"That, in consequence of taxes, your petitioners pay sixpence for a pot of worse beer than they could make for one penny; that they pay ten shillings for a pair of shoes that they could have for five shillings; that they pay sevenpence for a pound of soap or candles that they could have for threepence; that they pay sevenpence for a pound of sugar that they could have for threepence; that they pay six shillings for a pound of tea which they could have for two shillings; that they pay double for their bread and meat, of what they would have to pay if there were no idlers to be kept out of the taxes; that, therefore, it is the taxes that make their wages insufficient for their support, and that compel them to apply for aid to the poor-rates; that, knowing these things they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as _paupers_, while so many thousands of idlers, for whose support they pay taxes, are called _noble Lords_ and _Ladies_, _honourable Gentlemen_, _Masters_, and _Misses_; that they feel indignant at hearing themselves described as a nuisance to be got rid of, while the idlers who live upon their earnings are upheld, caressed, and cherished, as if they were the sole support of the country." Having repeated to them these passages, I proceeded: "My workmen were induced thus to petition, in consequence of the information, which I, their master, had communicated to them; and, gentlemen, why should not your labourers petition in the same strain? Why should you suffer them to remain in a state of ignorance, relative to the cause of their misery? The eyes sweep over in this country more riches in one moment than are contained in the whole county in which I was born, and in which the petitioners live. Between Holbeach and Boston, even at a public house, neither bread nor meat was to be found; and while the landlord was telling me that the people were become so poor that the butchers killed no meat in the neighbourhood, I counted more than two thousand fat sheep lying about in the pastures in that richest spot in the whole world. Starvation in the midst of plenty; the land covered with food, and the working people without victuals: everything taken away by the tax-eaters of various descriptions: and yet you take no measures for redress; and your miserable labourers seem to be doomed to expire with hunger, without an effort to obtain relief. What! cannot you point out to them the real cause of their sufferings; cannot you take a piece of paper and write out a petition for them; cannot your labourers petition as well as mine, are God's blessings bestowed on you without any spirit to preserve them; is the fatness of the land, is the earth teeming with food for the body and raiment for the back, to be an apology for the waste of that courage for which your fathers were so famous; is the abundance which God has put into your hands to be the excuse for your resigning yourselves to starvation? My God! is there no spirit