Where now thofe fouls fo want to feel, Indignant at the lifted steel. So wont to fing, fo wont to laugh, (But life is fleet as any chaff)! Still indolent, ftill infecure, We fing and dance and scoff the poor : While madd'ning friends annoy our lives, Is this that Liberty, that good, Say! fay! Our fathers ranfom'd with their blood? No! no! Then what's a Song?-a filly thing! The danger magnifies; each hour, each day, Truth grows oblique, and Tyrants crowd the way, Roufe! roufe! Let venal joy, and venal transports cease; Amend your manners, and reftore fair peace; Will roll profufive as the flowing tide To all around :-Reform your laws! and then, THE PHILANTHROPIST. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1795. LONDON: Printed for and fold by DANIEL ISAAC EATON, Printer and Bookfeller to the Supreme Majefty of the People, at the Cock and SWINE, No. 74, Newgate freet. 1795. PRICE ONE PENNY. I For the PHILANTHROPIST. Mr. EDITOR. beg you will infert this other Chapter of that very eftimable Work of Mr. ROBINSON'S POLITICAL CATECHISM, as you were fo obliging as to admit the former, I doubt not this will be equally acceptable. Your affectionate fellow Swine, WM. PITT. F. GEORGE? S. Sir! EMIGRATION. F. Suppofe you were to tofs pufs into the fire! F. Suppose you should try a lefs degree of heat, and only fcald her with a fpoonful out of the fpout of the tea-pot? S. She would fcamper away. F. I'll tell you the reason; she is a brute beast, and neither understands Greek nor Latin, nor the admirable frame of our excellent conftitution, the best conftitution in the world, George! S. The cat, all cat as she is, understands self-prefervation, and though the has taken no degree, the has the philofophy of feeling, and knows fire will diffolve the frame of her own conftitution. F. Learnedly F. Learnedly fpoken! Now turn it into Latin. S. I comprehend you, Sir. To fhift quarters is to emigrate; and the natives of one country never emigrate to another freely till they feel themfelves hurt. F. Indeed there is a ftrong attachment to one's native spot, as if one grew out of the foil. S. That attachment, like all other natural feelings, is a fource of virtue, for it impels men to render their own country happy. F. Suppofe one man, or one clafs of men, should endeavour to render themselves happy by making others miferable, would it not be more natural for the oppreffed to flee than to stay? S. Undoubtedly. The first attachment is to happiness; attachment to a native fpot is a fecondary bias for the fake of the firft. F. What if men placed their happiness in wealth? S. They would flee from a country impoverished by taxa tion. F. What if they placed it in honour? S. They would emigrate to governments where they were admiffible to public offices. F. So, if they placed it in morality, they would flee from states become finks of profligacy: and if they placed it in the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, they would emigrate from civil and ecclefiaftical tyranny. S. And who could blame them? F. Not the cat, if the could fpeak; but neither the Pope nor Plato has ever had the curing of the cat's raw foul! S. Who could blame the old puritans for fleeing to America from the tyranny of the Bifhops and the Stuarts? F. They were to blame, however, when they got fettled there, for perfecuting one another. Much has been faid of this, and a little of it in fome governments was true. Their governing systems are now formed on a far more liberal plan, and it will be entirely their own faults if they do not frame the largest and the most free empire in the world. Let trade, and not not dominion, be their object, and they have duration and glory before them. S. It is faid, numbers will emigrate from Europe after the conclufion of the war. F. The inducements to do fo are very many, and very great, but it will be the fault of the governments they quit, if the natives emigrate. S. What can prevent emigrations, force? F. Perhaps not: but it would not be prudent to try force. S. By what means then? F. By placing the fufpected emigrants in a condition of eafe. Are they poor? Employ them. Are they deprived of their birthrights? Reftore them. Are they afraid? Give them fecurity. Place them at eafe, and they will not emigrate. Suppofe it were put to your choice: "You are not happy in your fituation, you are excluded, you fay, from schools and offices, and fubjected to fupport a clafs of men, from whom you derive no benefit; you intend to emigrate with your children and property, to enjoy thefe advantages in a diftant clime. You need not do so, we will beftow on you a waste district here at home; take your children, and cattle, and money, and go fettle there and cultivate, and build and order yourselves, only give government fecurity for your quiet, and agree to contribute to fupport the power that protects you. It will never be in your power to injure us, nor will it ever be our interest to injure you." I fay, fuppofe fuch an offer made you, would choose to accept it? you F. This would be only realizing a fcheme patronized by the late Lord Godolphin for re-peopling the New Foreft in Hampshire with the poor refugees from the Palatinate. The spot was near Lindhurst, in the road from Romfey to Lymington. Thefe people were to be put in poffeffion of 4000 acres, diftributed into 20 lots, and were to be exempt from rest and taxes for 20 years, taking care, however, of their own fick and poor, and repairing their own roads, 2007. ready money was to to be advanced to each lot, with allowances of timber and fome other privileges, and at the end of 20 years each lot was to pay 50l. yearly to the crown. F. No damage could have come to the state from this people's ignorance of priesthood and tythes, but great advantages would have arifen from their induftry, and a rich repayment of the loan. F. I have only aimed, George, in all these converfations to give you a few outlines. It remains with you to fill them up: I can have no motives but fuch as become a man and a christian to have. If you relish these first principles, crude, indigested, and off hand as they may be, you may meet with ample gratifications in many authors from whom I have borrowed. There are, however, a few reflections, which, before we part, I would most earnestly recommend to your attention. I cannot exprefs them fo well as these authors have expreffed them for Here are the books. Oblige me, by reading the marked paffages. I am going out, I fhall leave you to read to yourself, and to make your own remarks. us. "When our reason first begins to open, we are talked to for fix years together about the future in rus, and the supine in um, without hearing one word of the perfection and usefulness of the arts, or the industry of people that follow employments by which our lives are fupported. When our reafon begins to ac quire more ftrength, it is put under the direction of masters, who, after a vaft deal of preparation, demonftrate that we have a body, and that there are other bodies round us: or fpend whole hours, nay, even days, in proving, that of two propofitions contradictorily laid down, concerning a poffible future which may never happen, the one is determinately true, and the other determinately falfe, and the like metaphyfical jargon." "The learning to distinguish rightly the productions of the globe which we inhabit, the ties whereby all the people living on it are united, and the various labours they are employed in, are things the most neglected. Every one of us has seen the fail |