though he had never been in the army, had a | and before this battalion existed. If natural taste for military tactics, and that be Brodie's battalion could fly through the had, during the last war, been an officer of volunteers, and that there was an intelligent air, carrying waterspouts with them, serjeant-major; and that by these two, and by they might, indeed, do some good; but a few serjeants and corporals, who had been what good are they to do by swaggering formerly members of volunteer corps, the about the streets of the little tranquil battalion had been brought to its present exexcity of Salisbury? They are, it seems, traordinary state of perfection. I must not omit to add, that I was further informed, that under all circumstances, "to preserve the exertions of these persons have been ren- the public tranquillity." Yes, as long dered the more successful by the great zeal of as that tranquillity is not disturbed; but the parties whom they had to instruct. The battalion, I was told, consisted principally (both only let a real disturbance come; let a officers and privates) of tradesmen-that the couple of thousand chopsticks be got mayor elect even was a private-that many together, in hostile array; let them other privates were wealthy men, or the sons enter the city, and let one single flint of wealthy men—and that the remainder were stone come, whizzing within a few artisans, but all respectable, and all having a strong esprit de corps. My informant added, inches of the head of Brodie, away goes that the formation of this little battalion had all "his natural taste" for military done more good than any one thing he had ever tactics, and away scamper the members recollected to have taken place in Salisbury; of the corps, each to his counter, his that it had united" for a good purpose," men of different political opinons and of different grades in society: and that he was quite sure that, under all circumstances, every member of the corps would do his utmost to preserve the public tranquillity. desk, or his taxing office. It is the FIRES, 'which, as the writer of the Brighton Guardian eloquently says, "is the plague of plagues; " and this horrible plague, which has been augmented by the calling out of the yeomanry, must, of necessity, be brought into the towns by the establishment of corps of defiance like that of Brodie. The working people are the millions after all! the order of the worid requires that they should be so: and, what does the very sight of one of these yeomanry or volunteer corps (called out in time of peace) to these working millions? Why, it says precisely what we shall find Brodie himself saying in the next extract. As to the buttering of Brodie, the knife and the loaf were in his own hands, and also the lump of butter; so that it is no wonder that he laid it on pretty thickly. "His natural taste" for military tactics was so likely to be found out by a Manchester traveller, who happened to have been in the army; so likely to see Brodie and his tame battalion, and who "strolled out," to look at it! This is all so likely, that we will not, for a moment, question the truth of it; nor will we doubt that the famous corps consists of comparatively rich people; I have been thus diffuse about this corps, but with regard to the information because I am convinced that, with such a which this inquisitive Manchester gen-force, Salisbury is secure from all riots and tleman picked up; namely, "that the "formation of this little battalion had "done more good than any one thing "that he ever recollected to have taken "place in Salisbury;" as to this piece of information, which is conveyed to us in a sentence which a chambermaid would have been ashamed to construct; as to this piece of information, I would, if I had been the Manchester man, have asked Brodie WHAT GOOD this band of swaggering blades had accomplished? The FIRES in the county of Wilts are three times as numerous as they were before the yeomanry were called out, disturbance. Had such a body of men existed in Bristol, that city would have been saved from the disgrace which must henceforth ever attach to her name. Now let me come to my grand point. You pertinently remark in were there any thing like a general ferment, your paper of the first of November, that the military alone would be found inadequate to the demands of them." Was there ever a remark more just, and could I have supposed that a month would have elapsed without Gothe larger towns to come forward to enrol vernment calling on the inhabitants of, at least, themselves as volunteers, particularly as they must have known, or ought to have known, such a corps at Salisbury? Are they afraid to the good effects produced by the existence of arm the middle classes? or, are they afraid that the haughty Tory aristocrats will call them to account for doing so? Let me give Times, and the nasty stinking Globe, them one word of advice. Let them be wise puff off as the sure means of putting a stop to the fires, and which even you, Doctor, have condescended to praise: this is the language of the sight of Brodie's corps. And, what is the na while they can. If they are desirous of saving this yet happy country from all the horrors of the first years of the French Revolution, when from the contempt on the part of the nobles towards the middle classes, the government of that wretched and devoted country was vested in the very scum and dregs of society. If, Itural effect of such language? Why, say, they are desirous of saving their country, let them, at once put their trust in all those who have property to defend; let them place confidence in them, and I will answer for it that their power and influence will be sufficient TO KEEP THE REST IN SUBJECTION. to make the poor hate the rich, and entertain towards them unquenchable animosity. Human nature must be totally changed: defiance and contempt must excite feelings of conciliation and love, before these broad and insulting threats Subjection means to throw down un cease to excite hatred and revenge. der, or, to be thrown down under; How many fights have we all seen it fairly means, in this case, to trample produced by a word of defiance, or by down, or to put down and keep down a holding up of a fist. The bare sight by force. Brodie need not have taken of Brodie's corps, is the holding up of a the pains to tell the people this in words; fist to the working people of Salisbury; for he tells it them much more convin- and, now, coming to this writer's cingly by the mere exhibition of his "GRAND POINT," do you think, corps of tawdry fribbles, with guns in Doctor, that it would be wise to raise their hands, hairy caps on their heads, such corps in the great towns? Do you and a parcel of belts strapped round think that it would be wise for a corps' their bodies; which arms and accoutre-like Brodie's, consisting of a handful of ments would, as Boileau said of the soft-handed manufacturers and clerks, Dutch, only serve, in case of need, to to be exhibited, in the way of menace, retard their flight. One may say of Brodie and his corps, as the French ambassador said to the chief of a Swiss canton, who had boastingly shown him the arsenals of the republic:-"All "that you have to do now is, to pray to “God to preserve you from the folly of "attempting to use it." The very sight of Brodie's corps tells the working people, "we mean to keep you IN “SUBJECTION: we mean to have your labour, and to give you so little “for it, that you shall have nothing but "potatoes to eat and water to drink 66 we mean to compel you, by these "bayonets, to live upon the price of a gallon loaf and threepence a week for "food and clothing!" This is what the bare sight of Brodie's corps says to the working people of the great, fruitful, and beautiful county of Wilts, where you find an ancient church in every mile, and where scores of villages have been nearly totally depopulated by that more than infernal system of ACCUMULATION, which Brougham and his society have published a book to applaud to the skies, which book the beastly and bloody old to the working people of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and the like? That is the grand point you and your correspondent are aiming at; and, from attempting to carry that point, God preserve the people of property in those great towns. This insolent and emptyskull scrawler has the ignorance and impudence to say that "SUCH a body of men" would have prevented the ruinous proceedings at Bristol! The stupid creature never saw either Manchester or Bristol. The presumptuous simpleton thinks that every town in the kingdom, except London, is like Salisbury; a quiet little place, with about seven or eight thousand inhabitants, the broad and convenient streets of which, when you go from the WEN, and happen to be in them in a week-day, are so still and so free from people, that, until you have reflected, you think that all the folks are gone to church; this ass really seems to think that this little silent place, lying in a valley surroundell by immense plains, is like Manchester or Birmingham; and that his corps would keep the working people of her in complete subjection! And Bristol! rich against the poor would prevent Does the insolent beast recollect that these tumults and their natural consethat city is inhabited by a hundred quences: it would produce just the conthousand people; that within a few trary effect; and if any-thing could miles of it there are more colliers at produce bloodshed in England, it would work under ground than would make be this very measure which you are now up, three times over, the population of recommending, with so much insolence the city of Salisbury; and that the and so much malignity. sailors, the bargemen, and other persons What has been the language of the employed upon the water, far exceed rich to the poor? What has been the the whole of the population of Salisbury? language of farmers to their labourers? Does the insolent and stupid creature What has been the language of manuknow that the working men at either facturers, miners, and coal-masters, to Birmingham or Manchester, each hav- their workmen? Why, this: "We ing either a gun or a sharp spindle al-"wish you to be happy: we give you ways within his reach, exceed, five-" every farthing that we can afford to fold, the whole of the population of" give: but we ourselves have so much Salisbury, all ranks, ages, and sexes in-" to give in taxes and in tithes; and cluded? Far from me the thought of" you, on your part, have so large a saying this in disparagement of Salis-" portion of your earnings to give in bury, which is a beautiful city, and just "taxes on what you consume, that it what a city ought to be; which has five" is out of our power to give you that little rivers, which become one at or near it; and which has every circumstance in and arouud it to make it a scene of happiness, were it not for the existence of those causes out of which the corps of this Brodie has arisen, over and above that brilliant cause, Brodie's "natural taste" for military tactics. Our next extract has more sense in it; that is to say, if this scrawler be right in his premises. Do not let it be supposed, that when the Reform Bill shall have been passed (which it will be), all things will go on quietly. No: the lower orders, the uneducated, and the unreflecting, still struggling with difficulties, will be disappointed because immediate relief is not afforded them. There will be tumults, dreadful riots, and bloodshed, such as it sickens the heart to contemplate. Yes, I repeat, there will be, if the mindle classes are not armed. "which you ought to receive." This has been the language of the people of wealth, to the working people. Aye, my dear Doctor, and this has been your language, too, for the last year and a half, during which time you have been incessantly accusing the boroughmongers of causing, by their extortions, the halfstarvation of the working people. What, then! do you now recommend bayonets to be raised against the working people in order to keep them in a state of subjection; that is to say, kept down by force in that state of half-starvation! Is this what your justice and humanity suggest? When you inserted this villanous letter, and sent it forth with a stamp of your approval, I hope that you had not read it. I do not mean that they should arm themVery true, hero of Salisbury: the Re-selves without authority from his Majesty's form Bill alone (which you say will be Government, but I do call on that Government passed, and which I say will not) will not most earnestly, without loss of time, to iustitute corps of volunteer infantry in all the make things quiet; and there will be principal towns of the kingdom. Let them be tumults, though not so bloody as you entirely under the control of Governmentseem to apprehend. There will be let judgment and discretion be exercised in the these, unless the Reform Bill exchange and of the other officers, and let no man be choice of the commanding officer in particular, the accursed potatoes for bacon; but this admitted, even as a private, who cannot (as I it would do, if it were passed in its understand has been the case at Salisbury) original form and fairly act upon. But, bring good testimonials as to his character. Brodie, you are certainly misled "by King and his Government, the nation will be your natural taste for military tactics," safe. Without it-Reform or no Reform Bill if you really suppose that arming the the nation will be ruined, and the lower With such a force, under the control of the Well said, beast! But after this: after your insolent advice shall be adopted, you will not, I hope, pretend that we do not live under a military despotism: you will not pretend, I hope, that Englishmen are living any longer in a state of freedom and of law. In short, then, "the nation will be safe" enough; safely enough living under the command of the bayonet, only that it could not live so for above half a year; at the end of which time, or thereabouts, every man who had taken up arms in this way, would be stripped as naked as a callow mouse. In short, here is a proposition, not for civil war, but for producing general plunder, devastation, and bloodshed; and I should like to hear, Doctor Black, any, arguments, not that a puffing, purse-proud, insolent beast like this has to offer, but that YOU have to offer in opposition to this opinion. orders, like the angry lion, who lashed himself | You and I, Doctor, who know the to death with his own tail, destroy themselves, trickery of this species of scrawling, and, in doing so, will destroy us of the middle class, and all those who rank above us, even should want no more than this last to the monarch on the throne. little paragraph to convince us that this effusion of stupidity, insolence, arrogance, and want of feeling, was never written at Manchester, never came from Manchester, but was written at Salisbury, either by Brodie himself, or by some patron of the gallon-loaf-andthreepenny system, sent up to London in a coach parcel, and dropped into your office, along with a flattering noteto yourself, by some double-distilled devil of a pettifogger, who lives upon the crumbs that roll down the fat jowles of the inhabitants of Salisbury-Close; and I challenge you, Doctor, to say, that it came to you with a Manchester post-mark. One more remark; the scrawler says, that if his advice be not followed, farewell to the PEOPLE." The people, beast! What, are they all to be killed? Is there to be one general scene of mutual slaughter, and is "darkness to be the "burier of the dead?" Some would survive, to be sure! Aye, and it is only by acting upon advice like yours, that can cause any bloodshed at all. Here the comparison with regard to the scenes at Paris, coming directly after your "farewell to I hope, Mr. Editor, that the whole of this the people," shows what a stupid beast letter will be admitted into your most valuable and patriotic paper; and still more do I you are, and how thoughtless it was of hope that the advice contained in it, however Doctor Black to speak with approbation badly I may have expressed myself, will be of your blundering and atrocious stuff. followed, and speedily followed, by his Ma- Did the people perish at Paris in the jesty's Government, and by that class in society which it so seriously concerns. I say to years 1792 and 1793? Did the people the Government," Call on the middle classes of France suffer in those years? Was to arm themselves-offer them arms-youot France better cultivated, and the have hundreds of thousands of muskets rust-people better off, and the name of France ing in your magazines." To the middle more honoured in 1792 and in 1793 classes, that is, to the people, I say, swer the call with one simultaneous voice than it and they had been for seven accept the offer of arms, and learn the use centuries before? Others suffered, inof them." Government-" Be jealous, be deed; the nobility and the clergy were afraid." People-" Be supine." Then fare stripped of their all. In the height of well to the Government, farewell to the people, their rage against their country's oppresand let them prepare themselves for such scenes as took place in Paris in 1792 and 1793, sors, they unjustly and cruelly put to and to sing "lo triumphe," to anarchy and death the king and all his family that they had within their reach. But the people did not suffer; they drove the nobility and clergy away, and sold and divided their estates; and, every one knows, that the soil of France is now better cultivated, and that her population One more extract, and I consign this scrawler over to the detestation of my readers. confusion. "An I shall leave this place to-morrow on my way home, where I shall hope to find your paper with this letter in its columns, and God grant that my advice may be followed. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, One of the MIDDLE CLASSES. is now greater than they were at the epoch to which you refer. These old stupid Pittites and Foxites are always trying to terrify the people by ripping up the scenes of the French revolution. If they were as great fools as they are profligate knaves, they would shun all mention of that revolution, as a mad dog shuns water, or as a wheatrick would shun fire if it could. At any rate, Doctor, I hope you will, in future, scout their balderdash; and in that hope, I remain your friend, patron, and most obedient servant, COBBETT-CORN. Kensington, 1st December, 1831. of this country can be made to produce It is to speak greatly within bounds, to state, that, on an average, this corn would produce, at least, ten quarters of grain to the acre, which is more than three times as much as the average crop of wheat throughout the kingdom. It stands upon the ground but five months; and admits of a crop of tares or of cabbages during the other part of the year. The fodder, as I shall further on prove as clear as daylight, is worth eight pounds an acre, to speak greatly within compass. I shall prove, from incontestable evidence, that a bushel of this corn produces more flour than a bushel of the very best wheat. I I NOTIFIED, a week or two ago, that I should publish a new edition of my Treatise on this Corn on the 1st December. This is the 1st December; and shall also prove, that, in point of real the book is published. I should deem utility, it is of more value, pound for it unfair to make it necessary for any pound, than wheat flour; and if I do prove one, if I could avoid it, to purchase this all this, is not the introduction of this book a second time. It is absolutely ne- corn the greatest and most laudable uncessary that all those who plant the corn dertaking of which mortal man ever had upon a scale extending even to half an to boast? And what a wonderful effect acre, should possess the addition which is here from a cause the most trifling I have now made to the book; and yet in itself! My son brought three little miI am very unwilling to put any one to serable ears of this corn to England in the expense of another five shillings on the year 1826, neither of them longer than account of it. I therefore insert here my middle finger, and neither of them every word that I have now added to bigger round than a common mould-canthe book; and if the readers of the dle. I have plenty of ears from several Register go through this piece of writ-parts of the country, seven inches long ing, they will find it more deeply inte- and some ears approaching the weight resting to the nation than any one that ever before came from the pen of WM. COBBETT. ADDITION.-FIRST PART. THERE never was a subject of so much importance as this, presented to the attention of any people in the world; for, if I be correct in my opinions, here are the means pointed out of doubling, at the east, the quantity of food, which the land of half a pound. The corn goes on increasing in size as well as in goodness of quality. I can show a bushel of ears equal, even in size to the average of the corn-ears of the general run of crops in Long Island; and, as I shall prove before I have done, our crops are four times as great as their crops, while the quality of our corn is, beyond all measure, superior to theirs. This, therefore, I scruple not to say, is the greatest thing that individual ever did for his country; and such it must be acknowledged to be, if I prove |