“You and I shall agree about general education. Ignorance is no preventive in these days, if, indeed, it ever were one which could be relied on. All who have ears can hear sedition, and the more ignorant they are, the more easy is it to inflame them. My plan is (I know not whether Gifford has ventured to give it) to make transportation the punishment for seditious libelling. This and this only would be an effectual cure. The existence of a press in the state in which ours is in, is incompatible with the security of any Government.
“About the manufacturing system, as affecting the poor-rates, doubtless you are best informed. My argument went to show that, under certain circumstances of not unfrequent occurrence, manufactures occasioned a sudden increase of the craving mouths, and that the whole previous discipline of these persons fitted them to become Luddites. It is most likely there may be some ambiguity in that part of the article, from the vague use of the word poor, which ought to be distinguished from pauper,—a distinction I never thought of making till your letter made me see the necessity for so doing.
“You give me comfort about the Catholics, and
strengthen my doubts about the East India question. I have written on the
former subject in the forthcoming
| Ætat. 39. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 29 |
“God bless you!
