formerly; but in the experienced benignity of parliament. They are not eafy indeed, nor ever will be fo, under this author's fchemes of taxation; but we fee no longer the fame general fury and confufion, which attended their refiftance to the stamp act. The author may rail at the repeal, and those who propofed it, as he pleases. Thofe honeft men fuffer all his obloquy with pleasure, in the midft of the quiet which they have been the means of giving to their country; and would think his praises for their perfeverance in a pernicious fcheme, a very bad compenfation for the difturbance of our peace, and the ruin of our commerce. Whether the return to the system of 1764, for raifing a revenue in America, the difcontents which have enfued in confequence of it, the general fufpenfion of the affemblies in confequence of these discontents, the use of the military power, and the new and dangerous commiffions which now hang over them, will produce equally good effects, is greatly to be doubted. Never, I fear, will this nation and the colonies fall back upon their true center of gravity, and natural point of repose, until the ideas of 1766 are resumed, and fteadily pursued.

The disturbances have been in Bofton only; and were not in confequence of the late duties.

As to the regulations, a great fubject of the author's accufation, they are of two forts; one of a mixed nature, of revenue and trade; the other fimply relative to trade. With regard to the former I fhall obferve, that, in all deliberations concerning America, the ideas of that adminiftration were principally thefe; to take trade as the primary end, and revenue but as a very fubordinate confideration. Where trade was likely to fuffer, they did not hesitate for an inftant to prefer it to taxes, whofe produce at beft was contemptible, in comparison of the object which they might endanger. The other of their principles was, to fuit the revenue to the object. Where the difficulty of collection, from the nature of the country, and of the revenue establishment, is fo very notorious, it was their policy to hold out as few temptations to fmuggling as poffible, by keeping the duties as nearly as they could on a balance with the risk. On these principles they made many alterations in the port duties of 1764, both in the mode and in the quantity. The author has not attempted to prove them erroneous. He complains enough to fhew that he is in an ill humour, not that his ad verfaries have done amifs. f

As to the regulations which were merely relative to commerce, many were then made; and they were all made upon this principle, that many of the colonies, and those fome of the most abound

ing in people, were fo fituated as to have very few means of traffick with this country. It became therefore our intereft to let them into as much foreign trade as could be given them without interfering with our own; and to fecure by every method the returns to the mother country. Without fome fuch scheme of enlargement, it was obvious that any benefit we could expect from these colonies must be extremely limited. Accordingly many facilities were given to their trade with the foreign plantations, and with the fouthern parts of Europe. As to the confining the returns to this country, administration saw the mischief and folly of a plan of indifcriminate reftraint. They applied their remedy to that part where the disease existed, and to that only; on this idea they eftablished regulations, far more likely to check the dangerous clandeftine trade with Hamburgh and Holland, than this author's friends, or any of their predeceffors had ever done.

The friends of the author have a method furely a little whimfical in all this fort of difcuffions, They have made an innumerable multitude of commercial regulations, at which the trade of England exclaimed with one voice, and many of which have been altered on the unanimous opinion of that trade. Still they go on, just as before, in a fort of droning panegyrick on them→ felves, talking of thefe regulations as prodigies of wifdom;

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wifdom; and, instead of appealing to those who are most affected and the best judges, they turn round in a perpetual circle of their own reafonings and pretences; they hand you over from one of their own pamphlets to another: "See," fay they, this demonftrated in the Regulations of the Colonies." "See this fatisfactorily proved in The Confiderations." By and by we fhall have another; "See for this The State of the Na"tion." I wish to take another method in vindi cating the oppofite system. I refer to the petitions of merchants for thefe regulations; to their thanks when they were obtained; and to the ftrong and grateful fenfe they have ever fince expreffed of the benefits received under that adminiftration.

All administrations have in their commercial regulations been generally aided by the opinion of fome merchants; too frequently by that of a few, and those a fort of favourites: they have been directed by the opinion of one or two merchants, who were to merit in flatteries, and to be paid in contracts; who frequently advised, not for the general good of trade, but for their private advantage. During the adminiftration of which this author complains, the meetings of merchants upon the business of trade were numerous and publick; fometimes at the house of the Marquis of Rockingham; sometimes at Mr. Dowdefwell's; fometimes

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times at Sir George Savile's, an house always open to every deliberation favourable to the liberty or the commerce of his country. Nor were these meetings confined to the merchants of London. Merchants and manufacturers were invited from all the confiderable towns in England. They conferred with the minifters and active members of parliament. No private views, no local interefts prevailed. Never were points in trade fettled upon a larger scale of information. They who attended thefe meetings well know, what minifters they were who heard the moft patiently, who comprehended the moft clearly, and who provided the moft wifely. Let then this author and his friends ftill continue in poffeffion of the practice of exalting their own abilities, in their pamphlets and in the newspapers. They never will perfuade the publick, that the merchants of England were in a general confederacy to facrifice their own interests to those of North America, and to destroy the vent of their own goods in favour of the manufactures of France and Holland.

Had the friends of this author taken these means of information, his extreme terrours of contraband in the Weft India iflands would have been greatly quieted, and his objections to the opening of the ports would have ceafed. He would have learned, from the moft fatisfactory analyfis of the Weft India trade, that we have the advantage in every effential

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