William Cobbett: A Biography in Two Volumes, Vol. 1Smith, Edward
History
William Cobbett: A Biography in Two Volumes, Vol. 1
Smith, Edward
Cobbett, William 1763-1835
sons and the most beautiful of our daughters, over all that
remained they would establish and exercise a tyranny such as
the world never before witnessed. All the estates, all the
farms, all the mines, all the land and the houses, all the
shops and magazines, all the remaining manufactories, and all
the workshops, of every kind and description, from the greatest
to the smallest--all these they would bring over Frenchmen
to possess, making us their servants and their labourers. To
prevent us uniting and arising against them, they would crowd
every town and village with their brutal soldiers, who would
devour all the best part of the produce of the earth, leaving
us not half a sufficiency of bread. They would, besides,
introduce their own bloody laws, with additional severities;
they would divide us into separate classes, hem us up in
districts, cut off all communication between friends and
relations, parents and children, which latter they would breed
up in their own blasphemous principles; they would affix badges
upon us, mark us in the cheek, shave our heads, split our ears,
or clothe us in the habit of slaves! And shall we submit to
misery and degradation like this, rather than encounter the
expenses of war; rather than meet the honourable dangers of
military combat; rather than make a generous use of the means
which Providence has so bounteously placed in our hands? The
sun, in his whole course round the globe, shines not on a
spot so blessed as this great and now united kingdom. Gay and
productive fields and gardens, lofty and extensive woods,
innumerable flocks and herds, rich and inexhaustible mines, a
mild and wholesome climate, giving health, activity, and vigour
to fourteen millions of people: and shall we, who are thus
favoured and endowed: shall we, who are abundantly supplied
with iron and steel, powder and lead: shall we, who have a
fleet superior to the maritime force of all the world, and who
are able to bring two millions of fighting men into the field:
shall we yield up this dear and happy land, together with all
the liberties and honours, to preserve which our fathers so
often dyed the land and the sea with their blood: shall we thus
at once dishonour their graves, and stamp disgrace and infamy
on the brows of our children; and shall we, too, make this base
and dastardly surrender to an enemy whom, within these twelve
years, our countrymen have defeated in every quarter of the
world? No! we are not so miserably fallen: we cannot, in so
short a space of time, have become so detestably degenerate;
we have the strength and the will to repel the hostility,
to chastise the insolence of the foe. Mighty, indeed, must
be our efforts, but mighty also is the meed. Singly engaged
against the tyrants of the earth, Britain now attracts the eyes
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