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    Untitled Article

    That Lord Chatham , one of a generation of statesmen among whom common humanity seems to have been almost as rare as common honesty , and in an age in which nothing was esteemed wickedness by which nobody suffered but the common people—that Lord Chatham should have seen no harm in impressment , can surprise no one ; but it is equally unexpected and unwelcome to find Lord Chatham ' s authority quoted for it now , as conclusive , by a Reform minister . Necessity ! so well described by Milton as "the

    tyranVsplea ; " it is also Sir James Graham ' s , and no one has yet , in our own day , or in any preceding , carried impudence so far as to pretend that there can be any other . It is difficult not to feel degraded by the very act of replying to so base a pretext . Necessity ! yes : to borrow the apt expression of a vigorous writer , " it is exactly the sort of necessity which men are hanged for ; ° the convenience of taking the property of other people without paying for it , with the aggravation of its being their sole property , and the slight additional circumstance that the entire wealth of the nation is

    yours to purchase it withal , if you must have it . If the whole matter were laid before a community of ignorant savages ; if they could be made to conceive the clamour , the indignant uproar , which rises from all the benches of a certain assembly at the bare suggestion of laying a sacrilegious finger upon anything which borders upon a vested 7 ight > upon anything which by the utmost straining can be construed into property , and then could be shown the spectacle of the same men hallooing on their leaders to denounce and insult men for asserting the vested right of the labourer to his own bodily powers , and calling it injustice to knock him down and rob him , not

    of his purse , seeing that he has none , but of all the property he has , his labour , in order to save to their own pockets a fractional part of the wages for which he would consent to sell it—would not the assembly of savages deem the assembly of civilized Christians fit objects for a hurricane to sweep from the earth ? What would they think if they were then told , that this same assembly had just voted twenty millions for the redemption of negro slaves ? These men are not fools , mere absolute fools they cannot be ; they cannot think that kidnapping our own countrymen , and keeping them to forced labour for the whole or the better part of their lives , differs from negro slavery : why , every one of the incidents is the same , down to the very cart whip ! call it , if you please , the cat . There is identity even in the wretched apologies which are set up ; the captains , or masters , are an ill used , calumniated race of men , and free labour , forsooth , would be vastly dearer !'

    This was written last year . This year the exhibition has been repeated , though with some abatement of the former insolence , and a salvo to some Members of tender consciences , in the form of an amendment , which , as we learn from the newspapers , was not too shallow to answer the purpose of an excuse for voting with the Ministry . Sir James Graham successfully fitted his measures to his men . The pertinacity with which the power of tyranny is clung to , even by persons of the least tyrannical disposition , is almost incredible . We should forget it , if we were not continually reminded of it by the proceedings of public men .

    Any person who defends slavery , is perfectly consistent in defending impressment too . Such a person thinks , with Calliclesin the Gorgias of Plato , that the weak are by nature the property of the strong , and that if you can , with impunity , seize a man by main force , keep him in fetters till his spirit is broken , and compel him by threats and blows to labour for your profit , you have a right to do so . A man may think this , or at least practise it , without any imputation on his intellect . He only proves himself to be a

    ferocious animal , who being unrestrained by the ordinary ties of conscience or humanity , must be bound down by cords , or manacled with chains , to prevent him from doing mischief to others . But the misdoings of the Whigs do not arise from the abuse of reason ;

    Untitled Article

    240 Notes on the Newspapers .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 240, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/8/