uses the East India company, as men not
obliged to be political arithmeticians, or to inquire so much, what the
nation loses, as how themselves may grow rich. It is certain, that they,
who drink tea, have no right to complain of those that import it; but if
Mr. Hanway's computation be just, the importation, and the use of it,
ought, at once, to be stopped by a penal law.

The author allows one slight argument in favour of tea, which, in my
opinion, might be, with far greater justice, urged both against that and
many other parts of our naval trade. "The tea-trade employs," he tells
us, "six ships, and five or six hundred seamen, sent annually to China.
It, likewise, brings in a revenue of three hundred and sixty thousand
pounds, which, as a tax on luxury, may be considered as of great utility
to the state." The utility of this tax I cannot find: a tax on luxury is
no better than another tax, unless it hinders luxury, which cannot be
said of the impost upon tea, while it is thus used by the great and the
mean, the rich and the poor. The truth is, that, by the loss of one
hundred and fifty thousand pounds, we procure the means of shifting
three hundred and sixty thousand, at best, only from one hand to
another; but, perhaps, sometimes into hands by which it is not very
honestly employed. Of the five or six hundred seamen, sent to China, I
am told, that sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the
voyage; so that, instead of setting this navigation against the
inconveniencies already alleged, we may add to them, the yearly loss of
two hundred men, in the prime of life; and reckon, that the trade of
China has destroyed ten thousand men, since the beginning of this
century.

If tea be thus pernicious, if it impoverishes our country, if it raises
temptation, and gives opportunity to illicit commerce, which I have
always looked on, as one of the strongest evidences of the inefficacy
of our law, the weakness of our government, and the corruption of our
people, let us, at once, resolve to prohibit it for ever.

"If the question was, how to promote industry most advantageously, in
lieu of our tea-trade, supposing every branch of our commerce to be
already fully supplied with men and money? If a quarter the sum, now
spent in tea, were laid out, annually, in plantations, in making public
gardens, in paving and widening streets, in making roads, in rendering
rivers navigable, erecting palaces, building' bridges, or neat and