garding the French revolution, 447, 552. 27. The Lord Provoft of Edinburgh receives his Majefty's fign manual for 3000l. towards building the Edinburgh bridewell, 413. Sept. Dreadful infurrections of the negroes in the French part of the island of St Domingo, who lay wafte many plantations and murder all that fall into their hands, 559.- These insurrections occafion a great rife in the price of fugar. 3. Their Majefties, the Princefs Royal, and the Princeffes Augufta and Elifabeth, set off from Windsor for Wey. mouth, 513. 13. The King of France intimates to the National Affembly, that he accepts the conftitution as prefented by them, 506. 30. The Duke of York married to the Princess Royal of Pruffia, at Berlin, 514. 30. National Affembly of France diffolved, 556.. 08. 1. New Affembly meets, 557. 8. The French Princes publifh a protest against the King's acceptance of the conftitutional code. 16. Prince Potemkin, commander in chief of the Ruffian forces against the Turks, died at Yally, 569. 17. Their Royal Highneffes the Duke and Duchess of York set out from Berlin, ftay fome days at Hanover and of naburg, and arrive in London on the 19th of November, 524. 30. The National Affembly of France país a decree for making a proclamation for the return of Monfieur the King's brother, or else to forfeit his right to the Regency, 613. Nov. Frequent and violent earthquakes in Calabria Ultra, 610. 12. The King of France iffued a proclamation to the emigrants in general, and a letter to his brothers, inviting their return into France, and fubmiffion to the constitution, 613. 13. The King for the first time exercifed the power given him to put a negative on the decrees of the National Affembly, by refusing to fanction the decree paffed by the Affembly against the French Princes, 613. 23. The ceremony of re-marrying the Duke and Duchefs of York took place at the Queen's House, 524. 30. The foundation ftone of the Edinburgh bridewell laid with great soleninity, 565. Dec. 15. The Eaft-India Company give orders to promote the cultivation of fugar in India, 617. ERRATU M. p. 414. col. 1. line 16. Take out the words, daughter of the late Dr Robert Wood, physician. THE SCOTS MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1791. CONTENT S. -I. BRUTUS to the Rt Hon. W. P- Speech of Gen. WASHINGTON on opening NEW BOOKS. Memoirs of Serjeant Donald Macleod 16. Travels in Turky, &c. 20. Catalogue, 21.-25. Advantages to be derived from the Affociation for the improvement of British WooL 26. TRANSFUSION of the blood of a fleep into a dog 27. POETRY. New year ode 28. The Revolution-club, a parody 28. HISTORICAL AFFAIRS. Turky: lsmael taken by the Ruffians 30. -Poland. Treaty with Turky 30. Eaft Indies. State of war with Tippoo 36. England. Diftreffes of Botany-Bay colony 39. Number tried at Old Bailey in 1790 40. Poft-horse tax let 41. Fleet preparing ib. Independent companies ib. Trial of Ld Dungarvon ib. Rendezvous for feamen 42. Coals confumed in London ib. - Scotland. Corn-bill 42. Highland Society 43. Glafgow] chamber of commerce ib. Price of building-ground 44. Edinburgh water ib. Inhabitants in St Andrew's Square, &c. ib. Shipping ib. Trial of J. Macghie for murder ib. Of J. Lindfay and others for carrying off W. Walls ib. People fuffocated on the island of May 47. LISTS. Marriages, Births, &c. 47.—52. SIR, S Brutus to the Right Honourable W. P***. OME laughing author tells us of an old lady, who, upon any little grievance that befel her, used to complain to the King. I am fufficiently aware of the ridicule which may be affixed to the circumftance of an individual addreffing the minifter.-Yet a man not unaccustomed to think on political fubjects, who has lived with some degree of obfervation, and amidst a circle capable of informing him, to a very advanced period of life, may, in this country, and in this æra of political difquifition, be pardoned the vanity of fuch a correfpondence. An honeft man without any pretenfion to fuperior abilities, who has onVOL. LIII. January 1791. ly talents and moderation enough to discover what the better part of the country thinks, and who has no motive to mislead him either in forming or in expreffing his opinion, may be of fome little use even to a well-informed minister, If he cannot influence the conduct of a bad adminiftration, he may at least convey a fuffrage not unpleafing to a good one. To you, Sir, he will be particularly entitled to addrefs himself when he confi ders you as the minister of the people. This title, I know, has not usually been allowed you: titles are given to men, as names to things, from their first appearance to the eye; and you were certainly lefs formed to conciliate popularity than to deferve it. But whoever looks back to the hiftory of your public life, will fee that its diftinctions chiefly flowed from the fuffrage of the people. Under the fhade of your father's name, and with a fortune not unlike to his, you came into power in opposition to that ariftocracy which had fo long encompas fed the throne. That ariftocracy forgot the moderation which used to fecure its influence, which still characterised many of its individuals; it forced the crown to an alliance with the people, and the people, whoare generally fomewhat guided by sentiment, were not unwilling to truft the hereditary virtue of a young man who had not had time to foul his mind with the practice of older and more experienced politicians. This connection, Sir, we wish you not to forget. We have not yet found reafon to with-hold our confidence in the wisdom of your measures; but it is ftill more material to retain that which we bestow on their virtue. In confideration of this, we are fome. times willing to allow a little more to the feelings of the man, than may be thought to accord with the cautious prudence of the minifter. If in fome measures of a brilJiant and popular kind, you have ventured to engage with a degree of warmth beyond the ordinary referve of a ftatefman, with a quickness not suited to that wary ftep, that pas de plomb which the hoary counsellor of Lewis XIII. recommends, we are disposed to separate thofe individual inftances from the ordinary tenor of your administration, to allow a fort of holiday excurfion to official prudence, and, as tradition tells of Charlemagne in his hours of social festivity, to suppose the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be gone, and the animated generofity of Mr P to intereft itself in the fomewhat romantic notion of the time. In this country, he who begins a fecond luftrum in the highest department of the ftate may be regarded as a perma ment minifter. You have food fome fhocks which may be fairly held as proofs of the firmness of your mind, the extent of your talents, and the probable stability of your fituation. In one of the rudeft conflicts of party which the nation has witneffed in modern times, you came off with victory, though oppofed by the ablest and most experienced politicians. In two contefts with foreign powers, you fupported the dignity, and exerted the force of the empire, with a decision, a promptitude, and an energy, that has feldom been furpaffed by a British adminiftration. It must be allowed, that in all thofe events a very uncommon degree of good fortune attended you; but the epithet felix is a compliment in every wife man's vocabulary as well as in the Roman. To feize the occafions which good fortune presents to us is always the mark of fuperior talents; to seize them at all is a mark of fuch talents in poffeffion; to feize them with the readiness which you fhewed in fome inftances, is a mark o: fuch talents at command. The public acknowledged this in you, and gave you credit for a fort of intuitive stateabilities, which shot forth at once into vigour, unripened by time, unconfirmed by experience. This is the language of eulogium; your enemies will but just venture to call it flattery. But I have neither motive nor a mind for flattery, and my purpose is not eulogium. The talents and vir tues of a minifter are the right, the property of the people; I call upon you in the name of the people, for their exercife and their ufe. In this demand I have but little perfonal intereft; I have lived through many miniftries, and have now but a few days left of pride in the glory, or mortification in the difgrace of my country.-Forgive this old man's mention of myself; I fpeak in the first perfon, but I think for my equals and co-evals, a circle as much more refpectable, as it is more impartial, than that which glitters in the sunshine of your favour, or that which fcowls around the leaders of oppofition. From this midling rank of men, that point in the country where information and independence meet, arifes the genuine and lafting reputation of a minifter. From fuch men arofe the fame of your father; I hope you have an ambition proud enough to look for that of their posterity. I truft I fhall not be fuppofed to favour defpotifm when I say, that in this country the public intereft fuffers nearly as often from a want of power, as from a want of good intention in minifters. It has been the vice of some adminiftrations to compromise away their duty and their reputation, to be fatisfied with the prefumed purity of their intentions, and to fuffer all the mischiefs that could refult from their want of power to carry thofe intentions into execution, to fall upon the country. We truft you are "made of of fterner ftuff," that you will never fub- At present you have no fuch trial to rience. With all thofe advantages on your fide, with the reasonable profpect of a lafting peace, and at the beginning of a parliament friendly to your exertions, it may fairly be expected that you will think of objects beyond the daily and common employments of official men, whofe minds are often chained down by the cares and neceffities of the moment, forced to devote their talents to the petty contests of internal cabals, to the management of narrow and struggling majorities, or the paltry folicitudes of elections to fecure them. If the weight of the people with you faves you the trouble of fuch attentions, they have fome title to expect in return thofe great and permanent benefits which they place you in a fituation to procure, or at least to attempt with a probability of fuccefs,for your coun 3 try. One or two of those important objects come an object of your attention, is the their very magnitude, we dare not atThere may be abuses, which, from tack; gangrenes in the ftate, like fome palliate, from a fear of amputation being in the body, which we are content to mortal. But in both cafes our fears often betray us, and it is only from a conjunction of fortitude with skill that we are to look for a cure. In the confideraffailed by a thousand motives of prefent ation of this great question you will be conveniency. ty," as Shakespeare phrafes it, will infi"That bawd Commodi credit, to the growing wealth, and the nuate the danger to the finances, to the increasing power of the country, which any change fo great as an entire refumption of the charter of this company, or even taking their territorial acquifitions into the hands of government, would occafion. But if wifdom and philofophy speak on the oppofite fide; if they tell downwards, the dominion of merchants you that, from the time of Carthage has been oppreffive and fatal; that from the nature and conftitution of the company which holds this dominion, (parti. cularly the opportunity which it affords to its wealthy fervants of purchasing by fhares in its stock, a fanction for their A 2 Own own malverfations), there are abufes in its administration fuperadded to the general evils of mercantile fovereignty; that the very commercial advantages pretend ed to arife from it to the parent state, are but the fpecious mischiefs of monopoly; and that the real interefts of our manufactures and commerce would be infinitely promoted by throwing open the Eaft. India trade to the invention and induftry of the nation at large. If fuch arguments, which a liberal and enlightened period like the prefent is accustomed to hear without wonder or alarm, fhould prefs upon your confideration, you will liften to them with impartiality. You will not interpofe your own private conveniency or accommodation between fuch advantages and the public; you will not fuffer a party in the India House, or their representatives in the Houfe of Commons, to overawe or to rebuke the genius of Great Britain, of freedom, of humanity. The existence of that party is one of the greateft evils of which we have to complain in this bufinefs. It has become a kind of fourth estate, and weighs with an unconftitutional preponderancy on the measures of government. It is only a virtuous minifter who will wish to refift it; it is only a powerful one who can refift it with fafety: if we call for this refiftance in you, Sir, it is from a confidence with which you ought to be flattered, both in your uprightnefs and ability. In the province of minister, you will probably confine yourself to public and political confiderations; elfe you might hear from many wife and virtuous citi zens, complaints of this Afiatic system in more private points of view. This crufade of avarice, they would tell you, like thofe of fuperftition in the middle ages, powerfully affects the manners of the people. It has increased the influence of "ill-perfuading gold” in a most rapid and * It has been faid, that the late Adam Smith (whofe genius and knowledge embraced more objects, and produced greater effects in their difcuffion, than any other writer in Europe) wifhed to have seen you once more before his death, to have left, like Cato, the last found his voice could utter, his "delenda eft Cartbago" against the Eaft-India monopoly. I al. low fomething for the enthusiasm of a fyftem fo fplendid as his; but the arguments for his conviction are before the world, and you are not ignorant of their force. extenfive degree; it has changed the fober and moderate economy of domestic life, which nurfed at once the private and the patriotic virtues; it has fubftitu ted the vanity of oftentatious wealth for the ambition of an honest popularity, and spread over the land the refinements of Eaftern luxury, to difplace the wholefome enjoyments of industry, and the manly and vigorous exertions of genius. As a mere commercial question, it will not escape you, that in this trade, as in every other, the spirit of adventure, if the country is ripe for it, will burft the fhackles of exceffive restriction, and that if an open trade is prohibited, a contraband one will be carried on equally burtful to the company, without equal bene fit to the state. I believe it is pretty well known, that veffels under Imperial or Swedish colours have lain in the very pool of the Thames, fitting out, in the employment of British merchants for India. Thefe interlopers the company were afraid to stop, ever, with the law on their fide, or to meet the question of the infuf ficiency of their investments for either the home or the foreign market. Will not this clandeftine invasion of a monopoly, which they only hold against their country, ftill prevail? Will not Ireland openly affail it? Our connection with Ireland is an object of consideration lefs preffing, but not less momentous, nor lefs difficult than that with India. It was reserved for that unfortunate minifter by whose timid and palliating politics America was severed from the empire, to loofen, by a like imbecility of meafures, the clofenefs of that tie which held Ireland to Great Britain. During a capricious fucceffion of viceroys, he had alienated the affections as much as he had lost the respect of Ireland. By the common effect of his half-refolutions, he had kept up all the appearance of hoftility, without any of its firmness; the face of a bully, with the heart of a coward. But I will not drag him from the fhade of that retirement in which the compaffion of his country allows him to be forgotten-his fituation is interefting, and difarms refentment-" date obolesm Belifario;"-he poffeffes indeed as little of the qualities, as of the figure of Belifarius, and he loft an empire inftead of defending one: but he is old and blind like Belifarius;-let him but feel for the mischief he has caused, and my charity shall spare him. Without |