The Statesman.
London, England, 1823-10-22 00:00:00

je.43011 110.044
lawiN 61000158;this•

.. . .
4 elegimerate ertsdulitt of the- people who
were its dopes and victims. Posterity can scarcely give
credit to the tale, that, in an age. which egotistically boast-
ed the perfection of its arts, its science, its morality, tell'
gion, and lights. such a system of cajolery could have beetr
so long upheld and tolerated. It would excite prolonged 1
risibility was it possible to direct the mind from the con-
templation of its .tupentiously ruinous action. and tragic '
results. But here stands in history, the Fending System '
of England and its consequent Paper:Motley ; a mark for
the Seger of scorn. and a Beacon in Legislation. Poste-
rity whatever new follies they may run after, will rank the
Fending Systea and its consequences with the reveries of
the Aichymists on the transmutation of fold.
Aln action the Funding System and its Paper Money.
bandied backwards sad forward. misery and ruin from castes
to classes, sometimes benedtting the Commercial Specula-
tor, again astounding him with a ruin. felt. not. men ;
sinetissies shedding a genial oil over the engines of the
annefact erre; again leaving hill/ palsied and starving amidst
:the unvendible or unprofitable productions of his ins.-'
salty; sometimes again pouring imaginary wealtb4
wealth into the -coffees of the aristocracy of the
agricultural Castes—then recoiling hack again, leant
P hilt fig tend 'Owner m id the Fernier, is Rasping astonish+
meet at their anulbilated prosperity. The lead owner, Lae/
the lend pass from under his feet. to be rioted on by the
Jew and the stranger. The Partner in despair, either
singht foreign and distant shores, or sunk into a labourer
its Farm he had once deemed his own home. These
classes,. eminently useful in justly regulated society, the
lindlordi and the farmer, felt the arrows of the pestilence,
bet eonld never see the hand that shot the bolt. No, they
sat down supine and in despair. The calamity was to
them, as " Satan walking to and fro upon the Earth, leek-
lag whom he could devour,"—and. " lo : said they, he
riots upon us, the Lords of the Land, settleg. we are fat :
peradventure he will pass sway anon. and go into the Land
of the Chaldeans." But not so, did this Satanic system
'piss meat/ from the agricultural . classes ; for it fixed its
Oolitic Peg, where all oppression rests at last, that is—on
all who immediately live by agriculture, and on the labourer
' iii agriculture ; for all public burtheas, and all public inju-
ries consequent on the ramified and inexhaustible arts of
taxation rest, like the atmospUere, epos the lowest base;
and what iathe lowest base 7—but the manual labour that
...causes. or improves production The progress of this aye
tern exemplified this great maxim in political economy— '
for in its progress and results, the condition and rensurle-
ratio* of the labouring el solrma Progressive and
accelerated degradation.
" The great mass of the population was said to be phy-
sically and morally deteriorating. New, absurd and per-
siclous Laws wete now daily enacted, the effects of which
could fall only on the poor and lowly. Large bodies of men
acted as taskmasterst or officers of Police. A stsnding
army. assembled In fortified Barracks, built all over the
Kingdoms of Ureat Britain and Ireland, while repressing
the indignant population, changed the spirit of the Nation;
while upholding the rule of the minor classes, who benefit-
ed by what they termed a " Constitution that was the envy
of suroundieg Nations, and the admiration of the world,"
the many became the instrument and victim of their
own abasement. The accumulation of wealth in
masses, nay, even the erection of those stu-
pendants prisons which astonish Posterity, were
held forth by infatuated men as signs of prosperity. In-
vention was applied to the punishment, not to the preven-
tion of crime, and a clique of solemn Dullards sat es a
committee to adapt new codes of prison discipline, amongst
which was au instrument of Slow Torture, called a Tread-
mill, known.to posterity only by Name." [See note at the
end of the volume for its description and use, as also for
prison regulations-of the Funding • System, among tvliiidt,'
'we that no Children in arms were to be admitted
Into the Prisons. 9 " So active was the Spirit of Legislation,
that Law instead of being the shield of the weak against
the strong, 'was deemed and dreaded by the great mass of
the population, as an engine by which the powerful
rivetted the Chains of the Nation; and in Ireland' it was
even said that the ungovernable vengeance of the many,
was a sort of wild and blind Justice, whose sword some-
times struck aright.
" The effects we have endeavoured inadequately to war
tray, were part of the results of the measures of-that
arrogant, specious, and shallow man, IVilliam Pitt. He
foetid the Press, that pswerfol Lever upon human intellects,
an insttaitient, suited admirably to the pnipose of uphold-
ing•his system of deittsion ; and he -enlisted the Press in
his cause. Pitt himself, it is asserted by many believed in
the solidity of his system; not so the nisjority 'of his
_ supporters, who were attached to the Press. One cannot
' believe that Burke was ,sitieltre I fet'among those who
lauded the acts of Pitt. who termed his solemn blundere, in
Legislation the principles of ' the Heaven born Mittidtet,'
many were sincerely good meining, men and loveri or
their country. Such was the general infatusiion bf ttlel
aristocracy, or rather oligarchy, whether of the AgrilsulA
.t total, fdamsfacturing or 'Commercial Classes, that ..f 01/4,
- nearly twenty years after the death of this arch Aellilira
~- and convicted Impostor, clubs of thous who were hid 'Flip,

• Vida Notice o; Cierkeciedl Jail.