sted in the vast consequences, which
that event must inevitably draw after it. The Ministry have by certain
manoeuvres contrived to keep up the demand for, and price of
manufactures; and while trade and manufactures apparently prosper, the
people are so deaf, that wisdom may cry out in the streets and not be
heard. But the course of the seasons is not more fixed, than it is
certain that these ministerial arts must be temporary in their
operation and fatal in their issue; because the more men are
flattered, the more desperate they are when the calamity comes upon
them. Already the West India Islands begin to cry out, as you will
have seen in the address from the Island of Barbadoes. The great
number of captures lately made of West India ships by the Americans,
have already had very visible effects upon the Royal Exchange. Holland
taking the alarm, which the least movement on the part of France would
produce, must shake our stocks to the foundation, and give an equal
shock to a deluded prince and a deluded people.

The characters you desire me to touch upon are such as seldom occur in
the same period. Lord Sandwich has been noted through a long life for
everything in word and deed, directly opposite to honesty and virtue.
With moderate abilities, and little real application, he maintains an
appearance of both by impositions and professions, which at a time so
averse to inquiry as the present pass for facts. Lord George Germain,
though cradled in England, has all the principles of a Scotchman;
subtle, proud, tyrannical, and false. In consequence of his
patronising the Scots, they have always been his panegyrists and his
advocates, and as they are a people indefatigable in all interested
pursuits, they have procured him a character for ability, which he
very little deserves. Dissimulation and craft in worldly occurrences
too often pass for real wisdom; and, in that sense, Lord George is a
wise man. Such a man could not long pass unnoticed and unpatronised by
a Court, which searches with Lyncean eyes for the basest hearts, and
is actuated by Scotch principles and Scotch counsels. Lord Suffolk is
a peer of sullen pride and arbitrary principles. He listed in the
public cause with Mr Wedderburne, under the banner of George
Grenville; and while his life gave the hope of success in getting
preferment, they were the loudest in opposition; but immediately upon
his death, they made their terms, and have been ever since the most
dev