Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
Master Billy Heath is also the nominal possessor of a toft of land,
or a pig-sty, at Ludgershal, and being a toft man of that wretched
Borough, of course he is one of the electors, and he has been
instrumental in sending to Parliament some of the most corrupt members
that ever entered that Honourable House. This amiable worthy has had a
finger in the national pie; he has been one of those who has voted for
those that created the national debt; he is, therefore, one of those
whom I hold responsible for the payment of it, as long as he has a
shilling left to pay with. We hear of a great deal of horror expressed
about the breach of national faith, when persons have talked about a
reduction of the national debt; and it would indeed be a breach of
national faith to reduce the interest of the widow and the orphan, who
have their money in the funds, while one of the ramifications of the
boroughmongers has got any thing left to pay it with; let all those who
supported the system of extravagance, which created the debt, by all
means pay the interest of it, as far as they are able; but the great
breach of national faith has been, to compel others who have had no
finger in the pie, to pay towards making it. Only think of those
impudent imposters who supported the infamous breach of national faith
in the year 1797, by passing a law to protect the Bank of England from
paying their notes; only think of those barefaced swindlers now whining
and canting about national faith; only think of the impudence of those
who, at the very moment that they are blustering about national faith,
and pretending to be shocked at the bare mention of reducing what they
call the national debt; only think of their passing an Act of Parliament
to reduce the interest of a particular portion of that debt, by lowering
the 5 per cent. stocks to 4 per cent.; thus, in the most partial manner,
reducing the income of those persons who had their money in the 5 per
cents. from one hundred pounds a-year to eighty, while all the holders
of other stock continue to receive their full interest!! And yet these
are the men that pretend they are so much shocked at the idea of being
guilty of any breach of national faith!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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