those of Ireland only excepted. _How, then, did this horrible, this disgraceful, this cruel poverty come upon this once happy nation?_ This, my good friends of Preston, is, to us all, a most important question; and, now let us endeavour to obtain a full and complete answer to it. 55. POVERTY is, after all, the great badge, the never-failing badge, of slavery. Bare bones and rags are the true marks of the real slave. What is the object of Government? To cause men to live _happily_. They cannot be happy without a sufficiency of _food_ and of _raiment_. Good government means a state of things in which the main body are well fed and well clothed. It is the chief business of a government to take care, that one part of the people do not cause the other part to lead miserable lives. There can be no morality, no virtue, no sincerity, no honesty, amongst a people continually suffering from want; and, it is cruel, in the last degree, to punish such people for almost any sort of crime, which is, in fact, not crime of the heart, not crime of the perpetrator, but the crime of his all-controlling necessities.--To what degree the main body of the people, in England, _are now_ poor and miserable; how deplorably wretched they now are; this we know but too well; and now, we will see what was their state before this vaunted "REFORMATION." I shall be very particular to cite my _authorities_ here. I will _infer_ nothing; I will give no "_estimate_;" but refer to authorities, such as no man can call in question, such as no man can deny to be proofs _more_ complete than if founded on oaths of credible witnesses, taken before a judge and jury. I shall begin with the account which FORTESCUE gives of the state and manner of living of the English, in the reign of Henry VI.; that is, in the 15th century, when the Catholic Church was in the height of its glory. FORTESCUE was Lord Chief Justice of England for nearly twenty years; he was appointed Lord High Chancellor by Henry VI. Being in exile, in France, in consequence of the wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and the King's son, Prince Edward, being also in exile with him, the Chancellor wrote a series of Letters, addressed to the Prince, to explain to him the nature and effects of the Laws of England, and to induce him to study them and uphold them. This work, which was written in Latin, is called _De Laudibus Legum Angliae_; or, PRAISE OF THE LAWS OF ENGLAND. This book was, many years ago, translated into English, and it is a book of Law-Authority, quoted frequently in our courts of this day. No man can doubt the truth of _facts_ related in such a work. It was a work written by a famous lawyer for a prince; it was intended to be read by other contemporary lawyers, and also by all lawyers in future. The passage that I am about to quote, relating to the state of the English, was _purely incidental_; it was not intended to answer any temporary purpose. It _must