sloth, and attachment to spirituous liquors impose on him, and judge of the remainder by his house, his household furniture, and utensils and if I have not been grievously deceived by those whose veracity and good sense I have found unquestionable in all other respects, the cottage of an honest English husbandman, in the service of an enlightened and liberal farmer, who is paid for his labor at the price usual in Yorkshire or Northumberland, would in the mind of a man in the same rank of life, who had seen a true account of America, make no impressions favorable to emigration. This, however, I confess, is a balance of morals rather than of circumstances: it proves, however, that where foresight and good morals exist, the taxes do not stand in the way of an industrious man's comforts.

Dr. Price almost succeeded in persuading the English nation, -for it is a curious fact, that the fancy of our calamitous situation is a sort of necessary sauce without which our real prosperity would become insipid to us-Dr. Price, I say, alarmed the country with pretended proofs that the island was in a rapid state of depopulation ;-that England at the Revolution had been, Heaven knows how much more populous; and that in Queen Elizabeth's time, or about the Reformation, the number of inhabitants in England, might have been greater than even at the Revolution. My old mathematical master, a man of an uncommonly clear head, answered this blundering book of the worthy doctor's, and left not a stone unturned of the pompous cenotaph in which the effigy of the still living and bustling English prosperity lay interred. And yet so much more suitable was the doctor's book to the purposes of faction, and to the November mood of what is called the public, that Mr. Wales's pamphlet, though a master-piece of perspicacity as well as perspicuity, was scarcely heard of. This tendency to political nightmares in our countrymen, reminds me of a superstition, or rather nervous disease, not uncommon in the Highlands of Scotland, in which men, though broad awake, imagine they see themselves lying dead at a small distance from them. The act of Parliament for ascertaining the population of the empire has laid forever this uneasy ghost and now, forsooth, we are on the brink of ruin from the excess of population, and he who would prevent the poor from rotting away in disease, misery, and wickedness, is an enemy to his country. A lately-deceased miser, of immense wealth, is re

ported to have been so delighted with this splendid discovery, as to have offered a handsome annuity to the author, in part of payment for this new and welcome piece of heart-armor.

This, however, we may deduce from the fact of our increased population, that if clothing and food had actually become dearer in proportion to the means of procuring them, it would be as absurd to ascribe this effect to increased taxation, as to attribute the scantiness of fare, at a public ordinary, to the landlord's bill, when twice the usual number of guests had sat down to the same number of dishes. But the fact is notoriously otherwise, and every man has the means of discovering it in his own house and in allowthat of his neighbors, provided that he makes the proper ances for the disturbing forces of individual vice and imprudence. If this be the case, I put it to the consciences of our literary demagogues, whether a lie, for the purposes of creating public disunion and dejection, is not as much a lie, as one for the purpose of exciting discord among individuals. I entreat my to recollect, that the present question does not concern the effects of taxation on the public independence and on the supposed balance of the three constitutional powers, from which said balance, as well as from the balance of trade, I own, I have never been able to elicit one ray of common sense. That the nature of our constitution has been greatly modified by the funding system, I do not deny ;-whether for good or for evil, on the whole, will form part of my essay on the British constitution as it actually exists.

readers

There are many and great public evils, all of which are to be lamented, some of which may, and ought to, be removed, and none of which can consistently with wisdom or honesty be kept concealed from the public. As far as these originate in false principles, or in the contempt or neglect of right ones, and as such belonging to the plan of The Friend, I shall not hesitate to make known my opinions concerning them, with the same fearless simplicity with which I have endeavored to expose the errors of discontent and the artifices of faction. But for the very reason that there are great evils, the more does it behoove us not to open out on a false scent.

I will conclude this essay with the examination of an article in a provincial paper of a recent date, which is now lying before me; the accidental perusal of which occasioned the whole of the preceding remarks. In order to guard against a possible mistake,

I must premise, that I have not the most distant intention of defending the plan or conduct of our late expeditions, and should be grossly calumniated if I were represented as an advocate for carelessness or prodigality in the management of the public purse. The public money may or may not have been culpably wasted. I confine myself entirely to the general falsehood of the principle in the article here cited; for I am convinced, that any hopes of reform originating in such notions, must end in disappointment and public mockery.

"ONLY A FEW MILLIONS!

"We have unfortunately of late been so much accustomed to read of millions being spent in one expedition, and millions being spent in another, that a comparative insignificance is attached to an immense sum of money, by calling it only a few millions. Perhaps 'some of our readers may have their judgment a little improved by making a few calculations, like those below, on the millions which it has been estimated will be lost to the nation by the late expedition to Holland; and then, perhaps, they will be led to reflect on the many millions which are annually expended in expeditions, which have almost invariably ended in absolute loss.

"In the first place, with less money than it cost the nation to take Walcheren, &c. with the view of taking or destroying the French fleet at Antwerp, consisting of nine sail of the line, we could have completely built and equipped, ready for sea, a fleet of upwards of one hundred sail of the line. “Or, secondly, a new town could be built in every county of England, and each town consist of upwards of 1000 substantial houses for a less sum. "Or, thirdly, it would have been enough to give 100l. to 2000 poor families in every county in England and Wales.

"Or, fourthly, it would be more than sufficient to give a handsome marriage portion to 200,000 young women, who probably, if they had even less than 507. would not long remain unsolicited to enter the happy state.

"Or, fifthly, a much less sum would enable the legislature to establish a life boat in every port in the United Kingdom, and provide for ten or twelve men to be kept in constant attendance on each; and 100,000l. could be funded, the interest of which to be applied in premiums to those who should prove to be particularly active in saving lives from wrecks, &c. and to provide for the widows and children of those men who may accidentally lose their lives in the cause of humanity.

"This interesting appropriation of ten millions sterling, may lead our readers to think of the great good that can be done by only a few millions."

The exposure of this calculation will require but a few sentences. These ten millions were expended, I presume, in arms, artillery, ammunition, clothing, provision, and the like, for about one hundred and twenty thousand British subjects and I pre

sume that all these consumables were produced by, and purchased from, other British subjects. Now during the building of these new towns for a thousand inhabitants each in every county, or the distribution of the hundred pound bank notes to the two thousand poor families, were the industrious ship-builders, clothiers, charcoal-burners, gunpowder-makers, gunsmiths, cutlers, cannonfounders, tailors, and shoemakers, to be left unemployed and starving-or our brave soldiers and sailors to have remained without food and raiment ? And where is the proof, that these ten millions, which, observe, all remain in the kingdom, do not circulate as beneficially in the one way as they would in the other? Which is better? To give money to the idle, houses to those who do not ask for them, and towns to counties which have already perhaps too many, or to afford opportunity to the industrious to earn their bread, and to the enterprising to better their circumstances, and perhaps to found new families of independent proprietors? The only mode, not absolutely absurd, of considering the subject, would be, not by the calculation of the money expended, but of the labor of which the money is a symbol. But then the question would be removed altogether from the expedition for assuredly, neither the armies were raised, nor the fleets built or manned for the sake of conquering the Isle of Walcheren, nor would a single regiment have been disbanded, nor a single sloop paid off, though the Isle of Walcheren had never existed. The whole dispute, therefore, resolves itself into this one question whether our soldiers and sailors would not be better employed in making canals for instance, or cultivating waste lands, than in fighting or learning to fight; and the tradesman, in making gray coats instead of red or blue-and ploughshares instead of arms. When I reflect on the state of China and the moral character of the Chinese, I dare not positively affirm that it would be better. When the fifteen millions, which form our present population, shall have attained to the same general purity of morals and shall be capable of being governed by the same admirable discipline, as the society of the Friends, I doubt not that we should be all Quakers in this as in the other points of their moral doctrine. But were this transfer of employment desirable, is it practicable at present,—is it in our power? These men know, that it is not. What then does all their reasoning amount to? Nonsense.

ESSAY VIII.

I have not intentionally either hidden or disguised the truth, like an advocate ashamed of his client, or a bribed accomptant who falsifies the quotient to make the bankrupt's ledgers square with the creditor's inventory. My conscience forbids the use of falsehood and the arts of concealment: and were it otherwise, yet I am persuaded, that a system which has produced and protected so great prosperity, can not stand in need of them. If therefore honesty and the knowledge of the whole truth be the things you aim at, you will find my principles suited to your ends: and as I like not the democratic forms, so am I not fond of any others above the rest. That a succession of wise and godly men may be secured to the nation in the highest power, is that to which I have directed your attention in this essay, which if you will read, perhaps you may see the error of those principles which have led you into errors of practice. I wrote it purposely for the use of the multitude of well-meaning people, that are tempted in these times to usurp authority and meddle with government before they have any call from duty or tolerable understanding of its principles. I never intended it for learned men versed in politics; but for such as will be practitioners before they have been students.

BAXTER'S Holy Commonwealth, or Political Aphorisms.

THE metaphysical, or as I have proposed to call them, metapolitical reasoning hitherto discussed, belong to government in the abstract. But there is a second class of reasoners who argue for a change in our government from former usage, and from statutes still in force, or which have been repealed,-SO these writers affirm-either through a corrupt influence, or to ward off temporary hazard or inconvenience. This class, which is rendered illustrious by the names of many intelligent and virtuous patriots, are advocates for reform in the literal sense of the word. They wish to bring back the government of Great Britain to a certain form, which they affirm it to have once possessed; and would melt the bullion anew in order to recast it in the original mould.

The answer to all arguments of this nature is obvious, and to my understanding appears decisive. These reformers assume