262 
! Taxes in lieu of TEA. 
inability to pay taxes, on account of the heavy expences they 
are at to fupport the follies of their wives and daughters : you 
mud not imagine that I am writing a satire againft women ; 
I will add the extravagance of their sons alfo! 
Refinements are dangerous : common fenfe, and every com- 
mon rule and principle of trade, teach us, that fuch an article 
as tea, the confumption of which is fo unnecefiary, fo injurious 
to health and induftry, fo expenfive to individuals, and pro- 
ducing nothing, in any fhape whatfoever, -but the change of 
property from the subject to the state, and back again, muft 
upon the whole be injurious to both subject and state. 
Adieu. I am yours, 
LETTER XIII. 
To the fame . 
Madam, 
T ^he first confideration ought to be the morality of 
our lives, the next the welfare of our country : thefe 
are connected with each other in the fame manner as virtue 
and happiness. In the prefent circumftances of this nation, 
taxes are effential to our well-being : we ought to be watchful 
that the produce of them is well employed, and fubmit to 
them gracefully. In our prefent fituation, if one tax is 
abridged or annihilated, another muft be fubflituted in its room. 
Was the ufe of tea abolifhed, we fhould be enabled to pay a 
much larger fum to the revenue, than the duty on tea amounts 
to: but a political arithmetician will fay, “ this is calculating 
at random, unlefs we first fuggeft the means of railing a fum >. 
equal to the duty in queftion.” 
The 
