1802. ] 
Go the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
ERUSING the feveral difquifitions 
refpecting the Bank, that have very 
intereftingly occupied your pages,leads me 
to conceive there cannot be a better chan- 
nel to folicit information through, on the 
following fubjeé. . 
The Bank-direétors have, within thefe 
two years, inftead of increafing the divi- 
dends on Bank-ftock, given a bonus to the 
holders thereof ; but upon the application 
of devifees, entitled to the dividends for 
life, they are informed they will not be 
permitted to fell eut fuch bonus, the direc- 
tors having conlulted the (late, I fuppofe) 
Attorney and Solicitor General, who were 
of opinion fuch bonus muft be added to the 
ftock, and that the devifee is only entitled 
to receive the dividends thereon. To fuf- 
pe& fuch high legal authority can be mif- 
taken may feem (elf-arrogant, but the fol- 
lowing fact induces me towifh for better in- 
formation than theip/2 dixit ofa Bank-clerk. 
A. devifed by will a// intereft, dividends 
and proceeds arifing from a certain quantity 
of Bank-ftock, to his wife B. for life, 
and at her deceafe /pecifcally devifed fuch 
Bank-ftock to C. « collateral branch ef 
his family:; all the ref and refidue of his 
eftate he devifed ab/olutely to B. 
It is well known, for particular reafons, 
the teftator never intended C. to have more 
than that fpecific bequeft; and as the 
bonus is but another name for intereft and 
proceeds, my inquiry would clear this 
point ; whether there is any act of the 
legiflature, chartered er bye-law, to fup- 
port the Bank in refufing to fuffer the an- 
nuitane felling out fuch bonus? and, if 
not, how long has the private opinion 
- (without a judicial decifion) of any public 
legal charaéter been deemed the law of the 
land ? and whether, if B. fubmits to fuch 
-di&tatorial prefumption, fhe ftill has not a 
right by will to difpofe of fuch bonus as 
it fuits her own inclination ? 
Odfober 8, 1301. AGUECHEEKR. 
Sia : 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
SINGULAR MODE OF EXTORTION. 
Nene the numerous abufes prac. 
Venice in the government of the Grecian 
iflands fubjeék to their fway, the following 
fingular method of extortion is worthy of 
Notice. - 
When a governor was appointed, his 
firt care was to provide himfelf with a 
good fum of money, which perhaps he was 
obliged to borrow from the Jews efta- 
MonTuiy Mag. No. 83. 
Query refpetting the Bank.—Forced Loan. 
tifed or tolerated by the fenate of - 
} te 
blifhed at Venice. Immediately on his 
arrival in the ifle which he was to govern, - 
he diftributed that money among the péd= 
fants, in what may literally be called a 
forced loan, though of a very different 
kind from what we ufvally underftand by 
that term. In faét, he compelled them to 
accept the loam, under the obligation of 
repaying double the amount at the expira= 
tion of the year. If they fhewed thems 
felves deficient inthe payment at the ap- 
pointed time, whatever part remained une 
paid was doubled for the fucceeding year, 
and went on progreffively doubling from 
year to year, until the debt was completeiy 
difcharged. 
Nor was this the whole of the grievances 
for thofe re-imburfements were not made 
in money, but in the productions of the 
foil, which the unfortunate peafant was 
forced to deliver to his unfeeling opprefior 
at whatever price the latter chofe arbitrarily 
to fet on them. 
In vain the hufbandman remonftrated 
againft the compulfory loan, and reprefent- 
ed that he did not want the money: in vain 
he ftrove to avoid the acceptance of a fum 
which was impudently offered to hita under 
the name of a friendly aid: his refufat 
was conftrued into an act of rebellion : 
he was dragged to prifon, and there: lay 
groaning in irons, till the cruelty of his 
iituation at length extorted his confent to 
the hard terms impofed on him by theava- 
ricé of his tyrant. But, now, even his 
acceptance of the conditions was not fuf= 
ficient to procure him his liberty : he was 
moreover con{trained to pay a certain 
fine, as the price of his enlargement. 
Left the Englifh reader fhould conceive 
this pi€ture to be the work of imagination, | 
it may be well to inform him that the faéts 
are {tated on the authority of Grafet Saint- 
Sauveur, who refided many years in the 
Venetian ifles, in the charaéter of French 
conful. 
= 
DESULTORY COMMENTS 0” MASON’S 
SUPPLEMENT 70 JOHNSON’S DICTI0- 
NARY. 
(Continued from page 404, of Vol. XII.) 
GIUST. 
SOM the Italian gioffra Spenfer hag 
formed the word gia/?; and from the 
French joufle Shakefpeare has formed the 
word juf?, a tilt; which Dryden alfo em- 
ploys im the fame fenfe. From this laft 
word the frequentative ju/ile, to tilt fre- 
quently, to encounter, to clafh, has been 
regularly moulded. It is, however, in. 
convenient that the word ju? fhould fig- 
Cc nify 
