1810.] 
«ec. to other parts of the country; and, 
if generally adopted, it would ultimately, 
by advancing the price of labour, fall 
on the consumer of manufaetures and 
agricultural produce, and the employer 
of menial servants. Lhe master, on 
John’s refusal to belong to the society, 15 
represented by Mr. Fosbrooke as de- 
claring, “ Then, I will not give you but so 
much.” Whether the master speaks good 
or bad English, John understands him to 
mean, “{ will give you bat so much,” 
Why not suppose another case, and that 
in the agreement for wages the servant 
shall say, “ Remember that you meist on 
my entering the bevefit-club, that you 
and your parish may be relieved from 
the burden of the poor’s rates. I may 
not live to want any benefit—I may not 
be so poor as to solicit it—You are 
planning for your own security, and I 
expect, therefore, that you will pay this 
new property-tax, imposed on us who 
have no property, or give me higier 
wages that I may pay it myself.” 
But what is the principal object for 
thus conipelling men to consult their 
own good? Why neither more nor less 
than a plan, which, under a specious 
pretext of a benevolent concern for the. 
welfare of the poor, aims to remove the 
burden of the rates from the owners and 
occupiers of houses and land; that is, 
the opulent part of society, to place it on 
the poor themselves, 
Our politician argues, that to “ render 
wisdom and prudence compulsatory in 
them, (thatis, the poor) by the autho- 
rity of a master, is no hardship, unless it 
can be deemed one to convert a fool into 
a sensible man, or make a thoughtless 
fellow less injurious to society.” 
Do we say that a clock possesses wis- 
dom, because, by the mechanic’s legis- 
lation, it points the hour? Yet, as well 
migbt we ascribe wisdom to a piece of 
mechanism, as say that a fool isconrerted 
into a wise man by an act of compulsion, 
obliging him to place in the hands of 
others a sum of money, to provide for 
wants In sickness or in age. , Wisdom is 
the result of an improvement of the in- 
tellectual powers; it is an acquired abi- 
Jity of judging rightly; but the automata 
parishioners can have no title to wisdom 
for moving merely as puppets at the 
command of their directors. 
The. poor’s-rates are heavy burdens; 
and were this specious plan adopted, 
they who now pay annually large sums, 
would not be compelled to pay any thing, 
Storm and Inundation in Lincolnshire. 
485 
and might therefore shine as voluntary 
benefactors to the box uf the society: 
thus the opulent would, in fact, obtain 
greater advantages than the objects 
whom they pretend to serve. Had the 
committees of enquiry commenced their 
operations years before; had peculation 
of the public money been prevented, and 
good management in the expenditure 
been practiced ; the poor would not have 
been sc numerous. I shall not enlarge 
on the consequences of war: it has not 
operated to decrease their number, 
Parliament will, I hope, be better en- 
eaged than in seeking to escape Mr. 
Fosbrooke’s censures. Apprehensive 
lest my remarks should occupy too Jarge 
a portion of your publication, I hasten 
to conclude with deprecating a system 
of arrangement which will admit private 
individuals to acquire the authority of 
legislators, destroy the activity of the 
energies of the human mind, annihilate 
independency of spirit; and, having firse 
proibited a labouring man from bes 
coming the owner of a cottage, lest he 
should mortgage or sell it, may, at the 
next step of legisiation, exclude the m- 
dustrious tradesman, on a small scale, 
from purchasing a frechold of forty shil- 
lings a-year; and ultimately, the ex= 
tension of this system of management, 
sacrifice the freedom of British subjects 
beneath the ponderosity of accidental, 
or ill-eacquired, weaith or power. . 
Britanicus, 
Ipswich, Nov. 14, 1810. 
P.S.—Mr. Fosbrooke mistakes the Qua 
kers’ proceedings respecting their own poor: 
so far are they from abolishing the poor’s- 
rates, they rate themselves for the poor of 
their own society, whilst they are subjected 
to the legal rates for the maintenance of the 
poor members of other societies. To avoid 
farther prolixity, I desist from enlarging on 
the contrast between the reverend gentle- 
man’s assertion, that nothing but military 
discipline can reform the drunken or worth- 
less character; and those oldefashioned 
Opinions which encouraged a hope of success 
from teaching and preaching. Our projector 
appears fully persuaded in his own mindy 
that ** the custom of sending such persons 
on board a tender, is the wisest that can be 
adopted,” as if it were the best school for in- 
culcating the dectrine, ** Repent and bring 
forth fruits meet for repentance.” 
= 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
O the distressing accounts of tie 
storm on tbe late memorable iGth 
ok 
