themselves to any but one another: and having one common intereft to promote, they push it every way with their utmoft might. Of either of the three kingdoms they are by much the smalleft body, and alfo naturally by much the pooreft; yet by combination they are become greatly the most flourishing of any; have always aimed at dominion over the reft, and are now, to all appearances, in a fair way of obtaining it.

A LOOKER-ON.

On the prudent conduct of France fince the peace, and the folly of England.

TH

HERE is certain information that the French king has begun to leffen the taxes paid by his fubjects; and that he has ordered fome of the crown debts should be redeemable at twenty years purchase, without regard to the original capital, and others in proportion to what the prefent poffeffors paid for them, and that an equitable tax fhould be laid on all the freeholds of the kingdom, not excepting thofe of the crown, thofe of the princes of the blood, the ecclefiaftics, nobles, or other privileged perfons, of what nature foever; upon all of which I beg your permiffion for offering fome remarks publicly to the confideration of the government, legislature, and people of GreatBritain.

The firft object to be confidered in this relation is, the apparent hafte France is in to retrieve her national circumstances; and, by putting her finances in good order, to become enabled to support a new offenfive or defenfive war: a circumftance that fhould influence every one of her neighbours to prepare for the like emergencies.

The

The fecond alarming point to be confidered is, the facility in means for that purpose which her dif pofition affords her. She has contracted debts at high intereft, and arbitrarily redeems at twenty years purchase, to the immoderate prejudice of her public creditors. By which means, the will perhaps fink the capital the pays off near a half of its real value, by which a number of Dutch and En-glish fools and traitors will in common with her own well-intentioned fubjects, become enormously bubbled. I own I pity poor Frenchmen who are fo unmercifully fleeced; but as for my own countrymen and the Dutch, I heartily with their avarice and treachery were rewarded with the entire lofs of what they have invested upon fuch rotten fecurity, as the faith of a court which has never fcrupled to violate any engagement of any kind whatsoever.

A third object to be remarked upon is, her refolving to redeem other debts; not at the real value, but at the prices at which they were purchased. Behold, ye infatuated Britons, the delufions of your own ignorance, in imagining the Dutch and other nations were doing ye fervice, by purchafing into your funds at a third less than their real value! which purchases they are now refelling at above thirty per cent. gain, and so draining ye of money, that your very national gold coins have been melting in crucibles, or exported without melting, at two or three per cent lofs, to redeem your mortgages to foreigners, at altogether, near the difference of forty pounds in the hundred to our national prejudice. Oh! fatal conjuration of delufion upon ignorance! fuch are the fresh difcovered fruits of your generous and wife alliances, your glorious victories, and your much boasted triumphs!

The fourth and last point to be confidered is, the nature of the new taxations in France, for the retrieval of her national circumftances. These are

made

made on folid property; the inheritances of the crown, the princes of the blood, the ecclefiaftics, the nobles, and other PRIVILEGED perfons. O virtuous taxations of luxury and pomp, those banes of vicious nations, for the fake of eafing labour, industry and traffic, thofe trueft bleffings and fupports of a country; and which grievous oppreffions must gradually fink and even annihilate. Patriotic miniftry of France, and glorious parliament of Paris! proceed, and you must prevail over those who have been extending hateful and slave-making excises on the neceffaries of life, and who are daily facrificing all the restraints of wholesome police to the corruptions of magiftracy, and the infatiable avarice of monopolizing dealers; practices which by their joint operations must destroy all the manufactories of a country, and its only traffic that is beneficial, which is that of exportation.

And what has Great-Britain been doing fince the peace, but quarrelling; for what? why the plunder of the community. In which fquabbles patriotifm has been the word, while the thing has not been fo much as thought of. Has fhe been taxing the rich to ease the poor? or taking the loads off commerce, which is the finew of all ftrength, and the fource of all profperity, in order to lay them upon luxury, which is the bane of vigour, virtue and fecurity? Has fhe been leffening or augmenting the emoluments of harpies? Has fhe been the practicer of oeconomy? the reftrainer of corruption? the augmenter of profufion? or only the talker of reformation? FABRICIUS.

Subftance of the letters to the duke of Devonshire, published in January 1764.

As

S these letters are too prolix to be inferted. at length, it is prefumed the reader will be pleafed with a general account of their contents,

VOL. I.

Y

and

and fome extracts from the whole.

The first letter, is against a coalition of parties, which was fupposed to be in agitation at the above

time.

Notwithstanding the pains which have been • taken to fmother, to extinguish, and, if poffible, to abolish the remembrance of the diftinctions of whig and tory, yet these diftinctions, whilft I live, with a tongue to speak, or a hand to write, fhall never be fuppreffed: not in order to create dif• fentions between friends and neighbours in private life-I abhor the thought-but in order to pre⚫vent the liberties of England from being delivered up by prerogative minifters, or trampled under foot by arbitrary princes. I know many tories; I live in friendship with many; I respect and 'honour many more as MEN, but as MINISTERS • I would not lend myself to the support of one of ⚫ them for an hour. I beg I may not be mistaken. It is not a spirit of party by which I am actuated ⚫ in this refolution, but a spirit of liberty, by which • I hope I fhall be actuated for ever."

In the second letter the fubject is continued, the author endeavouring to fhew that there are cafes of fuch importance, truft and confidence, in which the distinctions of WHIG and TORY are fo material, and fo real; cafes wherein our liberty, our religion, our happiness, as fubjects, lie at ftake; that if these have any weight with us, fuch principles, and fuch only, fhould be adhered to by the friends of liberty and their country, as have begotten those diftinctions: not indeed in the odious, illiberal way of flander and abuse, but by firmly fupporting thofe chiefs in the ftate, whatever it may coft in places or court favour, whofe principles we can depend upon to fecure us these enjoyments; and in a vigorous oppofition

pofition to all others, by whatever name they are, called, who fupport and abet prerogative minifters. In letter the third the writer attacks the upstart minion and his favourite peace.

In the beginning of the reign of GEORGE the third our state-empiric began, in order to beget our confidence in his skill, like a true quack; with vaft profeffions of regard for the health and wel'fare of his patients: we were amused for a short time with the hopes of the golden age of liberty, in which the votes of the electors, and the elected, 'fhould be left unbiaffed; and whilft nothing was to be heard but the found of public oeconomy, ' among the turnfpits and kitchen-men at St. James's, honours, places and pensions, were profufely fquandered about, for a purpose easily to be gueffed at, and with expences unknown be'fore to the civil lift. He had made a short trial ⚫ of the conftitution of his patients, and found it ⚫ was too fickly to fwallow medicines that were not highly ornamented or ftrongly gilded. Afraid, therefore, left his quackery fhould bring him to 'fhame, and disdaining to confult with the regular bred phyficians of long experience, he ornamented and gilded away at a great rate, till he ⚫ found he could cram down the throats of his pa'tients almost any medicines, ever fo difagreable

、

or pernicious to their conftitution. One medi'dicine indeed there was, fo highly distasteful to his patients, and at which their ftomachs fo 'much revolted, even through the ordinary dif guife of ornament and gilding, and yet on the 'fuccefs of which depended his credit with the fa'mily where he was most employed, and which ' was of more confequence to him than all the reft; ⚫ that he exerted his whole skill in filtering and ab⚫lution, and ornamented and gilt it fo very highly, that by the time he could perfuade his patients to

Y 2

'fwallow