The National Register. — London, England, 1816-10-28 00:00:00

A I.aillitrilat Arai No. 455.—V0L. IX. POLITICAL DISQUISITION. STATE OF THE COUNTRY. FROM the epitome we have given in several pre seding numbers of the most important parts of the Agricultural Report, our readers are in possession of sufficient facts to enable them to come to a tolerably correct though rough estimate of the extent of the distresses which press upon a portion of the commu nity. We promised, in concluding this series of data, to give some remarks upon the facts it disclosed. It is by no means our intention, in general, to resign our own pens to make room for those of our contempo raries, however, in many instances, we might make each a relinquishment with advantage; but, in the present case, we have found a cotemporary of celebrity and abilities so exactly illustrating our own views, and expressing our own sentiments so much better than we could hope to express them ourselves, that our readers, we are convinced, will require no apology for our bor rowing from him the means of fulfilling our pledge ; we therefore propose to devote a space in our next two or three nurabere to Extracts from an article in a pe riodical publication of established merit, which treats this subject in a most luminous and most simple style. " The solid, substantial, permanent welfare of a na tion is nut to be estimated by extent of dominion, or greatness of population, or amount of revenue, or of national wealth. This outward prosperity might be, like the antediluvian earth, as Burnet has imagined it in his magnificent philosophical dream, a fertile and beautiful surface,—but only a surface,—only a crust which envelopes' the waters of the abyss, and which never appeared more flourishing than at the mo ment when, because of the iniquity of the inhabitants, the abyss was broken up, and all things swept away by the foredoomed, inevitable, and avenging deluge. Is this our case? Is Britain cancerous in her vital parts? They who believe in our political reformers would an swer in the affirmative ; and if the common weal were delivered over into the hands of these practitioners they would prove the inveteracy of the disease by destmyin. , the patient. With their kaile of radical reform, az;" their Irish Catholicon, they would make quick work ! A saner mind, a riper judgment, a sounder philosophy, would give a different reply. There are diseases in the body politic ; but none which stand in need of the knife and the cautery. Diet is more needful than me dicine ; and where medicine is required, alteratives, not drastics, ought to be administered. " Since man has ceased to exist in the patriarchal state,—that golden age to which the earliest poets, and the most widely- liffused traditions refer,—he hes no where, nor at any period, existed in so favourable a condition as'in England at this present time. The fine arts have been carried to higher perfection in Italy and in Greece ; a far greater population has been supported in China and in the Netherlands; more magnificent works of public utility have been executed in the an cient republics; greater triumphs over physical circum stances have been obtained in the Low Countries, and in Egypt, which a Dutch traveller beheld with feelings of natural pleasure, because in many points of art and nature, it appeared to him the Holland of the Eastern world ; in industry England lets been rivalled by the Dutch ; and in bold conune - eial enterprise she has been equalled, or, rsrhaps, surpassed, by Carthage in old time, and by Portugal in the age of her glory. But when every thing is considered which contribUtes to the moral and intellectual improvement of the indivi dual, and the I,, , eneral well being of the community, certain it is that En , -bind stall& alone, an:l is conspi cuously blest above a 'l ,l counties tither of the ancient or the modern world. The world, indeed, through all the evils with which it has been afflicted, has been pro gressive in good ; but the itroilar situation of England, its geographical position, its laws, its institutions, its history, and the national character which these eircum; stances have combined to form, have mtule it of all parts of the woad, the Most prosperous and the most haPPY " But every stagPe of society brings with it its atten dant evils ; the hotly politic may be plethoric like the hotly natural : there is a state of prosperity which, like overfeeding, disposes the system tin' inflammatory dis cuses, or makes it break out in blains uad blotches. As Our Win, Comfit'*Wien ant 31,abui. MONDAY, OCTOBER, 28, 1816. I I no political change, whethtr from peace to war, or from war to peace, can occuriwithout immediate incon venience and injury to come branches of the communi ty, fiir less can any material alteration of manners take place without some detrimental consequences, more or less dangerous in proportion as the class which is affect ed is more or less numerous, Now, that the change of manners which has taken Once in England during the present reign is greater than was ever produced during the same ntimber of years, in any known period of history, will appear manifest upon consideration. For although no event has occurred of equal inag,ni tude to the discovery of America, and no invention like that of printing, society was not at that age orga nized as it is at present : the different classes of men, as they were then connected, might be compared to links in a chain, the blow which struck fire from those at the one end, or broke them in pieces, would pro duce no vibration at the other : the state is now more artificially and intimately combined ; it resembles a spider's web, in which the slightest impact upon any one of the threads is felt throughout the whele. Pro bably more than a century elapsed before half the peo ple in the old world learnt that a new one had been discovered: there was a time when, in the remoter parts of the British islands; the subjects knew not un der what sovereign they lived, and the same habits and manners which had prevailed under Queen Elizabeth existed under Queen Anne. But now the rapid inter course which commercial activity has created has given wings to fashion and fblly, and the politics of Paris and of London are canvassed in every pot-house where the English language is spoken. - - " Let us then examine what are the classes of society which have been injuriously affected during the great moral revolution of the last half century ; this, inquiry will lead us to consider what -vM evils have been diminished among us ; what new ones have sprung up; what has been done towath diminishing the sum of human misery, and what remains to do in this great work, which is one of the worthiest employments of enlightened man. " The great and rapid increase of national wealth has always been attended by a correspondent pressure of distress upon the peasantry. It was thus in Portu gal when Joam 111. succeeded his fhther Emanuel, the most fortunate Prince that ever sate upon a European throne : he was master of Ormuz, of Goa, and of Ma lacca in the east—thus commanding the whole trade of the Indian seas ; the gold mines of Africa sent in rich returns to him, and the greater part of Morocco paid Mai tribute : to these treasures Joam 111. succeed ed, and never was there a period of greater national distress arising from poverty than at the commencement of his reign. It was thus itt Spain, when ships came laden with silver and gold Crum Mexico and Peru—the fact was distinctly seen, and the cause distinctly stated, by a cotemporary writer ; the influx of specie produced a diminution in the value of money, and habits of la vish expenditure in the rich ; rents were raised ; all the necessaries of life advanced in price ; the burden fell upon the poor ; and of the wealth which poured into the country in full streams, all that reached them was in the shape of more abundant alms, which made them more dependent than they were be fore, without preventing them from being more misera ble. These vases are clear and specific ;an increase of national wealth produced an increase of poverty among the great body of the people; and these things were not accidentally co-existent 0--they were cause and c%et. The eases are also in point ; Mr. Colipihoun's book shows that British industry and enterplise have produced wealth in as great abundance as the mines of Hispaniola and Peru, the gold of Africa, or the spices of the east. " The growing ,demands of government, and the growing luxury of the hi t her daises, produced a simi lar effect in the first ycari of our Reformation. The great distress of the peasantry in those tittles, and the rapid increase of meadieuuts br i e been ascribed to the dissolution of the monastthes, tith;:reby the sources of charity to whichthe pooadatd been wont to apply were suddenly dried up. ' I letFs ti ' !or: Sir William Bar low in, his Dialogue; i Cardinal's act in pull ing dawn and stippressmg religious plows ; our Lord imoil Ns soul I will wrestle with no souls ; he know eth by this time whether he did well or evil. But this dare I be bold to say, that the Countries where they stood tinuol such lack of then), thut they would he had let them stand. And think you then that there would be no lack found if the remnant were so served too ? OUT+ PRICE 9&d. wene men would so sore miss them, that many which speak against them would soon labour with his own hands to set them up again.' The lots of the alias which the monasteries used to distribute must however have been an evil partial in its operation, and in itself insignificant ; the way in which the peasantry were injured at the Reformation was by turning the abbey tenants over from the sort of parental. tenure under which they then lived to lay landlords, unconnected with then' by any habits or hereditary feelings, who lived at a distance, and racked their tersnts to support the expence of a court life. As in the Highlands at this time, Latimer complains that in tracks which for-. merly were well peopled, only a shepherd and his dog were to be found. Society cannot perhaps advance without passing through changes such as these; but they produce immediate evil and perilous coasequences. In that age, as in this, great advances were made in civilization ; and changes of this kind can no more take place without derangement in the commonwealth, than any new functions in the animal frame can develops themselves without a feverish excitement of the systerst, and a tendency - to diseases more or less dangerous. A fashion of ambitious expenditure prevailed, which made men live to the utmost of their means; the exertions . which were called forth to make the income keep pace with the outgoings roused a spirit of enterprise, which displayed itself both in evil and good; commercial and privatecring adventures were undertaken abroad ; at home, trades and professions raised their prices and their fees, the manufacturer worsened his wares, the landholder increased his rents, and the lord inclosed what had bethre been common ground. Latimer, whose sermons are full of information respecting the state of England in his days, repeatedly cries out against these things. , I doubt, says the good old Bishop, ' most rich men bass too mach, for without too murk we can get nothing. As for example : the physician ; if the poor man he discie.ed lie esa have no help without too much ; and of the lawyer the poor man can get no counsel, expedition, nor help in his matter, except he give hint too mach. At merchants' hands nu kind of ware can be had, except we give for it too much. YOil landlords, you rent-raisers,' (it should he remembered that Isis was preaching' before the Court,)' I may say you step-lords, you unnatural lords, you have for sour possessions yearly too much. For that here before went for twenty or sixty pound* by year, which is a honest portion to be had gratis in one lord ship ofittiother man's sweat and labour, now is let for tiny or an hundred pounds by year. Of this tau much rimed' this mon strous and portentous dearth made by man, notwithstanding God doth send us plentifully the fruits of the earth, merci fully, contrary to our deserts. Notwithstanding, leo muck which these rich men have, causesth such dearth, that poor men which live of their labour, cannot with the sweat of their face have a living; all kind of victuals is so dear—pigs, geese, capons, chickens, eggs, dcc.• ' these things with others are so unreasonably enhanced. And I think verily that if these coutione, we shall at length be constrained to pay for a pig a pound.' . . In another place he says, My father was a yeoman, and had no lands Of his own only he had a farm of three or four pounds by year at the ut termost, and hereupon he tilled so ((inch as kept half a dozen men. Ile had walk for an hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kinc. He was able and did find the king a harness, with himself and his horse, white he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can reatom her that I hackled his harness when he went to Blackheath field. lle kept me to school, or else I bail not been able to have preached before the King's Majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds or twenty nobles a-piece ; so that be brought them tip in godliness and fear ut GA. H•e kept hospitality for his poor neighbours ; and smite alma he gave to the poor ; and all this he (lid of the said farm : where be that now bath it, payeth sixteen pound by the year, or mare, and is not able to do am thing for his prince, toe himself, nor for his children, or give a Clip at' drink to Lie poor.' REIM:VON of , vtr. CostmtssAnt %T.—One of the many and important reductions of the War Establish. meats, which arc proceeding under the thrections of the Lords of the Treasury, took place on Friday, by the transfer of the office and functions of the Commissary-in-Chief to the Treasury, whereby a con siderable diminution of the Establishment fbr the ma napnitent of the Department at home and abroad will be effected. The Course of Exchange at Calais is now in favour of this Cduntry. More persons conies to, than leave England. From the Ist to the Kith of this month, tho re have entered Calais 49 packet-boats from Dove; . with 888 passengers. There have left Calais within the same time tier Dover, 5i packet-Ixoats, with li)s passengers. The letters received last week and on Monday from Sl:in ch •ster, givir most enlivendig accounts; the demand for ma nufactmed cotton goods has revived, and the business dell. has been very exteasive.—Londoe l'ricc Corset. 4.6 55 !'6