reater, and the deficiency of course will be less. It may too be far
otherwise. A fair and judicious financier will not, as this writer has
done, for the sake of making out a specious account, select a favorable
year or two, at remote periods, and ground his calculations on those. In
1768 he will not take the deficiencies of 1753 and 1754 for his
standard. Sober men have hitherto (and must continue this course, to
preserve this character,) taken indifferently the mediums of the years
immediately preceding. But a person who has a scheme from which he
promises much to the public ought to be still more cautious; he should
ground his speculation rather on the lowest mediums because all new
schemes are known to be subject to some defect or failure not foreseen;
and which therefore every prudent proposer will be ready to allow for,
in order to lay his foundation as low and as solid as possible. Quite
contrary is the practice of some politicians. They first propose
savings, which they well know cannot be made, in order to get a
reputation for economy. In due time they assume another, but a different
method, by providing for the service they had before cut off or
straitened, and which they can then very easily prove to be necessary.
In the same spirit they raise magnificent ideas of revenue on funds
which they know to be insufficient. Afterwards, who can blame them, if
they do not satisfy the public desires? They are great artificers but
they cannot work without materials.

These are some of the little arts of great statesmen. To such we leave
them, and follow where the author leads us, to his next resource, the
Foundling Hospital. Whatever particular virtue there is in the mode of
this saving, there seems to be nothing at all new, and indeed nothing
wonderfully important in it. The sum annually voted for the support of
the Foundling Hospital has been in a former Parliament limited to the
establishment of the children then in the hospital. When they are
apprenticed, this provision will cease. It will therefore fall in more
or less at different times; and will at length cease entirely. But,
until it does, we cannot reckon upon it as the saving on the
establishment of any given year: nor can any one conceive how the author
comes to mention this, any more than some other articles, as a part of a
_new_ plan of economy which is to retrieve our affairs. This charge will
indeed cease in its own time. But will no other succeed to it? Ha