The pride of Britannia humbled

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Letter I. To The Eaul Of Liverpool, On The American War

My Lord — From the report of your speech on vhe 8th inst. it appears very clearly that your Lordship is, by the reporter, made to entertain an opinion, that the divisions amongst the American people are already such, that we may rationally hope, by a continuation of the war, to produce a compliance with any co?iditions, or an overthrow of the union, in which union alone consists the strength and prospect of future greatness in that rising and fast growing republic. — The words, as given in the report of your speech, were these : '' He, (the earl of Liverpool) had seen much stronger justifications of the conduct of our forces at Washington, which had been published in America, than any that had been published even in this country. Not only were they not more hostile to us, but the reverse was the case. In places even where tlie British arms had been successful, the people had shown themselves^in our flivor, and had seemed well disposed to put themselves under our protection." — Your lordship is not singular in your opinion, if it , be your opinion. It is the general opinion in this country. How that opinion had been created and kept alive, 1 will not now inquire. The yneans made jise of for this purpose, the *' most thinking peopie" know nothing of. They have opinions furnished them by others as regularly as soldiers or sailors are served with rations. The lower class are, from their poverty, wholly without the pale of information, true or false, and appear to know and care as little about the acts of the government, and the state of public affairs, as the earth, or any other substance, on which they expend their time and their physical force.

The middle class are so incessantly employed in pursuit of the means of keeping themselves from the horrors of pauperism, that they have no time for discussion or inquiry. Many persons, in this class of life, have asked me, whether the Americans could speak English, Few men in the higher ranks of life know any thing worth speaking of, with regard to the American republic, a nation nearly equal in population to Great Britain, and inhabited, as we now feel, by men full as enterprizing and as brave as our own soldiers and sailors. Even the writers who have fanned the flame of this bloody war, know nothing at all about the real state of America ; for, though they have no desire to promulgate truth ; though it is their trade to deceive and cheat the people, they show, by their statements, that they are ignorant of facts, which, if they knew them, would make them able to deceive with less exposure to detection. This being the case, it is no wonder that the whole nation is in a state of error, as to this matter of primary importance. On the day when the news reached the country, relative to the capture of the city of Washington, I happened to call, on my way homewards from Sussex, at the house of a gentleman, who was as likely to be as well informed as any other gentleman in the country, as to this or any other political matter. The following was the dialogue, wherein I shall exhibit the gentleman and his good wife under the name of

Friend.

Mrs. Friend, Well, Mr. Cobbett, we shall soon get rid of the income tax, [for so it is called in the country] noxv.

Mr. Cobbett, Shall we, Madam ? I am very glad to hear it. It will enable me to get a better horse for my gig. — [_She had just been laughing at my scurvy equipage.'] — But, whyiiow, Madam? What has happened to excite such a cheering hope ?

Mrs. Friend, Why, have you not heard the 7iews ?

Mr. Cobbett. No.

Mr. Friend, We have taken the capital of America.

Mrs. Friend. And the cowardly dogs, to the amount of 9,000 men, ran away before 1,500 of our soldiers.

Mr. Friend. President and all ran away ! — Nobody knows where they went to, and the people were ready to submit to us all over the country.

Mrs. Friend. Cowardly dogs ! Not stand to fight a moment for their capital. They are a pretty nation to go to war with England !

Mr. Friend. They ran away like a great flock of South Down sheep before a pack of hounds.

Mrs. Friend. The cowardly creatures will never dare show their faces again. What can you say for these Americans now ?

Mr. Cobbett, Why, I say, that ^you appear to know no more about them than about the people said to be in the moon. Let me look at the paper. \_It lays before her on the table,]

Mrs. Friend, No; we must tell it you. It is too long for you to sit and read to yourself.

Mr. Cobbett, Well ; now mind, I tell you, that,

A 2 instead of putting an end to the war, this event will tend to prolong it ; and, mind, I tell you, that unless xve give tip what we contend for, the war will be of many years duration, and will be as expensive and more bloody tlian the war in Europe has been.

Mr. Friend. We give up to such cowards as the Americans !

Mr. Cohhett. I do not mean to give up either territory or honour, I mean give up the point in dispute ; ov^ raih^v, o\xx present apparent object. The Americans, like other people, cannot meet disciplined armies, until they have time to organize and discipline themselves. But, the Americans are not cowards. Madam. Their seamen have proved that ; and, what I fear is, that a continuance of the war will make the proof clearer and clearer every day, by land as well as by sea ; and, I am noxv more than ever afraid of a long continuation of the war ; because, if such people as you seriously think that we are able to conquer America, I can have no reason to hope than any part of the nation remains undeceived.

Mr. Friend. But, do you not think that the states will divide ?

Mr. Cohhett. Certainly not.

Mr. Friend. No !

Mr. Cohhett. No. And I should be glad to know tvhat are yt)ur reasons for believing that they will divide. If you will give me any reasons for your belief, I will give you mine for a contrary belief. Do you think, madam, that the people of America are weary of living for thirty years widiout an income tax ?

Mr. Friend. I have no reasons of my own about the matter. We see, in all our papers^ that the Americans are a very divided people. They say i}:iat they cannot long hold together.

Mr. Cobbett. And do you really believe what these corrupted vagabonds put into their columns ? You believe, then, of course, that '' the American navy would be swept from the face of the ocean in a month ;'^ for so they told you. — ^Yet, how different has been the events ! No, no : the Americans are not coxvards, madam.

Mrs. Friend, Have you had such heaps of lemons this year as you used to have ?

Such was, as nearly as I can recollect, the dialogue on this occasion ; and, as I am sure, that the war is continued in the hope, on the part of the natmi^ at least, of deriving success from a breaking tip of the union in America, which I am thoroughly persuaded we shall not effect, or see take place, I will endeavour to shew, that this, my persuasion, rests on good grounds ; and, if I succeed in this endeavour, I shall not yet abandon the liope, to which my heart clings, of seeing peace speedily restored between the two countries, upon terms not injurious to the interest or character of either.

In turning back, now, to the reported speech of your lordship I perceive, and I perceive it with regret, that you are, by the reporter, made to found your opinionof the Americans' disaffection to their government, and of their attachment to our king, in part, upon their having treated our officers, prisoners of war, with great liberality and kindness. I noticed this in my last number. I challenged any one to shew the instance, in which they had ever behaved cruell}^ to prisoners of war. I cited the memorable case of Mr. (now Sir Charles) Asgyll^ and I appealed to their uniform conduct, during the present war, including the instances of commodores Bainbridge and Perry, But as the conduct of the former, in this respect, has been most basely slandered in some of our public prints, I will be somewhat more particular as to both instances, adding that of capt. Lcavreiice,

Commodore Bainbridge captured the Java, off St. Salvadore, on the 29th*of December, 1812. — His frigate, the Constitution, carried 44 guns, and ours 49 guns, according to the American accounts. Ours, he says, had upwards of 400 men on board. The repubhcans killed 60 and wounded 170 of our officers and men, and had themselves 9 killed and 25 wounded. After the battle, at their pressing request, commodore Bainbridge paroled them alL The Java had on board lieutenant general Hislop and his staff, together with several supernumerary officers and men. The following letter of general Hislop to commodore Bainbridge will best speak for the latter :

*' Dear Sir — I am justly penetrated with the fullest sense of your very handsome and kind treatment, ever since the fate of war placed me in your power, and I beg once more to renew to you my sincerest acknowledo-ments for the same. Your acquiescence with my request in granting me my parole, with the officers of my staff, added to the obligation I had previous experienced, claims from me this additional tribute of my thanks. May I now finally flatter myself, that in the further extension of your generous and humane feelings, in the alleviation of the misfortunes of war, that you will have the goodness to fulfil the only wish and request I am now most anxious to see completed, by enlarging on their parole (on the same conditions you have acceded to wuth respect to myself) all the officers of the Java, still on board your ship — a favour I never shall cease duly to appreciate by your acquiescence thereto —

" I have the honour to subscribe myself, dear sir, your much obliged and very humble servant."

The request was instantly complied with. — Men and all were released upon parole. In the case of com. Perry, the battle was fought on Lake Erie, on the 10th Sept. 1813. With vessels, carrying altogether 54 guns, he not only defeated, but captured the whole of our fleet, six vessels, carrying 65 guns as he stated in his ofticial report ; which report, by the bye, fully justifies our admiralty as to Lake Erie. I take the following paragraph from his report to his government upon this occasion :

" I also beg your instructions respecting the wounded. I am satisfied. Sir, that whatever steps I might take^ governed by humanity^ would meet your approbation. Under this impression, I have taken upon myself to promise capt. Barclay, who is very dangerously wounded, that he shall be landed as near Lake Ontario as possible, and I had no doubt youvvouid allow me to parole him. He is under the impression that nothing but leaving this part of the country will save his life. There are also a number of Canadians among the prisoners, many %vho have families, ' '

Capt. Lawrence, in the brig Hornet, attacked and sunk, in fifteen minutes, our brig, the Peacock, killing between thirty and forty of our men, while the Hornet had only one man killed and two wounded, — Thus says the American report. Ours I have not at hand. Then comes the following letter : New-York, 21th March, 1813. ^ *' Sir — We, the surviving officers of his Britannic Majesty's late brig Peacock, beg leave to return you our grateful acknowledgments for the kind attention and hospitality we experienced during the time we remained on board the United States' sloop

Hornet. So much was done to alleviate the distressing and uncomfortable situation in which we were placed, when received on board the sloop you command, that we cannot better express our feelings than by saying, *^ JVe ceased to consider ourselves prisoners ;^^ and every thing that friendship could dictate was adopted by you, and the officers of the Hornet, to remedy the inconvenience we would otherwise have experienced from the unavoidable loss of the whole of our property and clothes by the sudden sinking of the Peacock, Permit us, then, sir, impressed, as we are, with a grateful sense of your kindness, for ourselves and the other officers and ship's company, to return you and the officers of the Hornet our sincere thanks, Avhich we shall feel obliged if you will communicate to them in our name ; and believe us to remam, with a high sense of the kind offices you have rendered us, your humble servants — F A. Wright, 1st lieutenant ; C. Lambert, 2d lieutenant ; Edward Lott, master; J. Whitaker, surgeon; F. Donnithrone Unwin, purser. James Lawrence, esq. commarider U» S. sloop Hornet, ^^

The American papers added, upon this occasion, the following: — " It is a fact worthy of note, and in the highest degree honourable to our brave tars, that on the day succeeding the destruction of his Britannic Majesty's brig Peacock, the crew of the Hornet made a subscription and supplied the prisoners (who had lost almost every thing) with two shirts, a bluejacket and trowsers, each."

Now, my lord, without going into more particulars, let me ask you, whether you think that this conduct towards our officers was the effect of disaffiction towards their own government, of disapprobation of its conduct, of a hatred of the war, and of " a disposition to put themselves under our protection ?" And, if you answer in the negative, as you must, I suppose, why do you think, that the humane treatment of our officers elsewhere indicates such a disposition ? Does your lordship see no possible danger in drawing such an inference ? Do you think, that it is wholly out of all belief, that your being reported to have drawn such an inference may render the treatment of our officers, prisoners of war, less humane and kind in future ? — Seeing that a disposition in an American citizen to put himself under the protection of our king is a disposition to commit treason^ in the eye of the laws of his country, would it be so very surprising if, in future, the Americans should be very cautious how they exposed themselves to the merit of such a compliment ? I must, however, do your lordship the justice to observe here, that what the proprietors of our newspapers have published as your speech^ might never have been uttered by you. — I would fain hope, that they have, in this case, put forth, under your name, the suggestions of their own mind. I, therefore, comment on the thing as theirs and not as yours.

In order to show that there is no foundation for the hope entertained by people here, and so often expressed by our newspapers, of dividing the republic of America^ I must go into a history of the parties which exist in that republic ; give an account of their origin and progress, and describe their present temper and relative force. — The population are divided into two parties ; the republicans and federalists. The latter also claim the title oi republicans^ but it is, and I think we shall find, with justice, denied to them by the former.

These two parties have, in fact, existed ever since the close of the revolutionary war, though their animosities have never appeared to be so great, nor to threaten such serious consequences as since the commencement of the French revolution, especially since the first presidency of Mr. Jefferson, whose exaltation to the chair, was the proof of decided triumph on the part of the republicans, and plunged their opponents into a state of desperation.

"Yht federalists took their name from the general government, which htmg federative^ was called j^- deral. Some of the people, as well as some of the members of the convention who formed the constitution, were for the new general government, and some w^ere against it. Those who were against it, and who were for a government of a still more democratical form, were called, at first, antifederalists — but, of late, they have been called republicans, in opposition to the federalists, who were for a government of an aristocratical, if not of nearly a kingly form, and who proposed, in the convention, a president and senate for life. There was at this time a great struggle between the parties — the opposition of the republicans spoiled the projects of the federalists ; and the government was, at last, of a form and nature, which was wholly pleasing to neither, but did not on the other hand greatly displease either.

The federalists, however, took the whole credit to themselves of having formed the government ; and, as general Washington, who had been president of the convention, and was decidedly for a federative general government, was elected the president under the new constitution, the federalists at once assumed, that they were the only persons who had any right or title to have any thing to do with that government, treating their o]3ponents as persons necessarily hostile to, and, of course, unfit to be entrusted with, the carrying on of tlie federal government.

When the first congress met, under the new constitution, it was clear, that the federaHsts endeavored to do, by degrees, that which they had not been able to accomplish, all at once, in the convention. They proposed to address the president by the title of his serene highness, and to introduce other forms and trappings of royalty, or, at least, of a high aristocracy. Their intention was defeated to their inexpressible mortification. The people were shocked at these attempts ; and, from that moment, the opposite party seem to have gained ground in the confidence of the people, who abhorred the idea of any thing that bore a resemblance to kingly government or that seemed to make the slightest approach towards hereditary ov family rule.

When the French revolution broke out ; when that great nation declared itself a republic, and went even further than America had gone in the road of democracy, the two parties took their different sides. Heats and animosities were revived. While general Washington remained president, however, he acted widi so much caution and moderation, that it was difficult for any one openly to censure him. He was blamed by both parties. One wished him to take part with France, the other with England. He did neither, and upon the whole he left no party any good reason to complain of him. But when Mr. Adams, who was a native of Massachusetts, where the federal party was in great force, became president, be certainly did, yielding to the counsels of weak and violent men, push things very nearly to an offensive and defensive alliance with us. The violent and unjust proceedings of the French government furnished a pretext for raising an army^ which was, for some time, kept on foot in time of peace ^ in the very teeth of the constitution. A sedition bill

B was passed, with power of sending aliens out of the country ; and many other things were done, in the heat of the moment, which Mr. Adams, had he not been surrounded by the Massachusetts federahsts, never would have thought of, being a republican at heart, and a real friend to the liberties of his country.

Mr. Adams's presidency ended in March, 1800. He was proposed to be re-elected ; but he lost his election, and the choice fell upon Mr. Jefferson, who had always been deemed the head of the republican party. The truth is, that the people were republicans. Every thing had been tried ; threats, alarms, religion, all sorts of schemes ; but they took alarm at nothing but the attempts upon their liberty, and they hurled down the party who had made those attempts. Since that time, the government has been in the hands of the republicans. Mr. Jefferson was president for eight years, Mr. Madison for four years, and is now going on for the second four Years.

Your lordship knows, as well as any man upon earth, how fond people are of place ^nd power ; and that no part of any opposition is so bitter and troublesome as that part, which consists of men, whose ambitious hopes may have been blasted by their being tur?ied out of place. It now happened, very naturally, but rather oddly, that the federalists became the opposition to the federal government ; but they still retained, and do retain their title ; though^ really^ they ought to be called, the aristocrats, or royalists*

This opposition is now, however, chiefly confined to the state of Massachusetts, the state government of which has even talked dhoxxi separating Jrom the union. Your lordship has heard of a Mr.

Henry, who was, it seems in close consultation and correspondence with the persons holding die reins of government in Massachusetts upon the subject of separation, and who pretended that he was employed by sir James Craig, governor of Canada, for that purpose. Your lordship, I believe, disclaimed \\in\ and his intrigues, and, therefore, I must believe, of course, that he was not employed by our governor. But the people of America have been led to believe, that there must have been something in his story.

This state of Massachusetts contains a great number of men of talents ; many rich men, become so chiefly by the purchasing, at a very low rate, of the certificates of soldiers who served in the late war, and by procuring ads of congress to cau^e the sums to be paid in fidl, which, indeed, was thought and openly said, to be their main object in pressing for a federal government with large powers. These men, now disappointed in all their ambitious hopes ; seeing no chance of becoming petty noblemen ; seeing the offices and power of the country pass into other hands, without the smallest probability of their return to themselves, unless they be content to abandon all their high notions of family distinction ; these men have become desperate ; and if I am to judge from their proceedings, would plunge their country into a civil war, rather than }'ield quiet obedience to that very government, which they had been so long in the practice of censuring others for not sufficiently admiring. But, my lord, though there is a majority of voices in Massachusetts o?t OUR side; for on our side they really ARE, there is a thumping minority on the other side : and what is of great importance in the estimate, that minority consists of the nerves, the bones, and sinews of the population of the state ;

SO that the sum total of our ground of reliaiicCj as to a separation of the states, is the good will of the most numerous but most feeble and inefficient part of the people of the state of Massachusetts ; and even these, I am fully persuaded, are, by this day, awed into silence by the determined attitude of the rest, of the country.

The same charges, which our vile newspapers have been preferring against Mr. Madison, have been preferred against him by their serene high- 7iesses of Massachusetts. They have accused him of a devotion to Franee ; they have, in our newspaper style, called him the " tool of Napoleon ;" they too have dared to assert, that he, made v/ar upon us, without the slightest prdvocation, for the purpose of aiding Napoleon in destroying England, '' the hiihvark of their religion.''^ They have held public feasts and rejoicings at the entrance of the Cossacks into France, and at the restoration of the ancient order of things. You will bear in mind, that these people are staunch Presbyterians ; and it ■would amuse your lordship to read the orations, preachings^ and prayers of these people ; to witness their gratitude to Heaven for restoring the Pope, whom they used to call the scarlet whore, the whore of Babylon ; for the re-establishment of the Jesuits ; and for the re- opening of the dungeons, the re^ sharpening of the hooks, and the re -kindling of the flames of the inquisition, — Their opponents, the republicans, say, we never were the friends of Napoleon, as a despot, nor even as an emperor; we never approved of any of his acts of oppression, either in France or out of France ; we always complained of his acts of injustice towards ourselves ; but he was less hurtful to our country than other powers ; and J as to mankind in general, though we regretted

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to see him with so much power, we feared that that power would be succeeded by something worse ; and we cannot now rejoice, that the pope is restored, that the Jesuits are re-estabHshed, the inquisition re-invigorated ; that monkery is again overspreading the face of Europe ; and that the very hope of freedom there seems to be about to be extinguished for ever. And this, your lordship may be assu red, is the language of nineteen-twentieths of the people of America.

There are, it is to be observed, federalists in alt the states, which you will easily believe, when you consider how natural it is for men, or at least, howprone men are, to wish to erect themselves into superior classes. As soon as a man has got a great deal of money, he aims at something beyond that. He thirsts for distinctions and tides. His next object is to hand them down to his family. It will require great watchfulness and great resolution in the Americans to defeat this propensity. You have not leisure for it, or it would amuse you to trace the workings of this would-he nobility in America. They are very shame-faced about it; but they let it peep out through the crannies of their hypocrisy,--- Being defeated, and totally put to the rout in the open field by the general good sense of the people, they have resorted to the most contemptible devices for effecting, by degrees, that which they were unable to carry at a push. They have established what they call ''Benevolent Societies,'^' to which they have prefixed, by way of epithet, or characteristic, the name of Washington. The professed object of these societies, who have their periodical orations, preachings, prayings, and toastings, was to afford relief to any persons who might be in distress, — The HEAL OBJECT appears to have been

B 2 to enlist idlers and needy persons under their political banners. These little coteries of hypocrites appear to have assembled, as it were, by an unanimous sentiment, or, rather by instinct, to celebrate the fall of Napoleon, and the restoration of the pope, the Jesuits, and the inquisition. But unfortunately for this affiliation of hypocrites, they have little or no materials to work upon in America, where a man caft earn a week's subsistence in less time than he can go to apply for and obtain it without work ; and, accordingly, the affiliation seems destined to share the fate of the serene highnesses propositions of 25 years ago.

The fall of Napoleon, so far from weakening, will tend to strengthen the general government, in the hands of the republicans. It has deprived its enemies of the grand topic of censure ; the main ground of attack. The *' Cossacks y'*'' as they are now sometimes called, of Massachusetts, can no longer charge the president with being the " tool of Napoleon''^ — they no longer stand in need of England as " the bulwark of religion y'^'' seeing that they have the pope, the Jesuits, the Benedictines, the Franciscans, the Carthusians, the Dominicans, and above all, the in- ^uisitiony to supply her place in the performance of that godly office. They will no longer, they can no longer, reproach the president for his attachment to France ; for France has now a king^ a legitimate sovereign^ who regularly hears mass. They are now, therefore, put in this dilemma ; they must declare openly for England against their country, or, by petty cavilling, must make their opposition contemptible. The former they dare not do ; and, they are too full of spite not to do the latter. So that their doom, I imagine, is sealed ; and their fall n?ill not be much less complete than that of Napoicon himself, with this great difference, however, that his name and the fame of his deeds will descend to the latest posterity, while their projects of ennobling themselves at the expense of their country's freedom and happiness, will be forgotten and forgiven before one half of them are eaten by worms.

This is my view of the matter. Your lordship will probably think it erroneous ; but, if it prove correct, how long and how bitterly shall we have to deplore the existence of this bloody contest.

I am, &c. Wm. COBBETT.

[Letter II. has not yet come to hand]

Letter III. To The Earl Of Liverpool, On The American War

My Lord — In the American newspapers I have seen an article entitled " British botheration,'^^ in which article are noticed in a most ludicrous, but most provoking manner, all the wise observations made in England as to the cause of our ships being beaten by those of America. — At the close of the article, the writer states what he regards as the real cause, but which statement I will, for my health's sake, refrain from repeating to your lordship. But if this saucy republican gave the title of botheration to our former puzzlings upon this head, what will he say now, when the question is become ten thousand times more embroiled than ever? The speeches attributed to the opposition^ upon this subject, present matter worthy of public observation. Mr. Horner lays the blame of the failure on the Lakes Erie and Champlain ; he attributes those memorable victories of the Americans, to the ininistry. He complains that you and your colleagues left our naval commanders to contend with a vast superiority of force* The American official account in both cases, makes the superiority of the force on our side ; and, as to Lake Champlain, sir George Prevost himself gives us a superiority of seven guns. I am, for my part, at a loss to discover the policy of ascribing every disgrace to the ministersj and every success to the commanders. Of its flagrant injustice there can be no doubt ; and, it appears to me, that its folly is not much more questionable. Wellington was made a duke for his success ; but, according to the present way of thinking, or of talking, the secretary of the war department should have been made a duke, and Wellington remained what he was ; and the lords of the admiralty should have had all the ribbons, stars, and titles that have been bestowed on naval commanders. If to the commanders belong the praises of victories : to them also belong upon the face of the matter, the blame of defeat.