§ Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, presented a Petition from William Cobbett, of Botley, in the county of Southampton, farmer, setting forth,
§ "That it is essential to the harmony, happiness, and safety of every civil community, that the law afford equal protection to all the members thereof, but that, owing to the imperfection inseparable from human institutions, cases will sometimes arise where not only the law, how well so ever intended, is inadequate to the giving of protection against wrong, but where the wrong proceeds directly from the law itself, and it is to such a case (a case to meet which the right of petitioning the legislature is peculiarly adapted) that the Petitioner now beseeches the attention of the House; that the Petitioner has suffered, and is still suffering, great and grievous hardship, and is in danger of suffering still greater and more grievous hardships, from the operation and effects of acts passed by the late parliaments, and particularly from an act passed on the 2nd of July, 1819, intituled, "An Act to provide for the gradual Resumption of Cash Payments by the Bank of England; "that in the year 1805, and in the eight immediately succeeding years, the Petitioner purchased and improved an estate, consisting of lands and tenements, in the county of Southampton, at the cost of 30,000l. and upwards, and that at the close of the above-mentioned period, he gave a mortgage on the said estate for 13,000l.; that the Petitioner, owing to circumstances uncontrollable by him, has not been able to keep discharged the interest due on the said mortgage agreeably to the letter of the contract, and that he, having some time back given quiet possession to the mortgagee, has now received a notification from the mortgagee's executor (who has acted in this case with all possible mildness and delicacy), that this 840 latter must, in due execution of his trust, proceed to an immediate foreclosure of the mortgage, and consequent sale of the said estate; and against this proceeding, which under the present circumstances, and as the law now stands, must be ruinous to the petitioner, and deeply injurious to all who have claims on his pecuniary resources, he earnestly and most humbly implores the protection of the House: It is with extreme regret, that the petitioner finds himself compelled to trespass on the time of the House, but when the magnitude of his sufferings shall be duly considered, together with the circumstances that his case is the case of thousands, whose sufferings differ from his merely in degree, he hopes that the House will permit him to explain the causes of those sufferings, and to state the grounds on which he rests for obtaining that relief, which he most humbly seeks, and which cannot be obtained without the protecting interference of the House; that the chief immediate cause of the suffering injury and wrong of which the petitioner complains, is the rise which, since the aforesaid mortgage was given, has taken place in the value of the current money of the country, compared with the market price of the various productions of the laud; and that this rise in the value of money has been produced by measures and acts of the late parliaments, more especially by the act afore-mentioned, passed on the 2nd of July, 1819, which measure and acts could not possibly have been in the; contemplation of the petitioner at the time when the mortgage-contract aforesaid was made; seeing that, from the resolutions which the legislature adopted in 1811, it was clearly to be inferred that the current money had experienced no depreciation at that time, and that, of course, no laws would ever be passed recognizing such depreciation, and causing the value of money to be raised, both which have in effect been done by the provisions of the aforesaid act of the 2nd of July, 1819; with regard to the proportion or degree of this to him injurious rise in the value of money, the petitioner begs leave to state, that during the six years immediately preceding the period when the aforesaid mortgage was given, the average price of wheat was 104s. the quarter; that, during the six years which; have succeeded the date of the said mortgage, the average price of wheat has been 75s. the quarter; and that therefore the 841 measures and acts aforesaid, relative to cash payments by the Bank of England, have raised the value of money as affecting the petitioner, have augmented, in fact, the sum borrowed by him on mortgage, and have, even if the relative price of wheat alone be taken as the basis of calculation, given to the mortgagee 104l. for every 75l. lent by him to the petitioner; but the petitioner begs leave further to state, that in order to arrive at a just conclusion as to the degree of the rise in the value of money, as applicable to the present case, the relative price of the article of wheat ought not alone to be taken as the basis of calculation; but that, if it were not to render the representation of the petitioner intolerably tedious, the relative price of all the articles of farm produce ought to be exhibited, in order to form such basis; first, because wheat, being an article of indispensable use and universal consumption, will generally be the last in point of time to experience a decline in price from a rise in the value of money, and will also experience this decline in a less degree than articles with which the community in general can more easily dispense; and, second, because the price of wheat is liable annually to be very greatly affected by the nature of the seasons, which is not the case with regard to other articles of produce, which require a process of years to bring them to a state of maturity; while, therefore, the petitioner abstains from a prolix enumeration of these latter, he thinks that, in bare justice to his case, he ought to state that, during the six years immediately preceding the date of the aforesaid mortgage, the average price of fat hogs was 16s. a score, that of a good cow, 22l., that of a two year old cart colt 40l., and that of a South Down ewe at Weyhill fair 42s.; and that, during the six years which have elapsed since the date of the afore-mentioned mortgage, the average price of fat hogs has been 9s. a score, that of a good cow 12l., that of a two year old cart colt 18l., and that of a South Down ewe at Weyhill fair 25s.; the petitioner does not lay this statement before the House as being in all its parts minutely correct, but, after the most diligent inquiry and the most mature consideration, and with an anxious desire to surpass in no instance the boundaries of fact, he declares to the House that, to the best of his knowledge and belief, the statement which he has here respectfully submitted is substantially 842 true; and from this statement it results, that upon the whole of these last mentioned important articles of agricultural produce there has taken place, since the date of the aforesaid mortgage, an average decline in price to the amount of more than one-half, whence it will be manifest to the House, that if the mortgage were now to be paid off, without any regard had to the change in the value of money, the petitioner would, in the proportion that the price of land has been affected by the fall in the price of these articles, have to pay in fact double the sum borrowed by him on the said mortgage, and that, amongst the ultimate consequences, not to be wholly unexpected in such a case, might be the total ruin of the petitioner, and the beggary of every one dependent on his pecuniary means; that against consequences so cruelly injurious, and so manifestly speedily approaching, the petitioner beseeches the House to protect him; and that he now, with due deference to the judgment of the House, proceeds briefly to submit the grounds on which he rests his claim to that protection.; that the petitioner thinks it will not be denied, that without money there can be, in a community constituted as this is, nothing which can be correctly called property, because it is by the use of money, and by that alone, that the possession or enjoyment of any other thing can be obtained or secured; that money is to all other kinds of property what blood is to the other constituent parts of the animal body, the functions of which parts must have blood to exist with, or cease to exist at all; that without money there can be no contracts relative to the transfer or pledging of other property; that the amount of the money is a principal and vital condition of the contract; that, if the value of the money be changed, subsequent to the making, and previous to the fulfilment of the contract, the contract is violated in the point most essential to its just fulfilment; that the money is described to be "good and lawful money," by which must necessarily be meant the money which is still in existence and in common use under the authority of the legislature at the time of making the contract; that every subsequent step with regard to the fulfilment of the contract ought to be regulated according to the money in which the contract was made, and not according to 843 money of a different value, and that to adopt a contrary principle would be to introduce into bargains and agreements between man and man such uncertainty and confusion, and to place parties to contracts in such great and constant peril, that confidence as to all matters of property, must speedily be wholly destroyed; that if the House concur with the petitioner in the foregoing propositions, as he begs leave humbly to express his hope that the House will, he has only further to represent that the money now in circulation is not the same as that which was in circulation at the time when the mortgage aforesaid was given by the petitioner; that the change, to him so injurious, in the value of money has been produced by measures of the Bank, authorized by acts of the legislature, and by acts of the legislature itself; that these measures and acts could not (for the reason before stated) have been in the contemplation of the petitioner at the time when the contract was made; that the great and grievous sufferings to which he is subjected, in common with thousands of others have not arisen from causes which were at all within his control, or against the effects of which any degree of human prudence or caution could have secured him; that the rise in the value of money the fall in the value of land, and the consequent loss to him during the progress of this dreadful evil, as well as in its fatal result, have not been occasioned by untowardness in seasons, by failure in crops, by vicissitudes of commerce, or by visitations of God, but solely and entirely by legislative measures and acts, which have changed the value of money, altered the effects of his contract aforesaid, and which, without any act on his part either of illegality or improvidence, have, if the law as it now stands be enforced against him, wholly despoiled the petitioner of his estate; and the petitioner therefore, beseeching the House to take the premises into their indulgent consideration, most humbly prays, that the will be pleased to afford him relief from his sufferings, by reducing the current money to the value which it bore in 1813, or by providing for a revision and rectifying of contracts, or by adopting such other means and measures as the House shall, in their wisdom and justice, deem to be most meet."
§ Ordered to lie on the table.