THE PRESS.
ADVICE TO RING WILLIAM THE FOURTH. - COBBETT'S REGISTER-4f any rate your Majesty does not seem disposed to shut yourself up ; and you may be assured, that this has given very great pleasure to the people. I, who had not seen a King or a \
regent for five or six and twenty years before the first of this months halt now seen a King half a dozen times ; and a good hearty, cheerful. looking King too ; and up and at breakfast, I am sure, by eight o'clock in the morning. That is the King for me ; ay, for the people too. Your Majesty brings us a Queen too ; and, what is more, the gossip goes, that you "live in.Queen Street." If that fact be once ascertained, you have all the women's hearts, and then you are sure of the men ; for in England there is no other really legitimate and steady sway than that of the petticoat. And, then (for I will tell you what nobody else will), it is said her Majesty is a very close manager in her house. Squanderous and wasteful servants give it another flame ; but her Majesty may he assured that this character will, if found to be just, as I hope and believe it will, insure her the respect of all that part of the community which form the real strength and security of the country and the throne., Ah ! may it _M
sleaseyourajesty, this. is. the great thing. of all,!! This expenditure, this cost of royalty, is now-a-days its greatest enemy: If your Majesty could hear only a thousandth part of what I have heard, respecting the palaces, the arches, thefish-ponds, and other things ; if you could hear only a thousandth part of the angry, the bitter, the resentful expressions, that . - • I have heard, relative to those things ; and that, too, not from those whom corrupt men call Jacobins and Radicals, but moderate, mild, and patient people ; from merchants, farmers, gentlemen, and those of the most considerate character, too ; if you could hear only a thousandth part of them, you would come to the famous old palace of St. James, use one other in the country, and order the great heap at Pimlico to be sold, and throw open the parks and gardens, where now closed, for the recreation of the people. As an Englishman, knowing how to value the institutions of my country ; as a man, who wishes most sincerely that a Government of King, Lords, and Commons may always exist in England ; as one who is as anxious as any man living to see avoided a violent change of any sort ; as a dutiful, though not fawning, subject of your Majesty, I beseech you to reflect, that it was the squanderings of the French court, which, more than any other cause, produced the ter- rible revolution in that country ; I beseech you to believe that the whole of the people of England, only excepting those who live on the taxes, now anxiously wish success to the people of France against their Go- vernment ; I beseech you to look at the effect of the example of the American Government ; to consider, that your brother, the late King, in each of the forty-seven years, on an average, after he became of age, cost this nation more than all the Presidents of America have cost, in the forty years that that Government has existed ; and to consider, also, how that republic has towered up under that cheap Government ! Clearly seeing the source of all the evils, of all the dangers that now stare us in the face ; clearly seeing that the country is bowed down, that all foreign nations are preparing to pounce upon her ; that she dares not hoist a sail, while the Russians and French and Americans are mani- festly settling on the division of the spoil of her power ; dearly seeing that this feebleness arises, at bottom, from the want of a due representa- tion of the people in Parliament, what have you to do but to cause that due representation to be restored ? " But," says some one, " those who fill the seats now, would not pass a law to do this." Would not they ! 0 that your Majesty would but try them ! I beseech, I pray, I im- plore you to try the worthies. Let them finish their " elections," as they call them ; then instantly call them together ; make no speech to them, but merely send them a message in somewhat the following words : —" The King informs the House of Commons [the same to the Lords], that he has called them together for one important purpose, and for that purpose cnly. Upon coming to the throne, he finds, from a careful exa- mination into the state of his kingdom, whether in its foreign rela- tionships or in its domestic concerns, that there has been for many years great mismanagement; that the country has sunk in the eyes of the world ; and that his people am in a state of ruin and beggary, such as was never known to their fathers. The King has traced these sad and disgraceful effects to the want of a full, free, and fair representation of the people in the Commons House of Parliament ; and, therefore, he recommends to the two Houses to pass a law to enable the people at large freely to choose the members of the Commons House, excluding from the right of voting no man who has attained the age of twenty-one, who is of sane mind, and who has not been legally con- victed of an infamous crime." Clap W. R. at the bottom of that, and then we should see whether they would pass the law ! Pass it ! aye would they, and with double diligence ! They would, without a dissent- ing voice, thank you for your gracious message, express their gratitude to you for the wise suggestions contained in it, and promise to set about the work with all zeal and industry ; and they would keep the pro- mise too.
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