The Sun.
London, England, 1822-01-15 00:00:00

EAST INDIA HOUSE, Jan. e, 1523.

THE. COURT OF DIRECTORS of the
UNITED COWAN Y of 'MERCHANTS of ENG-
LAND TRADING to the EAST INDIES do hereby give
Notice to all PRIZE AGENTS or other Persons who are di-
rected by the Act of let and 2d George IV. Cap. tilt to pay
over to the East India Company in London, the amount of
UNCLAIMED PRIZE MONEY remaining in hands be-
longing to Officers and Soldiers being, or having been, in the
Service of the East India Company, and to Commanders Of-
ficers, Seamen, and other persons, serving, or who may
have served, on board of any Ship or Vessel in the Serri,e of
the said Company, that the period limited -by the said Act,
within which the payments were to be made, expired on the
3d December last t And the Court hereby require all Per-
sons to whom the saidisct may apply forthwith to deliver to
their Secretary, at time East India House, Usti of the Un-
claimed Prize Nivaey so remaining in their hands, and pay
the amount thereof into the Company's Treasury.
Forms of the Satements required from the several parties
may be seen uu'applicativn at the Secretary's Office at this
House,

JOSEPH DART, Secretary.

MB. PINSENrS SYSTEM.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE, MOST NOBLE

11ARQ UIS WELLESLE Y,

lIIS MAJESTY'S LORD LICIJTENANT OF IRELAND.

Y Loßn,—Sensible as I am of the arduousness and im-
portance of the task, and of the purity and patriotism of your
Lordship's motives in taking upon yourself the Vice-Royalty
of Ireland, in these times of unexampled difficulty and of
grievous distress, it is from an imperious sense of duty alone,
and the impulse of patriotic feelings, that I am induced (al-
though only a plain practical man) to crave permission front
your Excellency to make some observations on the cause of the
distress of the British Empire generally, and particularly of
Ireland, and to offer to your Lordship's consideration the sug-
gestion of a remedy for the same.
Allow me, my Lord, to observe,-in the first place, that the
first duty of our Government is. to ascertain ..wintt constitutes
the wealth and prosperity of the British Empire, and which
will be found to consist in the profitable employment of our
people. This will prove, that a numerous, virtuous, and well-em-
ployed population is its greatest blessing. strength, and support;
and that a flourishing agriculture, including mines and fisheries,
is the root of, and propelling power to, all our other branches of
industry—That we cannot tarty commerce beyond the 'con-
sumption of the payments of our exports—That nothing can
increase that consumption but the profitable employment of
our people in the aggregate, and that we cannot consume a fo-
reign article, the like of which we can produce ourselves, with-
out depriving of profitable employment sfich a number of our
own people as would be adequate to the production of that ar-
ticle ; and consequently, that the consumption of such foreign
article is a great loss to the state, even if they were received
gratuitously.
Having settled these premises, derived from unerring prin-
ciples in political economy, I will endeavour to point out the
cause of, and the remedy for, our distress ; and I mean to
contend, that that cause is principally owing to our national ig-
norance of the mig;ity resources of the British Empire, and of
that system of commerce and finance necessary to bring these
resources into action, so as to give all our people profitable em-
ployment, and increase our revenue in a proportionate ratio,
without injury to any useful class of society.
If this be admitted to be the cause, then the remedy is ob-
vious ; and it is simply this :—To establish a system of com-
merce founded on principles of reciprocity of benefits, and to
combine it with a system of finance, founded on self-creating
and self-supporting principles, that shall, by their protection
to native and colonial industry, give every man in the Empire
profitable employment.
With a knowledge of these systems I have offered to make
Government acquainted, on reasonable conditions.
These systems, my Lord, are the cure for our present dis-
tresses ; and unless your Lordship attend to their fundamental
principles, and thereby give the people of Ireland permanent
profitable employment, all the bayonets, and all the soft per-
suasion in the world, will be equally incapable, while life exists,
of satisfying the crating stomachs of a half-starved population.
In order to promote this desirable object, I have advertised a
meeting of the several British Interests, to be held at the City
' of London Tavern,. on the assembling of Parliament, when I
presume to think that it will be made to appear that the cause
I of our distress is not what has been generally conceived, viz.
the extravagance of Ministers, or a depreciated currency, or
the transition from war to peace, or over abundant crops, or
&c.,excessive taxation, but simply our not doing our own work
. with our own people. To enable us to do this, we must pro-
tect every property of the British Empire from foreign compe-
tition, according to its value to the State respectively; and then
let Commerce have the freedom of air. Therefore, my Lord,
I conceive it to. be the first of the desirable objects which your
Lordship no doubt purposes to give the people of Ireland
temporary employment, by cutting canals, making roads, drain-
ing bogs, and improving the land by every means possible ; and
this, even if done, at the public expence, will be a public gain ;
for the extra revenue produced by the increased consumption
will re-pay from one-third to one-half of the charge, while the
relief given to the public and private charities, and the'saving
in the expence of keeping up a large standing Army, will very
nearly pay the other half of the cost of the improvements. The
permanent relief, however, must be in emigration to our beau-
tiful Colonies; and this can only be done or obtained by pro-
tecting every description of property from foreign competition,
according to its value to the State, which will act as a bounty
for the production in our Colonies of that corn, hemp, flax,
cotton, and tobacco, now furnished by foreigners,—enable us
to cut and carry our own timber, &c., which we now pay fo-
reigners for doing, and which keeps about a million and a half
of our own people in a state of poverty, wretchedness, and de-
moralization, and three hundred thousand tons of our shipping
unemployed !
This simple measure would require, in order to effect the
aforesaid purpose, an annual emigration of from fifty to a
hundred thousand people from Ireland ; and as the balance in-
crease of population of that country is about a hundred
and fifty thousand per annum, this number can be beneficially
spared, and would create profitable employment for double
their number left behind, in building and navigating ships for
the purpose of bringing their products from Canada, Southern
Africa, and New South Wales, and in making and carrying
various manufactures for the use of the Colonists. I may ob-
serve, that none are more useful for the cultivation of new coun-
tries than the Irish peasantry. I know this from my own ex..
per ience.
In my Pamphlet, entitled " Conversations in Political Eco-
nomy," which I send you herewith, your Lordship will find
how all this can be accomplished, without calling on the public
purse for a single shilling, and which would not only relieve all
our distresses, but add to the wealth and prosperity of the Bri-
tish Empire, to the amount of about forty millions sterling per
annum, give profitable employment to a million and a half of
our now idle people, and to five hundred thousand tons of ad-
ditional British shipping, and make us independent of fo-
reigners.
One great error of the Nation, and particularly of the Minis-
ters, is the considering a stationary revenue to be a criterion of
national prosperity ; whereas. it is a proof of a national decay,
equal to about 21 per cent., When compared with what a sound
moral and political state would produce e tensequently we are
politically losing half a million of our people, and about 25
millions of property per annum, while those who are ignorant
of these facts thine that we are going on well.
Another error is, that our dealing with foreigners is consi-
dered by them as increasing our wealth and industry, from
their taking off the products of our industry, and giving us their
produce in return. And the effect is so when we take from
them what we cannot produce ourselves ; but when, on the
contrary, we take from them articles which we can produce
ourselves, we destroy our wealth and consumption in the tame
ratio. For instance, we take from fereigners corn, hemp, flax,
cotton, and tobacco, through the Irish are rebellious for want
of profitable employment; and the people of England are now
living on the landed interest.
Our poor's rate could people our beautiful Colonies, and in
those Colonies our Poor could produce immense wealth for
themselves and for the parent State,: taking in return equiva-
lents in manufactured goods, for their corn, hemp, flax, cotton,
and tobacco, and adding greatly to the political power and re-
sources of the Empire. They would save to us their present
charge on the private and public charities, as well as the cost of
an awned force and police to keep them in subjection. These
things put together will amount to gam a sum that your Lord-
ship will see that foreign corn, hemp, flax, cotton, and
tobacco, would be dear to us as a donation, while we can our-
selves produce them in our own Empire, by paying our own
people at the rate of fifty pounds per man per annum. But
the objection to this 'by the consumer is, We shall by such pro-
tecting duties pay a greater price for those articles which you
have just enumerated than we do at present. I answer, that
the increased price will be nominal, and not reel ; and that in
reality the cost of all those articles will be less than it is now.
Why not do for all your industry now, what you did for your
shipping and manufacturing interests when the navigation
laws, and the laws for prohibiting the importation of foreign
manufactures, were first enacted. 'those protecting laws en-
abled you to compete with, and to excel the world ; and so you
will successfully compete with, and excel the world in the pro-
duction of corn, hemp, fax, cotton, and tobacco, when you are
equally protected ; for you have soil, and climate in which
they are indigenous, and people starving for want of profitable
employment. But, taking it on your own grounds, and-ad-
mitting that you would pay more for these articles than if you
purchased them of foreigners, I contend, that though the price
might be higher, the cost would in reality be less ; for the in-
creased price which you would pay to your osit.n people for
these articles would be more, much more, than compensated by
the reduction of poor's rates and -public charities alone, to soy
nothing of the revenue which would be gained to the State, and
the great and growing advantages of as incrsesed and incteas-

ing demand for our manufactures. If you pay your own peo-
ple a greater price for their products, they on their part pay
you a greater return for yours ; and by reducing your poor's
rates and expences of Government, in reality create a large
balance in your favour,—so, that though the consumer may pay
a greater price for the products of our own people than for those
of foreigners, the actual cost is less when he buys them of the
former, than it is when has buys of the latter.
Your Lordship will at! once perceive this distinction be-
tween cost and price, that poor's rates, &c. enter into the cost of
all our articles of consumption, and that the seeming low price
of foreign products, therefore, by no means measures their
cost to the consumers. -
The case of the peasantry in Ireland is in some respects si-
milar to that of the Landed interest in England,—the Law in
Ireland allowing the landlord to turn his peasantry adrift, when
he does not want them, and the law in England allowing the
peasantry to turn the Landed interest adrift, when the land
will produce enough only for themselves. The latter, how-
ever, having greater influence with the Legislature than the
former, applies to Parliament for redress; whereas, (in my opi-
nion), the former consider themselves not to have such influ-
ence, and fearing future starvatitm, very injudiciously take the
law into their own hands.

While our present systems of Commerce and Finance are
continued, our situation unfortunately is such that- we cannot
decrease our taxation, without increasing, in the like ratio, the,
charge on the poors' rates and public charities; therefore, we
must raise our income equal to our expenditure.
It is a pity that. Ministers did not advise his Majesty, when in
Ireland, to visit the cottages of the usefhl peasantry, as well as the
palace and mansion of the rich; this would have enabled the
comprehensive mind of his Majesty not only to have discovered
the real cause and remedy for our distress, but would have.
given his Majesty's benevolent and paternal heart more joy and-
permanent gratification, as well as Ireland More benefit by one
'hundred times, than all the pomp and parade which were exhi-
bited on the occasion ; but the misfortune is, that Kings (says
Fenelon) seldom know the real state of things.
The hearth-money and the window-tax should be consoli-
dated in the house-tax, which would cause property to pay
according to its value; whereas, at present a house with twenty
windows in the bogs of Allen, which would not be worth 201.
per annum, would pay as much window-tax as-one in Cheap- •
. side, London, worth 3001. per annum, added to which, that tax,
by lessening the number of our windows, destroys our health,
and the beauty of our architecture.
There is another source of grievance, which although minor
in importance to what I have before mentioned, is still very
great, namely, the tithing system, both in England and Ire-
land, not so much as to its amount, as its principle and. opera-
Lion, although the former is no trifle. It has the following pre-
judicial consequences attending it :
First, As its claims are undefined—Secondly, As it presses
hard on land, labour, skill and capital, and checks and impedes
the improvement of the soil and increase of the wealth of the
Empire. As farmers in general consider how to avoid the pay-
ments of tithes, in nearly all their arrangements, as they are
often double, andi sometimes quadruple their rent, the mis-
taken notion that tithe acts as rent on land should be exploded,
for it has a very contrary effect.
Its further injurious consequence is, that nine times out of
ten it keeps the pastor and -his flock completely at variance,
and destroys that Religion which the clergy were intended to
inculcate and promote. But to a Catholic it presses with a
double force, as in paying his tithe to a Protestant clergy-
man, he believes it to be virtually in direct violation of his
religion-Ltonsequently, he considers the man a demon who
could be cruel enough to force him to make such a sas
crifice of conscience, and commit so heinous a crime. But
as the landlord came to his land with these incumbrances
attached to it, the tithe should be valued throughout the
Empire, charged to the landed interest, or put up and sold to
the best bidder, and the amount invested in public funds, and
the-Clergy paid therefrom by a general rate ; or a modus for
tithe might be established thoughout the kingdom, when the
landlord could include with and charge tithe as an increased
rent. The clergy would be also gainers, as nothing will alienate
the affection of the people from the Government, and bring
about a revolution so soon as our tithe system, when it is easily
conceived what would be the tithing systeni's fate. But inde-
pendent of all-these circumstances, there is something so un-
natural in the tithing system, and so much at variance with the
spirit of our constitution, that it imperiously demands our Le-
gislature to give it a thorough and minute investigation, not
only as to its amount and general tendency, but from what
motive it was first introduced and became part of our conati-
tutional law; and I think it will be found that it was to satisfy
some clamorous anti powerful faction, and that the good of the
British Empire, and the promotion of Religion, were nearly put
out of the question.
I may be onswered that it now forms a part of our Constitu-
tion. My reply to that is, so 'have many other laws and regu-
lations; but they were found detrimental, and were lopt off for
the good of the whole, like so many rotten limbs of trees, in
order to make room for more thriving branches. Here then is
a precedent for correcting this tithing system, which is so in-
capable of amalgamation with the other parts of our constitution.
Therefore, and for the good of the whole empire, wisdom de-
mands its immediate dissection ; but the Clergy should cer-
tainly suffer nothing by the operation.
If we trace back to the origin of tithe, we may, by making
fair allowance for the imperfections of human nature, perhaps
be able to discover some bias displayed by our great lawgiver,
in favour of his brother Aaron, in the granting of tithe, or the t
it was never contemplated that the Clergy should have a tenth
of our articles, where nine-tenths of it was composed of labour
and capital, as is the case in the United Kingdom, as relates to
corn, and perhaps it may be found that the poor were to be
paid by the clergy out cif the tithe. Indeed, as i said .before,
there is something so inharmonious and monstrous in the ope-
rations of the tithing system, that it has tended to cause more
bad passions and destroy the practice of religious worship, and
made more alienate from the established church, than any other
act of our Legislature; and as a proof of which, how-much
stronger is the tie of affection and duty between the pastors of
the Itoinan Catholics and their flocks, as well as between the
pastors of the Scoteh Church and their flocks, where, in neither
caste, tithe is paid, compared to the pastors of the Church of
England and their flocks,: where the tithing system exists.
With respect to resident or non-resident landlords, if the
tenant's market for his produce be equal in bath caste, no harm
comes to him. In England- the tenant, would rather have any
one near him than the clere;yrann and his landlord ; but how
far the same provisions whien are exported to this and to other
parts of the world would be mote beneficial to Ireland by being
consumed amongst -a native manufacturing population, is a
question my mind is. not stetticiently made tip to deride on, as
I. consider that every country. arid people, as tor as it is possible,
ahould be independent of their neighbours. So think the Pre-
sident of the Ilnited States, the French Government, -&c.
consequently it should supply. itself with,all that it Is capable
of producing, and barter only. its superabundance with others
for what it cannot produce itself.
I- conceive that the necessitous poor of every portion of the
United Kingdom should be paid out of public funds ; .and the re,
venue should be equally levied on feireign rival products, as pro-
teeting duties, also on 'Lauri, sin any part of the United Kino-
dorn, as well as property, according to its value in that poet of the
United Kingdom where it nue/ be situated ; and theinno more
hindrance should be given to communications between one part
and the otherof the -United Kingdom titan there is at present be-
tween Middlesex and Surrey ; hut until then it would be injus-
tice to the English landed interest, who pay poor's rates,. aril I
believe some chides and taxes in addition to the Irish landed
interest, and tithe anti pOorS' rates in addition to • the Scotch
landed interests to allow Irian and Scotch products to. Vela-,tt on
a level with their own. .
Vac admitting Roman Catholic subjects to an equal' parti-
cipation of political power with ourselves, I can steno objection
to; still I believe that deficiency of our duty is no cause of Ire-
land's present troubles. The went of profitable employment for
her people ia the principal; if not the whole cause ; anti nothing
(as I said before) but the protecting every property the
British Empire frora foreign competition, according, to its re-
spective value to the State, so as to give all our people profit-
able employment at home and in our Colonies, and increase
the revenue, in the like ratio, can effect this desirable object;
and. that. will give pei ma lent prosperity to the Empire. •
The SIJI4 Newspapers of the 15th and 29th ult. which I have
fotgartied to your Excellency contain my advertisement for a
general meeting, as well as Inv observations.on. the royiegation
laws ; and my letter to As r. WALLACE. To these l bees leave
to call your Excellency'e attenfon.
I trust that I have point d out the cause of, and remedy for,
the. distresses of the British Ehr.pire i - and with an offer of my
services on all occasions for carrying them into execution,
I have the honour to be,
Your E.acelbency's very obedient Servaot,
,10.SEP11 PINSENT.