dit on this head, for the faving of a fingle fhilling. As to thofe favings which are already made, or in courfe of being made, whether right or wrong, he has nothing at all to do with them; they can be no part of his project, confidered as a plan of reformation. I greatly fear that the errour has not lately been on the fide of profusion.

Another head is the faving on the army and ordnance extraordinaries, particularly in the American branch. What or how much reduction may be made, none of us, I believe, can with any fairnefs pretend to fay; very little, I am convinced. The state of America is extremely unfettled; more troops have been fent thither; new difpofitions have been made; and this augmentation of number, and change of difpofition, has rarely, I believe, the effect of leffening the bill for extraordinaries, which, if not this year, yet in the next we muft certainly feel. Care has not been wanting to introduce œconomy into that part of the fervice. The author's great friend has made, I admit, fome regulations; his immediate fucceffors have made more and better. This part will be handled more ably and more minutely at another time: but no one can cut down this bill of extraordinaries at his pleasure. The author has given us nothing, but his word, for any certain or confiderable reduction; and this we ought to be the more cautious in taking, as he has promifed great favings in his Confiderations,

Confiderations, which he has not chofen to abide by in his State of the Nation.

On this head alfo of the American extraordinaries, he can take credit for nothing. As to his next, the leffening of the deficiency of the land and malt tax, particularly of the malt tax; any perfon the leaft converfant in that fubject cannot avoid a finile. This deficiency arifes from charge of collection, from anticipation, and from defective produce. What has the author faid on the reduction of any head of this deficiency upon the land tax? On these points he is abfolutely filent. As to the deficiency on the malt tax, which is chiefly owing to a defective produce, he has, and can have nothing to propofe. If this deficiency fhould be leffened by the increafe of malting in any years more than in others, (as it is a greatly fluctuating object), how much of this obligation fhall we owe to this author's miniftry? will it not be the cafe under any administration? must it not go to the general fervice of the year, in fome way or other, let the finances be in whofe hands they will? But why take credit for fo extremely reduced a deficiency at all? I can tell him he has no rational ground for it in the produce of the year 1767; and I fufpe&t will have full as little reafon from the produce of the year 1768. That produce may indeed become greater, and the defici

ency

ency of courfe will be lefs. It may too be far otherwife. A fair and judicious financier will not, as this writer has done, for the fake of making out a specious account, felect a favourable year or two, at remote periods, and ground his calculations on thofe. In 1768 he will not take the deficiencies of 1753 and 1754 for his standard. Sober men have hitherto (and muft continue this courfe to preferve this character) taken indifferently the mediums of the years immediately preeeding. But a perfon who has a scheme from which he promises much to the publick ought to be ftill more cautious; he fhould ground his fpeculation rather on the loweft mediums; because all new fchemes are known to be fubject to fome defect or failure not forefeen; and which therefore every prudent propofer will be ready to allow for, in order to lay his foundation as low and as folid as poffible. Quite contrary is the practice of fome politicians. They firft propofe favings, which they well know cannot be made, in order to get a reputation for œconomy. In due time they affume another, but a different method, by providing for the fervice they had before cut off or ftraitened, and which they can then very eafily prove to be neceffary. In the fame fpirit they raife magnificent ideas of revenue on funds which they know to be infufficient. Afterwards, who can blame them,

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them, if they do not fatisfy the publick defires? They are great artificers; but they cannot work without materials.

men.

These are fome of the little arts of great ftatefTo fuch we leave them, and follow where the author leads us, to his next refource, the Foundling-hofpital. Whatever particular virtue there is in the mode of this faving, there feems to be nothing at all new, and indeed nothing wonderfully important in it. The fum annually voted for the fupport of the Foundling-hospital has been in a former parliament limited to the establishment of the children then in the hofpital. When they are apprenticed, this provifion will ceafe. It will therefore fall in more or lefs at different times; and will at length ceafe entirely. But, until it does, we cannot reckon upon it as the faving on the establishment of any given year: nor can any one conceive how the author comes to mention this, any more than fome other articles, as a part of a new plan of economy which is to retrieve our affairs. This charge will indeed ceafe in its own time. But will no other fucceed to it? Has he ever known the publick free from fome contingent charge, either for the juft fupport of royal dignity, or for national magnificence, or for publick charity, or for publick fervice? does he chufe to flatter his readers that no fuch will ever return? or does he in good earnest declare, that let the reafeb

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fon, or neceffity, be what they will, he is refolved not to provide for fuch fervices?

Another resource of oeconomy yet remains, for he gleans the field very closely, £.1,800 for the American furveys. Why what fignifies a dispute about trifles? he fhall have it. But while he is carrying it off, I fhall juft whifper in his ear, that neither the faving that is allowed, nor that which is doubted of, can at all belong to that future propofed administration, whose touch is to cure all our evils. Both the one and the other belong equally (as indeed all the reft do) to the present administration, to any administration; because they are the gift of time, and not the bounty of the exchequer.

I have now done with all the minor preparatory parts of the author's fcheme, the feveral articles of faving which he propofes. At length comes the capital operation, his new refources. Three hundred thousand pounds a year from America and Ireland.--Alas! alas! if that too fhould fail us, what will become of this poor undone nation? The author in a tone of great humility, hopes they may be induced to pay it. Well, if that be all, we may hope fo too: and for any light he is pleased to give us into the ground of this hope, and the ways and means of this inducement, here is a speedy end both of the queftion and the revenue.

It is the conftant cuftom of this author, in all his writings, to take it for granted, that he has