=Source.=--William Cobbett's _Rural Rides_, ed. by Mr. Pitt
Cobbett, 1885.
One newspaper says that Mr. Huskisson is gone to Paris, and thinks
it likely that he will endeavour to "inculcate in the mind of the
Bourbons wise principles of _free trade_!" What next! Persuade
them, I suppose, that it is for _their good_ that English goods
should be admitted into France and into St. Domingo with little or
no duty? Persuade them to make a treaty of commerce with him; and
in short persuade them to make _France help to pay the interest
of our debt and dead-weight_, lest our system of paper should
go to pieces, and lest that should be followed by a _radical
reform_, which reform would be injurious to "the monarchical
principle!" This newspaper politician does, however, _think_ that
the Bourbons will be "too dull" to comprehend these "_enlightened_
and _liberal_" notions; and I think so too. I think the Bourbons,
or, rather, those who will speak for them, will say: "No thank
you. You contracted your debt without our participation; you made
your _dead-weight_ for your own purposes: the seizure of our
museums and the loss of our frontier towns followed your victory
of Waterloo, though we were 'your Allies' at the time; you made us
pay an enormous tribute after that battle, and kept possession of
part of France till we had paid it; you _wished_, the other day,
to keep us out of Spain, and you, Mr. Huskisson, in a speech at
Liverpool, called our deliverance of the King of Spain an _unjust
and unprincipled act of aggression_, while Mr. Canning prayed
to God that we might not succeed. No thank you, Mr. Huskisson,
no. No coaxing, sir: we saw, then, too clearly the _advantage we
derived from your having a debt and a dead-weight_, to wish to
assist in relieving you of either. 'Monarchical principle' here or
'monarchical principle' there, we know that your mill-stone debt
is our best security. We like to have your wishes, your prayers,
and your abuses against us, rather than your _subsidies_ and your
_fleets_; and so, farewell, Mr. Huskisson; if you like, the English
may drink French wine; but whether they do or not, the French shall
not wear your rotten cottons. And, as a last word, how did you
maintain the 'monarchical principle,' the 'paternal principle,'
or as Castlereagh called it, the 'social system,' when you called
that an unjust and unprincipled aggression which put an end to the
bargain by which the convents and other Church property of Spain
were to be transferred to the Jews and jobbers of London? Bon
jour, Monsieur Huskisson, ci-devant membre et orateur du club de
quatre-vingt-neuf!"
If they do not actually say this to him, this is what they will
think; and that is, as to the effect, precisely the same thing. It
is childishness to suppose that any nation will act from a desire
of _serving all other nations_, or _any one other nation_, as _well
as itself_. It will make, unless compelled, no compact by which it
does not think itself _a gainer_; and amongst its gains, it must,
and always does, reckon the injury to its rivals. It is a stupid
idea that _all nations are to gain_ by anything. Whatever is the
gain of one, must, in some way or other, be a loss to another. So
that this new project of "free trade" and "mutual gain" is a pure
humbug as that which the newspapers carried on during the "glorious
days" of loans, when they told us, at every loan, that the bargain
was "equally advantageous to the contractors and to the public!"
The fact is the "free trade" project is clearly the effect of a
_consciousness of our weakness_. As long as we felt _strong_,
we felt _bold_, we had no thought of conciliating the world; we
upheld a system of _exclusion_, which long experience proved to
be founded in _sound policy_. But we now find that our debts and
our loads of various sorts cripple us. We feel our incapacity for
the _carrying of trade sword in hand_: and so we have given up all
our old maxims, and are endeavouring to persuade the world that
we are anxious to enjoy no advantages that are not enjoyed also
by our neighbours. Alas! the world sees very clearly the cause of
all this; and the world _laughs at us_ for our imaginary cunning.
My old doggrel, that used to make me and my friends laugh in Long
Island, is precisely put to this case.
When his man was stuffed with paper,
How John Bull did prance and caper!
How he foam'd and how he roared:
How his neighbours all he gored.
How he scrap'd the ground and hurled
Dirt and filth on all the world!
But John Bull of paper empty,
Though in midst of peace and plenty,
Is modest grown as worn-out sinner,
As Scottish laird that wants a dinner;
As Wilberforce, become content
A rotten borough to represent;
As Blue and Buff, when, after hunting
On Yankee coasts their "bits of bunting,"
Came softly back across the seas,
And silent were as mice in cheese.
Yes, the whole world, and particularly the French and the Yankees,
see very clearly the _course_ of this fit of modesty and of
liberality into which we have so recently fallen. They know well
that a _war_ would play the very devil with our national faith.
They know, in short, that no ministers in their senses will think
of supporting the paper system through another war. They know
well that no ministers now exist, or are likely to exist, will
venture to endanger the paper-system; and therefore they know that
(for England) they may now do just what they please. When the
French were about to invade Spain, Mr. Canning said that his last
despatch on the subject was to be understood as a _protest_, on the
part of England, against permanent occupation of any part of Spain
by France. There the French are, however; and at the end of two
years and a half he says that he knows nothing about any intention
that they have to quit Spain, or any part of it.