England had curtailed the issue of their notes, in order to meet the
demands of their creditors, which they expected they should be compelled
to pay in cash, instead of being longer protected by a pretended
restriction, designed to prevent them from being called upon to pay any
thing more than "I promise to pay," in exchange for "I promise to
pay." This restriction was nothing more nor less than a _Government
protection_ against the demands of their creditors, which enabled them
to refuse to pay their just debts with impunity, and according to Act of
Parliament. Distress and discontent therefore prevailed from one end of
the land to the other, but in no place more than the metropolis, which
was full of discharged seamen, who had been dismissed from the British
Navy, which was now dismantled almost universally. These poor fellows,
who had fancied that they had been fighting the battles of their
country, who had suffered all the hardships of a sailor's life, during a
long and bloody war, and who had been successful against every power for
such a length of time, had become exceedingly disheartened by the
checks and defeats they had experienced in the naval warfare with the
Americans, who, if I may use a familiar phrase, had completely taken
the _shine_ out of the British seamen, a race proverbial for being very
superstitious. They had always boasted that an English sailor was a
match for two Frenchmen, or any other seamen; but Jack found in the
American sailor not only his equal in bravery and skill; but more than
his match. Thus dispirited and almost broken hearted, and the British
Navy being laid up, our sailors were discharged and treated worse than
dogs; they were put on shore at any port, and they had to march to
London, barefooted and pennyless, to receive the little pay and prize
money that was due to them. Hundreds and hundreds did I relieve, as
they passed by Middleton Cottage; broken down in body and in spirit,
they were made to feel that they had been fighting for despotism instead
of Liberty. Soup Committees were established, and subscriptions raised