two hundred men in the prime of life; and reckon, that the trade of China has deftroyed ten thousand men fince 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 ftrongeft evidences of the inefficacy of our law, the weakness of our government, and the corruption of our people, let us at once refolve 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 fupplied with men and money? If

a quarter the fum now spent in Tea, were laid out annually in plantations, in making publick gar"dens, in paving and widening streets, in making "roads, in rendering rivers navigable, erecting pa"laces, building bridges, or neat and convenient

boufes, where are now only buts; draining lands, "or rendering those which are now barren of some ufe; fhould we not be gainers, and provide more "for health, pleasure, and long life, compared "with the confequences of the Tea-trade?”

Our riches would be much better employed to thefe purposes; but if this project does not pleafe, let us first refolve to fave our money, and we fhall afterwards very easily find ways to spend it.

TO A

PAPER in the GAZETTEER of May 26, 1757

IT

T is obferved in the fage Gil Blas, that an exafperated author is not eafily pacified. I have, therefore, very little hope of making my peace with the writer of the Eight Days Journey: indeed fo little, that I have long deliberated whether I fhould not rather fit filently down under his difpleasure, than aggravate my misfortune by a defence of which my heart forbodes the ill fuccefs. Deliberation is often ufelefs. I am afraid that I have at last made the wrong choice; and that I might better have refigned my caufe, without a ftruggle, to time and fortune, fince I fhall run the hazard of a new offence, by the neceffity of asking him, why he is angry.

Distress and terror often difcover to us those faults with which we fhould never have reproached ourselves in a happy ftate. Yet, dejected as I am, when I review the tranfaction between me and this writer, I cannot find that I have been deficient in reverence. When his book was first printed, he hints that I procured a fight of it before it was published. How the fight of it was procured I

From the Literary Magazine, Vol. II. Page 253.

do not now very exactly remember; but if my curiofity was greater than my prudence, if I laid rafh hands on the fatal volume, I have furely fufferedlike him who burft the box from which evil rushed into the world.

I took it, however, and infpected it as the work of an author not higher than myfelf; and was confirmed in my opinion, when I found that thefe letters were not written to be printed. I concluded however, that though not written to be printed, they were printed to be read, and inferted one of them in the collection of November laft. Not many days after I received a note, informing me, that I ought to have waited for a more correct edition. This injunction was obeyed. The edition appeared, and I fuppofed myself at liberty to tell my thoughts upon it, as upon any other book, upon a royal manifefto, or an act of parliament. But fee the fate of ignorant temerity! I now find, but find too late, that inftead of a writer whofe only power is in his pen, I have irritated an important member of an important corporation; a man who, as he tells us in his letters, puts horfes to his chariot.

It was allowed to the difputant of old to yield up the controverfy with little refiftance to the master of forty legions. Those who know how weakly naked truth can defend her advocates, would forgive me if I fhould pay the fame respect to a Governor of the Foundlings. Yet the confcioufnefs of my own rectitude of intention incites me to ask once again, how I have offended.

There are only three fubjects upon unlucky pen has happened to venture.

which my

Tea; the

author

author of the Journal; and the Foundling Hofpital.

Of Tea what have I faid? that I have drank it twenty years without hurt, and therefore believe it not to be poison: that if it dries the fibres, it cannot foften them; that if it conftringes, it cannot relax. I have modeftly doubted whether it has diminished the ftrength of our men, or the beauty of our women; and whether it much hinders the progress of our woollen or iron manufactures; but I allowed it to be a barren fuperfluity, neither medicinal nor nutricious, that neither fupplied ftrength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved wearinefs, nor exhilarated forrow: I inferted, without charge or fufpicion of falsehood, the fums exported to purchase it; and proposed a law to prohibit it for ever.

Of the author I unfortunately faid, that his injunction was fomewhat too magifterial. This I faid before I knew that he was a Governor of the Foundlings; but he feems inclined to punish this failure of respect, as the czar of Muscovy made war upon Sweden, because he was not treated with fufficient honours when he paffed through the country in difguife. Yet was not this irreverence without extenuation. Something was faid of the merit of meaning well, and the Journalist was declared to be a man whofe failings might well be pardoned for his virtues. This is the highest praife which human gratitude can confer upon human merit; praife that would have more than fatisfied Titus or Auguftus, but which I muft own to be inadequate and penurious, when offered to the member of an important corporation.

I am afked whether I meant to fatirize the man or criticize the writer, when I fay that he believes, only perhaps because he has inclination to believe it, that the English and Dutch confume more Tea than the vaft empire of China? Between the writer and the man I did not at that time confider the diftinction. The writer I found not of more than mortal might, and I did not immediately recollect that the man put horfes to his chariot. But I did not write wholly without confideration. I knew but two caufes of belief, evidence and inclination. What evidence the Journalist could have of the Chinese confumption of Tea, I was not able to difcover. The officers of the Eaft-India Company are excluded, they beft know why, from the towns and the country of China; they are treated as we treat gypfies and vagrants, and obliged to retire every night to their own hovel. What intelligence fuch travellers may bring is of no great importance, And though the miffionaries boaft of having once penetrated further, I think they have never calculated the Tea drank by the Chinese. There being thus no evidence for his opinion, to what could I afcribe it but to inclination?

I am yet charged more heavily for having said, that he has no intention to find any thing right at bome, I believe every reader reftrained this imputation to the fubject which produced it, and fuppofed me to infinuate only that he meant to spare no part of the Tea-table, whether effence or circumftance. But this line he has felected as an inftance of virulence and acrimony, and confutes it by a lofty and splendid panegyrick on himself. He

afferts,