1830.] The Year 1830. 119 



the same condition; that the honourable and manly "portion of the public 

 mind in both is totally and incurably disgusted with the conduct of those 

 individuals to whose rank and responsibility they looked with confidence ; 

 that they expect nothing good from the present state of things ; and that 

 the name of public man, or the mention of public pledge, is received with 

 the utmost scorn. To all this we, in the joyousness of our souls, say, 

 " Ye are blockheads ! Have we not a Cabinet of soldiers ? the First 

 Lord of the Treasury, a soldier ? the Secretary of State for the Colo- 

 nies, a soldier ? the Lord Privy Seal, a soldier ? Have we not the 

 Secretary at War, a soldier?" What if all those were once civil 

 appointments, and scrupulously kept in the hands of civilians, from 

 some awkward prejudices in the heads of the men who founded the Con- 

 stitution ? We only answer, those men lived a century and a half ago, 

 and were blockheads besides. The answer is irresistible ; and there the 

 matter ends. 



But the Cabinet are not of that calibre which is satisfied with a simple 

 negative to the charges of the disaffected. They have a noble field be- 

 fore them, and nobly will they work up the occult fertility of the soil. 

 The first man that comes home to every man's breast and pocket is the 

 tax-gatherer. The fondest admirers of the premier and soldiership in 

 all its branches, is touched here ; and it must be confessed that, if on 

 the Duke's first return from the parade of the Guards, he would lower a 

 few of the taxes, he might win a smile the more, even from those masters 

 of the indefatigable smile, who line his daily way to Downing-street. 

 The fact is, that the taxes bruise out our souls and bodies, and that the 

 comings of Christmas and Easter are dreaded more than the navigation 

 of half the globe, as is well known to Mr. Peel and his Swan River 

 relative. Well, at least one tax is to be repealed the Malt tax. For 

 this we have shall we write the word ? the pledge of ministers ! It is 

 nothing to the contrary, that the revenue has fallen off by the 100,000/., 

 and that we shall be happy if, before the end of a quarter or two more, we 

 shall not have to say, by the million. But the miracle will be wrought : 

 the malt tax will be repealed, and no substitute, ten times more crushing, 

 be laid on to reconcile us to the rapid prosperity of our finance. The 

 next grand improvement will be, a complete revision of the Corn laws. 

 No man will thenceforth eat bread at three times the price that the 

 Frenchman, within twenty miles of our shore, pays for it. No British 

 farmer will be ruined by the difficulty of paying his dues, even at that 

 rate ; or, if ruin can be more complete, see that point effected for 

 him by the importation of thousands of tons from the barbarians of the 

 Baltic. 



The Free-trade, that legacy of the Jacobins to the Huskissons, and of 

 the Huskissons to the grateful people of the British empire, will be 

 divested instantaneously of all its old accompaniments, of broken merchants 

 and starving manufacturers, of towns deserted, and factories blazing 

 in the flame of their own treddles. France, and the whole foreign 

 world, will recognize the Huskissonian principle, that an inundation of 

 strange goods thrown in upon the native manufacturer at a price ruinous 

 to the seller, and merely as a refuge from instant bankruptcy, is the 

 true mode of encouraging his industry. The whole business will run as 

 smooth as a shuttle ; and even if France, Germany, Russia, and the 

 universe, should shut their ears to our persuasions, their ports to our 

 produce, double their custom-houses, and tax ten-fold every thing that 



