v j Atf ADDRESS, &C. 



farmers, notwithstanding the combined pressure of the an- 

 nual increase of general taxes, and also of those to which 

 agriculture is exclusively liable; rise in the price of labour,* 

 of rent, and of every article of the necessaries of life, were 

 enabled to thrive, to improve their land, and to assume a 

 style of living, which their fathers or themselves a few 

 years since never expected to be able to indulge in, and at 

 which many of the aged, when they reflected upon for- 

 mer times, were astonished. A great and serious change 

 however took place, from causes, some of which continued 

 to operate until the last autumn, when the general distress 

 from another and opposite cause was continued, and from 

 their combined effects, a depression of prices in the first in- 

 stance, and rise of them since the last harvest, distress un- 

 exampled in extent and degree has been produced, which 

 every friend to humanity must deplore—The causes to 

 which I allude, were the exclusion of British manufactures 

 from the United States, and the continent in 1812; followed 

 by three uucommohly fruitful harvests in England in suc- 

 cession, viz. 1812, 13-1* : the well grounded prospect of 

 peace from the events of the war on the continent in 1812, 

 and the actual return of peace which caused the vast go- 

 vernmental demand for produce greatly to lessen; and final- 

 ly from the ample continental supplies which immediately 

 took place after that event. 



The British government yielding to the universal cla- 

 mour of the nation, passed a law to prohibit the importa- 



* Mr. Brougham stated, (\pril 1806,) in the House of Commons, that the 

 total increase in the expences of cultivating a farm of 400 acres, since 1792 

 including assessed taxes, as equal to £282, 8s independently of the great rise 

 on lime and manure,-and the income tax of 10 per cent. The increase in 

 the taxes affecting the necessaries of life, has added to the price of labour, 

 among which is that on malt, by raising the price of beer, the national drink. 

 The duty on malt, since 1792 has been raised from 10s 7 to 34s 8 per quarter 

 oi eight bushels; 



