154 eulogium on the minister. Mcirh 23, 



to pay, -whicli in many cases amount to more than ten 

 times what government draws •, and fewer still are ca- 

 pable of making any estimation of the retardment to the 

 progrefs of manufactures in various parts of the country, 

 that this circumstance occasions, and consequently the 

 universal check it gives to the industry of the people, 

 and their internal prosperity. But these object^, though 

 of prodigious moment, I must at present decline to enu- 

 merate, that I may find room to say a few woiUs on the 

 still more important businefs of the salt duty. 



The fiftieries on the coasts of Britain have been, for 

 ages past, accounted aa Inexhaustible fund of wealth, of 

 prosperity, and of strength to this nation. Many volumes 

 have been written on this subject ; infinite sums have 

 been expended by adventurers in the fiflieries, by govern- 

 ment in premiums to encourage it, and by public spirited 

 bodies of men effectually to establifli that businefs ; yet, 

 in spite of all these great efforts, they are not at this 

 moment an object of any importance, considered in a 

 national view. And had the efforts been a hundred 

 times greater, while our present salt laws fliall be suffered 

 to remain In force, it cannot be otherwise ; for these laws 

 as effectually preclude the only persons In this island, who 

 ever can carry on the fiflieries with profit, from engaging 

 In that businefs, as a rope tied around the wrists and 

 sncles of any person, would preclude him from the exer- 

 cise of swimming. Sorry I am that I must here use a 

 language that will to most of my readers appear to be 

 enigmatical. The salt laws, as they are executed in Scot- 

 land, are such a mafs of confusion and absurdity, as to be 

 scarcely intelligible to any one, and would require a vo- 

 lume to display their ruinous and destructive tendency ; 

 nor will It b; believed In England that tlie same laws could 

 be so differently executed, as to make them here a system of 

 the most cruel opprefsion while tliey are there, in as far 



