Vol. 57.-No. 2.] ́ LONDON, SATURDAY, JAN 7, 1826. [Price 6d.
Published every Saturday Morning, at Seven o'clock.

THE

"WISDOM OF PARR-R-RR-LI-A-MENT."

WITH an expression of my 'nany a day to come. This "wishopes, that you and the "Parr-r-rr-[dom," that the prudent" Opposili-a-ment" (as great, empty, sta- tion" Scotchman, Mr. JAME'S ring, botheration PITT used to call it) may have as happy a new year as you deserve, I send you, as a present, or gift of the New Year, a short essay on that "wisdom of the nation." You call it a “prosparliament," on which you gave perity-creating wisdom"; or a us such a fine eulogium on the wisdom that "dispenses blessings 23d day of February 1824, and" from the portals of an ancient

PERRY, (who got sons and faithful Scotch editors to INDIA, notwithstanding his "opposition,") used to call the "Collective Wisdom of

C

Printed and Published by WILLIAM COBBETT, No. 183, Fleet-street.
[ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALI.1

and blessing as synonymous terms.

"constitutional monarchy." Pity" design to rob them of their BURKE had not lived to spend in-" BLESSING." So that they, stead of bequeathing his pension! at any rate, looked upon bribe He would have given us this as a specimen of the "sublime and However, we will not waste our beautiful" united. What a fine time in this sort of word-mongertreasury-idea! There stand (we ing: we will leave that to the (think we see them) the "portals" old shuffle-breeches fellows that of the venerable monarchy; there Messrs. MURRAY (I think it is) stands the "Wisdom of Parr-r-rr- and CONSTABLE hire to write, at li-a-ment" on the platform; there so much a sheet, in the QUAr-kneel the "contented" and "grate- TERLY and EDINBURGH Reviews, ful" people, with "joyous and praises on all the books, in smiling face," receiving the "bless-the sale of which said MURings," which" the WISDOM," RAY and CONSTABLE (and their from her ample port-folios, is partners) are interested, and "dispensing" in the shape of censure on all those, in the sale "promises to pay"! God forbid of which said MURRAY, CONthat I should insinuate that you STABLE, and Co. are not interestwere guilty of plagiarism; but, it ed; we will leave word-mongerwould be injustice to SWIFT not ing to these hireling hacks; and to notice that he has, in his LE- will proceed to the feats of the GION CLUB, an idea of this sort," Wisdom of Parr-r-rr-li-a-ment," at least.

with regard to the prosperity paper-money.

As to how the paper - money thing began first of all; how it was hatched by Scotch BURNET for the purpose of keeping down

At the porch BRIARIUS Stands, Showing bribes in all his hands." To be sure, bribe is, in the common acceptation, very different from "blessing"; but, both begin with a b; and I remember, Catholics; how it produced the that in 1806, when I posted up, at SEPTENNIAL Bill, that is, how it HONITON, a text of Scripture, emboldened men, elected for three which says: "The Lord will years, to enact, that they would consume the habitations of bri- sit and make laws for seven years; bery," the electors of the "Col- how the paper-money and its debts lective," living in that town, produced the American revolu charged me with the "wicked tion, and raised up a maritime

well called "the gift of the gab"; both were descended from fathers who had fattened pretty well upon the public money; both were second sons; PITT came after his brother, as claimant of the title and perpetual pension given to his father; Fox came after his elder brother's son, to the title given to his, and he (Fox) was,

power, at the name of which we money than could well be spent, now grow pale: how the paper- even on the turf or at the gaming money scheme produced these table. Both had what is very events, is it not plainly written in No. XIV. of the "PROTESTANT REFORMATION," and will it not be read from Chili to Canada; from Mexico to Rome? I am not, therefore here, going back so far; nor am I going" presently," as PETER MACCULLOCH would say, to state the cost of the American Revolution, and to show how it added to the debt, and how and had been from his infancy, a it produced the French revolutionary war, and its eight hundred millions of debt; but shall content myself here with relating a part of the feats of the "Wisdom of Parr--r-rr-li-a-ment," from the beginning of PITT's career down to the month of July last, when the "Wisdom" separated, after They were talkers, one was the being thanked for their diligence" English Cicero," and the other and "wisdom” during the session. the "English Demosthenes;" the When PITT came into power Parsons, and other review and in 1784, the debt amounted to magazine and newspaper writers, 250,000,000l. and some odd thou-placed themselves some on the sands. The nation were, at this side of Cicero, for what was to time, fools, despicable fools, be got then; others on the side enough to be divided into two of Demosthenes, for what might. parties; PITTITES and FOXITES; be got thereafter; and thus was names taken from two men, the the nation noodled along in the first of whom was made by nature belief, that it had the two greatest for a showman or an auctioneer; men in the world! PITT began and the latter for a jovial compa- his career with a project for paynion of some one who had more ing off the national debt! No

sinecure placeman. They were both great talkers; but, as events have proved, neither ever was fit to have the management of a nation's affairs, any more than any two tinselled chaps that you might snatch off from a mountebank's stage.

thing could be more popular. The was a delusion: that it was taking nation did not consider that it out of one pocket and putting could never be paid off, unless into the other; that it was like the means came out of its pro-setting a man with a wooden leg perty and labour; that it could to run after a hare, and that the not be paid off by legerdemain. farther the man ran, the farther However, such was its anxiety to would he be behind. I demonbe relieved from the dreadful strated in Paper Against Gold, load, that, like the alarmed pa- that this scheme was as sheer a tient, it was ready to listen to any piece of folly as ever was in quackery. PITT's scheme was,vented; and the idea of its ever to raise à million a year in taxes, being capable of lessening the to form a SINKING FUND, national burdens, has, for some which was to go on accumulating years past, been openly ridiculed, at compound interest, and which even in Parliament itself! After would pay off the debt in forty all this, the Scotch talk of a Docyears! Bravo! "Heaven-born tor (they are all Doctors)" HOMALMinister" came forth from every | TON, mon," who, only the other kind, or stupid, throat in the king-day, made the same discovery! dom. "What a man! What a However, no matter who made surprising young man!" His the first discovery: it is now disfather, according to BURKE, was covered, that this joint-job of ELIJAH, and the son had "caught CICERO and DEMOSTHENES was the mantle!" The nation is now as contemptible a piece of foolery suffering, and has long to suffer as the world ever witnessed; and for its follies of that day. Demosthenes, who opposed Cicero in every thing else, joined him here, and proposed one of the clauses in the famous Bill; and there you heard the old conundrummites congratulating each other, that these "two great men had cooperated to bring to perfection this great national work!”

that the "Wisdom of Parr-r-rrli-a-ment” has, instead of paying ing off the debt, swelled it up to four-times, and, in reality, more than four times its then amount.

Until 1793, there had been no Bank-notes, or paper money, under ten pounds. But a great deal of Paper-money had got out, and the Sinking Fund Scheme PAINE came soon afterwards, had given rise to a monstrous deand told them that this scheme gree of gambling in all sorts of

trade, and had run the Funds up Wisdom" resorted to two schemes, to a hundred, or more, for three issuing great parcels of Exchequer per cents. The country-banks Bills to be lent, to prop up staghad begun their pretty works; gering merchants; and, issuing there were vast quantities of paper five pound notes from the Bank affoat of one sort or another. All of England! Thus “the Wiswas "PROSPERITY." CICERO dom" set the thing agog again, was cried up to the third heaven; and all was prosperity, loyalty, he, who had RAISED THE great and glorious,rule-Britannia, NATION from such a state of and God-save-great-George-ourdepression to such a state of en- King; and, if any man dared to vied" PROSPERITY;" but, say the contrary, or, to abstain CICERO, like you, Mr. Robinson, from saying that, he was sure to modestly ascribed all the "merit" suffer for it, in some way or other. to the "Wisdom of Parr-r-rr-li-a- But, though men were to be kept ment;" in whose behalf, he, like down in this way, GOLD was you, claimed the "gratitude" of not; it openly resisted; it would a "happy people," only asking circulate no longer with the pafor himself (besides his salaries per-money; the Bank drew in and sinecures) that his name might be inscribed on the solid pillar, which that "Wisdom" had raised, "sacred to public credit."

again; but it was now too late: it produced another terrible crashing: but, it came too late: the seditious GOLD kept going away: Just at this moment of general the Bank Directors reported its disjoy, the bubble bursted! The Bank affected conduct to the "Heavenfound its gold going away to born:" and, one cold February France and elsewhere. War was morning, just after the KING had coming too; but, the bubble must congratulated the Parr-r-rr-li-ahave bursted without the war.ment on the safe and solid state of The Bank drew in; and there our resources; just after BURKE was, in spite of "the Wisdom," a had written a pamphlet to show, tremendous crack: not like this that we ought not to make peace, present one; but tremendous for because the French could not get that time, when the workings of on with assignats, not convertible "the Wisdom" had hardly begun into gold, and because WE had to be in full swing of effect. In not a scrap of paper - money, this unexpected emergency, "the which any man might not in