• number, fix the price of labor, and the other have nothing to do with it.

The paffion for decency and dress in a Frenchman cannot be gratified till a fum is accumulated, and therefore the de'fire itself continues to produce labor much longer than the • love of liquor, which may be repeated or indulged as wages ⚫ are received. He that lays out his earnings in dress and de'cent furniture, has a permanent reward ever in fight, to 'make him pleased with his paft labor, encourage his future industry, and excite the emulation of his neighbour; while the Englishman, who exhausts in an evening the industry of 6 a week, annihilates the reward of his labor, and deadens his 'vigor from the loss of his health, and the next day's diffa'tisfaction. The Englishman's vice calls for few hands; at ' most the alefeller, diftiller, farmer and malster; the French• man's indulgence finds employment to infinite numbers, and thofe of the moft valuable and induftrious members of fo· ciety, the clothier, the weaver, the fempftrefs, woolcomber, joiner, and the other numberlefs trades depending on dress and houfhold furniture.

Temperance in food, the general companion of neatness, ⚫ is another national virtue of the French. A cheap and mo'derate diet, which our people would call hard fare, is what "they prefer: yet with this frugal living, there is more work, ⚫ and better performed in a day by the fame number of hands there, than in England: this is notorious in the paper-manufacture in Picardy, where they fare hardeft. We ourselves 'must acknowledge they work as well in the north of Eng• land as in the weft or fouth, though the diet is far more 'coarse and sparing. Every man copies from the next above • him in circumftances, and fo up to the originals; not an extravagance of the country, but is derived from town. These things call aloud for a reform among the working people in • particular of this nation, as their vices, more than those of the great, perhaps, may tend to impoverish the na

❝tion.'

In the tenth letter he enumerates the wife methods which the court of France has taken to encourage and promote the trade and manufactures of their nation. One would imagine

the

the French ministry, fince the days of Colbert, had employed their whole attention in concerting judicious laws for advancing and facilitating the commerce of their country; while that of a neighbouring country was ingroffed by schemes for burdening, diftreffing, and destroying the traffic of their fellow-fubjects. The mercantile genius of has been lopped, trampled upon, and difregarded as a luxuriant weed, while that of our neighbours has been cherifhed like a delicate tree producing golden fruit.

Our author feems to have our new minifter in view, when he concludes the chapter in these words:

As a leading step to the glory of fuch a minifter; let us view him making the utmoft efforts, to raise the fupplies within the year, and those in such a manner, as fhall prove the moft agreeable to the voice of all wife and honest men: let him convince the legislature of the neceffity, of the indif'penfable neceffity thercof; and the wisdom of our illuftrious ⚫ reprefentative body, will eafily fall upon the proper measures to accomplish this great work. Could any thing thunderftrike our enemies more, than to convince them, that fo zealous were the people in their country's cause, that they were • refolved not to run the nation a Shilling more in debt, nor add another perpetuated tax to encumber their trade-That on the contrary, the government was determined to deal, as it were, for ready money; that they would raise the fupplics monthly, and pay their creditors quarterly; that by 'virtue hereof, they would make fuch an alliance with the Exchequer and the Bank, as fhould uphold the public credit ४ upon a rock, not to be fhaken by any event of war, nor even from an invafion itfelf: and was this the cafe, we might have 'reason to treat our enemies with contempt, and bid them defiance. And when our affairs were brought to this defirable ftate at home, what could hinder our fleets from acting vi'gorously and effectually abroad? Could we not then have it in our power fo tó diftrefs the commerce and navigation of our ' ever restless enemy, as to disable them in future times, from maintaining that lucrative competition with us in trade, they have too long done? Aud, if this is not effectually done, these kingdoms will ever be in danger of ruin; for no fooner fhall a peace

• be

be made with a perfidious enemy, but he will instantly prepare ⚫ again for war. But as the affairs of our trade, and finances, ' are at present circumftanced, a peace is far more dangerous than a war; for upon the continuance of a peace, our trade muft be ruined and undone, if that continues to be loaded with our tax-incumbrances, which we have seen in variety of lights, put it out of our power to support that commer'cial competition against France, and others, that alone can fave the nation. And if we do not give up the system of ' increafing our taxes on trade, as we shall increase the public debt, our ruin muft not only be inevitable, but near at * hand.'

Mr. Poftlethwayt having in the eleventh letter made further obfervations on rivalship in trade, with regard to France and other nations, he employs the next in fhewing how the increase of the public debts, and, confequently of the public taxes, will affect the landed intereft. He affirms, that the land-tax being rendered equal, would, at four fhillings in the pound, produce, at least, a million per annum more than it does at prefent, which upon his ready money or fhort-credit fyftem of dealing, by the government, would amount to more than a quarter part of the whole fupplies which may be wanted.

The thirteenth letter contains the out-lines of a fcheme for raifing the fupplies within the year. He propofes a personal tax to be limited to the following claffes :

८

7. Eminent merchants, and traders by fea; and

15. Perfons in liberal arts, and phyficians, fur

6

geons, apothecaries, chymifts, and quacks 30,000

16. Shop-keepers and tradefien

18. Naval officers, captains of Indiamen, and of

the principal merchants ships

19. Military officers

100,000

80,000

10,000

7,000

639,776

We could have wifhed for the honour of the faculty, that he had not claffed quacks and empirics with phyficians and chymifts, as profeffors of the liberal arts.-Not but that we fometimes fee them united, though it is a most unnatural mixture, and like the two chimical principles acid and alkali, produces a tertium quid, which is a very disagreeable neutral.— The number of perfons included in this taxation, would not exceed one million; and thofe reckoned at an average of 31. each per annum, would raise three millions. He then confiders a tax upon houses, fuppofing the number of houfes taxable in Great Britain amounts to one million; three pounds exacted from each, will produce three millions-calculating by the rental, we fuppofe that each houfe, at an average, pays 201 then the total will be twenty millions per annum. To raife three millions, the rate must be three fhillings in the pound. But if fuch a rate fhould be thought too high, let it be confidered whether, by the conjunctive aid of a houfe tax on the rental, and a perfonal tax only on certain claffes of the people, this will not more equally anfwer the purpose. Suppose then, that a million and a half shall be raised upon the house rental at two fhillings in the pound, reckoning the rental as fifteen millions only, and an equal fum fhall be raised upon certain claffes of perfons, amounting to a million in number; this will be no more than thirty fhillings to be paid by each yearly, take them one with another, which is no more than half a crown per month.

The

The last letter defcribes the effects of a quick circulation between money and commodities: the principle on which depend the ease and practicability of raising the supplies within the year. He enlarges upon the nature of money, and the national disadvantages occafioned by its being withdrawn from trade. Then he recapitulates the numerous benefits arifing from a quick circulation and foreign commerce.

From the augmentation of the mafs of money by foreign trade, the following confequences will enfue.

ift, The augmentation of the mafs of money in circulation, cannot be faid to be fenfible, but fo far as it increases ⚫ the confumption of neceffary commodities, or promotes a ⚫ convenience useful towards the preservation of mankind; that is to say, the ease of the people.

2dly, It is not fo much a great sum of money brought at once into a state, that promotes and animates circulation, as the gradual and continual bringing in of that money, to be • diftributed among the people.

6

3dly, Circulation is brought nearer to its natural order, ⚫ in proportion as the foreign money is more equally diftributed among the people.

6 4thly, The diminution of the number of borrowers, or of ⚫ the natural intereft of money, being a confequence of the celerity and activity of circulation becomes more natural; and 'the celerity of circulation, or of public ease, not being itself a < necessary consequence of the bringing in a large sum of money ⚫ at once into the state, so much as is that of the continual in• crease of such money diftributed among the people; we cannot but conclude, that the intereft of money will not naturally decrease, whenever the consumptions of the people do ⚫ not increase *. That if the confumptions were to increase, "the intereft of money would naturally decrease, without re'gard

Hence it appears, that all reductions of the intereft of money of ⚫ the public creditors, which have tended to diminish the spendingmoney of the nation, have been unnatural, unless they had ultimately, as defigned originally, tended to have reduced the price of our commodities, in the like proportion, and thereby not have ⚫ diminished the confumption. And this would have been the confequence, if the favings had been facredly applied to the payment of the old debts incurred before 1716, as has been fhewn.