LETTER XXVII.

TO MR. WOODFALL.

SIR,

21 July, 1768.

I COULD not help smiling at your correspondent C.'s dreaming animadversion, in your paper of yesterday, upon the commission of the board of trade. He modestly fancies himself awake while all the ministry are inveloped in darkness and dreams, and, according to him, only stir to stir no more. Thus drunkards imagine that every body reels, and that the world itself is in disorder.

He owns that his assertions are the result of guess, and that his reasoning are without the necessary data. He might have spared himself that trouble; every body will tell him the same. Vastly displeased with the compiler of the Gazette, he drops him to abuse his principals; and because they do not or choose not to furnish his empty brain with chat for a day, or with battles, sieges and victories in time of peace, they are' therefore doing nothing, or at best are but dreaming like himself. As he most sagaciously begins without his data, so he proceeds (as Mr. Locke says) by seeing a little, perhaps like a man half awake, presuming a great deal, and then jumping to a conclusion. This, it is owned, he has admirably well done. He reads in the Gazette, that several of the chief officers of the crown, the bishop of London, and some others, are appointed together with Messieurs Jenyns, Rice, Elliot, Fitzherbert, and Robinson (whom he very decently and illiberally styles a junto) to be commissioners for trade and plantations, and that the Earl of Hillsborough is duly to attend their meetings. This throws our gentleman into a trance (convincing the world that his ignorance and insomnia are well blended) and, fraught with this intelligence, he avers that all these respectable personages are new commissioners; whereas, in fact, from the original constitution of the board of trade, they have a right to sit there in virtue of their respective offices, though not obliged as Messrs. Jenyns, &c. to a due and constant attendance. In every new commission of the board of trade these officers for the time being are inserted at length; and at the same time, on account of their other public avocations, they are therein released from the obligation of continually sitting at that board. As the business of

the colonies has of late years much increased, it was judged necessary by the crown to appoint one other principal secretary of state for the transaction of colony affairs, which are daily increasing in their importance to this kingdom; and, perhaps, the noble lord, who is chosen to this direction, and whose masterly abilities are the object of your correspondent's invidious scurrility, is the only man of rank adequate to this arduous task in the present crisis. His lordship is also to preside at the board of trade, for the facility and dispatch of business, and will thereby save the government (as he has no salary) the expense of a first commissioner. He is duly to attend the meetings of that board, which cannot, as Mr. C. would wisely obtrude upon the public judgment, mean any thing or nothing at pleasure; for when there are no meetings his lordship cannot attend, but when there are it is his duty. This every man who is awake can understand; but as for such dreamers as good Master C. I wish they might sleep more soundly till the patriotism they attack is extinguished; and then I believe the world will not be much disturbed with the impertinent visions of such unquiet repose.

INSOMNIS.

LETTER XXVIII.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER

23 July, 1768.

SIR, I AM willing to join issue with your correspondent Insomnis, that one of us is fast asleep, and submit to be tried by a jury of plain Englishmen, who may be supposed to understand their own language. If their verdict be given against him, all I desire is that you will not expose his infirmity to the public, or suffer him to say things in his sleep, which his modesty will blush for when he wakes.

In the first place, I never averred that they were all new commissioners, though I spoke of a new commission. Is it possible for a man to be awake and not distinguish between these expressions? But now for a curious discovery: the great officers of state, it seems are bound and released by one and the same act; that is, they are bound to the public, and released in private. They figure away as men of busi

ness in the Gazette, yet by a secret stipulation are relieved from the trouble of attendance. If Malagrida had any interest with the present ministry, I should have no doubt that this was one of his subtle contrivances. An ostensible engagement, with a mental reservation, is the first principle of the morale relachee professed and inculcated by the society of Jesus.

Now, Sir, observe how carefully the example is adapted to the doctrine. The state of the colonies evidently demanded some extraordinary measures of wisdom and of vigour. A pompous list of names is held forth to the public, as if the ministry were roused by the importance and difficulty of the present conjuncture, and were determined to face it with their whole strength and abilities. Such was the appearance which the new commission was intended to convey, and in this light I am very sure it was received by the public: yet Insomnis is so candid as to tell us, that the ministry meant no such thing; and I believe him very sincerely. A council is instituted which is never to sit, and commissioners are appointed on condition they shall never attend a common way of throwing dust into the eyes of the public, and frequently practised with success: but I believe it is rather uncommon for a ministerial advocate to make so early and frank confession of truths, which, though they may answer other purposes, will do his patrons but little honour in point of credit and veracity.

"Go to, go to, you have known what you should not.”

A man who talks in his sleep is not fit for a confidential secretary, at least to a ministry who have so many secrets to conceal.

If the duplicity of this contrivance had concerned themselves alone, I should have been contented with comparing it with the rest of their conduct, and thought no more of it. But I own it fills me with indignation to see the name of a reverend prelate so indecently treated. The respect due to his personal character, if not the sanctity of his station, should have preserved him from so gross an outrage. To see a prelate of the first rank mixed in a low jesuitical farce of imposing upon the public with a great council, when no such matter is intended!-Seriously, Sir, I should not be surprised if his lordship were to prosecute the writer of the Gazette for a libel. For my own part, Sir, I would rather see my name advertised among a company of buffoons at Bartlemy fair, than prostituted in a ministerial junto, to de

ceive and to cheat my country. A farce upon the stage may amuse at least, if not instruct, but ministerial farces are too dull to please, and seldom conclude without mischief to the audience.

I admit one proposition gravely advanced by Insomnis, "that when there are no meetings Lord Hillsborough cannot attend them;" but I am not quite so clear about the article of expense. The salary of a first commissioner of trade, at three thousand pounds a year, is saved by appointing a third secretary of state at six or seven, besides all the expense of a new office. a new office. But Insomnis unfortunately forgets that if Mr. Thomas Townsend, contrary to all expectation, had not refused the vice-treasurership (because the offer of it was attended with an insult) there would have been no room to provide for Lord Clare, consequently he must have remained first commissioner of trade, and all this charming plan of economy, facility, and dispatch, must have waited till another opportunity.

And now, Mr. Insomnis, I shall leave you to your repose? Your patrons indeed may turn, and turn, and get no rest. but what occasion is there for your sitting up to watch them;

"Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep."

Above all things let me recommend it to you, never to pretend to be awake for the future. Your eyes and ears, perhaps, are open, but their sense is shut, and really it is not very polite of you to come into company in your night-cap.

C.

LETTER XXIX.

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.

SIR, 30 July, 1768. It is not many months since* you gave me an opportunity of demonstrating to the nation, as far as rational inference and probability could extend, that the hopes which some men seemed to entertain, or to profess at least, with regard to America, were without a shadow of foundation. They seemed to flatter themselves that the contest with the colonies, like a disagreeable question in the House of Com

*See Miscellaneous Letter, No. 10, Dec. 19, 1767. EDIT.

*

mons, might be put off to a long day, and provided they could get rid of it for the present, they thought it beneath them to consult either their own reputation or the true interests of their country. But whatever were their views or expectations, whether it was the mere enmity of party, or the real persuasion that they had but a little time to live in office, every circumstance which I then foretold is confirmed by experience. The conduct of the king's servants in relation to America since the alteration in 1765, never had a reasonable argument to defend it, and the chapter of accidents which they implicitly relied on, has not produced a single casualty in their favour. At a crisis like this, Sir, I shall not be very solicitous about those idle forms of respect, which men in office think due to their characters and station; neither will I descend to a language beneath the importance of the subject I write on. When the fate of Great Britain is thrown upon the hazard of a die, by a weak, distracted, worthless ministry, an honest man will always express all the indignation he feels. This is not a moment for preserving forms, and the ministry must know that the language of reproach and contempt is now the universal language of the nation.

We find ourselves at last reduced to the dreadful alternative of either making war upon our colonies, or of suffering them to erect themselves into independent states. It is not that I hesitate now upon the choice we are to make. Every thing must be hazarded. But what infamy, what punishment do those men deserve, whose folly or whose treachery hath reduced us to this state, in which we can neither give up the cause without a certainty of ruin, nor maintain it without such a struggle as must shake the empire? If they had the most distant pretence for saying that the present conjuncture has arisen suddenly, that it was not foreseen and could not be provided for, we should only have reason to lament that our affairs were committed to such ignorance and blindness. But when they have had every notice that it was possible to receive, when the proceedings of the colonies have for a considerable time been not less notorious than alarming, what apology have they left? Upon what principle will they now defend themselves? From the first appearance of that rebellious spirit which has spread itself

The Rockingham administration, which lasted from July 10, 1765, to July 30, 1766.

EDIT.