Al4 
Their maintenance and mien are magni- 
ficent and extraordinary; they want no- 
moft rigid felf-denial cannot allot a part for 
accumulation; his mifery is irrevocable, and 
the moft flight misfortune, or impradence, 
his ruin: he muft either fhut himfelf up 
from happinefs and fociety, or involve him- 
felf deeper; he muft either fret away his life 
in the heétic of fenfibility, or pine in the 
gloom of defpair. If, by uncommon circum- 
{peClion, he avoids this Scylla and Charybdis 
of poverty, he may exift, but cannot be faid 
to live: no recreation in the walk of a gen- 
tleman is within his compafs ; in the mean- 
time, years and infirmities creep on apace, 
with the chagrining retrofpe&t of a youth 
{pent without pleafure and without proit, 
and the difmal profpedt of an old age ot want 
and obfcurity.” 
The author next adverts to the dearnefs of 
provifions, and we leave our cotemporaries to 
actermine, whether the condition of a mili- 
tary man be better, on that fcore, in 1802, 
than it was in 1775. The pay of the fubal- 
terns has certainly been increafed a little, but 
that of the Captains, who are the finews of 
an army, remains the fame as in good Queen 
Anne’s days!! 
.  Butchers-meat and bread (fays the ho- 
mourable writer) are at prefent (1775) four 
times the price they were when the pay was 
firft eftablifhed ; and every abfolute neceflary 
of life in the fame proportion, from the de- 
ereafe of the value of money, the extenfive 
commerce, and riches of the kingdom, and 
the great taxes which have fince been laid on 
every article of univerfal confumption. A 
thilling ead eighteen-pence per day is now* 
‘the common rate of iabour: mechanics and 
journeymen, tradefmen of all denominations, 
exaét ut leaft two fhillings and half-a-crown* 
from their gmpléyers; and {fo inadequate are 
even thefe additional prices to the expences 
of living, that population ‘decreafes, and the 
kingdom is emaciated by continual and alarm- 
ing emigrations. As luxury fialks on with 
more progreffive ftrides; the wants of man- 
kind are multiplied; they, in confequence, 
refufe their labour, tiJ] thefe new wants aie 
fupplied: well knowing that the different 
“meceflaries and luxuries of life, to which 
‘their labour is dire€ted, cannot: ftand ftiil, 
‘hut mouft wait on thei: nod: this change is 
“mot prejudicial to their employers, who 
charge it, with intereft, on manuta€tures and 
‘fommodities, which they fell reciprocally to 
each other, and to land-holjders 5; which iait, 
to fupply the deficiencies and the calls of 
new luxuries, raife their farms, and put 
them into the hands of opvlent monopdilizers ; 
thefe, uniformly attached to their own in- 
terefts, make up, in their turns, for the ex- 
tracrdinary rents, and the increafed expence 
SBE es 
* Whar is it at this time, 1803? 
Britifh Army. 
{ fune 1, 
thing but able leaders who may know how 
to avoid or overcome thole circumftances 
that are difadvantageous to them, to be 
the heit, as they are the fineft, troops in 
Europe, becavie in them, more efpecially, 
is to be found that native valour woich 
is the first element cf a foldier. 
It does not come under our plan to 
foeak ot the Englith navy 3 befides, what 
can we fay to add to its glory? It governs 
the leas, net lels from the fuperioiiy of 
its forces, than the perfection of itg 
fcience, experience, and bravery: to the 
moft confummate knowledge and fkill, the 
Engl.fh have, in this war, “jomd 4 
boldnefs that equals the exploits of the 
moit renowned among tie Buccaneers. 
When fear detains their enemies in port, 
or at anchor under the proteétion of their 
gitns, fo that their fhips cannot approach, 
the Englith frequentiy board their veiels 
from boats, and in this manner carry of 
fhipping which they could not othei wile 
of cultivation and utenfils, by raifing the 
corn to exorbitant prices, which, when the 
poor are unable to purchafe, they tranfpart 
to foreign countries, notwithftanding the 
confiant laws which pafs to prevent them. 
‘Jn this a&tive and mutable fcene—in 
this fermentation of commerce—amidt the 
innumerable inventions and chicanery of men 
to evade poverty, and to. acquire riches, 
whilft the natural progrefs of fociety ‘is fa- 
bricating continual changes, and thefe changes 
have obliged men of all denominations to fall 
into new channels of operations; in this 
long chatn of human necefiities which have 
encreafed and fattened on each other, ftill 
rifing, but rifing in equal proportions (as 4 
tune is fiill the fame, though played on a 
higher key), what muft be the lot of one 
link which fticks faft in fo rapid a wheel ? 
Like a fhip which is a-ground in a tempelt, 
it muft be fpeedily deftroyed. To fay that 
this is unfortunately the cafe of the Britifh 
army, is not to have difcovered a wonderful 
enigma; it is indeed the firanded and dif- 
matted hulk, which, while the fleet around, 
with ufe of fails and rudders, fight fafely 
again the tumultwous confli@, is dafhed 
againit the rocks into ten thouland pieces.” 
-In another place this writer fays—** It is 
only vpon the ufeful and valuable ‘part of 
the army that all its grievances fall. To the 
firipling of the peaccable parade, it is the 
limbo of vanity, to the veteran of the field, 
it is’ the path fown with thorns. “The gay 
young enfign, with fupport and intereft, ig . 
like a veffel in pott, fleeping on the peaceful 
bofom of the waters} and flaunting with her 
ftreamers 3 the old and-negleéted officer is the 
difmafted hulk, driving with ‘the blaft, and 
fighting with the billows.) *¥ ™ a6 
“gome 
