really so, without the false colours of flattery and obsequiousness, produce in general and national matters their proper and correspondent effects. We have not indeed before our eyes, in that case, the formalities of a trial and a sentence, the Judge in his robes, or the apparatus of an execution; but due consequences do, from the original and universal law given to the world, follow a good or evil conduct in publick concerns, with much more certainty, justice, and impartiality, than they do by the means of municipal laws in private. But I desire to explain, that it is not the piety of a bigot on his knees, or the prayers even of a devout Prince, which will stay or turn the course and order of the world. Had that been the case, our Henry the Sixth would not have fallen in a prison by the hand of an assassin; nor Charles the First have suffered on a scaffold by the axe of the executioner; nor James the Second have led the latter part of his life in banishment. These were all both uncommonly devout and unfortunate Princes. I don't at present enter into the consideration of what reward personal piety will meet with in another place; but it is the publick good—a love and regard for that, and attention to it—a constant resolution never to take directly or indirectly, by the means either of force or of corruption, the property of the subject at will and at pleasure, but to employ only for the welfare and happiness of the people, the powers and the prerogatives entrusted by them for that purpose, which are the true trial and touchstone of the conduct of Princes and Ministers as such. These naturally produce affection, loyalty, fidelity, attachment, and support. But should any man or number of men be regardless of the good or condition of others, trample on their rights, lay unjust hands on their properties, treat them rather like the beasts of the fields than as their fellows and equals, should they support themselves herein with the sword and a superiority of power, the great Author of mankind and of their welfare and happiness, has so linked and chained together causes and effects, that these things will certainly turn to the detriment and disadvantage of them and theirs who do them; sometimes by a silent and hardly observable course of things, and sometimes with long delay and at a great distance, but sometimes likewise at the moment and upon the occasion, with direct and immediate resistance and a common confusion, wherein the authors of the mischief are themselves involved, and wherein they often fall a prey and a sacrifice. The ways of Providence and the course of futurity are unsearchable: but were any man to presume to divine, how justice and injustice, and the general morality of the universe may possibly in the present case operate, it would perhaps be, that right will strongly unite, cement, and combine, by a mutual association and assistance, those acting under its banners, while wrong will, on the contrary, confound and weaken with disunion, dissension, and disturbances among themselves, that people by whom it shall unhappily have been adopted. These are on each side the natural, and, as it were, the necessary consequences of their own choice. But there appear at the same time, some untoward and threatening signs, that the hand of Heaven will, on the occasion, be heavy and severe, when wo to the party which shall abide it.

If any thing can, in this case, enhance the importance of the great stake, which we are about to venture, it must be a comparison of the very little profit that we are going to contend for. The Americans are willing and consenting to give us all they have, provided that we will accept it with our right hand; but we are obstinate to risk every thing, both of theirs and of our own, rather than not to take it with our left. Our whole object is on this occasion no more than the difference between those two propositions. Our Americans have now no gold or silver; it comes all to the mother country; it would equally do so did they receive as much again; they keep none for their own currency; they use themselves paper for that, and send us all the other. One would be amazed to think what men or Administrations can desire. Cannot we be contented with all, and do we insist on having more than all?

But it will be said we want to tax them. I ask why? It must be answered, because we are bent upon getting their money. I repeat again, we have it already. But says a ways-and-means man, we must have it in the shape of Taxes; no other will serve our purpose, I reply once more, that we have it really in that shape; for cannot we and don't we tax it when it comes hither, and is not that the same thing? Are there not Taxes enough to take it as soon as it gets to Britain, or why don't you ask for more if there are not? Who say you nay here? I will be bold to say that there is at this time raised on Great Britain nothing less than ten millions sterling a year, besides the collection; that is the least; it may with the latter be fairly taken at eleven. Our specie has never been used to be reckoned at above twenty millions. It is said that about three millions and a quarter of guineas have, at the time of the writing this, been on occasion of the light gold, brought into the Bank. Let our currency be calculated on that ground, and we shall, according to any just reasoning thereon, appear to raise within the year, by Taxes, including the collection, a sum at least equal to half of the whole specie and current coin of the Kingdom; a prodigious proportion, and perhaps incredible, were we not to examine into particulars.

Should it be said that a circulating guinea cannot but pay twenty different taxes in a year, some might possibly be at first sight surprised at it. But how far short will that, on a more minute examination, be found of the truth? Let us consider only the course of a shilling for a very short time. A chairman pays out of it for his pot of porter. How many taxes does that include; the new and old taxes on beer and malt, and the tax on hops? They are more than I have time to reckon. His wife sends next morning to the shop for her tea and sugar. How many more are there? I will leave them to be counted by those better acquainted with the book of rates than I am. But here are a considerable number gone through out of one single shilling, by the time that a porter has got his beer over night, and his wife her breakfast the next morning. There remains, then, a third part of the money to run the gauntlet again in the service of the man at dinner-time; However, they do not perhaps amount quite to twenty; but so is likewise the time a good deal short of a year, and the money much less than a guinea. But this is not taking the matter in the strongest light. There is a chain and union of taxes, which operate insensibly and almost beyond imagination. Go into a shoemaker's shop; buy a pair of shoes there. How many taxes does any one in effect pay then? The journeyman shoemaker must put into his day's labour, and consequently there must be laid upon the shoes made by him all the taxes which he and his family pay in the mean time for his salt, for his soap, for his coals, for his candles, for the linen, and for the very shoes worn by him, his wife, and his children, and for very many other things. These are all just so much money out of his pocket, and he must be repaid them by his daily labour, which is his only means; he cannot otherwise live; there would be no shoes, and men must go without them. But it is not the immediate taxes of the shoemaker only which go upon his manufacture, but those likewise of his tradesmen. The price of his clothes is enhanced by the taxes which the tailor and the weaver paid while they were making and weaving them; however, not by theirs only, but by those likewise of the persons working for them in their turn, and so on. These must all be put on the shoes; insomuch, that the whole fully pursued and observed, makes a series and combination fit to put Newton or Demoivre at a stand. A poor guinea or shilling cannot, in England, put its head, if I may so express myself, out of any man's pocket, but that an army of these catchpoles are ready to seize upon it wherever it stirs. The matter being then viewed in these lights, it seems no longer strange if we raise a revenue equal to the half of our currency, or more. Increase that currency, and you increase in all appearance your revenue nearly in that proportion. This is a prodigious operation, and surely sufficient to satisfy any Administration whatsoever. Let us therefore content ourselves with getting hither the American money. That is our business. We know what to do with it here. This is the very land of taxes. It is now coining as fast as it can. Don't let us move Heaven and Earth only to disturb it in its passage. Let us have the least patience and fall to work upon it at home. We are certain that it will be here and that it will then be taxed, and as it were, taxed upon taxed. The rest is, with all submission to my superiours, no better at the bottom than a childish fancy and impa-