Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

JANUARY.

2. Paris.-The Moniteur of the 30th ult. contains a royal decree, announcing the organisation of a new ministry. According to the new arrangements, the Marquis Dessolles, Peer of France, and Minister of State, is nominated Minister Secretary of State for the department of foreign affairs, and president of the Council of Ministers. M. Dessolles was, in 1814, commander of the National Guard of Paris; when he conducted himself so as to acquire the perfect confidence of the King, and was raised to the peerage in June of the same year: he is a Lieutenant-General of the armies of France, a Knight of St Louis, and Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and was, previous to his present exaltation, a member of the Privy Council and a Minister of State. The Sieur de Serre, member of the Chamber of Deputies, is appointed Keeper of the Seals, Minister Secretary of State for the department of justice. M. de Serre was President of the Chamber of Deputies during the last Session, and was within four votes of obtaining the same dignity this year: he is a Knight of St Louis, and of the Le

gion of Honour, and was, before his new appointment, one of the Council of State, and a member of the committee of legislation. The Count de Cazes, Peer of France, is appointed Minister Secretary of State for the Department of the Interior. Baron Portal, member of the Chamber of Deputies, is appointed Minister Secretary of State for the Department of the Marine. M. Portal is an officer of the Legion of Honour, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies; he has also been one of the Council of State since May 1814, and has been, for two years past, intrusted with the direction of the colonial branch in the department of the Minister of Marine, over the whole of which he is now appointed to preside. Baron Louis, member of the Chamber of Deputies, is appointed Minister Secretary of State of the Finance Department. M. Louis was Minister of Finance in 1814, being one of the administration of which M. Talleyrand was at the head: he is a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and a member of the Chamber of Deputies; he was also a member of the Privy Council and a Minister of State. The Ministry of Police is suppressed. The

members of this new ministry are considered as real constitutionalists, alike averse to the violent measures of the ultras of both parties, and attached only to the King and the Charter. They have accordingly entered upon office under the most favourable auspices.

The Paris journals of the same date contain the following statement of the present strength of the Russian army. It is said to consist of 880,000 men, divided into different corps, 360,000 of which are infantry, 68,000 regular cavalry, 86,000 Cossacks, 49,600 artillery, 75,000 marines, 100,000 belonging to the first line of the reserve, and 50,000 to the second, and 75,000 veterans.

3. The following singular correspondence between Cobbett and Sir F. Burdett appeared in a Sunday paper, and discloses Cobbett's new way of paying old debts. The answer of the Baronet is full of just severity, and expresses, in strong and pointed language, his indignant contempt for the flagitious jesuitism of the most impudent and unprincipled turncoat of modern times.

TO SIR FRANCIS BURDETT, Bart. North Hampstead, Long Island, June 20. 1817. Sir, I inclose you the copy of a letter to Mr Tipper, which I beg you to have the goodness to read, and to consider the contents of it (as far as they relate to the liquidation of my debts generally) as addressed to yourself. In addition you will be pleased to understand, that, as to the debt due to you, no pains shall be spared by me to obtain the means of paying it as soon as possible; and I beg that you will furnish Mr White, my attorney, with your charge against me, including interest, that he may transmit it to me.

I now transmit to

Mr White

Wright's note of hand. It must be indorsed by you before I can proceed against Wright. This rascal always contended that he borrowed the money on his own account. Your word was quite sufficient to prove the contrary; and though no part of it was ever made use of for me, and though the arbitrator determined against my being at all responsible, I thought myself and still think my self bound to pay you, you putting me in a condition to recover the money from him, which you can at once do by indorsing the note of hand. I am well aware the grounds of complaint and reproach to which debtors always expose themselves, and I am not vain enough to expect to escape consequences to which all others are liable; but if I finally pay to the last farthing, those grounds will be all swept away; and as I am in no doubt of being able, in a short space of time, to pay every one fully, I anticipate with great satisfaction the day of my deliverance from this sort of thraldom.-I am, Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

WM. COBBETT.

To MR TIPPer. North Hampstead, Long Island, Nov. 20. 1817. Mr Dear Sir,-First let me acknowledge my deep sense of the kind manner in which you have uniformly spoken to Mrs Cobbett with regard to me; and then, without further waste of that time of which I have so little to spare, let me come to business, and let me lay down, before I proceed to our own particu lar affair, some principles which I hold to be just to my conduct towards my creditors in general.

If there be any man who can pre tend, for one moment, that mine is an ordinary case, and that not having enough to pay every body, I ought

to be regarded as an insolvent debtor, in the usual acceptation of the words; and if he does this after being apprised that the whole force of an infamous tyranny was embodied into the shape of despotic ordinances, intended for the sole purpose of taking from me the real, and certain, and increasing means of paying off every debt and mortgage in two years; if there be any man whose prosperity and whose means of profitably employing his own industry have remained wholly untouched and unaffected by these despotic and sudden acts of the Government, and who is yet so insensible to all feelings of humanity as well as so willingly blind to every principle of either moral or political justice ;-if there be any man who, wholly absorbed in his attachment to his own immediate interest, is ready to cast blame on a debtor, who has had his means of paying cut off by an operation as decisive as that of an earthquake, which should sink into eternal nothing his lands, his houses, and his goods;-if there be any man, who, if he had been a creditor of Job, would have insisted that that celebrated object of malignant devils' wrath, which had swept away his flocks, his herds, his sons, and his daughters, was an insolvent debtor and a bankrupt, and ought to have been considered as such, spoken of as such, and as such proceeded against if there be any such man as this, to whom I owe any thing, to such man I first say, that I despise him from the bottom of my soul; and then I say, that if he dare meet me before the world in open and written charge, I pledge myself to cover him with as much shame and infamy as that world can be brought to deign to bestow upon so contemptible a being. For such occasions as the one here sup

posed, if such occasion should ever occur, I reserve the arguments and conclusion which the subject would naturally suggest. To you I trust no such arguments are necessary, and therefore I will now proceed to state explicitly my intentions with regard to what I shall endeavour to do in the way of paying off debts. I hold it to be perfectly just that I should never, in any way whatever, give up one single farthing of my future earnings to the payment of any debt in England.

When the society is too weak or unwilling to defend the property, whether mental or of a more ordinary and vulgar species, and where there is not the will or the power in the society to yield him protection, he becomes clearly absolved of all his engagements of every sort, to that society; because in every bargain of every kind it is understood that both the parties are to continue to enjoy the protection of the laws of property.

But from the great desire which I have, not only to return to my native country, but also to prevent the infamous acts levelled against me from injuring those persons with whom I have pecuniary engagements, and some of whom have become my creditors from feelings of friendship and a desire to serve me, I eagerly wave all claim to this principle, and I shall neglect no means within my power fully to pay and satisfy every demand, as far as that can be done consistently with that duty which calls on me to take care that my family have the means of fairly exerting their industry, and of leading that sort of life to which they have a just claim.

It is clear, however, that to do any thing in the way of paying off must be a work of some little time. I place great dependance on the pro

duce of some literary labours of great and general utility; and it is of these that I am now about more particularly to speak, and to make you, Sir, a distinct proposition.

First, I must beg you to read in a Register, which I now send home, a letter to a French scoundrel, whom the boroughmongers of England, by a robbery of us for the restoration of the Bourbons, have replaced in his title of Count.

When you have read that letter, you will see a part of my designs, as to my present endeavours to pay my debts." The Maitre Anglois" has long been the sole work of this kind in vogue on the continent of Europe, in England, and in America. It was the only book of the sort, admitted into the Prytanean Schools of Buonaparte, where it was adopted by a direct ordinance.

You will see that it is sent from France to England, and in this country it is imported from France. Both editions (separate and coeval) are sold at New York, and in all the towns here. I have always been a fraid to look into this book, from a consciousness of its imperfections, owing to the circumstance of baste under which it was originally writ

ten.

You know as well as any man what the probable extent of sale and durable profit of the exclusive right to print such a book are. I am now engaged in making this book quite complete, under the title of "The English Master, by William Cobbett, corrected, improved, and greatly enlarged, by the author himself," If you understand French enough to read it with a perfect understanding of its meaning, you will, if you read this book, easily see the causes of its great celebrity.

Its clearness, its simplicity, s wonderful aptitude to its purposes,

its engaging and convincing properties, make it so unlike all the offspring of pedantry, that it is no wonder that it should have made its way in general esteem. I will make the new edition supplant all the old ones immediately; and to you I propose to confide the care of securing the copyright both in England and France. A second work, and one of still more importance as a source of profit, is also now under hand, namely," The French Master; or a Grammar to teach French to English persons, by William Cobbett." You will easily see, that if I could, 22 years ago, actually write a book in the French language to French persons, how able I must be to write a book in the English language to teach French. Indeed, my knowledge of the whole matter is so complete, that the thing, complicated and abstract as it is in its nature, is as easy to me as it is for me to walk or sit. This work, I will pledge my existence, will sweep away very speedily all competitors. My children (some of them) are now learning French by the principles and rules which will constitute this book, and this gives me every opportunity of perceiving and removing all sorts of impediments and embar

rassments.

My son William wrote French at twelve years old better than ninetenths of the Frenchmen that I have ever known, or at least that I have ever seen write; and both John and he speak now French as well as the greater part of Frenchmen.

I shall publish both these works, and secure the copyright of them, in America, where there is a great sale for books of this description; but from the great intercourse now existing between England and France, the sale will be much more considerable in those countries.

In about two months, or less, I

shall send to Mr White, to be delivered to you (if you will undertake the thing), the matter for these two works. You can secure the copyrights in England, and also in France. It is impossible for me to say what will be their produce; and I know well that immediate produce is not to be expected; yet it would be irrational not to believe, that these works must in a short time begin to be a source of real and substantial profit, the proceeds of which I should devote to the liquidation of the debts due to you; and if they exceeded that, to other purposes. In the meanwhile there would be the foundation of profit, from the same source, laid in this country, from which, however, I should for some time not expect any thing beyond what I should need here. I do not know that there would be any objection to the selling of this copyright in France; but I should not approve of this being done in England, because time may make them a source of great profit, and further, because I should not like for me or my sons to be precluded from future improvements of the works themselves. As to the particular application of the money that may arise from this fair and honourable source, after an equitable discharge of your demands on me; and as to the precise mode of proceeding in the business, these must be the subject of a letter to accompany the manuscripts, which you will understand are now in a state of great forwardness; so that, as time is valuable, I hope that you, who understand such matters so well, and who have so much activity and intelligence, will, upon the receipt of this letter, and upon the strength of what you will see addressed to the beggarly tool of a French blackguard rascally Noble jean-foutre, make some inquiry amongst the race who

trade in the fruit of men's minds. You know them pretty well, and I have perfect reliance on your prudence, integrity, and industry.

I am, you will perceive, getting ready a Grammar of the English Language. This, which is a work which I have always desired to perform, 1 have put into the shape of a series of letters, addressed to my l beloved son James, as a mark of my approbation of his affectionate and dutiful conduct towards his mother during her absence from me.

In this work, which I have all my life, since I was nineteen years old, had in my contemplation, I have assembled together the fruits of all my observations on the construction of the English language; and I have given them the form of a book, not merely with a view to profit, but with a view to fair fame, and with the still more agreeable view of instructing, in this foundation of all literary knowledge, the great body of my illtreated and unjustly contemned countrymen.

I believe it to be quite impossible that this work should not have a very extensive circulation in England and America, and that it should not be of many years' duration in point of profit. Whatever part of this profit can, without endangering the well-being of my beloved and exemplary, affectionate and virtuous family, be allotted to the discharge of my debts or incumbrances, shall, with scrupulous fidelity, be so allotted; but as to this particular object, and as to other sources of gain, I will first take care that the acts of tyrannical confiscation, which have been put in force against me, shall not deprive this family of the means not only of comfortable existence, but that it shall not deprive this family of the means of seeking fair and honourable distinction in the

« ПредишнаНапред »