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by a variety of collateral causes. In this view, a scrupulous regard to all the minutia of discipline, though despicable to the last degree in the military mimicry of the volunteers, promotes in the economy of the regular army a very important end; it brings the man constantly under the eye of his officer; it renders him perpetually conversant with authority, WHICH ADMITS OF NO DISPUTE; by these means the artificial principles, che rished in his mind, preponderate at last over those on which they were originally engrafted, and the man is gradually tutored to that degree of instinctive obedience, which constitutes the radical distinction between undisciplined and veteran troops. In our present establishment of internal defence, we have brought together all the constituent elements, but we want the cementing principle to give them coherence and solidity. We have realised the fable of Prometheus. have formed and combined all the different members of the body according to the rules of just proportion; we have constructed a piece of correct mechanism, and given to it all the external graces of which mere matter is susceptible; but we still want the principle of life, to warm and animate the senseless image; we want a soul to inform the lifeless clay. It is evident that the very fundamen tal principles on which the volunteers are constituted, are completely hostile to the establishment of strict discipline. How can any thing like a system of vigorous discipline be established among men who have the unqualified power of resigning, and thus at once, on a moment's notice, and for reasons wholly arbitrary, of dissolving all connexion between them and their officers, and of absolving themselves from all the obligations of military duty, whenever they shall prove in the least degree burdensome or disagreeable. In whatever view, therefore, the military character be considered, whether as depending on the attainment of a mechanical precision in certain motions, or whether its essential principles lie deeper in the human mind, the project of three weeks' service appears to be altogether nugatory. In the one case the volunteers may evidently be drilled with more advantage at home, and in the other, surely nothing can be more wild and visionary than to imagine, that under the control of feeble and imperfect discipline, and with inexperienced officers, such a short period of duty can stamp a different character on the relation between them and their officers. Such an expectation can only arise from a blind and obstinate attachment/to this incongruous system. Reasoning, theretote, on the principles of the projectors of

the measure, it appears to be potent only to oppress and destroy, but totally inefficient to any good purpose. Its present effects, in the loss of productive industry, and in the havock made in all the most important relations of civil society, are destructive in the extreme; but, the evil of its remoter operation may not be less fatal in many respects, one of which is, in creating among the great body of the people a disinclination to a service comparatively so poorly rewarded as that of the regular army. All our plans of defence are too much adapted to extreme cases; they are rather the result of rashness and terror, than of deliberate wisdom. Our ministers (and nobody seems to be more actuated by this spirit than Mr. Pitt) seem to think, that in providing for our security, no sacrifice can possibly be too great, that the utter derangement of industry ought not to weigh a teather in the scale of their deliberations, nor even ought to be stated as any objection to the execution of their military projects. They appear to be scared far beyond the bounds of sobriety and reason by the terror of invasion, and if we were to judge by their idle declamation, we should naturally conclude that there was a destroying enemy already in the heart of the country. With then measures of caution have no limit, they pursue them in opposition to every other consideration. Their conduct is somewhat similar to that of a gentleman, whose reigning disturbance was a dread of housebreakers, and who was for nine years unceasingly occupied in improving upon the common methods of security against their attacks. "He had at last, by the daily superaddition "of new expedients, contrived a door which "could never be forced; for one bar was "secured by another with such intricacy of "subordination, that he was himself not al"" ways able to disengage them in their proper method. He was happy in this for "tification, till being asked how he would

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escape if threatened by fire, he discovered "that with all his care and expense he had "only been assisting his own destruction." Although it must be confessed that our ap prehensions are founded on more solid grounds than the fears of this visionary, yet many of our plans appear to have been conceived in the same spirit of irrational terror, and if we persist in obstinately adhering to our present system, in rendering the national defence an adequate apology for every destructive project; if we continue to squander away the resources of the nation in tempting the labouring classes of society from their natural occupations, we shall undoubtedly find, that in protecting ourselves against one

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evil, we have laid ourselves open to another; and that, while we have been vainly endeavouring to heap security upon security, and to guard against the remotest possibility of danger from foreign attack, we have been, by our ignorant and precipitate counsels, if not materially assisting in our own destruction, at least inflicting a wound upon our country, which it will require many years of prosperous tranquillity to heal. The story to which I have alluded, applies also, to us in this respect, that the object of all our contrivances, the great purpose for which all our cumbrous machinery is erected, is the attainment of mere safety. All our instruments of defence, like bolts and bars, are in their own nature totally inert, and capable only of a negative operation. We possess indeed, resources within ourselves, both physical and moral; which, if they had been consolidated under the direction of a vigorous and comprehensive mind, might have been rendered by their very formidable; but which are "essence and constitution, disabled from defending us by any one preventive stroke, " or any operation of active hostility." They are, indeed, imprisoned and pent up in our own island, and are only fit to be exhibited by Mr. Pitt in a harmless array of figures, for the purpose of dazzling our enemies by a splendid picture of our internal power. When the ardent feelings of patriotism begin to languish under this system of feebleness and mismanagement, when a free people, hitherto accustomed to identify their existence with their glory, feel their proud spirit broken, and their pride humbled, by being taught to lurk for safety in the dirt and mire of a base and cowardly policy, ministers dress up the spectre of invasion, and send it abroad to keep the people in alarm, and by thus acting on their fears, to reanimate their drooping energies, and to excite, for a time, that enthusiasm which results from the prospect of immediate peril. They have muzzled the British lion, and cooped him in a cage; they have broken his spirit, and nearly extinguished that generous ardour which nature kindled in his heart, and row they clatter round his cage, and poke him with a stick, and practise all the other low tricks of itinerant jugglers, to make him growl and grin, and to draw forth from the noble animal the faint radiations of his former fire. B.

INTERNAL STATE OF JAMAICA.

SIR,-After reading in the Register of the 7th instant, (p. 1.) the observations on Jamaica, which are for the most part drawn from the facts of public statements, I offer

you, for any purpose you may think them useful, the following more particularly referring to the internal condition of that colony. As an eye witness I may claim credibility; and when it is recollected that evils such as you have represented do exist, it must be inferred that remore as well as immediate causes have arisen to complete their The consequences of the high calamity. duties on colonial produce, as proved in your Register to have commenced some years back, were a destruction of credit to the planters both here and in Jamaica. Bills of exchange were sent back innumerable, there succeeded between merchants and planters a distressing course of suits at law, the one to protract the loss or independence of their estates, the other to force immediate payment, or to obtain greater security for their unpaid debts. From this the island has progressively been sinking under the blow, the major part of the estates are in the possession of mortgagees, or of the proprietors on sufferance of creditors. Chancery suits are still impending and still renewing; and it may be asserted, that a few years more will reduce Jamaica to a state of beggary. But, the merchants creditors of estates delay the last exertion of law which may transfer the possession and fee simple to themselves, because, even at the reduced price, at which the estates would be forced into their hands, the merchants conceive they would lose, or be injured. So that, while the estates are in the permissive possession of planters, or held by merchants as trustees or mortgagees in possession, or as chancery receivers, there is, strictly speaking, no sound proprietor. Another effect results, that the merchant has what is termed the factorage of the estates, and freight for his ships; he has the consignment of the sugar; he takes to himself compound interest for his debt, and has the whole power of possession without the inconvenience. Government receives the duties, the insurer his quota, and, perhaps, out of the wreck of the fee-simple, the planter, or his devisee, may enjoy an annuity. The estates in Jamaica remains in the statu quo of debt in many instances in annual accumulation so that, for the greater part, it may be said, that no clear rental goes into any one's pocket; but that it is well if the estate in the action and reaction of necessary charges, and of annual profits to pay them, does not suffer defalcation in the account current. In the political situation of Jamaica, the cause that ruined the planter deters the merchant from wishing to take the property in his own name.

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has again begun, new taxes are laid on plantation imports; the deterioration of West-India property will be aggravated; and, it may be added, that St. Domingo is a malignant cloud, the fore-runner of civil hurricanes. Tenfold then will be the conviction of the insecurity of West-India posse sions. As if the mischief here stated were not enough, the slave abolition is again introduced, and, between the pledges the ministry has made of his humanity, and his consciousness of the result of abolition on the trade and revenue, he will be pushed to contrive expedients of compromise. It must not be presumed that there are no independent proprietors of Jamaica: there are many, not of successful speculations of late years, but of times previous to the date you affix to the origin of Jamaica's bad fortune. Yet they are at a loss to secure their estates from submitting to the debtor side; and feel, in the comparative diminution of means in this country, the diminution of the value of their Finds and effects. Even many of thero have of late years been chained to the oars of mortgaging. Besides the severity of ministry in laying such duties, another wound to the interest of the planter is the high rate of freight, which is imposed on account of the enormous expense of sailing merchant ships. The Navigation Act, as you observe, is now another grievance, for North America is the life and soul of Jamaica. Sugar is to be shipped there only in British bottoms, which the American government takes care to burden with charges of entry to almost a prohibition. Rum and molasses are allowed to be carried by the Americans. So far from rum being an article of advantage, I have heard that New York spirits have been smuggled to Jamaica for the sake of the profit arising. Jamaica was raised on the foundation of what is termed the forced trade: that is a contraband intercourse allowed by the government with the WestIndia Spaniards. This is a subject of cominercial lamentation: this trade, that once filled Port Royal of earthquake memory, with gold and silver, that raised Kingston to affluence, and diffused plenty over the face of the country, is tottering towards ruin, and the benefit of the Spaniards. Instead of millions of coin, they now bring only thousands, and supply the planter with cattle, mules, and horses, for which instead of taking British goods, they demand much of their own doubloons and dollars back; going to cheaper markets for such commodities. So far from the complaints alluded to in your Register being exaggerated, if these asseverations are bottomed, woe unto Cromwell's

Island! and, that they are truth, the events now existing may imply, and the preceding. events of a few years will lay bare. Why, Sir, the whole colony is in a state of civil hostility in the courts of law and chancery; the collectors of taxes are compelled to exert the cruelty of law to enforce payment of taxes; and the resident land owners of small estates are most of them confined to, their dwelling houses in a state of siege against the writs of creditors, who again are hunted by the agents of merchants in England for non-payment of loans. And this is the el dorado of ministers! the elysium of five thousand of her warriors! What infatuation, what wilful blindness!

quos Deus

vult perdere, prius delirat!" It cannot have been attempted to look into the state of the colony before proposing such measures. The despair of hungry sharks drove one side to extort, the despair of death drove the other to refuse. From what precedent was the black regiment inflicted on the colony? From the arming of blacks in t. Domingo, by the contending whites and mulattoes, which, more than the proclamation of the convention, produced the Dessalines of this day? Was it the arming of the seapoys?. But where is the parallel between the slaves and the East-Indians, in any one quality or respect whatever? Great oversights are never committed with impunity. Without something in place of prevention (the moment for which is past) Jamaica is in the agonies of death, as to national ability.

Crescit indulgens sibi dirus hydrops
Nec sitim peilit nisi causa morbi
Fugerit venas et aquorus albo.

Corpore languor.

Many more local observations might be urged to substantiate the opinion of Jamaica's decline. Nothing would better answer the purpose, than if a table of the proceedings of an estate were arithmetically laid before the public; both in relation to Jamaica, and to England. Not merely a delineation of charges in gross, but with a specific account of the debts of an estate, its accidental relations, and its necessary payments in Jamaica, which would be a proper appendage to the statement, inserted in a former Register. The amount of the debt with which Jamaica is loaded commercially should be known by ministers; and the circumstances of the contraband trade should be examined. Even with all due diligence, I fear the day of happy reformation is gone. I think it impossible, that existing evils can be amended. So open to the consequence of war, the enormous private debts, increas ing public debts, destruction of internal cre

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dit, and agitation of credit with English merchants; the change in the Spanish trade, the costs of shipping, the power of the Navigation Act, and the neighbourhood of St. Domingo, together with the condition of the sugar market in England, and the impositions of duty add to all this the slave trade now in discussion, by the passing of which through the Commons we plead guilty to a self-created verdict of public and private infamy against the prescription of ages; but to whatever branch of trade or intercourse we turn, in which Jamaica bears a part, we find not one that is not leafless in its own decay, or stript by the fury of its own dragon, its pretended guardian! So much for Jamaica. Perhaps our military contractor of serjeant and parish-officer may hope to restore the latent fire of war in our breasts, and tell us to be great within the European islands. Be it so. Without Scotland or 4 Ireland, Bacon, I believe it is, holds up litthe England as, in itself, the champion of belligerent nations. Yet it might have been thought of, some few years back, to have put a stop to the immense drain of British blood, and especially British gold on Jamaica investments, of purchases and loans, now irretrievable.-C.

STATE OF IRISH CURRENCY.

of a

lings will, therefore, be worth a mint guinea
and one shilling, as is perfectly evident by
the fact of a pound troy of standard gold
being coined into 444 guineas, and a pound
troy of silver into 62 shillings (Lord King,
2d Edit. p. 138). It follows, therefore,
that, when guineas were in circulation in
Ireland, there must have been an existing
temptation to melt all mint shillings, or those
which were any thing heavier than what
was necessary to give to 21 shillings more
value than the value of a guinea. This
circumstance being established, and also the
certainty of a depreciation of Bank paper of
at least 10 per cent., twenty-one shillings
of such a weight as would have been left
in circulation, when guineas were current,
would now be increased in value 10 per
centum; or, in other words, they would
buy a guinea Bank note and about
note. The depreciation, therefore, of paper
has been the real cause of the debasement
of the silver coin, and the progress of it has
regularly coincided with the progress of the
depreciation, until no such thing remained
in circulation as a real silver representative
of a shilling. It is not a matter of surprise,
that the silver coin should have been thus
permitted by the government of Ireland to
die without the benefit of a doctor, when,
in the first instance, they so coolly observed
the whole currency depreciated 10 per cent.
and have so sagaciously discovered, that the
malady is past recovery, and that there was
no need of a doctor to prescribe to such
hale and thrifty characters as those who
preside over the measures of the Bank.
The government acting upon that principle
of physic, which dictates the leaving of na-
ture to herself, have left the guarantee of
the value of the currency to the laudable
nature of a body of merchants to consult
their own interests in preference to that of
the public, and the existence of silver specie
to the natural propensity of coiners to make
more profit by the melting pot, than these
ingenious persons were enabled to make by
sending back into circulation whatever por-
tion of it they received by walking in the
paths of honest industry. For what did the
government of Ireland do, when at least
two years ago every one began to compla n
of the silver coin? They did nothing: they
left

SIR,-The unfeigned thanks of every Irishman are due to you, Mr. Cobbett, for your liberal and zealous attention to every circumstance connected with their interests. It is only necessary to know, that there is not an Editor of any newspaper published in Ireland, who dares, or, who will, at least, state facts as they occur, or express the sentiments of any correspondent; it is only necessary to know this, in order to be able fully to appreciate the value of your weekly publication, which is now read throughout the sister kingdom. Your insertions on the subject of Irish currency have been of the greatest service, and as an opportunity has occurred to me of witnessing in person the events which have attended the debasement of the silver currency, I shall endeavour to give you a clear idea of the causes which produced it, and of the effects which have flowed from it; and notwithstanding Mr. Corry declared in the House of Commons, that measures were resorted to by the Irish government, which had remedied the evil, I shall. I trust, be able to prove, that no remedy has yet been applied.The ratio of gold to silver according to the regulation of the mint is as 1 to 15: the true proportion, according to the market prices, is hearly as 1 to 14. Twenty-one mint shil

every thing to nature. They even forgot the control they possessed over the r ceipts at the public offices, and in the collection of the taxes, the receipts of this base coin was permitted at the public of fices.- -After the work of debasement had been completed, and shillings actually had been passable made of pewter, the public

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offices were the first to refuse payment in the base coin, and by this refusal produced the sudden stoppage of all trading operations throughout the whole city of Dublin! The distress which arose from this cause admits not of adequate description. The poor women who had brought their eggs or fowis to market from the vicinity of the metropolis, and who depended upon the usual demand for them for the means of purchasing the bread which was to feed their families for the ensuing day or two, were obliged to return with their commodities which could command no value, and without bread. The roads leading from the markets were, in the evening, crowded with wretched creatures, loudly deploring their misfortunes, and unable to calculate upon any certain method of giving sustenance to their craving children. The inhabitants of Dublin could not be supplied with bread and meat, because the baker and the butchers could not receive in payment what the flour factors and graziers would not receive from them, and thus the people were deprived of the power of procuring the necessaries of life, in the midst of plenty and abundance. But these were not the only grievances which were experienced. The time which has since elapsed, and the experience that has since been derived, were necessary to be able to attain a due knowledge of the baneful effects resulting from the debasement of silver coin. The industrious journeyman or labourer, who had received his week's wages, instead of 12s. or 16s. or 21s. which he had fairly earned, was obliged to seek some value for them from those persons, who undertook to give the fair value for the portion of silver contained in each bad shilling; and thus many of the persons who had in the first instance derived a profit by making them, derived a second profit by buying them up and giving to the ignorant and suffering indigent 2d. 3d. or 4d. for that shilling which represented many hours of hard labour.This was not all, for notwithstanding a certain small quantity of good shillings have come forth into circulation, which had been hoarded up, and some paper notes are issued, and some dollars, and even an efficient remedy applied, according to Mr. Corry, there has not been, and there is not one-fourth part of the amount of the circulation necessary for Dublin, with all these quackeries, yet acquired. The consequence is, that almost all retail trade is at a stand. Though all want to buy, and many want to sell, little or nothing is either bought or sold. The retail traders will, many of them, necessarily be

come bankrupts. The loss of their demand will necessarily occasion bankruptcies amongst the wholesale merchants; and in this manner general failure, discontent, and ruin may attend the mild administration of Lord Hardwicke.-So much, Mr. Cobbett, for the effects of a deficient circulation of silver in Dublin. Let us now look to the interior of the country. The outcry against bad silver spread as fast throughout the whole of it as the intelligence of what had happened in Dublin could be communicated, and every poor man lost, in one moment, to an amount exactly in proportion to the degree of industry with which he had laboured to collect the scanty recompense of days of severe toil. Not knowing what to do with pieces of metal that no one would take in payment, it was not uncommon to see them throwing them away, tacitly venting their indignation against the government. But, as silver notes were in general circulation throughout the interior, and the dealings and payments are more of a wholesale nature, the want of sufficient circulation was not so materially felt as in Dublin; we cannot, however, consider this circumstance as cause of much satisfaction, when we look forward to the operation of the immense augmented issues of paper, which must now inevitably take place throughout all Ireland. Though they will not in the first instance produce any bad effect, if they only meet the net demand for circulation, yet it is too probable that the bankers will take advan tage of the state of things, and contrive to issue much more than will be really want ing; thus advance prices, and create a demand for that portion of their paper, which would be excessive, and returned back to them. It is most earnestly to be hoped, now that a change in administration has ta ken place, that the state of Ireland become an object of the assiduous attention of the new minister; that men may be em ployed who thoroughly understand the prin ciples of good government, or who, at least, have some qualifications for directing the affairs of so important a portion of the em pire.-I am, Sir, &c. &c. J. T.

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