poverty and wretchedness; and but too true indications of mifery and want, and

dren; the tender plant is produced, but in fo cold a foil, and fo fevere a climate, foon withers and dies. It is not uncommon in the Highlands of Scotland, for a mother who has borne twenty children not to have two alive. Very few of them arrive at the age of thirteen or fourteen; in some places one half of the children born, die before they are four years of age; in many places before they are seven; and almost every where before they are nine or ten. This great mortality, however, will be found chiefly amongst the children of the common people, who cannot afford to tend them with the fame care as thofe of better ftation.

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations."

This excellent writer, whofe calculations are in general fo accurate and exact, has here ftated facts the most melancholy, truths altogether disgraceful to fociety; hard lot of poverty indeed! and blafted is the foil, if its influence extends to the untimely and unmerited deftruction of the human race. The ftale and hacknied argument, that these things are permitted by Providence for fome wife purpofes unknown to man, muft in this inftance be rejected, because it is apparently a levity of cruelty, to give a numerous offspring to the parent, only to mock and in

fult

of an inferiority of condition, juftifiable upon no grounds whatever, either of revealed religion, or natural equity. The population of North Wales, compared with its extent, is very trifling, and unequal. This may be accounted for from a long chain of causes, but chiefly from the continual state of difcord and warfare, in which the chiefs and princes were always involved, until the final fubjugation of Wales by Edward

fült her with a prospect of happiness, and then leave her to anguish and defpair.

Great Britain is enabled to provide for more than its prefent population, even without the affiftance of any external commerce. And Europe, it is well known, might maintain one hundred millions of fouls more than fhe at prefent does. Government then is the only remaining caufe of all thefe evils: government, which ought to remove every obstacle to popula tion, endeavours to deprefs and retard it; nor is there any hope of amendment, while amongst numerous other causes, the abuse of eftates, the rapacity of finance, and the immense establishment of ftanding ar mies continue to exist.

the

the First, and even then, the inhabitants were treated merely as a conquered people, and admitted to few privileges of the conquerors; for it was not till the time of Henry the Eighth, that they were suffered to have the fame advantages with English fubjects. Secondly, from the fituation of the country, which is too remote for the English land trader, and opposed to a very dangerous fea; added to which its ports are by no means fo commodious and fafe as thofe of England. Thirdly, and principally, the barrennefs of the foil, toge ther with the mountainous nature of the country, and consequently the great difficulty of land carriage, which is the chief obftacle to its internal trade. Thefe are certainly ferious impediments to the flourishing state and profperity of the people; but they are not beyond a remedy, and it ought to become the duty

of

of the legislature to provide every poffible means of improvement, and to endeavour, by wisdom and attention, to remove or diminish those local inconveniences which are a bar to the happiness of the fociety of any particular diftrict or tract of land over which that legislature has dominion'; establish manufactures, hold out rewards for agriculture; in fhort, increase the population of the country by the most approved methods; wealth will follow of course, commerce will be extended, and the now defolated mountains of North Wales may, at least, repay the labour of cultivation, though they can never be fo productive and flourishing as thofe of their fouthern neighbours. We know that Attica was little better than a defart of fand; yet, encouraged by wife laws, the inhabitants overcame the obftructions of nature, and it quickly flourished as the garden of Greece.

Greece. We know the almoft infurmountable obstacles that the great Czar Peter had to encounter; yet, in spite of thefe, affluence smiled upon the industrious exertions of his fubjects, directed by his wisdom to useful employments: the arts found an asylum in the frozen regions of Ruffia, and, from a land of poverty and defolation, it became a great and flourishing empire; but the fole end of governments seems to be forgotten, and, instead of having for their great and ultimate object, the happiness and advantage of that fociety by whom they were instituted; they now seem calculated only for the advantage of a few; and the legislators of nations are become the individual brokers of public property; which, with the lives of mankind, are fquandered away, as ambition or caprice may rule the hour, and dictate to their councils.

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