236. political progrefs of Britain. Fune 20. 
a part of those incredible fhoals of cod, herting, and 
other watery tribes, which nature has with such asto- 
nifhing prodigality poured on the western coasts of 
Scotland. An hundredth or even a thousandth part’ 
of the millions expended in this war, would have been 
sufficient to found a colony of fifhermen in the He- 
brides worth all our foreign pofsefsions put together. 
But such a colony would not have answered the pur- 
poses of ministerial corruption. They would not. 
have entangled us in a quarrel with the rest of Eu- 
rope. They would not have supplied our rulers 
with a plausible pretence for loading the public with 
extravagant debts. We are forced to think that the 
chief object of ministers is to tear money from the 
very entrails of the nation, to serve the vile ends of. 
parade and luxury, or the viler end of buying a ma- 
jority in our virtuous House of Commons. Hence 
vevery succefsive administration fatigues, us with a 
new series of absurdities. For a century past, the 
history of Britain * fhould be entitled “‘ The progrefs 
“* of Injustice conducted by Folly.” Our affairs can- 
not, in future, be worse managed than they have 
been +; and on this topic it is now full time to be se- 
* It might with equal propriety be said the history of Europe. Edit. 
+ For excmple, ‘© In the course of the late war, from 1776 to 1782, 
*< forty-six millions five hundred and fifty thousand pounds were added 
a 
© to the threz per cezts. and twenty-rtine millions seven hundred and 
“© fifty thousand pounds to the four fer cents. making together a capital 
‘¢ of seventy-three millions four hundred thousand pounds, for which the 
£¢ money advanced was cnly forty-eight milliens.’ Guthrie’s Grammar, 
edition xi. p. 295. The writer has here committed a mistake. “The 
two sums nominally borrowed, when added, amount to seventy-six millions 
three hundred thousand ponnds. After subtracting the sums actually re- 
ceived, there is a balance of premium amounting to tsverty-eight milliens 
