[ 478 ] 
beginning to end, to fay the bed: of it, is ill-timed, 
when we are contending with our hereditary enemy, 
pro aris & focis. But here his zeal hurries him on, 
that he does not look to the dates of my Letters. 
For the firffc three were read before the Society, and 
ordered to be printed, long before the war was pro- 
claimed ; and as for the lad, it is only a fupplement 
to the reft ; in which I have fhewn, that France, by 
the bad ceconomy of her people, is not in an in- 
creafing Itate ; which, f think, is a comfortable 
hearing. But fuppofing they had been all printed 
during the war : What then ? Is a fadt to be con- 
cealed that, if difcovered, may be ufeful to prevent 
errors in government, and rectify our notions of the 
ceconomy of our people ? What advantage can our 
enemies make of fuch a difcovery ? Will it encourage 
them to imagine that we fhall be eafier fubdued, 
when they know, by the mod' moderate computa-i- 
tion> we have at lead two millions of fencible men in 
our Britifh iflands. Enough, furely, to refill them in 
all their attempts ! But 1 doubt we are not fo defi- 
cient in our numbers as in public virtue, without 
which the greated multitude may be ealily over- 
come. 
And thus, my Lord, I have endeavoured to an~ 
fwer what this Gentleman has wrote in his fecond 
Letter j for I pafs over the fird, as it does not feem 
to contain any more in oppofition to me, than what 
I have here confidered. And upon the whole I 
cannot fee, that he has faid any thing to invalidate 
what I have formerly advanced. If I could difcover 
it, I fhould be very ready to acknowlegc my error. 
4 lam 
