OF ANDREW WINPENNY, COUNT DE DEUX SOUS; COMPRISING NUMEROUS ADVENTURES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, AND EXPOSING THE CRAFT AND ROGUERY PRACTISED IN LIFE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "NED CLINTON," "JOE OXFORD," &c. &c. "How, when competitors like these contend, LONDON: W. STRANGE, 21, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS IN THE KINGDOM. 1838. THE Sceptic says, man does every thing by custom:" he affirms, too, that honesty, dishonesty, justice and injustice, are but names, attached by us to certain actions, according to the education we have received. Education and custom, most assuredly, hold dominion over man; if they did not, how could it happen that a deed which in one country is denounced as being criminal, in another state brings commendation and pecuniary reward to the individual who has perpetrated it? For example, in the Spartan and some others of the states of olden times, theft, when ably achieved, was considered so highly meritorious and honourable, that he who (like the brave Spartan youth, whose bowels were torn out by the stolen fox he held under his frock) died perseveringly denying a robbery by him committed, was considered as having been a hero, not only meriting the admiration of his own time, but also worthy of having his fame transmitted down to posterity by the ablest historians among his applauding countrymen. In modern times, throughout all countries, the successful robber is applauded for his masterly conduct. Yea! he is rewarded with the proudest distinctions. In fine, robbery leads to great wealth, and, under monarchical governments, overgrown wealth ensures aristocratic rank to its possessor, which with management is made to yield him and his posterity a perpetuity of power and place, at the suffering people's expense. To illustrate this fact, scrutinize into the long list of aristocratic titles. There it will be found, that, with few exceptions, these honours have been granted to the spurious issue of royalty, and to B unsparing plunderers, some of them ruthlessly terrible slayers of their fellow-men-others, practitioners of the law's infamy, or else robbers of the state they were paid to serve;-a few, perhaps, owe their advancement to the more hazardous, yet less dishonest, practices of gaming, sycophancy, and usury. Those noblest spirits of mankind, the aboriginal tribes of North American Indians, openly reward the bravely-daring thief; but civilized governments, actuated by baser principles, covertly render tenfold greater services to the very vilest of thieves, even to such as risk nothing themselves, but cold-heartedly administer to the law's impositions and delays-to thieves who preside over courts, where, so terrific is the iniquity practised, millions of money are annually pillaged and partitioned out among harpies, who well know that the proper owners of much of that wealth are incarcerated in prison, or else lingering life away in hopeless pauperism. The more dispassionately we examine into the subject, the better shall we satisfy ourselves that theft is not thought to be dishonourable in the most civilized of countries. The crime, when publicly detected, may be punished; but that is only in ordinary cases, where persons of no influence are the criminals, or the crime itself accords not with the views of men in power. To exemplify the assertion just made a state minister, whose administration is marked by unnecessary warfare, the grossest public rapine, a greedy seizure of places for his progeny, and of wasteful pensions for the partisans of corruption, usually retires from office, rewarded with an advanced title and a large grant from the public purse, instead of being brought to a public trial, and ignominiously punished for his infamous misdeeds. : Then again that man who joins not in parliamentary debate, yet is (as if ironically) termed "the speaker," as likewise lords-chancellors, herds of ambassadors, and other enormously overpaid servants of the state, after they have realized immense fortunes from the golden showers poured on them at the nation's expense, are allowed to further burden it by getting pensions granted for themselves, and not unfrequently for their wives, children, and affinity. Yet as these abuses are imposed on the state by men in authority over it, common sense is so outraged to meet their pleasure, that they are not denominated and considered what they really ought to be so many infamous thefts. The sceptic must be correct in his assertion! Honesty, dishonesty, justice and injustice, are words only, which the great bandy about at pleasure, and attach to individuals according to their success in life; were they otherwise, the incongruous laws of civilized states would be pronounced barbarous and infamous. Justice, as she is administered, sentences to death the poor man convicted of crime, which the great employ armies to perpetrate; and she unhesitatingly transports him for a petty theft to a distant colony; thus putting the community to great expense, and punishing it to improve the condition of the guilty. Honesty should be sought after at the fountain head of justice; and here is a specimen of the disinterestedness of the fair dame. A certain court of chancery took charge of a million of money bequeathed to its care by a superannuated merchant, to accumulate at compound interest for half a century, and this honest court charged only the interest upon the million during the half century for abusing the trust. Unquestionably, the directors of certain public companies must be sceptics to the heart's core. They cringe to get themselves employed in the direction, but when snugly seated there, they bribe the most compliant of the law tribe to assist them in concocting a deed of settlement, of a nature to ensnare the other proprietors in the meshes of their deadly net. They put the company to an expense for costly feasts, at which, to blind the uninitiated, they trumpet forth in set speeches the praises of each other. And does not every one know that they grant extravagant salaries to the partisans whom they employ, without regard to their qualifications, while that in jobs understood only by themselves, they (like a prodigal monarch, throwing his grievously taxed subjects' money among a mob of foreigners) lavish away the company's funds right and left, until the company is brought to a state of insolvency by the very men employed to uphold it? Yes! these deeds, and many more such, are the every-day deeds enacted by certain directors; yet, like the assassins of the archbutcher Cæsar, these directors are all of them " honourable men!” 66 Assuredly, the words honesty, dishonesty, justice and injustice, can be no more than cant terms. If what they seemingly represent really existed, is it not impossible that there could be any exhorbitantly overpaid bishops? For who in the shape of man, having the two best of these monitors to guide him, could be so wickedly degraded as to preach humility and poverty, while himself living, bloated with pride, and distressing an entire county for money to uphold his princely extravagance, and to fund or purchase more than a princely revenue in land for his posterity! Should unsophisticated honesty and justice rise from their present prostration in certain persecuted kingdoms, what, in their hallowed names, would become of their bishops? Poor, wretched saints; would not their consciences smite them? Honesty and justice would advocate the clothing of soldiers in all the cloth a munificent nation gives for their use; not curtail their garments to enrich honourable general officers with the tailor-like spoil, and gloss over the transaction by terming the price paid for the overplus cloththeir off-reckonings! Nor would honesty and justice consent to burthen a people, by making them pay three general officers for each of their regiments, and an admiral for every one of their ships Honesty and justice would condense the laws of a country, and thereby do away with the great cause of lawsuits. Honesty and justice would abolish iniquitous corn-laws, which cause the toiling multitude to eat their bread at twofold its proper price, that a tax |