As for the reception of it in this Country (and that is cheiffly to be considered, as it is to affect us only), I think I can answer for the Sentiments of all sober Considerate Persons, who, besides the Considerations already stated relateing to the Revenue and the Manufactures, are & must be conscious, that to this rascally practice of running and makeing use of run Tea, the loss of our Bullion and the present poverty of our Country is in a great measure owing. No Man in the Kingdom, in Conversation, contraverts this; and those whom the Prohibition is not to affect, one shou" think, shoud be glad to see it take place. But, besides, there is reason to expect a hearty Concurrence of all Persons of any Condition, from two separate Considerations, which I shall just mention. The first is very generall, & regaurds all Heritors and Tennents or farmers in Scotland: it is grounded on this, that, except in the highlands & some particular Districts, all the Rents in Scotland arise from Grain. In many Countrys the rent is payable in Grain; and where it is payable in money the Tennent or farmer must make money of his Grain before he can pay the rent. Now, as preventing the Consumption of one third or one half of the Grain produced must necessarily, in case of no demand from Abroad (which often happens), lower the price of the whole in a very great proportion, so much must the Heritor or the tennent in the several cases lose of his reall income. And if that loss shod be rated at th of the whole, or 25 per Cent. when the Brewary is no greater than it is at present, and when there is no forreign demand, the computation of the loss wou, I doubt, be too low; and on this consideration I shoud hope the Heritors & farmers of Scotland, who can make the least use of their understanding, must favour the Scheme. The 2 confines itself to the Royall Burghs that have the grant of the 2 pennies on the pint already mentioned; and in these the wrong complained of is cheiffly committed, and the severity of the remedy will be principally felt. I have already taken notice, that the produce of their Grants is fallen with the Excise; and that thereby they, and in particular Edinburgh, are left in a miserable condition, stingleing with their Debts, without any hopes of relief but from the recovery of the Excise. Now, tho' the villanous litle Smuglers in such Burrows, and the mean Creatures who retail or use their Goods, may raise a Cry, yet it is to be hoped the Magistrats that are, that have been, or that hope to be, and all the substantiall part of the Burgesses, will propagate the contrary opinion, and speedily put ane end to the Clamour. By the earnestness with which I contend for this or for some other immediate remedy, your Lordship will be apt to imagine the use of Tea to be the only cause of the decay of the Excise and Malt duty in my opinion, and that this cure alone adhibited will restore these Revenues; and on this subject I must explain myself, by informing your Lop that the excessive use of Brandy, & oy' forreign uncustomed Spirits, has cost this poor Countrey very dear; that it has been from the begining, and continues to be, a very great drawback upon the Revenue; and that if it could be restrained, those Revenues would undoubtedly rise and improve to a certain degree; but then it appears to be certain, that the use of uncustomed spirits never did half the mischief that Tea has done; that these Spirits were as much used, I mean, by the twopenny Drinkers when the Excise run to £40,000. as they are now; and therefor that the vast decay now felt and complained of is cheiffly, tho' perhaps not only, owing to that most mischievous Drug. Now when the use of it is restrained by the intended law, or by any other that may answere the purpose, I shoud hope that, for the further promoteing the Revenues, the strickest orders will be given, to put the Laws against the use of Spirits, especially those that are uncustomed, to due execution. When When I gather together the different sheets of which this Letter is composed, consider the almost intolerable length of it, and view the scarce legible Scrawl in which it is written, I have great reason to beg your pardon, and to entreat your patience. The importance of the subject (as it appeared to me) induced me to bring together every thing that cou'd afford your Lop light; and the recess gave me some spare time to put my thoughts on paper, tho' it did not furnish me with a more legible hand; and I did not think it fitt to trust a Common Clerk with what I now lay before your Lop. If it shall appear proper to you to lay this, or the Abstract of so much of it as you may think materiall, befor those whom it may be necessary to consult with, and whose assistance you must have to extricate us from this difficulty, it may be Copied over fair, or ane Abstract made of it; and if any thing can possibly be done upon it this Season, my Lord Advocat, who is with you, will be able to put a Clause or Clauses in form; and the course of the Post will fetch your Lop from hence any Eclairisement that I can give upon any matters that may want further Explications. I shall by this Post write to Mr. Scrope on the same subject; but, as he is possibly acquainted with the state of the revenue here, my Letter to him shall be very short. I gave Orders many Weeks ago to Copy over for your Lop all the Reports from the Trustees for the Manufactures to the Crown. The Copy is now very near compleat, and it shall soon be transmitted. I shall probably give your Lop the trouble of a note on ane other subject by the next post. Upon glancing over what I have wrote, besides the imperfections already taken notice of, I observe many unaccuracys of expression, and escapes even of spelling, which your Lop will be so good as to overlook; since my paper does not allow me room to correct them, nor my time leisure to make a fair Copy of what I have flung on this paper. I am with perfect respect, My Lord, &c. D: Sir, No. CCXXXVI. The Lord President to Sir Willm Yonge. I IMAGINED that I had been quite forgot by my old acquaintances, which is the reason why you for some time have had no trouble from me; but I have lately been very agreably convinced that I was mistaken, by a letter from Mr. Scrope; who assures me, that upon Mr. Pelham's recommending John Forbes, a near relation of mine, for a pair of Colours, you readily undertook it, with such expressions of friendship for your humble servant, as convinced me, that those who delight in railing at Ministers, ly, when they swear that Memory of former Acquaintance is inconsistent with high and busy Employments. Give me leave, therefore, to return you my thanks for the good will you have expressed; and to assure you, that it will heighten the relish of the favour which I am very desirous to obtain for the Young Man, that it will carry alongst with it evidence of the Continuance of your friendship. I am, 2d June 1744. My Dear S' William, very truely, D: Sir, CCXXXVII. The Lord President to M' Pelham. WHAT brings you this trouble is, a letter I had from my old friend M' Scrope, acquainting me with the very Obliging manner in which you received the application made by him for a pair of Colours to my first Cousin John Forbes. Favours I have ever been shy of begging; and never could bring myself once up to ask them, but from the Man to whom I wished to owe them; that is, whose good will I was confident of, and to whom doing Service in my turn would be to me a sensible satisfaction. It was for this reason, and because I did not know that any such person had for some time past the bestowing Commissions, that I made no application for my young friend; but now, that I learn, with very great satisfaction, that it is not pressing you (from whom I have received many, and those early marks of friendship,) to go out of your way, when I intreat that you may procure this favour for me, I without the least hesitation renew the application that Mr. Scrope made in my name'; and, at the same time, return you the thanks of an Old friend & sincere well wisher for the forward steps which, as he tells me, you have already taken, to accomplish what I aim at. I wish it may be in my power to show you, by reall services, how much I am, D' Sir, your much obliged, and M. F. H. S. 2a June 1744. My Dear Lord, No. CCXXXVIII. Chief Baron Idle to the Lord President. Westow, Nov 6, 1744. A NEW correspondent arises to your view; but one who will not give you the trouble of sending an Answer to the message which this bears, but hopes to receive your Lordship's Commands in person. It brings you my sincere wishes of health to undergo the fatigues of the term; but chiefly this is design'd to present my Lord Chancellor's Compliments to you, which I received in command here, by Letter sent to Dalry, after I had left Scotland in August last; and as I cannot deliver myself better than in my Lord's own words, I shall beg leave to transcribe them: "I beg you "would assure my Lord President of the grateful sense I have of his goodness to me; " and that he has not any where a more faithful servant. I heartily congratulate him "on the success of his pamphlet, which at the same time does honour both to himself "and his Countrymen; to the first, as an excellent public-spirited writer; and to the " latter, as being capable of being wrought upon by reason and solid argument*. "cannot but wish that he would take the pen into his hand again, and write a second 66 part for England; which, in truth, wants to be converted on that subject." These are my Lord's own Words; and I think I could not have done justice to him and your Lordship without transcribing them. I fully intended [to] have been at Dalry before the beginning of the term; but have been prevented by different accidents, by bad weather, and, allow me the paradox, by good weather. Add to this, my mother has been so ill, that I thought she would have died; but she is better, and I hope to set out this week. I have the honour to be, My Dear Lord, I Your Lordship's most faithful and affectionate Servant, This alludes to a pamphlet of the President's against Smuggling. No. CCXXXIX. My Lord, No. CCXXXIX. From Sir Andrew Mitchell to the Lord President. Whitehall, 26th Jan 1744-5. THE Assurances you was pleased to give me of the continuance of your friendship and regard will, whatever happen, be a great comfort and satisfaction to me; as the approbation of those I honor and esteem is a reward more desirable than riches and reputation. When your Lordship asked from me an explication of the late phenomenon in Politicks, you had certainly forgot that it is far more hard to give a true solution of a Political Phenomenon than of a natural one; because in the one, there are certain unalterable and established laws, by which from the effect produced the cause may be conjectured; whereas in the other, the principles are not fixed nor determined, and, the appearances being generally deceitful and fallacious, it is almost impossible from the effect to trace the Cause. I shall however, in obedience to your Commands, give you my opinion upon the whole. Your Lop must already be fully informed of the imperfect & unnatural coalition that happened three years ago; the consequence of which was a violent and early jealousy, that shewed itself on every occasion, between the old and the new administration. His Majesty's going abroad, and what happened in consequence of it, gave an opportunity to those at home to impute all mismanagements before, at, and after the affair of Dettingen, to a certain person that attended his Majesty; and it was as pub. lickly said, as it was believed, that that Noble Lord was willing to sacrifice the interest of his country, and every thing that was dear or valuable, to the passion of his Master, in order to gain his ear and favor. How far this Charge is true, it is needless for me to determine; but it served the purpose fully; for it was believed. During his Majesty's absence, much Court was made to Lord Cobham, &c.; but the negotiation miscarried at that time, though it was intended to be put in execution at the beginning of the Sessions of Parliament 1743. The business of last Session was carried through with considerable opposition, and supported but weakly by those who had undertaken the management of it; and in such a way as to declare that the measures then pursued were none of theirs. The perfidy of the K. of Prussia, which defeated all schemes in Germany, and the late inglorious Campaign in Flanders, which occasioned much discontent at home, were laid to the charge of this Minister; as were likewise the slowness of the Dutch, and the caution of the D. of Arenberg. At this time when the nation had been industriously made to believe that the Minister had only in view to prolong the War, in order thoroughly to establish his Credit with his Master, it is not to be wondered at, that the Brothers thought proper to strike in with those they had so long treated with; and as chance had placed one of them at the head of the finances, you will not be surprized that his Majesty, circumstanced as the nation is at present, was obliged, tho' much agt his will, to agree to all the demands that were made-This however he could not do without showing an open & a strong resentment; and it is reported, that when Particulars have been mentioned to him, that he has said, Do as you will; but, remember, you must answer for it to the NATION. Though I think the means made use of to bring about this late change have been rather too rough and harsh, yet I heartily wish that the whole may not suffer for it; and that the same measures may be followed abroad which have hitherto gained honour & reputation to this Country; in which providence seems remarkably to have favoured favoured this nation. I might give, for instance, the news that came last night by Express, of the death of the Emperor on the 20th N. S.; by which as the League of Frankfort is dissolved, and Germans are once more at liberty to chuse a Master for themselves, unawed by the perfidious Arms of France and Prussia, it is to be hoped that the ballance of power will be recovered by restoring the imperial Crown to the house of Austria. Lord President. I ever am, most affectionately, Your obliged and humble Servant, A. M. No. CCXL. My Lord, The same to the same. Whitehall, 29 Jan" 1744-5. AS I gave your Lordship, in my last, some account of what has lately happened, I shall now inform you who were said to be the principal actors in that affair; and as your Lop is well acquainted with their characters and connexions, little more will be necessary than barely to name them. After the Brothers, the next in Dignity, as well as in Ability, is the Lord Chancellor, who, they say, spoke to his M. with great Zeal and Steadiness. The D. of Dorset, whose caution and submission have been remarkable on former occasions, yet was warm on this; and it was said that he had Ireland in view; but his prospect since the change is greatly lengthened. The D. of Richmond and Devonshire joined in the Cabal; and the Earl of Harrington was a necessary man, as the only person of this Sect that was qualified to take care of foreign Affairs; but it was said that he had taken care not to involve himself so far as to become obnoxious to his master. The managers for the Whig part of the opposition were, Lord Chesterfield, Cobham, Mr. Waller, & Mr. Pitt; and for the other, Lord Gower & Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. After the K. had parted with his minister, the claims of the different pretenders were with some difficulty settled in the space of four weeks; and the changes of which I formerly acquainted you were made in consequence of it; but but you will easily believe, from considering the numbers, that the party are not yet satisfied; some have already expressed their disapprobation as warmly as others of the old party have their discontent, that any of the Tories should be taken in. Upon the whole, I believe, the Gentlemen who have come into place will have credit enough with their party to prevent any considerable opposition during this Seffion of Parl'; how much farther their influence may extend, I will not venture to guess. I was surprised to find my name in the Scots papers, that came by last post, for a place in Ireland, which is absolutely without foundation. There was indeed some weeks ago a report of my being named Secretary to the Lords Justices; for which as I knew of no Authority, I never was at the pains to trace it. I mention this because I know the share your Lop takes in any thing that concerns me; and that I desire nothing so much as your advice how to regulate my conduct, whatever may happen to me. You will excuse this freedom, and believe me, with sincere truth and affection, Lord President. Your obliged humble Serv', No. CCXLI. |