taxes are more injudiciously and more oppreffively imposed; more vexatiously collected: come in a smaller proportion to the royal coffers, and are lefs applied by far to the public fervice. I am not one of those who choose to take the author's word for this happy and flourishing condition of the French finances, rather than attend to the changes, the violent pushes, and the despair, of all her own financiers. Does he choose to be referred for the easy and happy condition of the subject in France to the remonftrances of their own parliaments, written with fuch an eloquence, feeling, and energy, as I have not feen exceeded in any other writings? The author may fay, their complaints are exaggerated, and the effects of faction. I answer, that they are the representations of numerous, grave, and moft refpectable bodies of men, upon the affairs of their own country. But, allowing that discontent and faction may pervert the judgment of fuch venerable bodies in France, we have as good a right to suppose that the fame causes may full as probably have produced from a private, however respectable person, that frightful, and, I trust I have fhewn, groundless reprefentation of our own affairs in England.

The author is fo confcious of the dangerous effects of that representation, that he thinks it neceffary, and very necessary it is, to guard against them. He affures us, "that he has "not made that difplay of the difficulties of his country, to "expofe her counfels to the ridicule of other states, or to "provoke a vanquished enemy to infult her; nor to excite "the people's rage against their governors, or fink them "into a defpondency of the publick welfare." I readily admit this apology for his intentions. God forbid I should think any man capable of entertaining fo execrable and fenfeless a defign. The true caufe of his drawing fo fhocking a picture is no more than this; and it ought rather to claim our pity than

than excite our indignation; he finds himself out of power; and this condition is intolerable to him. The fame fun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. It is something that rays out of darkness, and infpires nothing but gloom and melancholy. Men, in this deplorable state of mind, find a comfort in fpreading the contagion of their fpleen. They find an advantage too; for it is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. If fuch perfons can answer the ends of relief and profit to themselves, they are apt to be careless enough about either the means or the confequences.

Whatever this complainant's motives may be, the effects can by no poffibility be other than thofe which he fo strongly, and I hope truly, disclaims all intention of producing. To verify this, the reader has only to confider how dreadful a picture he has drawn in his 32d page of the state of this kingdom; fuch a picture as, I believe, has hardly been applicable, without fome exaggeration, to the most degenerate and undone commonwealth that ever exifted. Let this view of things be compared with the profpect of a remedy which he proposes in the page directly oppofite and the fubfequent. I believe no man living could have imagined it poffible, except for the fake of burlesquing a fubject, to propose remedies fo ridiculously disproportionate to the evil, fo full of uncertainty in their operation, and depending for their fuccess in every step upon the happy event of so many new, dangerous, and vifionary projects. It is not amifs, that he has thought proper to give the public some little notice of what they may expect from his friends, when our affairs shall be committed to their management. Let us fee how the accounts of disease and remedy are balanced in

his

66

66

66

his State of the Nation. In the first place, on the fide of evils, he ftates, "an impoverished and heavily-burthened "publick. A declining trade and decreasing specie. The power of the crown never fo much extended over the great; but the great without influence over the lower fort. "Parliament lofing its reverence with the people. The "voice of the multitude fet up against the sense of the le"giflature; a people luxurious and licentious, impatient of "rule, and defpifing all authority. Government relaxed in every finew, and a corrupt selfish spirit pervading the "whole. An opinion of many, that the form of govern❝ment is not worth contending for. No attachment in the "bulk of the people towards the conftitution. No reverence "for the cuftoms of our ancestors. No attachment but to "private intereft, nor any zeal but for selfish gratifications. "Trade and manufactures going to ruin. Great Britain in "danger of becoming tributary to France, and the defcent "of the crown dependent on her pleasure. Ireland in cafe "of a war to become a prey to France; and Great Britain, "unable to recover Ireland, cede it by treaty (the author "never can think of a treaty without making ceffions), in "order to purchase peace for herfelf. The colonies left ex"pofed to the ravages of a domeftic, or the conqueft of a "foreign enemy."-Gloomy enough, God knows. The author well obferves *, that a mind not totally devoid of feeling cannot look upon such a prospect without horror; and an heart capable of humanity must be unable to bear its defcription. He ought to have added, that no man of common difcretion ought to have exhibited it to the publick, if it were true; or of common honefty, if it were falfe.

But now for the comfort; the day-ftar which is to arife in our hearts; the author's grand fcheme for totally reversing

* P. 31.

this dismal state of things, and making us "happy at home " and respected abroad, formidable in war and flourishing in "peace."

In this great work he proceeds with a facility equally aftonishing and pleafing. Never was financier lefs embarraffed by the burthen of establishments, or with the difficulty of finding ways and means. If an establishment is troublesome to him, he lops off at a stroke just as much of it as he chooses. He mows down, without giving quarter, or affigning reason, army, navy, ordnance, ordinary, extraordinaries; nothing can ftand before him. Then, when he comes to provide, Amalthea's horn is in his hands; and he pours out with an inexhauftible bounty, taxes, duties, loans, and revenues, without uneafiness to himself, or burthen to the publick. Infomuch that, when we confider the abundance of his refources, we cannot avoid being furprized at his extraordinary attention to favings. But it is all the exuberance of his goodness.

This book has fo much of a certain tone of power, that one would be almost tempted to think it written by fome perfon who had been in high office. A man is generally rendered somewhat a worse reasoner for having been a minifter. In private, the affent of liftening and obfequious friends; in public, the venal cry and prepared vote of a paffive fenate, confirm him in habits of begging the question with impunity, and afferting without thinking himself obliged to prove. Had it not been for fome fuch habits, the author could never have expected that we fhould take his estimate for a peace establishment folely on his word.

This estimate which he gives +, is the great ground-work

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VOL. I.

Tt

+ P. 33.

of

of his plan for the national redemption; and it ought to be well and firmly laid, or what must become of the superstructure? One would have thought the natural method in a plan of reformation would be, to take the prefent exifting eftimates as they stand; and then to fhew what may be practicably and fafely defalcated from them. This would, I say, be the natural course; and what would be expected from a man of business. But this author takes a very different method. For the ground of his fpeculation of a présent peace establishment, he reforts to a former speculation of the fame kind, which was in the mind of the minifter of the year 1764. Indeed it never exifted any where else. "The plan," fays he, with his ufual ease," has been already formed, and the "outline drawn, by the administration of 1764. I fhall "attempt to fill up the void and obliterated parts, and trace "its operation. The standing expence of the present (his "projected) peace establishment improved by the experience "of the two last years may be thus eftimated" and he éftimates it at .3.468.161.

Here too it would be natural to expect fome reafons for condemning the fubfequent actual establishments, which have so much tranfgreffed the limits of his plan of 1764, as well as fome arguments in favour of his new project; which has in fome articles exceeded, in others fallen fhort, but on the whole is much below his old one. Hardly a word on any of these points, the only points however that are in the leaft effential; for unless you affign reafons for the encrease or diminution of the feveral articles of public charge, the playing at establishments and eftimates is an amusement of no higher order, and of much lefs ingenuity, than Questions and commands, or What is my thought like? To bring more

P. 33.

.diftinctly