Star.
London, England, 1831-04-28 00:00:00

EXPOSITIONS.
FOR THE STAR.

sr SIR zozarox BIRTIIGEL
Geneva, April 8, 1831.
When I lost my seat in Parliament in June 1818, through
the treachery of individuals, which, though perhaps not of
an uncommon kind in elections, is not the less reprehensi-
ble, I did not take many months for the subsidence of the
uproar of my thoughts ; but set myself calmly to digest all
I had learned in six active years of debate in political eco-
nomy. The result was a thin volume in August, 1818, en,
titled " The Population and Riches of Nations, considered
not only with regard to their amount but to the morals and
happiness of the people." I there ventured to throw forth
the outline of the theory I now urge. Nearly twelve years
of the most extraordinary discussion and practical trial of all
the principles of which that little volume treated, which
imagination could have conceived, have since passed with-
out an intermission of some strong event, calculated to bring
them to the most severe test. Facts—•the most frightful
facts—have proved, that what 1 was then thought to have
uttered in a spirit of wild and vapoury speculation, were
truths of the most afflicting nature. I foretold that if
the measures then threatened were persevered in, the agri-
cultural population would necessarily be brought to the state,
of distress, despair, and rebellion, to which it has been
brought. Twelve years of continued meditation upon the
same subjects have still ripened my Ideas upon them, though
there are a few minor inaccuracies in that publication ; and
many things half-developed, which I could now expand into
the broadest demonstration.
I have done this in the midst of a thousand distractions
—of objects of art and natural scenery new to me—and suf-
ficient to engross an imagination always ready to yield to
strong impressions—in the midst of private grievances of
the most flagrant character—and of not less than four years
of dangerous ill health, of which nearly three weeks were
darkened by a despondence, only penetrated by the cheer of
one sublime and benevolent genius, whose words in my fits
of self-humiliation I always called to my memory. I have
read and digested the greater part of what the continental
writers of political ecomy have written on this subject, espe-
cially Mr. Say and Mr. Sismondi, as well as the doctries of
Malthus, Mill, Maculloch, Tooke, Senior, Sadler, Wilmot-
Horton—the excellent pamphlets of Mr. Powlett Scrope—
the able articles in the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews—
especially those on the cottage system and the state of the
peasantry in the former; and the deeply-meditated and ex-
cellent article of Sir Francis D'lvernois on the comparative
longevity of the chief European nations in the Genevan
Bibliothegue Universelle, with the sagacious and wise inci-
dental opinions of Mr. Simond in his volumes of Travels.
Thirty years have elapsed, since I became familiar'with
the admirable works of one of our founder* of political
economy at the time of the English Revolution, and of the
establishment of that curse of all curses, the Public Funds,
(except so far as it led to the introduction of Paper-
Money),—of Dr. Charles Davenant—and the preceding
arithmetical data of Sir William Petty, and Gregory King,
&c.—Never have my painful investigations of this vital
subject slept : I have not been working as a party man :
the single and pure motive of my labours has been the pur-
suit of truth : I belonged to no political party : I have been
of the party of abstract knowledge and pure intelligence.
What have the political parties of late been? A mixture of
all sides for the sake of private and individual ambition!
I committed myself to no party in the six busy years I sat
in the House:

" Nulling addictus jurare in verbs Magistri."
When 1 attempted to amend the poor laws, not once did I
receive a helping band from a minister. My support, when
I put myself in the forlorn hope for the public good, was
from generous men who supposed me, in mere vulgar poli-
tics, to entertain opinions opposite to theirs ; from Romilly,
' Whitbread, Sir F. Burdett, W. Smith, and Calcraft. From
the Treasury Bench, I never found favour and kindness, ex-
cept from one whose name I venerate, and whose fate I shall
never cease to deplore—the able honeatminded and calum-
niated Lord Castlereagh. I fought for the protection of
literature by an attempted amendment of the op-
pressive copy-right act ; but on the ministerial
aide I had not one advocate ! no—not one !
Tho Poor Committee was proposed, to wrest the
matter out of my hands, and neutralise the business :
and so it effectually did. Not one act of amendment
was founded on it. The chairman was an excellent
man to throw the very coldest and most deadening waters
on every proposition of novelty ; " proposing nothing—ob-
jecting to every thing." I was oppressed and harassed, and
submitted to a blameable pusillanimity. Old as I am, and
without legs or voice, I should not do so now. " But"
cry some of my friends, " you cannot now stand the • fa-,
tigue." Then let me die, I shall die gloriously in the geld
of battle !

I am not tired of life : life never before was so delightful
to me, as it is now ; because I have lived at last to receive
the voluntary and unexpected cheers of most enlightened
and most distinguished friends, of European celebrity ; and
I have passed almost the whole of a long and unprosperous
life in obscurity, consumed by the fiery passion for an ho-
nourable and intellectual fame. While others have gained
by literature in a mercenary point of view, to me it has been
a wasteful expense. I never would follow, to pamper the
public taste ; but endeavoured to lead it according to my
convictions; and have suffered accordingly. I have never
gained the smallest popularity ; for the public read to be
flattered in their opinions—not to be contradicted : and au-
thors never succeed who do not act in combination. After
nine and forty years, one of my little poems has worked its
way into distinction.
Why should I be idle as long as my faculties remain
Why should I be silent on points, on which I am firmly
persuaded that the very subsistence of many millions of peo-
ple depends ? Why, while I believe that that state, which
produces discontent, misery, desperation, and the violent
vindictiveness of fires and murders, admits of easy reme-
dies, should I lay supine and reckless in my bed, or rest
asleep in my chair ? " We will give you the reason why,"
say my relentless enemies ; " you are a foolish yet arm-
' gent man,—when lip, riding your vile hobby-horses to
death,—when in bed dreaming your childish dreams !

Go back to your fitful fancies ! we have crushed you be-
fore, and will crush you again, and for the last time I Go
to your den; go, Sirmh, go !" But you shall not crush
me—for all the bloodthirsty wrongs—for all the base dis-
inherisons—for all the flagrant and unconstitutional denials
of justice—for all the extortions and robberies and em-
beszlements--for all the horrid and most ungenerous breaches
of faith—for all the atrocious and almost unconceivable ca-
lumnies, by which you have made a system of attempting to
oppress my mind, and destroy my health. I cannot say that
" I rise like a giant refreshed," because I am a Lilliputian !
But I am as much refreshed as such a diminutive being, as
I am, can be refreshed ! Though I have no legs to
stand upon, I have a head that still works actively ; and
works too with a most unalloyed study for the
restoration of the welfare of the yeomanry and peasantry.
I have been the unpaid advocate of their interests
for upwards of forty years : I have seen and carefully
watched all the progressive effects of the new measures in
political economy, since the commencement of Mr. Pitt's ad-
ministration in January, 1784. I have been familiar with
his theories, and closely attended to their practical results.
I can never concede that Pitt was a man of original genius ;
but he was a men of luminous apprehension, and profound
judgment of the materials presented to him. His mind
would have gone with the times, and he would have taken
advantage of the experience of facts. He would have re-
medied the inconveniences to which, here and there, a mis-
application of his system led. He did not precisely see that
the multiplication of paper, without the multiplication of com-
modities, was a delusion ; and therefore was too wasteful
is his war-expenses,and subsidies. The creative quality of the
Machinery of paper-money did ge to the counteraction of
this waste,—but it could not entirely overcome it. Paper=
coney is a machine which turns fertilising streams to pas
through lands where irrigation produces abundant crops,
before they ingulpb themselves in the pool of consumption,
which is the property of him to whom they are destined, but
which is so far from an unjust diversion, that he receives
them as soon as he wants them with compound interest. If
there can be shown instances of unjust diversion and loss, it
is from the want of a very few provisions, which a dash of
the legislative pen would effect in one day.