l34 on pai'liamentary reform. -^^g' 2ti 



an old Caledonian who is more of a natural than a 

 political philosopher. 



Will you still allow him to whisper you on part- 

 ing, but pray dont expose him to the ridicule of 

 the wits, that he sses nothing in all the new boast- 

 ed discoveries on the theory of government, but a 

 few old hints of some of our speculative Britifh 

 writers, served up a- new with a French sauce, for 

 which that nation was more famed at the time he 

 emigrated, than for giving U-fsons on liberty, to a 

 nation grown old in the study and pofsefsion of that 

 greatest of blefiings ; but it is really amusing to ob- 

 serve the changes that take place in a few years ; 

 for he left that once amiable and volatile people 

 learning you to dance and drefs your locks, and he 

 seems to be in a fair way on coming home, (^if the 

 friends of the people get their will in bringing about 

 a change,) to find them learning you to be free, a 

 la mode dc Pans. 



However, 1 think there is little danger of such a 

 victory, if what was positively declared in the house 

 on a late occasion be literally true, that not one bo- 

 rough or city in the vjhole kirigdom had petitioned par- 

 liament for a reform in its corporate capacity; for as 

 to the signature of individuals, I who am a stran- 

 ger almost, will engage to procure with the afsis- 

 la; C' of only one member of the opposition, an old 

 Ruf ian j^cquainta-acc, Mr Whitbrcad, twenty or 

 thirty thousand signatures to a petition ten fathoms 

 long, either for a reform of parliament, or of the 

 tjpposition themselves, if that fliould be found mere 

 li.i'ccfjary. 1 only v.ifii such a sum was depen- 



