fall by the judgment of the
serious part of mankind; wherein they shall correct me I will kiss the
rod and suffer with patience; but if a pack of hackney scribblers shall
attack me only by way of a get-penny, I shall not be provoked to answer
them, be they never so scurrilous, lest I be accounted as one of them.

TO LIEUTENANT-COLONEL SAMUEL ROBINSON.

SIR,

I shall congratulate you on your election into the chamberlainship of
the city of London, or otherwise, as you shall acquit yourself in
answering candidly and impartially to the following queries.

I. whether there is not money sufficient in the chamber of London to pay
off the orphan's fund? Or if not a sufficient sum, what sum it is, and
what is the deficiency? How long it has lain there, and what interest
has been made upon it?

II. If there are not considerable arrears due from many wards, and what
those arrears are?

III. Who are these poor orphans we pay so much money to? and whether
they are not some of the richest men in the city of London, who have got
the stock into their own hands, and find it so snug a fund they do not
care to get out of it.

IV. If it would not be much better to gather in the arrears, join them
to the money in the office, and collect the overplus at once, rather
than suffer the tax to become eternal, and to pay so much interest.

This is but a reasonable request; and if colonel Robinson is the honest
gentleman fame reports him to be, he will make no scruple to give a
ready answer. And indeed it will be but a handsome return made to his
fellow citizens for their choice of him, to begin his office with such
an act of justice, honesty, and public satisfaction, for many people do
not know what is meant by the orphan's tax; they pay it with remorse,
and think themselves aggrieved. Even those who know the reason of the
fund think it has been continued long enough, wish it were once paid
off, suspect some secret in the affair, and give their tongues the
liberty all losers claim; Our fathers, say they, have eaten sour grapes,
and our teeth are set on edge, we are visited for their transgressions,
and may be to the world's end, unless we shall find an honest
chamberlain who will unveil this cloudy affair, and gives us a prospect
of relief.

Thus, sir, it lies at your door to gain the applause of the whole city,
a few misers excepted, by a generous and gentlemanlike discovery of this
affair. And you are thus publicly called u