they ftudied in the colleges of Scotland, for the practice of their country.

If we examine the features of Britain we will perceive that fhe gives as various a face, and as fpecious a polity as any nation on the globe. Before the Roman invafion, the cafe to us is barbarous gloom; and little did the polite invaders import to the natives of their goodness: but then the fortune of Rome at the top was ftationary, and ready to fink; and her civility was only a mask for her cruelty. The Saxon conqueft was by far the happiest; this valiant and excellent race gave their own laws, and rights; and from them the country derives the spirit of property and liberty, that is fince afloat: though the ftorms of invafion often drowned it for a while; and though the poisons of foreign feepters rankle in her frame to this day. By the frequent incurfions of foreigners, an eccentric love feems to steal away her patriotic affections to the fhadowy wing of alien power at all times: yet if we try the characters of our Kings, there is little in their lives to admire. Few were the good ones; and Alfred ftands alone: Alfred was the father of his people; and, though the day of his time was dark and rough, he had the humanity of the citizen, the bravery of the foldier, the honesty of the patriot, and the fagacity of the philofopher. Whether in future the condition of man be monarchic or republican, the living picture of Alfred will not yield in grace or colour to that of Brutus. It is, I take it, no way strange, that the cause of monarchs lofes by the diffufion of experience and reason: their ftrides go in general to plunder and murder: the chronicles of their lives are records of inhuman luft und bloody dominion.

Our wars were mostly continental, and it is notorious that the effect of fuch is ever and anon national beggary and butchery. Confider all the victories, the glories of Marlborough; they are only names, though their expences were the death and chains of millions. In all the expeditions of governors, a people martial and commercial are amused with ideal advantages and honours, and ruined with real loffes and difgrace: At the clofe of every war, whether. victorious or otherwife, they fit

down

down, thinned and impoverished, to their bufinefs, and their trades; and, when again recruited in wealth and numbers, the policy of their governors involves them in another warfare to draw away their money in the channels of taxation, and to break their fpirits from redreffing their precarious fituation. Such has been the noble conduct of their rulers, who thus prove their murderers.

After experiencing the repeated tortures of invaders, they learned by neceffity, and the craft of their conquerors, to build a navy: a navy is our best and, indeed, only security and victory. All other martial measures went to depopulate the country; and to wring the lingering heart of poverty. Thus, did not Britain provoke a revolution, fhe were the fafeft in the world: The arms of Neptune about her, fhew her to be the favourite of the Creator; and the gifts of the earth poured into her cap make her the mart of Commerce.

This other Eden, demy paradife,

This fortrefs built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war ;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious ftoné, fet in the filver sea,
Which ferves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defenfive to a house'

Against the envy of lefs happier lands,

This bleffed plat, this earth, this realm, this England.

England bound in with the triumphant fea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious fiege
Of wat'ry Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds.
That England, that was wont to conquer others
Hath made a fhameful conqueft of itself!

SHAKESPEARE.

This her natural fituation, and commercial acquifition, are her property and liberty, the bleflings of nature and industry ;

bleffings

bleffings badly preached up to be the effects of government, that ever and anon leads her into fatal mischief at home and abroad. Governors weaken the people to tame them to purposes of aristocracy: but this Corinthian capital of polished fociety is now almost an old attic ftory; and, I take it, the fublime and beautiful polisher of antiquated orders, only exposed the inhuman architecture of ftate: he provoked the degraded multitude to investigate and leave this lofty and heavy fuperftructure built upon themselves. Whence as they spurn the load, it finks to the common level, like the grand arches of Corinth and Athens, that long ago fubfided to the earth on which they ftood.

War is the very life and foul of aristocracy; and hence, when once the people will refufe to fight for nobles, the orders will go, and the fparkling coronets, and fhining stars die away. Whether it be confiftent with our condition that war entirely ceafe, I fear, is not a question, yet after all I am certain and happy in the idea, that the equal and impartial with of benevolence begins to feize the affections of men. However our wars of late run to extremes, that promise to counteract their purposes and ends, our war with America was the most detrimental to aristocracy, and useful to society that ever was. From America Frenchmen inhaled a fpirit deftructive to defpotifm: from America the people of the earth, the flaves of the Eaft and Weft, will catch in time the breath of humanity and life: from America the genius of freedom opens her gates in Europe, whence she was banished by religious and political tyranny. She will I take it, travel thence to Afia by the way of Conftantinople, Suez, and the red fea; and thus the caravan of reafon will, it is hoped, make the human race, white and black, a great civil and focial community. That an Ifland of Europe should lord it over a vast continent, a new world must hold the then ruling powers of England to the ridicule of after times.

When colonists of various circumftances joined hearts and hands, broke the afperitics of woods and wilds; tamed the favage and his foreft to the ufes of life; and thus fmoothed the rougheft face of fortune into fmiles; they were asked, they

were

were commanded to devote to luxury beyond the Atlantic the the produce of their fettlements, and the good of their acquirements. Their ftand against oppreffion, or rather invafion, was then denounced rebellion in the language of state: but any attempt towards the most common, the moft natural right, is pronounced infidelity from the loud trumpets, and grand pulpits of kings. Our difgraces and diftreffes in the American expèdition ought to be a leffon the beft to rulers and minitters: broken we left the fruitlefs ftruggle to enflave that quarter of the globe; and the miniftry were put out in difgrace. Hitherto the cheating mirrors of policy fhew the exifting minifter the provident caufe of all the gifts of nature and fortune; while peace alone fills the vafes, and war drains the fources of induftry dry. Thus in the feafon of peace, the funshine of acquifition, things flourished along with the prefent minifter, to whom the odium of the other, the character of his father, and his own undebauched manners, made general credit. Like a youth prepared for the counting-house he was exercised in the arithmetic of state; and, after appointment, fhewed him prompt at addition of taxes: But in managing the present croifade, he expofed his improvidence and wretched ignorance of the state of Europe; whereby he brought the government of England to diftruft abroad and hatred at home. What use his private abftinence and apathy, if he reduced the nation to an horrid dilemma by public incontinence and perfidy? He put a wall about him that feperates, to all intents and purposes, the people and parliament: Whence it comes that until the people can fay to a bad coalition with one determined voice-We will a representation!-they must suffer abuse, with impunity In trying to force back France to her old way, and hindering her to constitute her own polity, he gave her occafion of enlarging her dominion to the bounds of antient Gaul: he beckoned her againit England; and urged her to make the kingdoms of Europe her provinces. Inftead of joining the interests of the allies, he split them into pieces; so that now his folitary hope is the embroiling of France, and dividing and turning her formidable magnitude into parts against herself.

(To be concluded in our next.)

To the EDITOR of the PHILATHROPIST.

CITIZEN EDITOR,

By inferting the following Fable in your much efteemed PHILANTHROPIST, you will much oblige your's, &c.

Aug. 1, 1795.

MARKYN.

THE ASS OVERLADDEN.

A FABLE.

A LOADEN basket long an Afs had bore

To market, which had often gaul'd him fore;
But yet his mafter, mindlefs of his cafe,
Would make him go, as running for a race;
And, what ftill aggravated his hard fate,
His master in the panniers put more weight;
Each day he found his weight more heavy grown,
Which yet he bore, but not without a groan :
The load at length increas'd beyond his bearing,
Which made the Afs, his master's anger fearing,
Fall on his knees, and to him humbly speak,
"This heavy weight, good Sir, my back will break;".
"Bear it you muft," the cruel man reply'd;
The Afs, attempting it-fell down and dy'd.

MORAL.

With taxes thus, let not the great,

Beyond its bearing, load the state;
For when the weight's too great to bear,
The nation like the Afs will fare.

Those who wish to promote the PHILANTHROPIST, by their affiftance, will please to address their favours (post-paid), to the Editor, at Citizen EATON's, No. 74, Newgate-freet.