Note 10 — Chapter XIII · “I SAW THINGS IN ANOTHER LIGHT.”

After Cobbett’s first list of pensions, &c., the plan was copied by others, and the lists at last swelled, under different hands, to a volume of several hundred pages:—“The Black Book; or, Corruption Unmasked. Being an Account of Places, Pensions, and Sinecures, the Revenues of the Clergy and Landed Aristocracy; the Salaries and Emoluments in Courts of Justice and the Police Department; the Expenditure of the Civil List; the Amount and Application of the Droits of the Crown and Admiralty; the Robbery of Charitable Foundations; the Profits of the Bank of England, arising from the Issue of its Notes, Balances of Public Money, Management of the Borough Debt, and other Sources of Emolument; the Debt, Revenue, and Influence of the East India Company; the State of the Finances, Debt, and Sinking Fund. To which is added Correct Lists of Both Houses of Parliament, showing their Family Connexions, Parliamentary Influence, the Places and Pensions held by Themselves or Relations; distinguishing also those who Voted against Catholic Emancipation, and for the Seditious Meeting and Press Restriction Bills. The whole forming a Complete Exposition of the Cost, Influence, Patronage, and Corruption of the Borough Government.” (London, John Fairburn, 1820.) This interesting volume kept increasing in bulk until the æra of the Reform Bill.