there have been examples of great magistrates who have put their own children to death for endeavouring to betray their country, as if they had attempted the life of their natural parent.

Thus I have briefly shown you how terrible a sin it is to be an enemy to our country, in order to incite you to the contrary virtue, which at this juncture is so highly necessary, when every man's endeavour will be of use. We have hitherto been just able to support ourselves under many hardships; but now the axe is laid to the root of the tree, and nothing but a firm union among us can prevent our utter undoing. This we are obliged to in duty to our gracious king, as well as to ourselves. Let us, therefore, preserve that public spirit, which God hath raised in us, for our own temporal interest. For if this wicked project should succeed, which it cannot do but by our own folly; if we sell ourselves for nought, the merchant, the shopkeeper, the artificer, must fly to the desert with their miserable families, there to starve or live upon rapine, or at least exchange their country for one more hospitable than that where they were born.

Thus much I thought it my duty to say to you who are under my care, to warn you against those temporal evils which may draw the worst of spiritual evils after them ; such as heart-burnings, murmurings, discontents, and all manner of wickedness which a desperate condition of life may tempt men to.

I am sensible that what I have now said will not go very far, being confined to this assembly; but I hope it may stir up others of my brethren to exhort their several congregations, after a more effectual manner, to show their love for their country on this important occasion. And this I am sure cannot be called meddling in affairs of state.

I pray God protect his most gracious majesty and this kingdom long under his government; and defend us from all ruinous projectors, deceivers, suborners, perjurers, false accusers, and oppressors; from the virulence of party and faction; and unite us in loyalty to our king, love to our country, and charity to each other.

And this we beg, for Jesus Christ's sake: to whom be all honour, glory, power, might, majesty, and dominion, henceforth, and for evermore. Amen.

A PROPOSAL

FOR GIVING BADGES TO THE BEGGARS IN ALL THE PARISHES OF DUBLIN.

April 22, 1737.

It has been a general complaint that the poor-house (especially since the new constitution by act of parliament) has been of no benefit to this city, for the ease of which it was wholly intended. I had the honour to be a member of it many years before it was new-modelled by the legislature, not from any personal regard, but merely as one of the two deans, who are of course put into most commissions that relate to the city; and I have likewise the honour to have been left out of several commissions, upon the score of party, in which my predecessors time out of mind have always been members.

The first commission was made up of about fifty persons, which were the lord mayor, aldermen and sheriffs, and some few other citizens, the judges, the two archbishops, the two deans of the city, and one or two more gentlemen. And I must confess my opinion, that the dissolving of the old

commission and establishing a new one of nearly three times the number have been the great cause of rendering so good a design not only useless but a grievance, instead of a benefit to the city. In the present commission all the city clergy are included, besides a great number of squires; not only those who reside in Dublin and the neighbourhood, but several who live at a great distance, and cannot possibly have the least concern for the advantage of the city.

At the few general meetings that I have attended since the new establishment, I observed very little was done except one or two acts of extreme justice, which I then thought might as well have been spared; and I have found the court of assistants usually taken up in little wrangles about coachmen, and adjusting accounts of meal and small beer, which, however necessary, might sometimes have given place to matters of much greater moment,—I mean some schemes recommended to the general board for answering the chief ends in erecting and establishing such a poor-house and endowing it with so considerable a revenue; and the principal end I take to have been that of maintaining the poor and orphans of the city where the parishes are not able to do it, and clearing the streets from all strollers, foreigners, and sturdy beggars, with which, to the universal complaint and admiration, Dublin is more infested since the establishment of the poor-house than it was ever known to be since its first erection.

As the whole fund for supporting this hospital is raised only from the inhabitants of the city, so there can be hardly anything more absurd than to see it misemployed in maintaining foreign beggars, and bastards or orphans of farmers, whose country landlords never contributed one shilling toward their support. I would engage that half this revenue, if employed with common care and no very great

degree of common honesty, would maintain all the rea objects of charity in this city, except a small number of original poor in every parish, who might, without being burdensome to the parishioners, find a tolerable support.

I have for some years past applied myself to several lordmayors, and the late archbishop of Dublin, for a remedy to this evil of foreign beggars; and they all appeared ready to receive a very plain proposal, I mean that of badging the original poor of every parish who begged in the streets; that the said beggars should be confined to their own parishes; that they should wear their badges well sewn upon one of their shoulders, always visible, on pain of being whipped and turned out of town, or whatever legal punishment may be thought proper and effectual. But, by the wrong way of thinking in some clergymen, and the indifference of others, this method was perpetually defeated, to their own continual disquiet, which they do not ill deserve; and if the grievance affected only them, it would be of less consequence, because the remedy is in their own power; but all street-walkers and shopkeepers bear an equal share in its hourly vexation.

I never heard of more than one objection against this expedient of badging the poor, and confining their walks to their several parishes. The objection was this-What shall we do with the foreign beggars must they be left to starve? I answered, No; but they must be driven and whipped out of the town; and let the next country parish do as they please, or rather, after the practice in England, send them from one parish to another until they reach their own homes. By the old laws of England, still in force, every parish is bound to maintain its own poor; and the matter is of no such consequence in this point as some would make it, whether a country parish be rich or poor.

In the remoter and poorer parishes of the kingdom, all necessaries of life proper for poor people are comparatively cheaper; I mean butter-milk, oatmeal, potatoes, and other vegetables; and every farmer or cottager, who is not himself a beggar, can spare sometimes a sup or a morsel, not worth the fourth part of a farthing, to an indigent neighbour of his own parish, who is disabled from work. A beggar, native of the parish, is known to the squire, to the church-minister, to the popish priest, or the conventicleteacher, as well as to every farmer; he has generally some relations able to live, and contribute something to his maintenance; none of which advantages can be reasonably expected on a removal to places where he is altogether unknown. If he be not quite maimed, he and his trull and litter of brats (if he has any) may get half their support by doing some kind of work in their power, and thereby be less burdensome to the people. In short, all necessaries of life grow in the country, and not in cities, and are cheaper where they grow; nor is it equitable that beggars should put us to the charge of giving them victuals, and the carriage too.

But when the spirit of wandering takes him, attended by his females and their equipage of children, he becomes a nuisance to the whole country; he and his females are thieves, and teach the trade of stealing to their brood of four years old; and if his infirmities be counterfeit, it is dangerous for a single person unarmed to meet him on the road. He wanders from one county to another, but still with a view to this town, where he arrives at last, and enjoys all the privileges of a Dublin beggar.

I do not wonder that the country squires should be very willing to send up their colonies; but why the city should be content to receive them is beyond my imagination.