Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

proof of the "evil times on which we are fallen.” Surely a pamphlet written with a more than ufual moderation fhould not be entirely overlooked. It is fraught with good fenfe, and apparently dictated by an ardent concern for the beft interefts of Britain. Towards the conclufion the author has ingenioufly fummed up the whole of his reafonings in a few words. This fummary we prefent to the reader-by which he will be enabled to judge of the nature and tendency of this pamphlet.

"If the impartial voice of a literary man, who either has, or thinks he has, a more comprehenfive understanding than to belong to any party, could reach the Senators and Repretentatives of Great Britain, I would fum up this examination in the following words:

"MY COUNTRYMEN,

"DISCONTENTED perfons alarm, and interested men deceive you hear the truth! Our country has many natural, moral, and political advantages, which tend to promote the ftrength, the wealth, the health and virtue, and the liberties of the nation; an infular fituation, an extenfive furface, a fertile foil, a great inland and foreign trade, an improved agriculture, an immenfe floating capital, navigable 1ivers, artificial canals, excellent harbours, and an immenfe fhipping; intelligent farmers, skilful manufacturers, and brave icamen; good laws, a free conftitution, and a rational, mild, and humane religion. These are real and important advantages, if ye prize them highly and improve them duly; and infinitely more valuable than the ideal or exaggerated advantages of the balance of trade or last year's exports. But with all thefe advantages, which render this country the most eligible place to every wife man, we labour under several difadvantages which ought to be known, that we may bear them with fortitude, mitigate them by humanity, or remove them by prudence. Some of these disadvantages affect the strength of the nation; namely, the preffing of feamen, the enlifting of foldiers for life, and the game laws: others of them regard the wealth of the nation; namely, the payment of tithes in kind, and the poor's rates in England; the entailing of eftates, and want of a jury

in civil caufes, in Scotland; and in both countries the Gothic practice of fixing the wages of labour, improper corn laws, various weights and measures, and the multiplicity of our laws. Other difadvantages are occafioned by our wealth, and are the effects of luxury, producing prodigality in our merchants before they acquire any capital; effeminacy, which enervates a warlike, and weakens the ftrong minds of a thoughful nation; and, in one of the most humane nations, establishing imprisonment for debt, and fevere and multiplied penal laws.

Another class of difadvantages affects the liberty of the nation; namely, our unequal reprefentation in Parlia ment, the acts for the prefervation of his Majefty's perfon and for preventing feditious meetings, fome of the Excife laws, and a few which may be called retrofpective laws; but our continental connections, foreign wars, national debts, and numerous taxes, are evils which affect the firength, the wealth, the health and virtue, and the liberties of the nation, all at once. A great effort is neceffary; yet our cafe is by no means defperate, if ye would only improve our advantages to the best account, and bear, mitigate, or remove the evils we labour under, avoid continental connections, efpecially having land armies on the continent. If ye ever interfere, fend a little money to the continent (as little as poffible) and keep your own element, the ocean. As far as ye can, avoid all wars; you have no fpare hands, and your armies require fo many ac commodations, that the expence of war has become enormous. Improve your foil, attend first to your internal trade, to your foreign trade in the fecond place, and laft of all the carrying trade. Attend to your canals, roads, bridges, and harbours. Encourage genius, efpecially mechanical genius; and be attached to your conftitution and to your religion: thus fhall ye turn your advantages to the beft account. The difadvantages which we labour under may be removed, or mitigated, or endured. Be humane to your feamen, the great fupport of your strength. The mode of preffing thefe guardians of your frontiers is a bad one: enrol them in a register; let them serve by rotation when ye need them; but let the owners of ships be taxed to produce a certain number. Increase the pay and the prize-money of your married feamen, and take care of their widows and children if they die in your fervice. Enlift your foldiers for a limited time, and reward them all in proportion to their time of fervice. Revife or abrogate your game laws,

laws, that the people, who are all freemen, may be accustomed to the ufe of arms. Abolish the payment of tithes in kind, but give a reasonable converfion in place of them; and revise and reform the laws in regard to poor's rates in England. Abolish perpetual entails upon landed eftates in Scotland, and let that country have a jury in civil caufes. In both kingdoms let labour find its own price; revife your con laws; regulate your weights and mcafures; fimplify all your laws as much as you can in the prefent itate of lociety; and out of the two codes of English and Scotch laws, make out a com prehenfive fyftem for Great Britain, while you have men of mind and of information who are adequate to the office. Ye cannot banish, but ye can tax luxury; and ye can revite your laws with regard to imprisonment for debt; and alfo all your penal laws, which are too fevere, and alfo impolitic. Repeal thofe late acts which are injurious to liberty, but provide for the protection of the Sovereign; and prevent, rather than punith, feditious practices; but let occafional reftrictions of liberty be renewed with reluctance, and only from one year to another. Let every man ufe his property as he pleates, if he pay all taxes; and let no law have a retrofpect. But if ye with (and ye certainly wifh) to reffore this country to its former fplendor, attend particularly to the ftate of our finances; weigh attentively the out.mes of the plan of a direct tax, which is here propofed; and remember, that by impofing direct taxes in the most popular mode, ye shall conciliate the affections of the people, and, without any violent means, both repair our finances and virtually reform the reprefentation of the people. Liberty and equality are only fit for robbers. Liberty and property are the principles according to which we should both impofe taxes and reform the conftitution. Having thus gained the confidence of all ranks, ye will have leifure for compiling a general code of laws both for South and for North Britain. We are in an advanced period of fociety, and that work muft embrace a great extent of fubject, and require both great wifdom and virtue to execute it properly. But shew to the nations of Europe that the legiflators of Britain are men of vigorous minds; and let the following examples of a vigorous understanding, taken from the Hiftory of Greece, encourage you to discharge your public duty.

Some wrong-headed men infift that our free conftitution

has

has loft all its vigour, and that our legiflators are become altogether corrupted. So the children of Sophocles infifted that their father was in a ftate of dotage, though he retained the vivacity and vigour of his genius to extreme old age. They fummoned him before the judges on pretence of lunacy, that they might obtain a decree to take poffeffion of his eftate. He made no other defence than by reading the tragedy of Edipus Colonneus. His judges were delighted, and his unnatural children were disappointed. In like manner, by a comprehenfive fyftem of wife laws, not cruel, or like the reprefentation of a tragedy, but abounding in the moral fublime, fhew to all the world, as judges between you and fome of your feditious and unnatural countrymen, that the British conftitution has not loft its vigour, nor her fenators and reprefentatives that ftrength of mind and deep powers of reafon by which they have been fo long diftinguifhed. Some mifguided zealots have left this country, hoping to find liberty in a neighbouring kingdom-they have been fadly disappointed. Let another example from the History of Greece attract your attention. The Athenians, who were engaged in the unfortunate expedition into Sicily under Nicias, were delivered from their flavery by the Sicilians, in confequence of repeating fome of the verfes of Euripides (another Grecian poet); and upon coming back to their own country, they went to his houfe and returned public thanks to their benefactor. So, I doubt not, those few British fubjects who left this happy ifland, hoping for greater liberty in another kingdom, when they fee the wifdom of your laws and the bleffings of which they are deprived, fhall return again to this ifland, confefs they were deluded by worthless impoftors, and, throwing off the yoke of liberty and equality, fhall publicly recant their political errors, and acknowledge, that the British conftitution and the British laws are the bett in the known world."

The author, in order to render his reafonings as intelligible as poffible, has alfo thrown the contents of the pamphlet into an allegorical repreientation, entitled, Sketches of the Hiftory of John Bull, Farmer and Manufacturer. There is fo much ingenuity and good humour in the representation, that we fhall present it to our readers in a future Number.

The

The Trial at Large of Arthur O'Conn
Binns, John Allen, Jeremiah Leary,
Coigley, for High Treafon, before Judge L
under a Special Commiffion, at Maidston
County of Kent. Taken in Short-Hand. Ridg.

2s. 6d.

OFR

F the particulars of this memorable trial the Public are already in poffeffion by means of the papers. Should, however, any individual wish to obtain a full detail of the whole, his curiofity will be gratified by the perufal of this pamphlet, the contents of which appear to have been taken down with fairness and impartiality. The fpeeches of the counsel, on both fides, the depofition of the witneffes, the defence of the prifoners, together with the address of the Judge to the unhappy Coigley after conviction, contain many interesting particulars. In a land of freedom, the inhabitants are naturally defirous to become acquainted with the process of law, whether it ends in the acquittal or conviction of their fellow fubjects. This privilege we enjoy, and long may we enjoy it. It is to be numbered among the bleffings refulting from the British Conftitution,

Youth's Mifcellany; or, Father's Gift to his Children. By the Author of the Juvenile Olio. 4s. bound. Newbury.

THE encouragement which the Author has received

from the Public on a former occafion, has induced him to produce the prefent work, which will afford to young minds inftruction and entertainment. It confifts of Effays, Tales, Fables, and Reflections, and may be fafely introduced both into fchools or families, where a particular attention is paid to the interefts of the rifing generation.

The

« ForrigeFortsæt »