Note 335 — THE AGE OF BRONZE.
Reading edition
{572}[Peel's bill for the resumption of cash payments (Act 59 Geo. III. cap. 49) was passed June 14, 1819. The "landed interest" attributed the fall of prices and the consequent fall of rent to this measure, and hinted more or less plainly that the fund-holders should share the loss. They had lent their money when the currency was inflated, and should not now be paid off in gold.
"But you," exclaims Cobbett [Letter to Mr. Western (Weekly Register, November 23, 1822)], "what can induce you to stickle for the Pitt system [i.e. paper-money]? I will tell you what it is: you loved the high prices, and the domination that they gave you.... Besides this, you think that the boroughs can be preserved by a return to paper-money, and along with them the hare-and-pheasant law and justice. You loved the glorious times of paper-money, and you want them back again. You think that they could go on for ever.... The bill of 1819 was really a great relaxation of the Pitt system, and when you are crying out spoliation and confiscation, when you are bawling out so lustily about the robbery committed on you by the fund-holders and the placemen, and are praising the infernal Pitt system at the same time, ... you say they are receiving, the fund-vagabonds in particular, more than they ought." It is evident that Byron's verse is a reverberation of Cobbett's prose.]