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 raifes temptation, and gives opportunity to illicit commerce, which I have always looked on as one of the strongeft 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, fuppofing every branch of our commerce to be already fully fupplied with men and money? If "a quarter the fum now fpent in Tea, were laid out

annually in plantations, in making publick gar"dens, in paving and widening ftreets, in making roads, in rendering rivers navigable, erecting pa"laces, building bridges, or neat and convenient

benfes, where are now only buts; draining lands, "or rendering thofe which are now barren of fome "fe; fhould we not be gainers, and provide more "for health, pleafure, and long life, compared "with the confequences of the Tea-trade?"

Our riches would be much better employed to thefe purpofes; but if this project does not pleafe, let us fiift refolve to fave our money, and we fhall afterwards very eafily 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 easily 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 should not rather fit filently down under his difpleasure, than aggravate my misfortune by a defence of which my heart forbodes the ill fuccess. 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 afking him, why he is angry.

Distress and terror often difcover to us those faults with which we should never have reproached ourselves in a happy state. 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 fuffered like 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 myfelf at liberty to tell my thoughts upon it, as upon any other book, upon a royal manifesto, 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 mafter of forty legions. Thofe who know how weakly naked truth can defend her advocates, would forgive me if I fhould pay the fame refpect 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 which my unlucky pen has happened to venture. 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 poifon: 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 strength 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 weariness, nor exhilarated forrow: I inferted, without charge or fufpicion of falsehood, the fums exported to purchase it; and propofed a law to prohibit it for ever.

Of the author I unfortunately faid, that his injunction was somewhat too magifterial. This I faid before I knew that he was a Governor of the Foundlings; but he seems 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 bis virtues. This is the highest praise which human gratitude can confer upon human merit; praise that would have more than fatisfied Titus or Auguftus, but which I must own to be inadequate and penurious, when offered to the member of an important corporation.

I am asked 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 boast 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 faid, that he has no intention to find any thing right at Leme. 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 circumfance. 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,