for defence or escape. Having arrived silently at the barn and despatched the sentinels, they fell upon the Americans in the dead of sleep, and, notwithstanding their cries of quarter, butchered all! Sometime after, General Wane, with a detachment of Americans, surprised the fort of Stony Point on the North River, above New York, likewise in the dead of the night, and having previously given instructions to his men how to act, they spared the sentinels, entered the fort with horrid yells, crying out. Remember the Barn! Remember the Barn! and though the British cried out most tremendously for quarter, there was no occasion for it, for not a life was sacrificed. Wane's magnanimity, and Grey's cruelty, will never be effaced from the minds of the Americans, the latter of whom received the title of a peer, but was better known in the United States by that of no flint Grey!

BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF THE WRITERS AGAINST SUPERSTITION.

The first two Numbers of this work are ready for delivery; but to all who can as easily spare à shilling as threepence, it is recommended that they purchase in parts, as each part will be stitched in a cover to keep the Numbers clean.

As new crumbs of comfort to the saints, we have published

The Character of the Bible and the Bible God, with a Sketch of the History of One God. Price 2d.

The Bosquetian Creed, which shows that the soul of man is his seed. Price ld.

A Church of England Ordination, by Gray, and the poetic Squib which caused the riot at Founders' Hall Chapel. Price one halfpenny.

A stereotyped Character of the Bible, with a list of references to the immoral parts, and a catalogue of publications at 62, Fleet-street, may be had, on a leaf, at one halfpenny each, or 2s. 6d. per hundred. God Save the King; but take the Priests.

Printed and Published by R. CARLILE, 62, Fleet Street.-All Correspondences for "The Republican," to be left at the place of publication.

The Republican.

No. 14. VOL. 14.] LONDON, Friday, Oct. 13, 1826. [Price 6d.

POLITICAL ECONOMY, '.

POLITICAL Economy is the science of politics, or human and social policy divested of all relations to mere political parties. It is the good divested of the evil of politics. It embraces and teaches the welfare of all classes, from the monarch, where a monarch is tolerated, to him who labours for the smallest amount of wages. It admits not of party feeling; for where party interest begins, political economy ends. Political economy is the interest of the public as a whole. It has been excluded from nearly all Monarchical and Aristocratical Governments, and hence the sufferings of the labouring people under such Governments, and under an ignorance of the science of political economy.

Political economy is the science of profits-the profit of labour, of rent, of exchange, and it has the harmonizing quality of seeking to equalize or to regulate the profits of all classes of industrious people or capitalists upon that basis on which the greatest aggregate and most diffusive profit can be raised. It is the science of the welfare of mankind.

Economy, in its derivative sense, expresses a saving or frugality in the management of things, and so far the words political economy do not express fully the science which is discussed under that name; for it is rather the science of increased and increasing means, than of the proper use of means already produced. It embraces the frugal use of present productions; but it goes farther, it teaches how they may be increased and applied to the general benefit. It teaches rulers what is the source of national prosperity, as well as the ruled what is the source of individual prosperity, and that the one can only exist with the other.

Hitherto, political economy has not been studied as a science among rulers. The state of things has been economy among the Iabouring people and lavish expenditure with the rulers, so that the economical means of the one party have been destroyed by the lavish expenditure of the other, and extensive poverty has been the consequence. The science which is called political eco

Printed and Published by R. Carfile, 62, Flect-street.

nomy endeavours to combine the interests of the rulers with those of the ruled. It admits every kind of improvement in the system of legislating and governing, without admitting any change for mere party purposes. It is the only ground on which politicians of all parties can honestly unite; for it removes them from every ground of dispute, as each theory can be easily put to the test of practice. It is owing to the spread of this science, it is through the circumstance that the science has been slightly countenanced by some of the present Ministers of Government, that we see less of party and hostile feeling in the Legislature; that, on many weighty matters, there has been a unity of feeling, so rare, between the "Gentlemen on the Treasury benches" and the "Gentlemen opposite."

So far, then, the science of political economy promises to be an unmixed good and though those, who have not examined what it means, may attempt to throw ridicule upon it, as every thing useful to mankind has been ridiculed by some, on its first presentation; like every other real science, it has an immoveable basis, so long as human animals congregate into a society. It is the science of social human welfare.

The foregoing paragraphs are prefatory of the intention to reduce the science called political economy to a style and compass that shall be within the comprehension and means of all who have labour whereby they can profit. Political economy embraces the application of all other sciences or discoveries to the promotion of human happiness. Discoveries, in science, avail not, unless they be made applicable to the increase or perpetuation of this happiness. Machinery of all kinds adds to the amount of happiness; but great momentary outcries are made against it, because, and merely because, it changes momentarily the position of the demand for labour with a few, though it increases that demand in the aggregate. An illustration of this position will be attempted in the following case :

Population, not injured by machinery, but by excessive taxation.

"The Times" newspaper, of the 10th inst. contains a petition from some distressed people of Frome, in Somersetshire, to the King, against the use of machinery; and, contrasted with it, some Kingly expenditures of the day, upon palaces, evidently meaning to shew the reader and the poor petitioners, that the extravagance on the one side causes the distress on the other. The paper has also some comments upon the subject, which are truly Republican in their style, allowing for the sarcastic or ironical attribution of virtues and political sympathy to the King, and these also, I copy, to complete the subject, intending to finish it by a few observations on machinery and the present state of things in this coun

try: a state of gorgeous show and luxurious habit, on the one side, supported by taxation, breeding distress, disease, and death, by starvation, on the other.

R. C.

A CONTRAST.

DISTRESS AT HOME.

THE following is the substance of a petition to His Majesty, presented by a deputation of the Committee, on the part of the distressed inhabitants

of Frome:

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN.-We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal lieges of the town of Frome, in the county of Somerset, emboldened by that enlightened liberality which has uniformly marked the public actions of your reign, and encouraged by the grace and urbanity so pre-eminently conspicuous in every instance of your private munificence, most humbly beg leave to lay at the foot of your Majesty's throne, a plain and unvar ́nished statement of our grievances.

We approach your sacred person in a time of unprecedented distresswhen ruin, with all its baleful attendants, is making rapid and fearful advances on all the middle and lower classes of your people. A number of untoward circumstances, over which they had no controul, have long been in active operation, and have materially contributed to increase the weight and to aggravate the pressure of the present unparalleled distress. But while we deprecate the idea of soliciting your Majesty on certain consequences which no human prudence could anticipate or prevent, and which, though painful, are still remote, we feel it to be our duty, and we rejoice in it as our privilege, that we are permitted to call your Majesty's attention to that most fatal and prolific of all evils, the universal application of mechanical force, and the unlimited adoption of recent burtful inventions in the several branches and departments of the woollen trade. It is to these, Sire, that the aggregate of suffering and distress, now so alarmingly prevalent in all your manufacturing districts, may be principally, if not entirely, attributed.

It is with feelings of the most poignant sorrow aud regret that we behold the melancholy depression which the excess of machinery has occasioned in all the middle and lower classes. Formerly, an order for a greater or smaller number of woollen cloths was esteemed as a general good by the neighbourhood where the master manufacturer resided, and all the honest and industrious persons employed by him were benefited thereby, and thus a reciprocity of interests, a mutual and common concern, which tended to the advantage of master and man, was kept up. But now, Sire, the natural and proper order of things is reversed: the manufacturer receives his orders, and they are executed without the intervention or concurrence of his discarded workmen; and thus, in the woollen trade alone, there are upwards of sixty thousand operatives, loyal and true men, thrown out of their customary employment; and if two-thirds of these are fathers of families, averaging four children cach, the total of discarded, or only partially employed, will amount to two hundred and sixty thousand cast out and despised, a burden to themselves, and comparatively useless to society.

Your Majesty will be told, perhaps, "that every possible application of mechanical force is absolutely necessary, in order to enable us to compete with our foreign rivals." Now we earnestly entreat your Majesty to con sider the true causes of that rivalry, if such there be; we also beg leave to direct your Majesty's attention to the high rate of per centage which our woollen goods are liable to, before they can be admitted into foreign ports, and to the comparatively small amount of our export woollen trade, only one-eighth of the cloths manufactured, including what is sent to our own colonies and dependencies; and if the enormous quantity of cotton wool, and of every species of machinery exported, be taken into account, it must be obvious that our manufacturers have no foreign rivalry to dread, inasmuch as it is plain that foreigners are now manufacturing for themselves. But even if it were not so, it comports with true wisdom and sound policy, to give up a few points of hopeless and unprofitable competition, if by so doing you find employment for your discarded and starving operatives.

The injudicious encouragement given to every species of machinery, however hurtful, has an obvious tendency to foster high and aristocratical feelings in a certain order of men; while it manifestly tends to degrade and pauperize the great body of your people; it stands directly opposed to every principle of justice and humanity, is destructive to manly independence, and subversive of individual and national prosperity, and is alike inimical to true wisdom and sound policy, as it goes to estrange, where it does not wholly alienate the affection which Englishmen were wont to cherish for their country, and will, if persisted in, most assuredly lead to the subversion of order, or ultimately end in a total obliteration of the national character.

For these urgent and plain reasons, which we deduce from a practical and experimental acquaintance with the evils of which we speak, we, your Majesty's loyal and afflicted lieges, implore your Majesty to impose such wholesome and necessary restrictions on all recent and injurious inventions, generally, and in particular on gigs, shearing-frames, and the whole dressing apparatus, on power single-handed spring broad looms and mules, as shall seem meet to your Princely and Royal wisdom to direct. And your Petitioners will ever pray.

ROYAL BUILDINGS.

Account of the sums expended for the repairs and alterations of Windsor Castle; and an estimate of the sum that will be required to complete the contemplated works :

The amount expended in the repairs and alterations of Windsor Castle, already undertaken, up to May, is

The estimated amount of the sum which will be required to complete the whole of the works which have been sanctioned by the Commissioners appointed in 1824, to superintend the repairs and improvements at Windsor Castle, is

£122,500

127,500

250,000

This amount is 100,000l. more than the estimate for the same work, submitted to, and sanctioned by, the commissioners.

Account of the sum already expended for the building of Buckingham Palace; and an estimate of the account that will be required to complete the building and improvements of the grounds about it :