TOM PAINE's JESTS; BEING AN ENTIRELY NEW AND SELECT COLLECTION OF Patriotic Bon Mots, Repartees, Anecdotes, Epigrams, Observations, &c.
ON POLITICAL SUBJECTS. By THOMAS PAINE, AND OTHER SUPPORTERS OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN.
TO WHICH IS ADDED, A TRIBUTE to the SWINISH MULTITUDE, Being a choice Collection of PATRIOTIC SONGS
PHILADELPHIA: PRINTED FOR MATHEW CAREY, NO. 118, MARKET-STREET. M.DCC.XCVI.
DEDICATION.
TO THE SWINISH MULTITUDE.
NOTWITHSTANDING the contempt in which you are held by Mr. Burke, and men like Mr. Burke, yet, as the following publication is calculated principally for your use and entertainment, I think it proper to dedicate it to you. Indeed, I suppose, that those gentlemen, who, with their aristocracy of power, titles, wealth, places, pensions, &c. conceive that they possess also an aristocracy of understanding, and that you were born only for their use, will not deign to cast their eyes on so vulgar a performance. For these great men I write not; but if I can afford you any amusement or any instruction, I shall have accomplished my end.
It may be objected to the title of this pamphlet, that Tom Paine is no Jester—that his works contain serious truths: but you, I am certain, will allow, that they contain many good things; and even his enemies (both those formerly in power, and those received into power and favour, for their opposition to his doctrines, even Mr. Burke himself) must confess, that they contain smart things; for if these gentlemen-placemen had not smarted under them, we should not have seen the long list of prosecutions which have taken place against Mr. Paine and the booksellers who sold his works. In some of these prosecutions the juries have found the books to be libels, and in others, the juries have found them not to be libels. This is what is called, in that equitable place, Westminster Hall, the glorious uncertainty of the law.
[Page 4]In the following sheets I have endeavoured to keep clear of any thing that may be the cause of my being honoured with the attention of that valuable officer of the Crown, the King's Attorney-General: but in these days, when lawyers assert that truth is a libel our friend Tom Paine observes, that to say truth is a libel is a libel on truth), even this innocent performance may, by the rulers of the land, be considered as libellous, especially as it is avowedly published for your use, and not for the use of those who call themselves learned men or great men. Should it so happen, I have only to hope though hardly to expect) that I may be tried by a jury indefinitely chosen from among you, and not by a special jury of ESQUIRES, named by the Crown Office.
It only remains for me to express a wish, that the people, as the natural sovereigns of this, as of every other country, may assert their unalienable right to liberty; and to assure you, that for that great end, you have every wish, and shall have every exertion of
JESTS, &c.
1. A DROLL blunder was made in the Daily Advertiser, in the month of May last. It stated, that a bill was brought into parliament, to secure the rights of potentates, instead of patentees.
2. The following notice was, for many months, advertised on a board, at the Surry end of Westminster Bridge:—"Rubbish may be shot by the direction of Thomas Paine." It has been lately taken down, at the request, it is said, of a Lord of the Bedchamber.
3. A gentleman (an enemy to anarchists) lately ordered a glass of brandy in a coffee house, adding, "Take care there is none of your damned French stuff in it."—The waiter replied, "Genuine British, Sir, I assure you."
4. It was observed, some time ago, in a minesterial newspaper, that 5000 Hanoverians were on their march, to increase the number of British troops quartered at Tournay.
5. When Lord Howe, in the month of August last, made the best of his way into port after he had got sight of the French fleet, one of his officers, [Page 6] not remarkably correct in his orthography, wrote to a correspondent, that he expected they would soon go to SEE again.
6. A workman, lately dismissed from his employment at Manchester, was told at the same time, that the war was not the cause of his misfortune. "Now, to me (says the man bluffly) the case appears directly contrary;—are we not at this moment employed in shooting our customers?"
7. Some wags in Dublin lately gave information to a magistrate, that a Mr. Scanlon had three mortars in his possession. The magistrate, attended by a party of dragoons, surrounded the house, and demanded the mortars to be delivered to him in the name of the King. Mr. Scanlon, who is a respectable apothecary, immediately produced them, adding, that as they were useless without the pestles, these were also at his Majesty's service.
8. At a late Kent assizes, an action was brought for slander, in which an attorney was plaintiff, and an honest farmer defendant. The action was brought to recover damages, for calling the attorney a rogue and a thief. The verdict of the jury was, that as the plaintiff was an attorney, the action did not lie.
9. Soon after Mr. Dundas's late marriage, a person observed that he wondered that gentleman held so many offices, for that he imagined it would be enough for him to do the duties of the home department.
10. An Irish officer had the misfortune to be dreadfully wounded in one of the battles in America last war. As he lay on the ground, an unfortunate soldier, who was near him, and was allo severely wounded, made a terrible howling; when the officer exclaimed, "Damn your eyes, [Page 7] what do you make such a noise for? Do you think there is nobody killed but yourself?"
11. The First Lord of the Admiralty, out of compliment to his talents, is commonly called in the office the late Lord Chatham.
12. In an old church history, we meet with the following curious article: "The church of Witham Friary is a small structure supported by a nave."
13. His Grace of Richmond being asked, why he ordered a captain's guard to mount in the kitchen? replied, that he wished to accustom the captains of militia to stand fire.
14. Some time ago a gentleman in Devonshire thought he could not give a greater proof of his loyalty, than by employing a number of persons to burn Tom Paine in effigy. At the conclusion, one of the fellows waited on him, to know if there was any other gemman among his friends, whom he would wish to have burned, as they were ready to do it for the same quantity of beer.
15. A royal publican in Saint George's fields advertises his house by the title of the Princess Royal's Tap.
16. During the riots in 1780, several persons, in order to save their houses, wrote on their doors 'no popery.' Grimaldi, the dancer, to avoid all mistakes, wrote on his, 'no religion.'
17. One of Mr. Reeves's men was lately haranguing the people, in a barn in the country, on the blessings of our constitution, our paucity of taxes, &c. When an ass, who had borne many heavy burdens, in the midst of the oration, put his head in at the window and began a braying. The company seeming divided in their attention between the two orators, a wag observed, only one at a time, if you please, gentlemen.
HISTORICAL REMARKS, ANECDOTES, OBSERVATIONS, BON MOTS, &c.
18. The oath of allegiance (says Algernon Sidney) binds no private man to more than the law directs; and has no influence upon the whole body of the nation. Many princes are known to their subjects only by the injuries, losses, and mischiefs they bring upon them. Rebellion itself is neither good nor bad more than any other war; but is just or unjust, according to the manner of it.
19. Notwithstanding the stretches that have been lately made as to libels, it is hardly credible, but it is certainly true, that a man was lately arrested in Dublin as a libeller, for shewing a print of Mr. Paine to some people around him.
20. Dragonetti, in his Treatise on Virtues and Rewards, has a paragraph worthy of being recorded in every country in the world:—"The science (says he) of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom: Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expense."
21. "Put a country right (says Mr. Paine), and it will soon put goverment right."
22. "For a nation to be free (say the French) it is sufficient that she wills it."
[Page 9]23. Almost immediately after Dr. Johnson's tract, entitled Taxation no Tyranny, appeared in America, it was answered by one, called Resistance no Rebellion.
24. The first time that Mr. Pitt went to Cambridge after his election for the university, all the sophs were (as might be expected) gaping for lawn sleeves, and the other good things in the gift of their representative. Dr. Paley preached before the young minister, from the following text; There is a lad here, which hath five borley loaves and two small fishes, but what are they among so many?
25. Tom Paine says, truth hath this advantage over prejudice, that truth cannot be unlearned.
26. The late Mr. Flood, once talking of the Irish pension list, said, it might be compared to death, for it was the wages of sin.
27. Parliamentary Reform.—On this subject it was mentioned that a noble lord had got the reversion of a borough, at the end of twenty years. A great lord, who was present pertinently asked, "What any borough would be worth twenty years hence?"
28. Soon after the capture of the Spanish register ship, a recruiting serjeant of marines at Manchester, after expatiating on the number of galleons, that were taken, informed his audience, that besides the king's bounty, every two men should be provided with a large chest, having a strong partition to hold their prize money.
29. A printseller in Dublin, lately had the audacity to expose for sale, a print of the —, with the following lines from Pope's Homer underneath:
30. Henry the Seventh, on his death-bed said, "I have left my subjects a legacy: I have left them, peace, the best legacy a prince can leave his people." Some kings might parody this speech, using the word debt instead of peace, and substituting worst for best.
31. It is an observation of a French author, that there is no example of an English minister who began a war, continuing in office till its conclusion.
32. The observation of Mr. Paine, that England has no constitution, is not new. Something very like it is contained in the following passage from the courtly Hume's History of England. "Those (says he) who, from a pretended respect to antiquity, appeal, at every turn, to an original plan of the constitution, only cover their turbulent spirit, and their private ambition, under the appearance of venerable forms; and whatever period, they pitch on for their model, they may still be carried back to a more distant period, where they will find the measures of power entirely different, and where every circumstance, by reason of the greater barbarity of the times, will still appear less worthy of imitation. Above all, a civilized nation, like the English, ought to be cautious in appealing to the practice of their ancestors, or regarding the maxims of uncultivated ages as certain rules for her present conduct. An acquaintance with the ancient periods of their goverment is chiefly useful by instructing them to cherish their present constitution, from a comparison or contrast with the condition of these present times. [Page 11] And it is also curious, by shewing them the remote, and commonly faint and disfigured originals, of the most finished and most noble institutions: and by instructing them in the great mixture of accident, which commonly concurs with a small ingredient of wisdom and foresight, in erecting the complicated fabric of the most perfect government."
33. When the Duke of Clarence mentioned, in the House of Lords in the course of the debate on the Slave Trade, that the condition of the slaves in the West Indies was preferable to that of the poor people in Great Britain; it was observed, that it would be a humane action in his Highness, to bring a bill into parliament, to make the condition of the poor in this country as good as that of the African slaves.
34. A man must serve a seven years apprenticeship to be a shoe-maker; but all our peers, and a great proportion of our commoners, are born legislators. Nor is this all; if the shoe-maker, after all his study does not make shoes to please his customers, they will not employ him; but we are obliged to receive all the manufactures of the other profession above mentioned, be they good or bad.
35. Those who hold up to admiration the constitution of this country, on account of the trial by jury, surely do not mean a special jury.
36. Comparisons of drunkenness.—A man is said to be as drunk as an owl, when he cannot see—as drunk as a sow, when he wallows in the dirt—as drunk as a beggar, when he is very impudent—as drunk as the devil, when he is inclined to mischief —and as drunk as a lord, when he is every thing that is bad.
37. A successful resistance (says Mr. Wilkes) is a revolution, not a rebellion. Rebellion indeed, appears on the back of a flying enemy; but Revolution [Page 12] flames or the breast plate of the victorious warrior.
38. The following equally wise and loyal resolutions, were published in the newspapers: —
"At a meeting of the inhabitants of the above place, it was unanimously agreed to change the name of the street from Petty-France, to York-street, to perpetuate to posterity the detestation, we, the said inhabitants, have to French principles, politics, and all things that bear an affinity with the disordered system, at present prevailing with that deluded people.
"And we, the said inhabitants, do agree to call it York-street to commemorate the gallantry of his Royal Highness the Duke of York, who so nobly steps forward to defeat the hostile designs of a people, whose dangerous and destructive innovations, have reduced millions to beggary, and threatened the liberties of this happy country.
"Therefore the public in general, and our friends and connexions in particular, are requested to observe, that the said street, lately called Petty-France, is, by the inhabitants at large, chang'd to York-street; and it is earnestly desired of every person, having occasion to send or write to their friends residing there (as likewise the postmen) will recollect the alteration, and direct, or deliver accordingly.
39. A person present at the above meeting, observed, that it would be better to call it Fetterlane.
40. A gentleman being told, that Mr. Dundas [Page 13] had received the freedom of a certain Scotch burgh in a little gold box—observed, that their freedom might be contained in a very little box indeed.
41. Commissary Watson fidgets about so at the mess-rooms, and makes such a thumping noise with his wooden-leg, that the young officers have given him the nick-name of dot and go on.
42. The following curious article appeared in a Treasury newspaper, in the month of May last. —"In the late engagement, Ensign Hamilton, of the 3d regiment, had a very narrow escape—a cannon ball was making directly for his head, but a serjeant, who was near him, seeing it, held up his hand, and altered the direction so much, that it only went through Mr. Hamilton's hat!!!
43. During the Coalition Ministry, when the late Lord North held the office of one of the principal Secretaries of State, as he was one day going to his office, in ascending the long stair that leads to it, he was obliged, being a heavy man, to rest himself at the first floor, opposite the door leading into the treasury; at last he proceeded, observing very feelingly, "Well, I see that a man may go farther and fare worse."
44. Seneca was a Heathen: Hear his observation on war—"Homo sacre res homo, jam per lusum et jocum occiditur."—"Man, that sacred creature man, is sent to death as a matter of pleasure and diversion."
45. Notwithstanding the many severe examples made in our courts of justice, of persons, for speaking seditiously, a man had the audacity to assert, in a public coffee room, that two and two made four.
46. A Friend to the Constitution was preaching up the advantages of aristocracy, and stating the justice, that a general or an admiral for his merits in conquering the enemies of his King, [Page 14] should be ennobled, and that his honours should descend to his posterity: A lady, who was present, observed, that by the same rule, where a man is, for his merits, exalted to the gallows, his descendants should also succeed to that honour.
47. In the time of Mr. Wilkes's patriotism, he observed, in a speech to parliament, that, "The House of Commons meet like a consultation of physicians where every one's business is to apply to his own advantage, and not to consider the condition of his miserable patient."
48. On Mr. Pitt being condemned for taking his relations into the cabinet to prevent a division, a wag observed, that an improvement on this scheme would be, to take all the offices into his own hands, as there would be still less apprehension of his dividing against himself.
49. At the quarter sessions held at Cambridge, July 18, 1793, John Cook, a baker, was tried for uttering the following seditious words: "I will always have a calf's head for dinner, on the anniversary of the martyrdom, so long as I have money to buy one; King George's head would look well served up in a dish, there would be cut and come again; and what a wonderful discovery there would be when you came to the brains! Damn the monarchy, I want none; I wish to see all the churches down, and the roads mended with them, and the King's chapel made a stable of." He was found guilty; and sentenced to be imprisoned three months, to pay a fine of 40s. and to find sureties for six years, himself in 100l. and two sureties in 50l. each
50. If the Scotch Judges, instead of fourteen years transportation, had adjudged Mr. Muir to be hanged, such a sentence would not have been without precedents in their court: —
In the year 1600, Archibald Cornwall was indicted [Page 15] for ignominiously dishonouring and defaming his Majesty, in making a portrait of him, and laying it upon the posts of the gibbet, pressing to fix the same thereupon."
The Jury "convict Archibald Cornwall of the treasonable setting of his Majesty's portrait to the posts of the gibbet, and putting of the same to be hung forth on a nail infixed on the same gibbet."
The Court decreed him "to forfeit life, lands and goods; and to be taken to the said gibbet, whereupon he pressed to hang his Majesty's portrait, and there to be hanged until he be dead, and to hang thereupon for the space of twenty-four hours, with a paper on his forehead, containing the vile crime committed by him."
In the same year Francis Tenant was indicted for writing and despersing slanderous letters, reproachful to the king, his progenitors and council, and the Jury having found him guilty,
A royal warrant was produced by the Lord Advocate, commanding the Court to pronounce the following sentence: —"That the prisoner be taken to the cross of Edinburgh, and his tongue cut out at the root; that a paper be fixed on his brow, denoting him to be the author of wild and seditious pasquinades; and that he be then taken to a gallows, and hanged till he be dead."
But as the king (James I.) affected clemency, a second royal warrant was produced, in which his Majesty was graciously pleased to declare, that he was content that the prisoner would only be hanged; which sentence was accordingly pronounced and executed.
In 1615 John Fleming was hanged for uttering the following words: —"Fiend nor the King die or the morn (no matter if the King die by to morrow) that he die of the falling sickness."
In 1618 Thomas Ross or Rois was condemned [Page 16] to have first his head struck off, and then his hand and head affixed to different gates in Edinburgh, for having, at Oxford, published a devilish, scandalous, and seditious writing, containing reflexions on his own countrymen; asserting that they should all be put from court, excepting his Majesty (James I.) and his children and a few others, and upbraiding the English for suffering themselves to be abused by such a multitude of the off-scouring of the people."
51. The following fable, a gross libel upon that best of all possible goverments, called Monarchy, is taken from the ninth chapter of the Book of Judges: —
"The trees met together to choose a king; but all the trees of worth declined the office. The olive would not quit the care of its oil, the figtree of its figs, the vine of its wine, nor the other trees of their fruit. Thus disappointed, they applied to the bramble, as being good for nothing. and because it bore thorns and could do mischief, The bramble, far from declining the honour of reigning over the rest of the trees, showed itself of the true blood royal, 'every inch a king,' by the following most gracions speech:— ‘If, in truth, (said its majesty), you anoint me king, then come and put your trust in my shadow; if not, the fire shall come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.’"
52. The following might also be considered as a libel, at this particular juncture, if it were not extracted from the Holy Bible:—
1 Samuel, chap. 8.—"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king.
"And he said, this will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: he shall take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariot, [Page 17] and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
"And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots.
"And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.
"And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
"And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and servants.
"And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
"And he will take the tenth of your sheep; and ye shall be his servants.
"And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king, which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you that day.
53. Soon after the institution of the Royal Society, King Charles II. sent as a question to them for their discussion, "What was the reason why a dead fish was so much heavier than a living one?" Many wise treatises were accordingly written, by the members of this learned body, to point out the physical reasons for this difference. At last, after the point had undergone a complete discussion, it occurred to them to try the fact, when they discovered, to their no small mortification, that they were laughed at by the witty King, the living fish and the dead one being exactly the same weight.
54. Those who find fault with our constitution, certainly do not believe the two following maxims: [Page 18] I. "That the king can do no wrong, and II. That the act of law never doth wrong."
55. A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, "So is the London Tavern."
56. Dean Swift observes, "that considering how many hopeful princes we have had, it is perfectly astonishing, that we should have had so few tolerable kings."
57. A man was lately tried at Aberdeen for obstructing a revenue officer; it unfortunately came out on the trial, that the prisoner had been guilty of planting the Tree of Liberty, where no tree had ever grown before, and where Liberty was not in the most flourishing state. The consequence was, a judgment, that he should be publicly whipped, and banished the kingdom for fourteen years.
58. A royal shoe-maker in Bristol lately advertised, that he had the honour to be an alarmist, and requested the custom of all his Majesty's loyal Subjects; as he was resolved not to make shoes for a republican.
59. A gentleman once observed, that if he was obliged to accept a title, it would be that of knighthood, as the infamy of it would not descend on his family.
60. A country gentleman, on hearing that several persons were punished for selling the Rights of Man, protessed, that he thought no punishment too great for those, who dared to SELL the Rights of Man.
61. There is no bayonet so long as to reach opinion.
62. A modern writer say, "I shall never believe that men were born for slavery, until I see kings produced with combs on their heads, like [...] to strut and crow; and men with bunches [Page 19] on their backs, like camels, to denote their capacity to carry burdens."
63. A countryman was lately seen loitering all the forenoon about Somerset Place; a gentleman asked him his business; he said he had come up from Yorkshire on purpose to see Mr. Dundas; that he himself, with great labour, gained £. 50 a year, and he was desirous to see a man, who, from his merits and labour, got from the nation above £. 30,000 a year. The gentleman told him, that Mr. Dundas had, for a week past, been amusing himself at his country seat at Wimbleton; but, says he, if you wish to see a man who gets a great deal more, and does still less than Mr. Dundas, go to St. James's, and you will see the King. The Yorkshireman answered, "The King is more than a man: he is God's vicegerent it is our duty to give him a million a-year, and it is his Majesty's duty to receive it."
64. Mr. Forbes, in the Irish House of Commons, observed, in speaking of the absentees, that he should have little objection to them as birds of passage, if they did not prove to be birds of prey.
65. It was observed by Mr. Courtney, in the House of Commons, that "the Devil was first Master General of the Ordnance."
66. We are apt to speak of the happiness of living under a mild government, as if it were like the happiness of living under an indulgent climate: and when we thank God for it, we rank it with the blessings of the air and of the soil; whereas, we ought to thank God for the wisdom and virtue of living under a good government: for a good government is the first of national duties.
ENGLISH LAWS.
67. A specimen of the perfection, wisdom, consistency, equality and impartiality of the English Law.
"The common law is the absolute perfection of human reason; for nothing that is contrary to reason is consonant with law."
"The act of law never doth wrong."
I. Clergymen and peers are not punishable for crimes, for which severe punishments are inflicted on all others; this is the case in all felonies having what is called benefit of clergy.
II. Persons tried for felony are not allowed a copy of the indictments against them, nor even to see the indictments. They are not permitted to have council to argue their cases, even though they should be enabled to see them; yet the most learned council are employed against them.
III. In cases at the suit of the Crown, the servant of the Crown names special jurors.
IV. If the crown gains, the special jurors are allowed each two guineas, if it loses, only one guinea.
V. A man who picks my pocket of an handkerchief shall be hanged; while another who takes away an innocent man's life by perjury, shall be put upon the pillory.
[Page 21]VI. If a man owes ten pounds, he may be imprisoned for life; if he makes an unnatural assault on another, he may be imprisoned for perhaps six months.
VII. It is the same crime to murder the king, or to plunge the country in a civil war, as to coin a six-pence. To plunge the country in an unnecessary foreign war is no crime whatever.
VIII. It is equally capital to set fire to a hayrick, and to burn a populous town.
IX. To write a letter to a man, threatening to burn his house, is a capital crime;—to plunge a knife in another's bosom, where death does not ensue, is (except in some particular circumstances) a misdemeanor punishable by fine and imprisonment.
X. To burn a house, of which the criminal is a tenant at will, is capital; but if he has a lease, it is only a misdemeanor.
XI. To wound cattle is a capital crime—to wound a man only a misdemeanor.
XII. A comedian who performs in a theatre-royal is a reputable person; but if the same man plays the same characters in a theatre which wants the stamp of Royalty, he is a rogue and a vagabond.
XIII. It is high treason to have a connection with the king's eldest daughter; but a man may have a dozen children by each of the other daughters of the king without committing any crime whatever.
XIV. "Almost in every case, the law for the king is not the law for the subject," Wood's Institutes, page 21.
XV. A poor man is deprived of the means of recovering his right from a rich man, on account of the expense of the law.—For, if he should be able to borrow 40l. or 50l. to carry on his action [Page 22] for 10l. due to him by his rich neighbour, and should by means of that money, procure a verdict of his country, for his debt, the rich man can, by writs of error, arrests of judgment, bills in chancery, &c. so harass the poor plaintiff, that he shall in the end be obliged to give up, with the loss of perhaps ten times his debt.
XVI. The expenses of an action for two pounds are the same as for two thousand.
XVII. A gentleman of large property may hunt on the ground of a man of small property; while the man of small property may not hunt on his own ground.
XVIII. Peers and Members of Parliament cannot be arrested for debt, but their creditors may.
XIX. Peers and Members of Parliament pay no postage.
XX. Although every person in the kingdom pays taxes, a very small proportion of the people elect representatives: yet every man is bound to obey the law, from the fiction, that it is made either by himself or his representatives.
XXI. Every man is bound to know all the laws; although it will take fifteen guineas to purchase them, and a professional education to understand them.
XXII. If a man is tried at the quarter sessions, for a petty assault, it will cost him more if he is acquitted than if he shall be convicted.
XXIII. If a man's wife is unfaithful to him, he cannot procure a divorce, unless he can afford to pay 3 or 400l.
XXIV. A man who cries up king and constitution or church and state, or burns Tom Paine in effigy, may with impunity create as great riots as he pleases; but if a person attempts to shew, by cool reasoning, that there are faults in the constitution, [Page 23] he shall be imprisoned for years, and put on the pillory.
XXV. Monopolies are established in favour of towns and rich trading companies, whereby all other persons are excluded from the natural right of exercising their labour to the best advantage.
XXVI. If a man has chosen the profession of a seaman, he may, at a minister's pleasure, be dragged from his home, his friends, his family and his country, and devoted to slavery during his life; and if he endeavours to regain his freedom, he shall be hanged.
XXVII. The law gives a man's eldest son all his estate, and leaves the rest of his children beggars.
XXVIII. If, by industry, I make my land worth ten times its former value, I must pay ten times as much as I did, to the priest.
XXIX. The king pays no costs.
XXX. The poor man is hanged for taking a loaf from a baker's shop to satisfy the cravings of nature—the baker who cheats a whole parish is fined a few shillings—and the great man, who plunders the nation of thousands, goes unpunished.
68. The following is the progressive state of the taxes of England, from the time of William the Conqueror, taken from Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue:—
| Annual amount of taxes levied by William the Conqueror, beginning in the year 1066, | £. 400,000 | |
| Annual amount, | 1166, | 200,000 |
| Ditto, | 1266, | 150,000 |
| Ditto, | 1366, | 130,000 |
| Ditto, | 1466, | 100,000 |
| Ditto, | 1566, | 500,000 |
| Ditto, | 1666, | 1,800,000 |
| Ditto, | 1791, | 17,000;000 |
EPIGRAMS, &c.
69. On the present war.
70. Epigram written by an Austrian after the affair of Lincelles.
KINGS, WAR, PEACE, &c.
STATESMEN.
LAW.
PEDIGREE.
ODE to the DRUM.
A TRIBUTE TO THE SWINISH MULTITUDE: BEING A CHOICE COLLECTION OF PATRIOTIC SONGS.
COLLECTED BY THE CELEBRATED R. THOMSON.
TO THE PUBLIC, ALIAS THE "SWINISH MULTITUDE."
O YE factious, seditious, and discontented crew! will you never believe that you are happy, when no more than a bare belief is requisite to make you so?—Infatuated mortals! are you determined, like Lovegold, to "feel, feel, feel, and touch, touch, touch," before you will allow your happiness to be real? Dreadful obstinacy! how unacquainted are you with the wonder-working powers of imagination!—Can you not believe that your hunger and thirst are gratified, unless you eat and drink? Can you not believe that you are clothed and warm, unless you are covered from the inclemency of the season?—O what political unbelief is this?—To what then must your wise legislators have recourse? They have bawled to you till their lungs are jaded; they have written to you till words are exhausted, and ye still obstinately continue to be unhappy. What! will you not believe the King himself, and all the Royal Family? Not believe the Prime Minister, the Privy Council, and all the Bishops! the Judges, Counsellers, and Lawyers! the Borough-Mongers, the Placemen, and all the Pensioners! the Dukes and the Earls, and Marquisses, the Barons, the Knights, the Lords in Waiting of the Bed-chamber, of the Stole, and of the Golden Stick! the Commanders by Sea and Land; the Commissioners and Officers of all the Great [Page 34] Houses! the Magistrates and Justices, the Lord-Mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mrs. Jordan, the Duke of Brunswick, the Duke of Richmond, and all the Vestrymen, and Parish Officers!!—Deluded multitude! here is a collection of the happiest creatures in the world, united together to persuade you that you are extremely happy, and yet you give no credit to what they may either say or swear! O shocking stupidity! they will then cure you of your Malady, by a different process; the Tower shall be furnished with solid argument, a Military system of Animal Magnetism shall be adopted—you shall be thrown into a Crisis, and kept there till you confess you are exceedingly happy!—Think, besotted creatures! how much money is now expending to persuade you that you are happy! on Fortifications, on Proclamations, on Newspapers, at Taverns and Committees, as much as would liberate all the Insorvent Debtors in the four counties! Think, think, I say, and be persuaded you are happy, for you must pay all the Reckoning!
Again, how will you be able to resist the irrefutable logic of Musqueiry and Artillery? or how will you be able to deny you are HAPPY, when the sword is pointed to your breast? recollect how successfully Mahomet argued this way, and believe you are happy in this world, lest they silence your murmurs, by sending you into another, to search for happiness! but alas you are a banditti of incorrigible Heretics; I know you will not believe you are happy, although the Holiest Man in Canterbury were to declare it to you on his marrow-bones!
But let me, for a few moments, direct your attention to the great source of all your happiness, [Page 35] to the most glorious and happy Constitution!—Take a view of each well constructed system in each department of government; and you may be astonished at the scene thrown open before you! The whole is a Paradise of Delights!
Look into the STATE!—'Tis true it has corruptions and defects, as poor Edmund says, and you must peep at them with due caution—But see your Liberties defended, your property protected, by men of the most unsullied virtue. The great Treasury of the Nation, which is accumulated from your hard labour and industry, is entrusted to integrity itself; and distributed with the most scrupulous exactness, on the pure principles of the RIGHTS OF MAN. The most favourite Persioners cannot finger a guinea till he has earnt it; nor has the most exalted man in office a single shilling more than his merit entitles him to. What is £.4000 per anmum to one great man, for introducing another great man to kiss a Third Great Man's Hand?—'tis cheap as dirt. Nay it is worth half the money to see them at work!—in time of war you pay double taxes, and is it not necessary the expences of war should be defrayed?—In time of peace you also pay double taxes, to defray the expences of Peace. Ye senseless idiots! These, and such like things, constitute the chief glory of the State!!
Look again into the Law; the scene still brighters before you! Englishmen! you have the cheapest market for Justice in the whole universe! how happily adjusted are the laws between debtor and creditor! no unnecessary delay attends the action; no anxiety of mind between the contending parties; no neglect of business; so extravagant expences;—O! what a glorious purchase of parchment and stamps do you make here! with [Page 36] what composure do you look forward from term to term! in the hands of Mercy and Justice, what can you fear! nothing in the final decision of the court, to ruffle your spirits, or break the repose of your family! like fat oysters ye are gently opened and separated, that the happy stuff, which lies between, may be applied to enrich the glorious Constitution.
And now take a view of the Church! and see the angelical life of the Holy Priesthood; here is Paradise Regained!—by divine permission, here is heaven itself let down upon earth! an assemblage of all the graces and virtues which dignify and adorn human nature—how equally proportioned is the hire to the labourer! No lazy Bishops, no sinecure places, no dissipated Priests, no starving Curates—O no, no!—Justice, temperance, truth, and brotherly love, animate and pervade the whole; here is a scourge for the wickedness of men in high life, and a consolation for the miscries of the poor—here is religion taught by the best masters with able assistants, on the most reasonable terms! a little entrance money only is required; marrying, christening, confirming, visiting and burying, almost for an old song; and tithes exactly according to circumstances! Thrice happy and glorious Constitution!!! we are lost in the contemplation of thy manifold blessings.
Hear then, ye "SWINISH MULTITUDE!" the Statesmen at Whitehall, the Judges on the Bench, all the Parish Officers in the nation, their dependants and expectants, proclaim aloud that ye are HAPPY! and who so competent to judge of your happiness? Beware of that fatal error of judging for yourselves. What! think for yourselves! O let me intreat, nay let me insist upon it, that you never think of thinking [Page 37] for yourselves; for the more you think, the more you will differ from these wise and happy men in your way of thinking: Think also, how many mild, happy and glorious Constitutions have been ruined by men thinking for themselves! Let your betters, therefore, think for you; because it stands to reason, they must think best; and if the phantom should again seize your brain, and tempt you to conceive you are not happy, you must petition the happy Constitution to furnish you with some patent engines, pullies and screws, whereby you may at any time wind up your imagination to their pitch, dance to their music, and be as happy as themselves. ‘Crede quod habes, et habet,’ said Erasmus; with this word of advice I take my leave; without flattering you, courting your patronage, or saying a single word about the merit of the Songs.
A TRIBUTE, &c. A NEW SONG, To an old Tune—viz. "God save the king."
SONG. BURKE's ADDRESS TO THE "SWINISH MULTITUDE."
Tune "Derrydown, down," &c.
SONG. [PART SECOND] The "SWINISH MULTITUDE's" REPLY TO BURKE's ADDRESS.
SONG. SCOTCH NICK; OR OLD HARRY's PLAIN CONFESSION.
Tune—"Vauxhall Watch."
SONG
Tune—"Sweet Willy O!"
SONG FRENCH LIBERTY.
Tune "In the Garb of old Gaul."
SONG. BURKE's LAMENTATION FOR THE LOST AGE OF CHIVALRY.
THE KEY.
SURELY (says he, speaking of the last Queen of France) never LIGHTED ON THIS ORB, which she hardly seemed to TOUCH, a more delightful VISION! I saw her JUST ABOVE THE HORISON, decorating and chearing the elevated sphere she just began to move in—glittering like the MORNING STAR! full of life and splendor, and joy. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge (What!) even a LOOK that threatened her with an insult!!!—But the Age of Chivalry is gone! The GLORY of Europe is extinguished forever!!!
SURELY, Reader, if you possess one grain of common sense, you will say that either this passage is not quoted from BURKE'S celebrated Defence of Royalty, or that the author took leave of his senses when he wrote it.—I have looked into his book three times, that I might not mistake, and I am willing to make affidavit before our sovereign lord the king, that you may find it in page 112.
PLAINTIVE.
SONG.
Tune "Ye Gods, ye gave to me a Wife."
SONG.
Tune "Chevy Chace."
SONG. PAINE's WELCOME TO GREAT-BRITAIN.
Tune, "He comes, he comes."
SONG.
Tune, "Highland Laddie."
SONG. WHITEHALL ALARMED! AND A COUNCIL CALLED!!!
Tune, "Let us prepare, &c."
SONG. FRANCE's LAMENTATION ON THE APPROACH OF THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK.
Tune, "Malbrook."
Did not report almost say as much? did not tyrants desire it? and did not the ignorant dread it?