elleth in Hampstead
can find none but the cautery and the knife.

----'Omne per ignem
Excoquitur vitium.'

I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at hearing Mr.
Perceval call upon the then Ministry for measures of vigour in
Ireland. If I lived at Hampstead upon stewed meats and claret; if I
walked to church every Sunday before eleven young gentlemen of my own
begetting, with their faces washed, and their hair pleasingly combed;
if the Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort--how awfully
would I pause before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the
cabins of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of
Ireland! How easy it is to shed human blood; how easy it is to
persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so, and that the decision
has cost us a severe struggle; how much in all ages have wounds and
shrieks and tears been the cheap and vulgar resources of the rulers of
mankind; how difficult and how noble it is to govern in kindness and
to found an empire upon the everlasting basis of justice and
affection! But what do men call vigour? To let loose hussars and to
bring up artillery, to govern with lighted matches, and to cut, and
push, and prime; I call this not vigour, but the _sloth of cruelty and
ignorance_. The vigour I love consists in finding out wherein subjects
are aggrieved, in relieving them, in studying the temper and genius of
a people, in consulting their prejudices, in selecting proper persons
to lead and manage them, in the laborious, watchful, and difficult
task of increasing public happiness by allaying each particular
discontent. In this way Hoche pacified La Vendee--and in this way only
will Ireland ever be subdued. But this, in the eyes of Mr. Perceval,
is imbecility and meanness. Houses are not broken open, women are not
insulted, the people seem all to be happy; they are not rode over by
horses, and cut by whips. Do you call this vigour? Is this government?

VI.--'LETTER TO THE JOURNEYMEN AND LABOURERS OF ENGLAND, WALES,
SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. LETTER TO JACK HARROW.'

BY WILLIAM COBBETT

(_Although Cobbett produced not a few political pamphlets in the
strictest sense of the term, the infinitely greater part of his work
is comprised during his earlier days in the volumes of _Peter
Porcupine's Gazette_, during his later in those of the _Weekly
Register_. This latter, however, he himself for a time actually
entitled _The Weekly Political Pam