_On the new Cheat which is now on foot, and which goes under the name
of Savings Banks_
NORTH HAMPSTEAD, LONG ISLAND,
_November 7th, 1818._
Friend Jack--You sometimes hear the Parson talk about deceivers, who
go about in sheep's clothing; but who inwardly are ravening wolves.
You frequently hear of the tricks of the London cheats, and I daresay
you have often enough witnessed those of mountebanks and gypsies. But,
Jack, all the tricks of these deceivers and cheaters, if the trickery
of them all were put together, would fall far short of the trick now
playing off under the name of Savings Banks. And seeing that it is
possible that you may be exposed to the danger of having a few pounds
picked out of your pocket by this trick, I think it right to put you
on your guard against the cheat.
You have before been informed of who and what the Boroughmongers are.
Therefore, at present, I shall enter into no explanation of their
recent conduct. But, in order to give you a clear view of their
motives in this new trick, and which, I think, is about the last in
their budget, I must go back and tell you something of the history of
their Debt, and of what are called the Funds. Some years ago the
Boroughmongers put me into a loathsome prison for two years, made me
pay a thousand pounds fine, and made me enter into recognisances for
seven years, only because I expressed my indignation at the flogging
of Englishmen, in the heart of England, under the superintendence of
hired German troops brought into the country to keep the people in
awe. It pleased God, Jack, to preserve my life and health, while I was
in that prison. And I employed a part of my time in writing a little
book entitled _Paper against Gold_. In this little book I fully
explained all the frauds of what is called the _National Debt_, and
of what are called the _Funds_. But as it is possible that you may not
have seen that little book, I will here tell you enough about these
things to make you see the reasons for the Boroughmongers using this
trick of Savings Banks.
The Boroughmongers are, you know, those persons (some Lords, some
Baronets, and some Esquires, as they call themselves) who fill, or
nominate others to fill, the seats in the House of Commons. _Commons_
means the mass of the _people_. So that this is the House of the
People, according to the law of the land. The people--you, I, and all
of us, ought to vote for the men who sit in this House. But the said
Lords, Baronets, and Esquires have taken our rights away, and they
nominate the Members themselves. A _monger_ is a _dealer_, as
ironmonger, cheesemonger, and the like: and as the Lords, Baronets,
and Esquires sometimes sell and sometimes buy seats, and as the seats
are said to be filled by the people in certain Boroughs, these Lords,
Baronets, and Esquires are very properly called _Boroughmongers_; that
is to say, dealers in boroughs or in the seats of boroughs. As all
laws and all other matters of government are set up and enforced at
the will of the two Houses, against whose will the king cannot stir
hand or foot; and as the Boroughmongers fill the seats of the two
Houses, they have all the power, and, of course, the king and the
people have none. Being possessed of all the power; being able to tax
us at their pleasure; being able to hang us for whatever they please
to call a crime; they will, of course, do with our property and
persons just what they please. And accordingly, they take from us more
than the half of our earnings; and they keep soldiers (whom they
deceive) to shoot at us and kill us, if we attempt to resist. They put
us in dungeons when they like. And, in Ireland, they compel people to
remain shut up in their houses from sunset to sunrise, and if any man,
contrary to their commands, goes out of his house in the night, in
order to go to the privy, they punish him very severely; and in that
unhappy country they transport men and women to Botany Bay without any
trial by jury, and merely by the orders of two justices of the peace
appointed by themselves.
This, Jack, is horrid work to be going on amongst a people who call
themselves _free_; amongst a people who boast of their liberties. But
the facts are so; and now I shall explain to you how the
Boroughmongers, who are so few in number compared to the whole people,
are able to commit these cruel acts and to carry on this abominable
tyranny; and you will see that the trick of Savings Banks makes a part
of the means, which they now intend to use for the perpetuating of
this tyranny.
Formerly, more than a hundred years ago, when the kings of England
had some real power, and before the Boroughmongers took all the powers
of king and people into their hands, the people, when the kings
behaved amiss, used to rise against them and compel them to act
justly. They beheaded Charles the First about one hundred and seventy
years ago; and they drove James the Second out of the kingdom; they
went so far as to set his family aside for ever, and they put up the
present royal family in its stead.
This was all very well; but when King James had been driven out, the
Lords and Baronets and Squires conceived the notion of ruling for ever
over king and people. They made Parliaments, which used to be annual,
three years of duration; and when the members had been elected for
three years, the members themselves made a law to make the people obey
them for seven years. Thus was the usurpation completed; and from that
time to this the Boroughmongers have filled the seats just as it has
pleased them to do it; and they have, as I said before, done with our
property and our persons just what they have pleased to do.
Now it will naturally be matter of wonder to you, friend Jack, that
this small band of persons, and of debauched wretched persons too, any
half dozen of whom you would be able to beat with one hand tied down;
it will be matter of wonder to you that this contemptible band should
have been able thus to subjugate, and hold in bondage so degrading,
the whole of the English people. But, Jack, recollect that once a
parcel of fat, lazy, drinking, and guttling monks and friars were able
to make this same people to work and support them in their laziness
and debaucheries, aye, and almost to adore them, too; to go to them,
and kneel down and confess their sins to them, and to believe that it
was in their power to absolve them of their sins. Now how was it that
these fat, these bastard-propagating rascals succeeded in making the
people do this? Why by fraud; by deception; by cheatery; by making
them believe lies; by frightening them half out of their wits; by
making them believe that they would go to hell if they did not work
for them. A ten-thousandth part of the people were able to knock the
greasy vagabonds on the head; and they would have done it too; but
they were afraid of going to hell if they had no priest to pardon
them.
Thus did these miscreants govern by fraud. The Boroughmongers, as I
shall by and by show, have of late been compelled to resort to open
force; but for a long while they governed by fraud alone. First they,
by the artful and able agents which they have constantly kept in pay,
frightened the people with the pretended dangers of a return of the
old king's family. The people were amused with this scarecrow, while
the chains were silently forging to bind them with. But the great
fraud, the cheat of all cheats, was what they call the national debt.
And now, Jack, pray attend to me; for I am going to explain the chief
cause of all the disgraces and sufferings of the labourers in England;
and am also going to explain the reasons or motives which the
Boroughmongers have for setting on foot this new fraud of Savings
Banks. I beg you, Jack, if you have no other leisure time, to stay at
home instead of going to church, for one single Sunday. Shave
yourself, put on a clean shirt, and sit down and read this letter ten
times over, until you understand every word of it. And if you do that,
you will laugh at the parson and tax-gatherer's coaxings about Savings
Banks. You will keep your odd pennies to yourself; or lay them out in
bread or bacon.
You have heard, I daresay, a great deal about the national debt; and
now I will tell you what this thing is, and how it came, and then you
will see what an imposture it is, and how shamefully the people of
England have been duped and robbed.
The Boroughmongers having usurped all the powers of government, and
having begun to pocket the public money at a great rate, the people
grew discontented. They began to think that they had done wrong in
driving King James away. In a pretty little fable-book, there is a
fable which says that the frogs, who had a log of wood for king,
prayed to Jupiter to send them something more active. He sent them a
stork, or heron, which gobbled them up alive by scores! The people of
England found in the Boroughmongers what the poor frogs found in the
stork; and they began to cry out against them and to wish for the old
king back again.
The Boroughmongers saw their danger, and they adopted measures to
prevent it. They saw that if they could make it the interest of a
great many rich people to uphold them and their system they should be
able to get along. They therefore passed a law to enable themselves to
borrow money of rich people; and by the same law they imposed it on
the people at large to pay, for ever, the interest of the money so by
them borrowed.
The money which they thus borrowed they spent in wars, or divided
amongst themselves, in one shape or another. Indeed the money spent in
wars was pocketed, for the greater part, by themselves. Thus they
owed, in time, immense sums of money; and as they continued to pass
laws to compel the nation at large to pay the interest of what they
borrowed, spent and pocketed, they called and still call this debt,
the debt of the nation; or, in the usual words, the national debt.
It is curious to observe that there has seldom been known in the world
any very wicked and mischievous scheme of which a priest of some
description or other was not at the bottom. This scheme, certainly as
wicked in itself as any that was ever known, and far more mischievous
in its consequences than any other, was the offspring of a Bishop of
Salisbury, whose name was Burnet; a name that we ought to teach our
very children to execrate. This crafty priest was made a Bishop for
his invention of this scheme; a fit reward for such a service.
The Boroughmongers began this debt one hundred and twenty-four years
ago. They have gone on borrowing ever since; and have never paid off
one farthing, and never can. They have continued to pass Acts to make
the people pay the interest of what has been borrowed; till, at last,
the debt itself amounts to more than all the lands, all the houses,
all the trees, all the canals and all the mines would sell for at
their full sterling value; and the money to pay the interest is taken
out of men's rents and out of their earnings; and you, Jack, as I
shall by and by prove to you, pay to the Boroughmongers more than the
half of what you receive in weekly wages from your master.
Is not this a pretty state of things? Pray observe, Jack, the debt far
exceeds the real full value of the whole kingdom, if there could be a
purchaser found for it. So that, you see, as to private property no
man has any, as long as this debt hangs upon the country. Your master,
Farmer Gripe, for instance, calls his farm _his_. It is none of his,
according to the Boroughmongers' law; for that law has pawned it for
the payment of the interest of the Boroughmongers' debt; and the pawn
must remain as long as the Boroughmongers' law remains. Gripe is
compelled to pay out of the yearly value of his farm a certain portion
to the debt. He may, indeed, sell the farm; but he can get only a part
of the value; because the purchaser will have to pay a yearly sum on
account of the pawn. In short, the Boroughmongers have, in fact,
passed laws to take every man's private property away from him, in
whatever portions their debt may demand such taking away; and a man
who thinks himself an owner of land, is at best only a steward who
manages it for the Boroughmongers.
This, however, is only a small part of the evil; for the whole of the
rents of the houses and lands and mines and canals would not pay the
interest of this debt; no, and not much more than the half of it. The
labour is therefore pawned too. Every man's labour is pawned for the
payment of the interest of this debt. Aye, Jack, you may think that
you are working for yourself, and that, when on a Saturday night you
take nine shillings from Farmer Gripe, the shillings are for your own
use. You are grievously deceived, for more than half the sum is paid
to the Boroughmongers on account of the pawn. You do not see this, but
the fact is so. Come, what are the things in which you expend the nine
shillings? Tea, sugar, tobacco, candles, salt, soap, shoes, beer,
bread; for no meat do you ever taste. On the articles taken together,
except bread, you pay far more than half tax; and you will observe
that your master's taxes are, in part, pinched out of you. There is an
army employed in Ireland to go with the excisemen and other taxers to
make the people pay. If the taxers were to wait at the ale houses and
grocers' shops, and receive their portion from your own hands, you
would then clearly see that the Boroughmongers take away more than the
half of what you earn. You would then clearly see what it is that
makes you poor and ragged, and that makes your children cry for the
want of a bellyful. You would clearly see that what the hypocrites
tell you about this being your lot, and about Providence placing you
in such a state in order to try your patience and faith, is all a base
falsehood. Why does not Providence place the Boroughmongers and the
parsons in a state to try their patience and faith? Is Providence less
anxious to save them than to save you? If you could see clearly what
you pay on account of the Boroughmongers' pawn, you would see that
your misery arises from the designs of a benevolent Providence being
counteracted by the measures of the Borough-tyrants.
Your lot, indeed! Your lot assigned by Providence! This is real
blasphemy! Just as if Providence, which sends the salt on shore all
round our coast, had ordained that you should not have any of it
unless you would pay the Boroughmongers fifteen shillings a bushel tax
upon it! But what a Providence must that be which would ordain that an
Englishman should pay fifteen shillings tax on a bushel of English
salt, while a Long Islander pays only two shillings and sixpence for a
bushel of the same salt, after it is brought to America from England?
What an idea must we have of such a Providence as this? Oh no, Jack;
this is not the work of Providence. It is the work of the
Boroughmongers; the pretext about Providence has been invented to
deceive and cheat you, and to perpetuate your slavery.
Well: all is pawned then. The land, the houses, the canals, the mines,
and the labour are pawned for the payment of the interest of the
Boroughmongers debt. Your labour, mind, Jack, is pawned for the
one-half of its worth. But you will naturally ask, how is it that the
nation, that everybody submits to this? There's your mistake, Jack. It
is not _everybody_ that submits. In the first place there are the
Boroughmongers themselves and all their long tribe of relations,
legitimate and spurious, who profit from the taxes, and who have the
church livings, which they enjoy without giving the poor any part of
their legal share of those livings. Then there are all the officers of
army and navy, and all the endless hosts of place-men and place-women,
pensioned men and pensioned women, and all the hosts of tax-gatherers,
who alone, these last I mean, swallow more than would be necessary to
carry on the Government under a reformed Parliament. But have you
forgotten the lenders of the money which makes the debt? These people
live wholly upon the interest of the debt; and of course they approve
of your labour, and the labour of every man being pawned. The
Boroughmongers have pawned your labour to them. Therefore they like
that your labour should be taxed. They cannot be said to submit to the
tyranny; they applaud it, and to their utmost they support it.
But you will say, still the mass of the people would, if they had a
mind to bestir themselves, be too strong for all these. Very true. But
you forget the army, Jack. This is a great military force, armed with
bayonets, bullets and cannon-balls, ready at all times and in all
places to march or gallop to attack the people, if they attempt to eat
sugar or salt without paying the tax. There are forts, under the name
of barracks, all over the kingdom, where armed men are kept in
readiness for this purpose. In Ireland they actually go in person to
help to collect the taxes; and in England they are always ready to do
the same. Now, suppose, Jack, that a man who has a bit of land by the
seaside, were to take up a little of the salt that Providence sends on
shore. He would be prosecuted. He would resist the process. Soldiers
would come and take him away to be tried and _hanged_. Suppose you,
Jack, were to dip your rushes into grease, till they came to farthing
candles. The Excise would prosecute you. The sheriff would send men to
drag you to jail. You would fight in defence of your house and home.
You would beat off the sheriff's men. Soldiers would come and kill
you, or would take you away to be hanged.
This is the thing by which the Boroughmongers govern. There are enough
who would gladly not submit to their tyranny; but there is nobody but
themselves who has an army at command.
Nevertheless they are not altogether easy under these circumstances.
An army is a two-edged weapon. It may cut the employer as well as the
thing that it is employed upon. It is made up of flesh and blood, and
of English flesh and blood too. It may not always be willing to move,
or to strike when moved. The Boroughmongers see that their titles and
estates hang upon the army. They would fain coax the people back again
to feelings of reverence and love. They would fain wheedle them into
something that shall blunt their hostility. They have been trying
Bible-schemes, school-schemes, and soup-schemes. And at last they are
trying the Savings Banks scheme, upon which I shall now more
particularly address you.
This thing is of the same nature, and its design is the same, as those
of the grand scheme of Bishop Burnet. The people are discontented.
They feel their oppressions; they seek a change; and some of them have
decidedly protested against paying any longer any part of the
interest of the debt, which they say ought to be paid, if at all, by
those who have borrowed and spent, or pocketed, the money. Now then,
in order to enlist great numbers of labourers and artisans on their
side, the Boroughmongers have fallen upon the scheme of coaxing them
to put small sums into what they call _banks_. These sums they pay
large interest upon, and suffer the parties to take them out whenever
they please. By this scheme they think to bind great numbers to them
and their tyranny. They think that great numbers of labourers and
artisans, seeing their little sums increase, as they will imagine,
will begin to conceive the hopes of becoming rich by such means; and
as these persons are to be told that their money is in the _funds_,
they will soon imbibe the spirit of fundholders, and will not care who
suffers, or whether freedom or slavery prevail, so that the funds be
but safe.
Such is the scheme and such the motives. It will fail of its object,
though not unworthy the inventive powers of the servile knaves of
Edinburgh. It will fail, first because the men from whom alone the
Borough-tyrants have anything to dread, will see through the scheme
and despise it; and will, besides, well know that the funds are a mere
bubble that may burst, or be bursted at any moment. The parsons appear
to be the main tools in this coaxing scheme. They are always at the
head of everything which they think likely to support tyranny. The
depositors will be domestic servants, particularly women, who will be
tickled with the idea of having a fortune in the funds. The
Boroughmongers will hint to their tenants that they must get their
labourers into the Savings Banks. A preference will be given to such
as deposit. The Ladies, the 'Parsons' Ladies,' will scold poor people
into the funds. The parish officers will act their part in this
compulsory process: and thus will the Boroughmongers get into their
hands some millions of the people's money by a sort of 'forced loan':
or in other words, a robbery. In order to swell the thing out, the
parsons and other tools of the Boroughmongers will lend money in this
way themselves, under feigned names; and we shall, if the system last
a year or two, hear boastings of how rich the poor are become.
Now then, Jack, supposing it possible that Farmer Gripe may, under
pain of being turned out of your cottage, have made you put your
twopence a week into one of these banks, let us see what is the
natural consequence of your so doing. Twopence a week is eight
shillings and eightpence a year; and the interest will make the amount
about nine shillings perhaps. What use is this to you? Will you let it
remain; and will you go on thus for years? You must go on a great many
years, indeed, before your deposit amounts to as much as the
Boroughmongers take from you in one year! Twopence will buy you a
quarter of a pound of meat. This is a dinner for your wife or
yourself. You never taste meat. And why are you to give up half a
pound of your bread to the Boroughmongers. You are ill; your wife is
ill; your children are ill. 'Go to the bank and take out your money,'
says the overseer; 'for I'll give you no aid till that be spent.' Thus
then, you will have been robbing your own starved belly weekly, to no
other end than that of favouring the parish purse, upon which you have
a just and legal claim, until the clergy restore to the poor what they
have taken from them. As the thing now stands, the poor are starved by
others, this scheme is intended to make them assist in the work
themselves, at the same time that it binds them to the tyranny.
But, Jack, what a monstrous thing is this, that the Boroughmongers
should kindly pass an Act to induce you to save your money, while they
take from you five shillings out of every nine that you earn? Why not
take less from you! That would be the more natural way to go to work,
surely. Why not leave you all your earnings to yourself? Oh, no! They
cannot do that. It is from the labour of men like you that the far
greater part of the money comes to enrich the Boroughmongers, their
relations and dependants.
However, suppose you have gotten together five pounds in a Savings
Bank. That is to say in the funds. This is a great deal for you,
though it is not half so much as you are compelled to give to the
Boroughmongers in one year. This is a great sum. It is much more than
you ever will have; but suppose you have it. It is _in the funds_,
mind. And now let me tell you what the funds are; which is necessary
if you have not read my little book called _Paper against Gold._ The
funds is _no place_ at all, Jack. It is nothing, Jack. It is
moonshine. It is a lie, a bubble, a fraud, a cheat, a humbug. And it
is all these in the most perfect degree. People think that the funds
is a place where money is kept. They think that it is a place which
contains that which they have deposited. But the fact is, that the
funds is a word which means nothing that the most of the people think
it means. It means the _descriptions of the several sorts of the
debt_. Suppose I owed money to a tailor, to a smith, to a shoemaker,
to a carpenter, and that I had their several bills in my house. I
should in the language of the Boroughmongers, call these bills my
_funds_. The Boroughmongers owe some people annuities at three pounds
for a hundred; some at four pounds for a hundred; some at five pounds
for a hundred; and these annuities, or debts they call their funds.
And, Jack, if the Savings Bank people lend them a good parcel of
money, they will have that money in these debts or funds. They will be
owners of some of those debts which never will and never can be paid.
But what is this money too in which you are to be paid back again? It
is no money. It is paper; and though that paper will pass just at this
time; it will not long pass, I can assure you, Jack. When you have
worked a fortnight, and get a pound note for it, you set a high value
upon the note, because it brings you food. But suppose nobody would
take the note from you. Suppose no one would give you anything in
exchange for it. You would go back to Farmer Gripe and fling the note
in his face. You would insist upon real money, and you would get it,
or you would tear down his house. This is what will happen, Jack, in a
very short time.
I will explain to you, Jack, how this matter stands. Formerly
bank-notes were as good as real money, because anybody that had one
might go at any moment, and get real money for it at the Bank. But now
the thing is quite changed. The Bank broke some years ago; that is to
say, it could not pay its notes in real money; and it never has been
able to do it from that time to this; and what is more, it never can
do it again. To be sure the paper passes at present. You take it for
your work, and others take it of you for bread and tea. But the time
may be, and I believe is, very near at hand, when this paper will not
pass at all; and then as the Boroughmongers and the Savings Bank
people have, and can have, no real money, how are you to get your five
pounds back again?
The bank-notes may be all put down at any moment, if any man of
talent and resolution choose to put them down; and why may not such a
man exist, and have the Disposition to put them down? They are now of
value, as I said before, because they will pass; because people will
take them and will give victuals and drink for them; but, if nobody
would give bread and tea and beer for them, would they then be good
for anything? They are taken because people are pretty sure that they
can pass them again; but who will take them when he does not think
that he can pass them again? And I assure you, Jack, that even I
myself could, before next May-day, do that which would prevent any man
in England from ever taking a bank-note any more. If you should put
five pounds into a Savings Bank, therefore, you could, in such case,
never see a farthing in exchange for it.
This being a matter of so much importance to you, I will clearly
explain to you how I might easily do the thing. Mind, I do not say
that I will do the thing. Indeed, I will not; and I do not know any
one that intends to do it. But I will show you how I _might_ do it;
because it is right that you should know what a ticklish state your
poor five pounds will be in if you deposit them in the Savings Bank.
You know, Jack, that _forged_ notes pass till people find them out.
They keep passing very quietly till they come to the Bank, and there
being known for forged notes, the man who carries them to the Bank, or
owns them at the time, loses the amount of them. Suppose now, that Tom
were to forge a note, and pay it to Dick for a pig. Dick would pay it
to Bob for some tea. Bob would send it up to London to pay his
tea-man. The tea-man would send it to the Bank. The Bank would keep
it, and give him nothing for it. If the tea-man forgot whom he got it
from, he must lose. If he could prove that he got it from Bob, Bob
must lose it; and so on; but either Dick or Bob or the tea-man must
lose it. There must be a loss somewhere.
Now, it is clear that if there were a great quantity of forged notes
in circulation, people would be afraid to take notes at all; and that
if this great quantity came out all of a sudden, it would for a while
put an end to all payments and all trade. And if such great quantity
can with safety be put out, I leave you to guess, Jack, at the
situation of your five pounds. I will now show you, then, that I could
do this myself, and with perfect safety and ease.
I could have made, at a very trifling expense, a million of pounds in
bank-notes of various amounts. There are fourteen different ways in
which I could send them to England, and lodge them safely there,
without the smallest chance of their arrival being known to any soul
except the man to whom they should be confided. The Banks might
search and ransack every vessel that arrived from America. They might
do what they would. They would never detect the cargo!
There they are then, safe in London; a famous stock of bank-notes, so
well executed that no human being except the Bank people would be able
to discover the counterfeit. The agent takes a parcel at a time, and
drops them in the street in the dark. This work he carries on for a
week or two in such streets as are best calculated for the purpose,
till he has well stocked the town. He may do the same at Portsmouth
and other great towns if he please, and he may send off large supplies
by post.
Now, Jack, suppose you were up at London with your master's waggon.
You might find a parcel of notes. You would go to the first shop to
buy your wife a gown and your children some clothes, yourself a hat, a
greatcoat, and some shoes. The rest you would lay out at shops on the
road home; for the sooner you got rid of this _foundal_, the less
chance of having it taken from you. The shopkeepers would thank you
for your custom, and your wife's heart would bound with joy.
The notes would travel about most merrily. At last they would come to
the Bank. The holders would lose them; but you would gain by them. So
that, upon the whole, there would be no loss, and the maker of the
notes would have no gain. Others would find, and nearly all would do
like you. In a few days the notes would find their way to the Bank in
great numbers, where they would all be stopped. The news would spread
abroad. The thieftakers would be busy. Every man who had had his note
stopped at the Bank would alarm his neighbourhood. The country would
ring with the news. Nobody would take a bank-note. All business would
be at a stand. The farmers would sell no corn for bank-notes. The
millers would have nothing else to pay with. No markets, because no
money. The baker would be able to get no flour. He could sell no
bread, for nobody would have money to pay him.
Jack, this thing will assuredly take place. Mind, I tell you so. I
have been right in my predictions on former occasions; and I am not
wrong now. I beg you to believe me; or, at any rate, to blame yourself
if you lose by such an event. In the midst of this hubbub what will
you do? Farmer Gripe will, I daresay, give you something to eat for
your labour. But what will become of your five pounds? That sum you
have in the Savings Bank, and as you are to have it out at any time
when you please, your wife sets off to draw it. The banker gives her a
five-pound note. She brings it; but nobody will take it of you for a
pig, for bread, for clothing, or for anything else! And this, Jack,
will be the fate of all those who shall be weak enough to put their
money into those banks!
I beg you, Jack, not to rely on the power of the Boroughmongers in
this case. Anything that is to be done with halters, gags, dungeons,
bayonets, powder, or ball, they can do a great deal at; but they are
not conjurers; they are not wizards. They cannot prevent a man from
dropping bank-notes in the dark; and they cannot make people believe
in the goodness of that which they must know to be bad. If they could
hold a sword to every man's breast, they might indeed do something;
but short of this, nothing that they can do would be of any avail.
However, the truth is that they, in such case, will have no sword at
all. An army is a powerful weapon; but an army must be paid. Soldiers
have been called machines; but they are eating and drinking machines.
With good food and drink they will go far and do much; but without
them, they will not stir an inch. And in such a case whence is to come
the money to pay them? In short, Jack, the Boroughmongers would drop
down dead, like men in an apoplexy, and you would, as soon as things
got to rights, have your bread and beer and meat and everything in
abundance.
The Boroughmongers possess no means of preventing the complete success
of the dropping plan. If they do, they ought to thank me for giving
them a warning of their danger; and for telling them that if they do
prevent the success of such a plan, they are the cleverest fellows in
this world.
I now, Jack, take my leave of you, hoping that you will not be coaxed
out of your money, and assuring you that I am your friend,