1792« political progrefs of Britain, i6^ 



ture, once flourilhing and extensive. Two menwere 

 some years ago executed in Edinburgh for rob- 

 bing the Excise Office of twenty-seven pounds ; but 

 offenders may be named, who ten thousand times bet- 

 ter deserve the gibbet. We h?.ve seen that oppref- 

 sive statutes, and a niethod of enforcing them, the 

 most tyrannical, have, in a single year, deprived the 

 revenue of twenty thousand pounds, in one branch 

 only, and have driven a crowd of industrious fami- 

 lies out of the country ; and then our legislators, to 

 borrow the honest language of George Pvouse, esquire, 

 *' have the insolence to call this gov£RNMEWT." 



Such are the glorious consequences of our stupid 

 veneration for a minister, and our absurd submifsion 

 to his capricious dictates I I 



At home Englifhmen admire liberty ; but abroad, 

 they have always been barbarous masters. Edward I. 

 conquered Wales and Scotland, and at the distance of 

 five hundred years, his name is yet remembered in 

 both countries with traditionary horror. His an- 

 nals are fhaded by a degree of infamy uncommon 

 even in the ruffiav. catalogue of Englilh kings. 



The rapacity of the black prince, as he has been 

 emphatically termed, drove him out of France. At 

 this day, there are Engliih writers who pretend to 

 be proud of the unprovoked mafsacres, committed by 

 his father and himself in that country ; but on the 

 other hand, Philip de Comines ascribes the civil wars 

 of York and Lancaster, which followed the death of 

 Henry v. to the indignation of divine justice. 



Ireland, for many centuries, groaned under the 

 most opprefsive and absurd despotism ; till, in deft- 



