the governing of this kingdom costs the
lord lieutenant two thousand four hundred pounds a year,[13] so much
_net_ loss to poor England. That the people of Ireland presume to dig
for coals in their own grounds, and the farmers in the county of Wicklow
send their turf to the very market of Dublin, to the great
discouragement of the coal trade at Mostyn and Whitehaven. That the
revenues of the post-office here, so righteously belonging to the
English treasury, as arising chiefly from our own commerce with each
other, should be remitted to London, clogged with that grievous burthen
of exchange, and the pensions paid out of the Irish revenues to English
favourites, should lie under the same disadvantage, to the great loss of
the grantees. When a divine is sent over to a bishopric here, with the
hopes of five-and-twenty hundred pounds a year; upon his arrival, he
finds, alas! a dreadful discount of ten or twelve _per cent._ A judge or
a commissioner of the revenue has the same cause of complaint."--Lastly,

"The ballad upon Cotter is vehemently suspected to be Irish manufacture;
and yet is allowed to be sung in our open streets, under the very nose
of the government."[14] These are a few among the many hardships we put
upon that _poor_ kingdom of England; for which I am confident every
honest man wishes a remedy: And I hear there is a project on foot for
transporting our best wheaten straw by sea and land carriage to
Dunstable; and obliging us by a law to take off yearly so many ton of
straw hats for the use of our women, which will be a great encouragement
to the manufacture of that industrious town.

I should be glad to learn among the divines, whether a law to bind men
without their own consent, be obligatory _in foro conscientiae_; because
I find Scripture, Sanderson and Suarez are wholly silent in the matter.
The oracle of reason, the great law of nature, and general opinion of
civilians, wherever they treat of limited governments, are indeed
decisive enough.

It is wonderful to observe the bias among our people in favour of
things, persons, and wares of all kinds that come from England. The
printer tells his hawkers that he has got "an excellent new song just
brought from London." I have somewhat of a tendency that way myself; and
upon hearing a coxcomb from thence displaying himself with great
volubility upon the park, the playhouse, the opera, the gaming
ordinaries, it was apt to beget in me a kind of veneration f