ous in English money, that one is to heal, the
other to destroy us? To say that the landed interest _could_ not
continue to pay it for a year or two longer, is more than the author
will attempt to prove. To say that they _would_ pay it no longer, is to
treat the landed interest, in my opinion, very scurvily. To suppose that
the gentry, clergy, and freeholders of England do not rate the commerce,
the credit, the religion, the liberty, the independency of their
country, and the succession of their crown, at a shilling in the pound
land-tax! They never gave him reason to think so meanly of them. And, if
I am rightly informed, when that measure was debated in Parliament, a
very different reason was assigned by the author's great friend, as well
as by others, for that reduction: one very different from the critical
and almost desperate state of our finances. Some people then endeavored
to prove, that the reduction might be made without detriment to the
national credit, or the due support of a proper peace establishment;
otherwise it is obvious that the reduction could not be defended in
argument. So that this author cannot despair so much of the
commonwealth, without this American and Irish revenue, as he pretends to
do. If he does, the reader sees how handsomely he has provided for us,
by voting away one revenue, and by giving us a pamphlet on the other.

I do not mean to blame the relief which was then given by Parliament to
the land. It was grounded on very weighty reasons. The administration
contended only for its continuance for a year, in order to have the
merit of taking off the shilling in the pound immediately before the
elections; and thus to bribe the freeholders of England with their own
money.

It is true, the author, in his estimate of ways and means, takes credit
for 400,000_l._ a year, _Indian Revenue_. But he will not very
positively insist, that we should put this revenue to the account of his
plans or his power; and for a very plain reason: we are already near two
years in possession of it. By what means we came to that possession, is
a pretty long story; however, I shall give nothing more than a short
abstract of the proceeding, in order to see whether the author will take
to himself any part in that measure.

The fact is this; the East India Company had for a good while solicited
the ministry for a negotiation, by which they proposed to pay largely
for some advantages in their trade, and for the renewa