darce of workmen, as does alfo the increafed luxury and fplendour of living of the inhabitants thus made richer. Thefe workmen all demand and obtain much higher wages than any other part of the world would afford them, and are paid in ready money. This rank of people therefore do not, or ought not, to complain of hard times; and they make a very confiderable part of the city inhabitants,

At the diftance I live from our American fisheries, I cannot fpeak of them with any degree of certainty; but I have not heard that the labour of the valuable race of men employed in them is worse paid, or that they meet with less fuccefs, than before the revolution. The whale-men indeed have been deprived of one market for their oil; but another, I hear, is opening for them, which it is hoped may be equally advantageous; and the demand is conftantly increasing

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for their fpermaceti candles, which therefore bear a much higher price than formerly.

There remain the merchants and shopkeepers. Of thefe, though they make but a fmall part of the whole nation, the number is confiderable, too great indeed for the business they are employed in; for the confumption of goods in every country has its limits; the faculties of the people, that is, their ability to buy and pay, is equal only to a certain quantity of merchandize. If merchants calculate amifs on this proportion, and import too much, they will of course find the fale dull for the overplus, and fome of them will fay that trade languishes. They should, and doubtless will, grow wifer by experience, and import lefs. If too many artificers in town, and farmers from the country, flattering themselves with the idea of leading easier lives, turn hopkeepers, the whole natural quantity

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of that bufinefs divided among them all may afford too fmall a fhare for each, and occafion complaints that trading is dead; thefe may alfo fuppofe that it is owing to scarcity of money, while, in fact, it is not fo much from the fewness of buyers, as from the exceffive number of fellers, that the mischief arises; and, if every fhopkeeping farmer and mechanic would return to the use of his plough and working tools, there would remain of widows, and other women, fhopkeepers fufficient for the bufinefs, which might then afford them a comfortable maintenance.

Whoever has travelled through the various parts of Europe, and obferved how small is the proportion of people in affluence or easy circumstances there, compared with those in poverty and mifery; the few rich and haughty landlords, the multitude of poor, abject, rack

rented, tythe-paying tenants, and halfpaid

paid and half-starved ragged labourers; and views here the happy mediocrity that fo generally prevails throughout thefe ftates, where the cultivator works for himself, and fupports his family in decent plenty; will, methinks, fee abundant reafon to blefs Divine Providence for the evident and great difference in our favour, and be convinced that no nation known to us enjoys a greater share of human felicity. ..

It is true, that in fome of the states there are parties and difcords; but let us look back, and afk if we were ever without them? Such will exift wherever there is liberty; and perhaps they help to preferve it. By the collifion of dif ferent fentiments, fparks of truth are ftruck out, and political light is obtained. The different factions, which at present divide us, aim all at the public good; the differences are only about the various modes of promoting it. Things, actions, measures,

measures, and objects of all kinds, prefent themselves to the minds of men in fuch a variety of lights, that it is not poffible we should all think alike at the fame time on every fubject, when hardly the fame man retains at all times the fame ideas of it. Parties are therefore the common lot of humanity; and ours are by no means more mischievous or less beneficial than those of other countries, nations, and ages, enjoying in the fame degree the great bleffing of political liberty.

Some indeed among us are not fo much grieved for the prefent ftate of our affairs, as apprehenfive for the future. The growth of luxury alarms them, and they think we are from that alone in the high road to ruin. They obferve, that no revenue is fufficient without œconomy, and that the most plentiful income of a whole people from the natu-. ral productions of their country may be diffipated

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