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resolution, on my part, to write and publish a pamphlet in defence of my country, which pamphlet he pledged himself to answer : his pledge was forfeited: it is known that mine was not. Thus, Sir, it was, that I became a writer on politics. Happy for you," you will say, if you had continued at your verbs and your nouns!" Perhaps it would; but the fact absorbs the reflection: whether it was for my good, or otherwise, I entered on the carer of political writing; and, without advernig to the circumstances u der which others have entered on it, I think it will not be believed that the pen was ever taken up from a motive more pure and laudable. I could have no hope of gain from the proposed publication itself, but, on the contrary, was pretty certain to incur a loss; no hope of remuneration, for not only had I never seen any agent of the British government in America, but was not ac quainted with any one British subject in the country. I was actuated, perhaps, by no very exalted notions of either loyalty or patriotism; the act was not much an act of refined reasoning, or of reflection; it arose merely from feeling, but it was that sort of feeling, that jealousy for the honour of my native country, which I am sure you will allow to have been highly meritorious, especially when you reflect on the circumstances of the times and the place in which I ventured before the public.--Great praise, and still more great success, are sure to operate, with young and zealous men, as an encouragement to farther exertions. Both were, in this case, far beyond my hopes, and still farther beyond the intrinsic merits of my performance. The praise was, in fact, given to the boldness of the man, who, after the American press had, for twenty years, been closed against every publication relative to England, in which England and her King were not censured and vilified, dared not only to defend but to eulogize and exalt them; and, the success was to be ascribed to that affection for England and that just hatred of France, which, in spite of all the misre presentations that had been so long circuJated, were still alive in the bosoms of all the better part of the people, who, openly to express their sentiments only wanted the occasion and the example which were now afforded them. From this time (the summer of 1794) to the year 1800 my labours were without intermission. During that space there were published from my pen about twenty different pamphlets, the whole number of which amounted to more than balf a million of copies. During the three last years, a daily paper, surpassing in extent

of numbers any one ever known in America, was the vehicle of my efforts; and, in the year 1800, I might safely have asserted, that there was not, in the whole country, one single family, in which some part or other of my writings had not been read, and in which, generally speaking, they had not produced some degree of effect favourable to the interests of my country But, there were some services, of which I must claim the right of making particular mention, and the first of which relates to the order, given by Mr. Dundas, for bringing in American vessels" for adjudication." This measure, which it seemed impossible could have been conceived in a cabinet of statesmen; this or der, worthy only of the mind of a low, and a very low, lawyer; this order, from which no good could possibly arise to any body bat the greedy speculators who had fitted out privateers for the express purpose of profiting from its equivocal meaning; this order, for the effects of which the people of England have already paid 600,000). smart money, and have, probably, nearly as much more to pay; this at once foolish and outrageous measure, coming in aid of the animosity engendered during the revolutionary war, and nourished by the pecuniary stipulations of the treaty of peace, was within a hair's breadth of deciding the American government to yield to the loudly-declared voice of the people in uniting their arms to those of the French Convention, and that too at the critical moment when Holland was first taken possession of by the republican arms, A treaty was negotiated with Mr. Jay; it was approved of finally, and war with Ámerica was happily avoided. But, far other exertions than those of the two cabinets were necessary to secure the conciliatory object of that treaty. The writings, the meetings, the debates, upon the subject, lasted nearly a twelve month, during which all the resources of art and ingenuity, of talent and of perseverance, were brought into action. The state, the whole society, were shaken to their very centre. The government was greatly at a loss how to act; by the papers which have been since published, it clearly appears, that the President Washington was, for some time, upon the balance whether he should ratify the treaty or not; and, the question for carrying it into effect was, in the lower House, at last decided in the affirma tive by the casting vote of the Speaker. If that question had been lost, nothing could have prevented America from joining France in the war; the French faction would have rapidly gained the ascendency, and the government must have yielded to its dictates to

In the whole

save itself from destruction. of this controversy I took an active part; and, at the same time, lost no opportunity of giving the people a just notion of what they had to expect from the fraternity of France. I know how to make allowance for the Overflowings of gratitude and of friendship, and for the expressions of applause attendant on success. I pretend not, there fore, to be entitled to all the merit which was awarded me (in America, I mean) as to the result of the contest; but, I certainly was in the front rank of tho e by whom the victory was chieved. The importance of that victory to England, it would, perhaps, be difficult to render intelligible to the mind of Lord Mellle, without the aid of a comparison; and, therefore, it may be necessary to observe, that it was infinitely more important than all his victories in the West Indies put to gether, which latter victories cost this country thirty thousand men and fifty millions of money. You will recollect, perhaps, Sir, that there were, during the last war, certain dispatches of the French minister, Fauchet, intercepted at sea by our cruizers, and sent back to America. The person, who jumped overboard and saved them from being sunk, has, I believe, been liberally rewarded by government. He deserved it. But those dispatches, which, by the exposition that I gave of them, so materially contributed to forn the tide of popular opinion against France, would, had it not been for me, have produced very little effect. My exertions on this occasion were such as hardly to be credited, if they were fully described, and the ed ct they produced cannot possibly be conceived by any one who was not a witness of them. I shall meation ne more instance of the effect of my exertions; one that I can never reflect on bat with something more than pride. Several vessels, in consequence of General Maitland's famoas evacuation of Port-au-Prince, arrived in the Delaware with Frech Royalists on board, under the flag of his Majesty. From sinister motives of some persons a fearful representation of their numbers, and the nasaber of their armed negroes, had been made to the Governor, and, by him to the President. Whereupon, with out a moment's hesitation, the Upper-House of Congress proceeded to pass a law to prevent the landing of these unfortunate people; and, if the law bad passed and been executed, it was not easy to see how they could have avoided perishing. In this extremity the Royalists had, by means of their friends, applied to the British Minister, who, with that zeal which marked the whole of his conduct, applied to the government on

behalf of these unfortunate persons, but could obtain nothing whereon to build even a hope of success. In the mean time, indignant at the injustice, the cruelty, and the baseness of thus repelling these people by an ex-post facto law, and that, too, out of pure fear as to what barely might happen, and without any previous examination or inquiry into the truth of the facts alleged, 1 had taken up the cause of the Frenchmen, and had reprobated, in terms, perhaps, not the most mild, the intended measure of the government and the Congress. And here, Sir, give me leave to exhibit to you a specimen of mercantile baseness, such as I imagine you have never yet seen. The merchants and shop keepers, several of whom, when I. began to write, I found in French cockades, and who were ready to stone me to death for writing against Frenchmen, now came to my house in crowds to scratch their name from my list, because I wrote in favour of Frenchmen! They were frightened; and you know, Sir, very well, that if they are once put into a good fright, all ideas of liberty and law instantly vanish from their minds. Solomon describes the fool's wrath as being extremely dangerous; but woe unto him who has to sustain the wrath of a coward! Even this, however, did not deter me from my purpose. The Frenchmen, finding that they had no other hope, sent their friends to me to consult as to the measures to be taken. On the Saturday the bill had been read three times in the Senate, and had been ordered to the lower house. On the Sunday I procured an accurate statentent of the number and description of the persons on board, together with a sort of certificate from the comm wder of each ship. These i conveyed to the President on the Sunday night, and sent copies of them to a metaler of the lower-honse of Congress the next morning. Precedings were immediately stopped, an official exa. mination was ordered by the President; it was found that there was no danger; the Frenchmen were landed; and my merchants and shop-keepers, who wou'd hive cruc.tied me only two days before, now came sueaking to thank me for having saved their city and their country from disgrace.-1 will weary you with no more particular instances. This is merely a specimen of the exertions I was continually making for six years, during the whole of which time, I can truly say, that I lived not for myself or my family, but exclusively for my country and my King. I enjoyed nothing that the world calls pleasure, fortune was entirely reglected, and personal safety bat very little atrem /ed to. When I began to write, the prejudice, the

hatred, against England were so great, that scarcely any Englishman would publicly own his country. If asked of what country he was, his answer was evasive; he came from "the old country," or he called himself an Irishman or a Scotchman; for English was the hated epithet. Of the violence, the rage of the times, no man not upon the spot can form an adequate idea; but some conception of the dangers that I must have been exposed to may be conveyed by the fact of the people having, in their fury against yourself, hanged, and afterwards beheaded, the marble statue of your father! It was in the midst of a scene like this, Sir, at the time that the Philadelphians were tearing down the image of King George II. from the walls of the church which he had founded for their fathers; it was at that time that I exhibited the pictures of all the Royal Family of England in a window exactly opposite that very wall, and there I determined to exhibit them, and did exhibit them, till their name was once more honoured in the city. Mr. Long would have called this "indiscreet and chivalrous;" but, Sir, there are times and seasons when to venture every thing but character is the very height of discretion; and, indeed, discretion, as to such circumstances, consists in knowing when to ventore, and when not to venture. The sequel proved that I was discreet. I succeeded in my object far beyond my utmost expectations. I met every adversary that appeared against my country; defended it against every accusation; exposed its secret, and chastised its open enemies; emboldened its friends to speak, and "stilled the madness "of the crowd." In that city, where, when I started on my career, an Englishman was ashamed to own his country; where my life had been a hundred times threatened unless I desisted to write against France; where the name of his Majesty was never mentioned unaccompanied with some epithet too foul and calumnious to repeat; in that city I lived to see a public celebration of Lord Nelson's victory over the French, and to be serenaded with the tune of "God save the "King!" What a change! Certainly not to be entirely ascribed to me. But, it was a change which I had a considerable share in producing; I staid the mischief; I prevented that which would have prevented us from profiting from the events which time was hastening along. My American friends give me all the credit of this change: I claim no such thing; but I know, that I deserve, and that I shall have, the lasting gratitude of both countries. The services, of which I have been speaking, have not ceased their

operation they are still active: the people of America cannot, even if they would, forget what they have learned against France; nor, which is, indeed, of more importance, will they again be silenced with regard to the merits of Great Britain. The time of my writing will be looked back to as a memorable epoch, not only in American politics, but in the political mind of America. I untied the tongue of British attachment: by an extraordinary exertion I broke the shackles in which the public mind had been held from the commencement of the revolutionary war, and once more opened a way for the workings of nature and of truth.

Now, Sir, though, upon my return to Ergland, I expected no reward for these services; though I never either received or asked for or wished for any, yet I might, without being too unreasonable, have hoped, that, if my services should happen to be publicly commended, I should escape an assault from a press under the control of that government, in defence of which I had so zealously and so disinterestedly laboured: I might have hoped, that, though an orator were, by way of rhetorical figure, to award me a statue of gold for my services across the Atlantic; even in that case I might have hoped that a tool, yea a very slave, of the Treasury would not dare to style me an American and a traitor. These are wrongs not easy to justify or to palliate; especially when they come without provocation; and certain I am that I never gave any, except that of refusing to become brother-slave; a refusal which arose not only from my dislike to the situation itself, but from a conviction, which has been since fully confirmed by observation, that the pen of a slave seldom produces effect. From my arrival in England to the preliminaries of peace, or, at least, during a part of that time, I endeavoured to support a daily paper, in which endeavour, from various causes I failed; but, however awkward I might appear in a scene to me entirely new, I think it will not be pretended, that, in my diurnal print, there was any departure from those principles of loyalty and patriotism, which I had inculcated and practised in America.

At the preliminaries of peace a new question in politics arose. I remained upon the old ground; you departed from it. The Treasury writers have accused me of "de"serting Mr. Pitt, whom I had so highly "extolled, and of going over to Mr. Fox, "whom I had so severely censured." And thus I am, by way of allusion, charged with a crime almost as heinous as any that. man can commit. But, to desert, a man must

first be enlisted, and, if I might be said to be enlisted, it was in the cause of which I regarded you as the champion; and not in your personal service. It is very true, that, while in America, and immediately after return to England, I did highly extol you; but, Sir, it must be evident to every one, that this my conduct arose from my regarding you as the great asserter of the cause of my country and of monarchy. You were always defended and applauded by me as the person, who was at the head, who was the rallying point of all those, who were opposed to the principles and the natural consequences of the French revolution. In the course of my proposed inquiry I shall, I think, show, that want of true information (a deficiency that will need no accounting for, when my then situation, not only as to place, but as to various other circumstances, is considered) misled me, that you were not the champion of the cause of monarchy, and that it was chiefly owing to your wrong system of policy that that cause was finally ruined. But, to justify my desertion, as it is called by the Treasury writers, there needs no inquiry into your measures during the last war. Your conduct relative to the peace, contrasted with your declared prin ciples and avowed object as to the war, are all I require to prove, that, in ceasing to be your eulogist and in becoming your assailant my conduct has exhibited a perfect consis tency. In supporting you, Sir, what was the object I had in view? Some of your liberal partisans will probably say, a good round sum of money. But, be that as it may, what was the object which I professed to have in view? for, here, if any where, must be found the marks of desertion. What, then, was this object? It was, Sir, that which you professed to me, as well as to every man in England and in Europe, upon several occasions during the war, and particularly, in your speech made in the House of Commons, on the 7th of June, 1799. In that speech you declared, that we were in circumstances which forbade us to stop short of "an adequate, full, and "rational security;" that war might be carried on for any length of time, "without "the creation of new debt;" and that it would not be difficult "to provide taxes for "eight years."...." We shall not," said you, "be satisfied with false security. War,

with all its evils, is better than a peace, in "which there is nothing to be seen but in"justice, dwelling with savage delight on "the humbled prostrate condition of some

timid suppliant people."..." The time "to come to a discussion of a peace, can “ only be the time when you can look with

"confidence to an honourable issue; to such a peace as shall at once restore to Europe "her settled and balanced constitution of general polity, and to every negotiating power in particular, that we ght in the "scale of general empire, which has ever "been found the best guarantee and pledge "of local independence and general secu«rity. Such are my sentiments. I am "not afraid to avow them I commit them "to the thinking amongst mankind; and, "if they have not been poisoned by the "stream of French sophistry, and preju "diced by her falsehoods, I am sure they "will approve of the determination I have "avowed, and for those grave and mature 66 reasons on which I found it."—————I, Sir, had not been poisoned by the stream of French sophistry; I did approve of the determination that you avowed; I not only ap proved of it, I applauded it, I exulted at it, as my American friends will remember to their present mortification. But, Sir, because I highly extolled you for this noble determination, and for the inexhaustible pecuniary means that you had provided for carrying it into effect, was I to continue to extol you when you broke a determination so solemnly avowed, and, that, too, under the pretext of husbanding those pecuniary means? Because I highly extolled the Mr. Pitt of June, 1799, was I bound to ex of the Mr. Pitt of November, 1801, when he called upon the country for its lasting gratitude towards those men who had negotiated the preliminaries of peace? It is a well known and undisputed fact, that you yourself, Sir, directed those negotiations; that it was at your suggestion they were undertaken; that in every stage you were consulted; and that no stipulation was made without your consent and approbation. But, if there were any

doubt upon this point, there can be none as to your open conduct with regard to the measure, in which you did not merely acquiesce, which you did not merely approve of and support, but which you declared to be such as to "afford matter of exultation to "the country, and to entitle the ministers to "its warmest approbation and most grateful "thanks." And, Sir, did consistency call upon me to extol you after such an eulogium upon a compact in which all your principles had been abandoned, and all your promises falsified? Will any one say, that the peace of Amiens "restored to Europe her settled "and balanced constitution of general po "lity?" Will any one pretend that the peace of Amiens gave us "indemnity for the past "and security for the future?" To ask the questions seems like a sort of mockery. Will

it be said, that you were unable to carry on the war? Then Mr. Fox was right; for it was a peace of necessity. But, if this was the case, then comes your other difficulty; for, I was deceived by your statements of 1799, to say nothing about the more elaborate statements of your Secretary Mr. Rose, whose official pamphlet came forth to aid the deception. I believed you, when you so confidently and so solemnly declared, that "the war might be carried on for any length "of time without the creation of new "debt," and that " it would not be difficult "to provide taxes for eight years;" and, though I saw you, in two years afterward,, make a peace, in which not only all your avowed objects of the war were abandoned, but by which the ancient honours of the country were surrendered; though I saw the balance of Europe remain completely overset; though the enemy seized state upon state even during the negotiations; and though I clearly saw and explicitly foretold that England itself would be exposed to that constant and imminent danger, of which every man is now feelingly sensible; in spite of all this, was I still to adhere to you, still to extol you, on pain of being stigmatized as a political de erter! Will any one, even in the purlieus of Downing Street and Whitehall, attempt to maintain a position so repugnant to reason? Because you, either from choice or from necessity; impelled either by your interest, your ambition, or the consequences of your errors, changed your course in politics, throwing aside all the principles which had induced me to follow you, was I bound to change too? Is the mere name of Pitt, (for there was little else left) sufficient to compensate for the ab sence of every thing that we desire to find in a minister, and is it entitled to political allegiance from all those who have once expressed their attachment to the principles with which it has been, but no longer is, connected? Is there any one who will pretend, that you are not only so great as to have a right to abandon your principles, without exposing yourself to censure, but to render it a duty in others to abandon theirs for the sake of yielding you support? Is there any one who will venture to urge a pretension so offensive, so insulting to the feelings of the world? And, if not; if it be not insisted, that every man who once supports a principle of yours, becomes by that act solely your bondsman for life, then, I think, if desertion be a proper word to employ, it will be allowed that I did not desert you, but that you deserted me.

But, though thus deserted, I might, say

your friends, have avoided going over to your political opponent, Here too, Sir, I shall, I hope, find very little difficulty in showing, that, though, in this case, the path pointed out by reason and by honour, by loyalty and by patriotism, was strewed with thorns, I have, in no single instance, deviated from it--I am, Sir, your, &c. &c. Botley, Hants, Sep. 24, 1804. W. COBBETT.

INCAPACITY OF HENRY THE SIXTH.

[The following letter is, I believe, from a correspondent, who before dited from the Middle Temple. As the subject is very important, and as the utility of his treatise will greatly depend upon a counesion of the parts in the mind of the reader, it is requested that he will forward the sequel as soon as he conveniently can. I am very happy to perceive a person of so much talent and so well versed in constitutional doctrine agreeing entirely with me as to the distinction, which I have so often insisted upon, between the King's government,” and the " administration of his public servants." When men bave got into office, it is very convenient for them to call themselves the government; for this plain and most cogent reason, that to oppose the government is a crime! Y toven in parliament, and on both sides of the House, one sometimes is obliged to listen to this phraseology. We hear members talk of a weak government and of a strong government; of the late government and the present government of supporting the government and attacking the government. These members may mean the ministry all this while; they certainly do so mean; but, if one side of the House is not aware of the force of words and of habits, the other side is: if their opponents will but allow them, only by name, to be" the government," they will take care to keep possession of its powers?-W. C.]

SIR,- You will probably recognise my signature and haud writing, though I date from a different place. My distance and the impossibility of procuring the necessary books, where I have lately been, have hitherto prevented me from taking notice of a correspondent in one of your numbers*, who has made handsome mention of my former letter. He is entitled to my best acknowledgments; and, I am desirous of shewing my gratitude, by giving him every assistance in my power. If before, on the occasion to which he alludes, I ventured to suggest information to a learned brother of the law; he, who seems to represent himself as

*No. IV. of the present Volume. EDIT.