ers, &c. But I affirm, the principal caufe is, the increase of real or ideal wealth, creating a capacity to expend larger fums, and confequently to indulge in luxury more than before; and if public credit was to fail generally, in refpect of the stocks, (which Heaven avert, and I think will fcarce happen, but from the woeful misfortune of an unfuccefsful war, and which I would willingly hope at a great distance) it would do much more towards making provifions cheap again, than all the efforts now making, or that can otherwise be made; and therefore of two evils let us be content to acquiefce in the leaft, faving always the neceffary laudable endeavours to relieve the indigent, labouring, or manufacturing poor, who, I prefume, to be the fittest objects for the attention and benevolence of the praife-worthy Subscribers and their Committee. I would therefore recommend, in lieu of an ineffectual attempt to lower the price of provifions in general, which would be (if effectual) of advantage to the rich and poor indifcriminately, that the provifions, when purchafed, may be given away, or fold at half price, to fuch poor manufacturing or labouring people who have large families, and who are the people who fuffer moft, and want moft relief on account of the dearness of provisions; and it fhould be given in proportion to the numbers, infancy, and other incapacities of fuch families, of which the mafter manufacturer and workmen will probably be found competent judges on proper enquiry; and those poor, who, being in health, and having work, have no families, will not need help, fince the price of provifions will keep them to their work another day or two in the week, which they might otherwise spend at the alehoufe, &c. to the prejudice of the manufactures and their mafters, of their own health and morals.

'AMOR PATRIE.

A Sketch of a Plan for making a General Provifion for the Poor in England and Wales.

N the first place every county fhould have a workhouse, where all beggars fhould be compelled to refide. Thofe who are able to work fhould be obliged to it, and those who are not able should be maintained in a decent manner, but none fhould be allowed to beg in public on any confideration whatever.-A commiffioner for the poor fhould be appointed for every county, and a steward or trustee for every parish; a lift of the poor of each parifh fhould be carefully taken at VOL. X. Ddd fated

ftated times, attefted by the parfon, and regularly transmitted to the commiffioner who fhould refide in the county town, which commiffioner fhould tranfmit an exact lift at ftated times, also of all the poor in his district, to the commiffioner general, who fhould refide in London. To this perfon all the poors rates in England &c. should be punctually remitted once a year or oftener; every housekeeper who is unable to work should have a weekly allowance of 2s. 6d. in the country; but if in London 3s. 6d. per week. The commiffioner of every county fhould draw on the commiffioner general every month for his diftrict, which he should tranfmit to the ftewards of the different parishes of the county where he refides, to be diftributed to the different claimants, as agreed upon. There are fifty-two counties in England and Wales, which I fhall suppose contain 60,000 objects of charity, which is fomething more than 1150 to each county; which on an average, at the rate of 3s. each perfon per week, amounts to 468,000l. per ann. and allowing 32,000l. for expences in building workhouses and salaries to the fuperintendants, which I fhould imagine would be much more than fufficient, according to this calculation the expence of maintaining the poor in England, and Wales, would amount exactly to 500,000l. It has been commonly fuppofed, that the money collected for the poor in England alone is at leaft a million per ann. And after all it does not prevent a multitude of beggars, who fwarm every where one goes, to the difgrace of the police of this humane country. I know every scheme hitherto offered the public on this knotty fubject has been greatly defective in point of merit, a fubject that has baffled the pens of many eminent men: it is therefore perhaps prefumption in me to attempt it; but my love of humanity has notwithstanding prevailed on me to lay this sketch before the public, which I do with the more confidence, as I was the first who about eighteen months ago gave the hint for erecting a coal magazine, which Sir Charles Whitworth, with fo much honour and advantage to himself, had the merit many months afterwards of bringing to a trial; nor am I altogether without hope, but this 'fcheme may alfo meet with the approbation of fome meritorious perfon, who might fall on ways and means of putting it in execution. But as my calculation refpecting the number of the poor, &c. is altogether conjecture, all that I contend for, is the mode of proceeding in the management of them, by which method I am inclined to be of opinion, that the public would perhaps fave little lefs than one half of what they pay at present towards fupporting the poor.

Thus

Thus have I endeavoured to fhew the outlines of a scheme of providing for the poor, where every objection I flatter myfelf is obviated, and every inconveniency removed, and if it were once fet on foot, I fhould not doubt of its giving univerfal fatisfaction to all parties.

A Lover of Humanity.

The Cafe of the Inhabitants of the SAVOY.

HE cafe of the perfecuted and arbitrarily oppreffed inhabitants of the Savoy, as ftated in certain queries in the public papers, produces these ulterior remarks in a spirit of juftice to them.

2

The original foundation of the Nullum Tempus tenet in the law was a moft juft one. The public conftitutes an immortal body; and the crown lands being held appropriated to enable the Sovereign for the time being to ferve his office of King for the benefit of the public, it was very confequential that such lands fhould be unalienable. This tenure was ftrictly feudal, id. eft. a tenure of pay.

But in Charles the Second's time, when the feudal tenures were abolished, and an ample provifion fupplementally inade for the maintenance of the Royal office, the research of crown property flackened, which in fome inftances had fallen into the hands of the actual poffeffors in the ftile and manner of derelicts. The act of parliament however lately paffed on occafion of that iniquitous temporary attack on the Duke of Portland has helped to tranquilize feveral of the powerful and great against future moleftation on the Nullum Tempus law. With what colour then of equity, of humanity, of regard for common decency, the poor inhabitants of the Savoy could be fpecifically excepted, is left to the candid public to determine.

But in what a light of horrid and fhameless oppreffiveness will not this attack on the property of the poor houtholders of the Savoy appear, when it shall be known that while the crown lawyers affect to treat them as ufurpers, invaders, and wrongful poffeffors of the crown property in the premises, the minifters and officers of the crown are themfelves manifeftly guilty of that very ufurpation which they want to fix upon the houfholders in the Savoy.

Nothing is more certain than that the Duchy of Lancaster is no more crown land than the Electorate of Hanover, notwithstanding their concentering inthe fame perfon. The tenures are ententially different; and both the law and the state

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confider and treat them as fuch. They are under different orders, regulation and government with great propriety, fince the tenures of the crown and the duchy are in their nature abfolutely diftinct objects. The one originally public property, the other accidentally private; and furely in quality of a fubject title liable to all equality with that of other subjects of the realm in common; and the plea of prescription is as valid against the Duke of Lancafter, or against thofe that pre tend to hold from him or his bequest, as against any other peer or commoner of the kingdom. No ftream rifes higher than its fpring. A duchy cannot be a royalty, nor entitled to the prerogatives of the crown.

There is much more yet. There had been an hospital founded in the Savoy, of which the fupport had arisen from the revenues of the precinct. That hofpital had suffered diffolution by the neglect of the adminiftrators or officers of the Chancery of the Duchy; and the fervice due thereon being no longer performed, the premises, very likely through this neglect and dereliction which begot a kind of implicit forfeiture remained unchallenged and unmolefted in the hands of the innocent tenants of that time above fourscore years ago, who at the worst were guilty of no other wrong than keeping a poffeffion which nobody difputed with them; and of which, what titles they had, or whether they had any other at all in actual poffeffion, the law refufes to take any notice after a certain term of years that form the prefcription between subject and fubject, between the prefent poffeffors of houses in the Savoy, and the Duke of Lancaster or his heirs.

It has been precedently faid that the Crown has been in this cafe guilty of the very ufurpation which it falfely reproaches to the houfholders of the Savoy. Nothing is more true: The barracks, the prifon, &c. are all illegal incroachments on the Duchy of Lancaster; and now to give fome colour of law to that incroachment, they want to obtain an act from their known majority in parliament for changing the names of the different tenures, and for giving the appellation of Crown Lands to premises that never belonged, unless by ufur

*That fuch diftinctions of feudal tenure of land is no new doctrine, no temporarily imagined plea, will appear from this plain fact, that kings of France have, under lower titles in quality of vaffals to their own fubjects, done homage to them for certain lands. Different tenures conftitute different rights. The King, as King holds from the people, as the Duke of Lancafter from a private fubject, and nothing more. Thefs rights are not to be confounded.

ufurpation, to the Crown, and were most unquestionably o riginally part of the Duchy.

They have done more. They have compelled er received. rents from fome of the intimidated houfholders of the Savoy in the name of the Crown; which, as if they had been fenfible of the illegality and indefenfibleness of the extortion, were prefumably never paid into the Exchequer, at least its books ought not to have made entries of them, fince the recovery of fuch rents never belonged to it, at least in the first inflance.

In the mean while they have made themselves fo fure of carrying their point of crufhing the poor inhabitants of the Savoy by an iniquitous judgment, that their officers have been feen with their inftruments of admeasurement marking out their unhappy victims, which is no wonder in times that nor equity, nor honour, nor the laws, nor the due protection of parliament, can defend the subject against any violences of a power armed with the terrors of a dead majority, and of a fatal influence over fuch numbers of the fervile and corrupted."

SIR,

THE

To the PRINTER.

HE papers have for a long time paft been filled with difputes concerning the laws of England as they now ftand; fome writers have afferted that they are very deficient, whilft others have with equal pofitiveness affirmed, that they are the compleatest body of laws that any country can produce. I have with great attention perufed the letters of the advocates on both fides of the queftion, and though I must confess that a great deal of learning is in them, yet I think the authors of them have entirely mistaken the question, which in my opinion is not, whether the prefent laws are good or bad, but whether the minifters who are to fee that the laws are put in execution without prejudice or partiality, have fenfe and courage to sea that punishment is paffed upon the guilty, without regard to the quality or importance of the criminal. It feldom or never happens that laws are bad in themselves, but become fo either through the wickedness or weakness of the governors of a nation: did they poffefs that good fenfe and goodness of heart which the original law makers intended every man should be master of who should be set over a people to be their ruler, no Jaws exift of which they need complain. I fhall therefore not enquire into the perfection or defect of our laws, but of our