t discount the very first
day of its opening. Here is our only national security from ruin; a
security upon which no man in his senses would venture a shilling of his
fortune. Yet he puts down those articles as gravely in his supply for
the peace establishment, as if the money had been all fairly lodged in
the exchequer.

American revenue L200,000
Ireland 100,000

Very handsome indeed! But if supply is to be got in such a manner,
farewell the lucrative mystery of finance! If you are to be credited for
savings, without showing how, why, or with what safety, they are to be
made; and for revenues, without specifying on what articles, or by what
means, or at what expense, they are to be collected; there is not a
clerk in a public office who may not outbid this author, or his friend,
for the department of chancellor of the exchequer; not an apprentice in
the city, that will not strike out, with the same advantages, the same,
or a much larger plan of supply.

Here is the whole of what belongs to the author's scheme for saving us
from impending destruction. Take it even in its most favorable point of
view, as a thing within possibility; and imagine what must be the wisdom
of this gentleman, or his opinion of ours, who could first think of
representing this nation in such a state, as no friend can look upon but
with horror, and scarcely an enemy without compassion, and afterwards
of diverting himself with such inadequate, impracticable, puerile
methods for our relief! If these had been the dreams of some unknown,
unnamed, and nameless writer, they would excite no alarm; their weakness
had been an antidote to their malignity. But as they are universally
believed to be written by the hand, or, what amounts to the same thing,
under the immediate direction, of a person who has been in the
management of the highest affairs, and may soon be in the same
situation, I think it is not to be reckoned amongst our greatest
consolations, that the yet remaining power of this kingdom is to be
employed in an attempt to realize notions that are at once so frivolous,
and so full of danger. That consideration will justify me in dwelling a
little longer on the difficulties of the nation, and the solutions of
our author.

I am then persuaded that he cannot be in the least alarmed about our
situation, let his outcry be what he pleases. I will give him a reason
for my opinion