1792 political progre/s of Britain. 24a 
tof the war was to make the people of Boston pay aduty 
of threepence per pound upon tea. The king of Prufsia 
in his letters repeatedly affirmt, that, when they began 
this contest, the parliament of England had certainly 
Seen bitten by a mad dog. 
If idle writers would forbear to pester us with ful- 
some panegyrics on our present happy establifbment, 
I fhould remain silent; but when a nation, in the 
administration of whose government such abuses are 
tolerated, has the stupidity to hold itself up as a mo- 
del of perfection to the world, it must expect the na- 
tural consequences. We look back without satisfac- 
tion, and forward without hope. 
The American war cost us an hundred and fifty mil- 
lions sterling ; and were not the fact incontestible, it 
would seem incredible that the most opulent empire in 
the universe could have supported such ablow. I sup- 
pose thatofthis sum at least fifty millions were never ad- 
vanced* ; and of the remainder, that another fifty mil- 
lions were, happily for mankind, expended in jobs, and 
bubbles of all kinds, and in bribes to the peers, the 
house of commons, and their constituents. This was 
a lefs execrable way of wasting the public money, 
than to have hired an additional twenty thousand 
German ruffians to mafsacre the farmers of Virgi- 
nia and Pensylvania. 
* It js rot wonderful -that.a siejescsbe of ‘such unbounded prodigality 
as North, held out his post for somany years; or that other ministers dis~ 
cover so great a fondnefs for war, and similar destructive and expensive 
undertakings ; or that those who hore to profit by this extravagance fhould 
applaud them for it ; but it is truly wonderful that men of sense fhould have 
continued so long even to applaud such measures. 
VOL, ix. HH + 
