Englishmen read!!! : a plain letter to the King, from the people of England : containing a faithful statement of facts, with a list of sinecures & pensions, amounting to upwards of ten millions annually received by the nobility for doing nothing.

  • Cobbett, William, 1763-1835.
Date:
[1830]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Englishmen read!!! : a plain letter to the King, from the people of England : containing a faithful statement of facts, with a list of sinecures & pensions, amounting to upwards of ten millions annually received by the nobility for doing nothing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    o while the navy cost only seven millions a-yoar when we were carrying on war against America, France, Spain, and Holland: we complain that in this peace, which was to give ns indemnity for the past and security for the future, we are loaded with taxes twice as heavy as those which were re- quired during the war against all those powers; we complain that the emoluments arising from these establishments are engrossed, for the far greater part, by the aristocracy and their dependents, for whose sole benefit they appear to exist to this enormous extent, a conclusion fully warranted when we sec that we have three generals for every regiment of soldiers, two admirals for every ship of the line, that we have, taking both services together, one commissioned officer to every live private men, and especially when we look at the families and connexions from which all the officers come: we complain that, in the navy, the bulwark of our country, promotion and power are so bestowed, that sons of the aristocracy, who were children at the end of the war, have the command of snips, and have under them masters and lieutenants, who were fighting at sea before these com- manders were horn : we complain that, in pursuance of this system of aggrandising the aristocracy at the expence, and to the depressing of the middle and working classes, military and naval and ordnance academies have been established, for the rearing of officers for the army and navy, and that in these the children of the aristocracy and their dependents are nursed, fed, clad, and taught at the public expence, so * that, the middling and working class are compelled to pay for the nursing and feeding of the children of the aristocracy, and that, too, for the manifest purpose of excluding for ever hereafter their own children and kindred from all chance, and even all possibility, of possessing military or naval command: we complain of the establishment of military asylums for rearing up the children of soldiers in ease and comfort at the public expence, the children of working men being, under like circumstances, treated as paupers, while their fathers are compelled to pay taxes to support these asylums : we complain, that, in accordance with this system of establishing a permanent military force, while the pay of the private sol- dier has been so augmented as to make it, over and above his clothing and lodging and fuel, greater than the average wages of the hard-working man, the soldier, like the aristo- cracy, is excused fron paying postage on his letters, while the hard-working and half-starved man, who is taxed to maintain that well-fed and well-clad soldier, is not so excused .• we complain, that wc have been taxed to give half-pay, in the army and navy, to a large part of the clergy of the esta- blished church, who, for twelve years, were receiving tithes, Easter-offerings, and other dues, as rectors and vicars, and at tho same time receiving military or naval half-pay, and