by rote, without understanding the conftitution of the kingdom; as if a physician, knowing that exercise contributed much to health, fhould prefcribe to his patient under a fevere fit of the gout, to walk ten miles every morning. The directions for Ireland are very short and plain, To encourage agriculture and home-confumption, and utterly discard all importations which are not abfolutely neceffary for health or life. And how few neceffaries, conveniencies, or even comforts of life, are denied us by nature, or not to be attained by labour and induftry? Are those deteftable extravagancies of Flanders-lace, Englishcloths made of our own wool, and other goods, Italian or Indian filks, tea, coffee, chocolate, China-ware, and that profufion of wines, by the knavery of merchants growing dearer every feafon, with a hundred unneceffary fopperies, better known to others than me: Are thefe, I say, fit for us, any more than for the beggar who could not eat his veal without oranges? Is it not the highest indignity to human nature, that men should be such poltrons, as to suffer the kingdom and themselves to be undone, by the vanity, the folly, the pride, and wantonnefs of their wives;

who,

who, under their prefent corruptions, feem to be a kind of animal fuffered, for our fins, to be fent into the world for the deftruction of families, focieties, and kingdoms, and whofe whole ftudy feems directed to be as expenfive as they poffibly can in every useless article of living; who, by long practice, can reconcile the most pernicious foreign drugs to their health and pleasure, provided they are but expensive ; as ftarlings grow fat with henbane; who contract a robuftnefs by mere practice of floth and luxury; who can play deep feveral hours after midnight, fleep beyond noon, revel upon Indian poisons, and spend the revenue of a moderate family, to adorn a naufeous, unwholesome living carcafe? Let thofe few, who are not concerned in any part of this accufation, fuppofe it unfaid; let the reft take it among them. Gracious God! in his mercy, look down upon a nation so shamefully befotted.

If I am poffeffed of an hundred pounds a year, and by fome misfortune it finks to fifty, without a poffibility of ever being retrieved: Does it remain a queftion, in fuch an exigency, what I am to do? Must not I retrench one half in every article of expence? Or, retire to fome cheap, diftant

part

part of the country, where neceffaries are at half value?

Is there any mortal who can fhew me, under the circumftances we ftand with our neighbours, under their inclinations towards us, under laws never to be repealed, under the defolation caused by abfentees, under many other circumstances not to be mentioned, that this kingdom can ever be a nation of trade, or fubfift by any other method than that of a reduced family, by the utmost parfimony, in the manner I have already prefcribed?

I am tired with letters from many unreasonable well-meaning people, who are daily preffing me to deliver my thoughts in this deplorable juncture; which, upon many others, I have so often done in vain. What will it import, that half a score people, in a coffee-house, may happen to read this paper, and even the majority of those few, differ in every fentiment from me? If the farmer be not allowed to fow his corn, if half the little money among us be fent to pay rents to Irish absentees, and the reft for foreign luxury, and dress for the women, what will our charitable difpofitions avail, when there is nothing left to be given? When, contrary to all custom

and

gen

and example, all neceffaries of life are fo exorbitant, when money of all kinds was never known to be fo fcarce? So that tlemen of no contemptible eftates are forced to retrench in every article (except what relates to their wives) without being able to fhew any bounty to the poor.

ΑΝ

ANSWER

то SEVERAL

LETTERS fent me from unknown Hands.

Written in the Year M DCC XXIX.

AM very well pleafed with the good we, opinion you exprefs of me, and with it were any way in my power to answer your expectations, for the fervice of my country. I have carefully read your feveral fchemes and propofals, which you think fhould be offered to the parliament. In anfwer, I will affure you, that, in another place, I have known very good proposals rejected with contempt by public affemblies, merely because they were offered from without doors; and yours perhaps might have the fame fate, especially if handed into the public by me, who am not acquainted with three members, nor have the leaft intereft with one. My printers have been twice profecuted, to my great expence, on account of difcourfes I writ for the public fervice, without the least reflection on parties or perfons; and the

fuccefs