by and by, show the folly of this; and, when I call it folly, I give it the very mildest name. But there are certain persons, whose interest it is to get away out of this country; and to them it is necessary to be informed what country they ought to go to; for, assuredly, none but idiots and mad people would change countries in order to be worse off than they were before the change. All the tax-eaters, of every description, wish to get people to go to English Colonies. They are afraid of their going to the UNITED STATES; because, if they go there, they - not only carry their property and their talents and labour to augment the powers of freedom; but, they send home accounts of the blessings, which people enjoy under a cheap government, under a government chosen by the people, sand which government dares not even talk about pensions,

LONDON: Published by the Author, 11, Bolt-court, Fleet-street, and sold by all Booksellers.

L

f

sinecures, grants, retired-allowances, dead-weights, military asendencies, and military and naval half-pay to parsons! Those who live on the taxes and the monopolies here, do not care a curse what becomes of the people, whom they get to go away, so that they do not go to send home accounts of the blessings of cheap government. But, it is my affair to make the truth known relative to this matter; and, this I shall do by first taking an extract from my EMIGRANT'S GUIDE, and then, by offering my advice on other matters, to the Working People of Eng

land.

"There is no other country, except English colonies, in which the English language is spoken, and in which the habits and manners are the same. This is one great thing; but there is no other country in which there is a superabundance of good lands, and in which an increase of the population must necessarily be an advantage to the country. There is no other country where there is any room for numerous strangers; and, besides all these, there is no other country where the people have to pay so small a portion of taxes, aad where kind and generous neighbours are to be found in abundance. To all these advantages add that of perfect civil and political liberty; and that, as to religion, the law knows nothing at all about it.

3

"In English colonies the English language is spoken ; and, as the support of the governments there comes out of the pockets of the people of England, there are few taxes in those colonies, though I perceive that they have already an excise even at Botany Bay. But, in the English colonies, there is a worse species of government than there is here; greater state of dependence, and less protection from the law. In the year 1826, some persons, displeased y with the freedom of opinion exercised by a printer in UPPER CANADA, did not prosecute hiin; but went by force and demolished his press, and flung his types into the lake. In fact, there is very little money in those colonies (I am speaking of those that can be considered places to emigrate to), except that which passes through the hands of the government. There are no persons of considerable pro<perty; scarcely one worthy of the name of farmer; and no man in those colonies ever thinks of any degree of