Thus did these miscreants govern by fraud. The Boroughmongers, as I shall by and by show, have of late been compelled to resort to open force; but for a long while they governed by fraud alone. First they, by the artful and able agents which they have constantly kept in pay, frightened the people with the pretended dangers of a return of the old king's family. The people were amused with this scarecrow, while the chains were silently forging to bind them with. But the great fraud, the cheat of all cheats, was what they call the national debt. And now, Jack, pray attend to me; for I am going to explain the chief cause of all the disgraces and sufferings of the labourers in England; and am also going to explain the reasons or motives which the Boroughmongers have for setting on foot this new fraud of Savings Banks. I beg you, Jack, if you have no other leisure time, to stay at home instead of going to church, for one single Sunday. Shave yourself, put on a clean shirt, and sit down and read this letter ten times over, until you understand every word of it. And if you do that, you will laugh at the parson and tax-gatherer's coaxings about Savings Banks. You will keep your odd pennies to yourself; or lay them out in bread or bacon. You have heard, I daresay, a great deal about the national debt; and now I will tell you what this thing is, and how it came, and then you will see what an imposture it is, and how shamefully the people of England have been duped and robbed. The Boroughmongers having usurped all the powers of government, and having begun to pocket the public money at a great rate, the people grew discontented. They began to think that they had done wrong in driving King James away. In a pretty little fable-book, there is a fable which says that the frogs, who had a log of wood for king, prayed to Jupiter to send them something more active. He sent them a stork, or heron, which gobbled them up alive by scores! The people of England found in the Boroughmongers what the poor frogs found in the stork; and they began to cry out against them and to wish for the old king back again. The Boroughmongers saw their danger, and they adopted measures to prevent it. They saw that if they could make it the interest of a great many rich people to uphold them and their system they should be able to get along. They therefore passed a law to enable themselves to borrow money of rich people; and by the same law they imposed it on the people at large to pay, for ever, the interest of the money so by them borrowed.