ture were going on at the end of the peace. It was, in fact, from that term, greatly accelerated." The author then proceeds to a ftill more conclufive mode of reafoning, from which, as he obferves, "there lies no appeal to difcuffions of any kind." He confults actual experience, in order to afcertain what are the decifions of that fupreme authority upon this important fubject. And fhould it appear, that fact and principle unite in fupport of his hypothefis, it must be allowed, that his reafoning is eftablished on immoveable foundations. * The term which is taken for the purpose of this enquiry is, we conceive, amply fufficient to do the fubject juftice; it being no less than 105 years, commencing in 1688, the period of the Revolution, and ending in 1792, the conclufion of the laft peace. This total term he divides, according to the fact, into ten complete terms of war and peace, five of each, and from authentic tables, he affigns the price of a quarter of wheat in each year. The general refult is fhewn to be, that the average price of wheat, upon all the years of war, in the above 105 years, was 21. 2s. 11d. per quarter, and that of all the years of peace 21. 58. 3d. per quarter. So that upon an average of 105 years the price of wheat in times of war was lefs than in times of peace, and that at a rate of 51. 8s. 84d. per cent. term of A very important inference is deduced from these statements, with a reference to the present time. Taking the price of wheat to be now 61. 6s. per quarter, (a price the exorbitance of which is afcribed by defigning people to the war) it appears that if peace had been made in the laft, or any preceding year of the war, the market value would, at leaft, have exceeded that now taking place by 51. 8s. 8d. per cent.. So that the price of a quarter of wheat would now be 61. 12s. 10d. inftead of 61. 6s. In further illuftration of his fubject, the author then enters upon a number of fubordinate calculations, which difplay that depth and precifion for which he has been long distinguished, but in which our limits will not allow us to follow him. He makes, however, a general obfervation, which, in itself, as well as in the reafons he affigns for it, is both too curious and important to be omitted. The period of 105 years contained in his original table, he divides into two great parts, the first ending, the other commencing, in the middle of the year 1740. In the former the price of wheat was decreafing, in the latter it experienced a progreffive advancement. The cause of these respective variations he thus explains; that in the first period the improvements in agriculture, and the confequent encreafe of its products, exceeded the encrease of the precious metals in Europe, but in the fecond, the cafe was reverfed, and the precious metals poured in from America in a greater proportion than the products of the earth were encreased. Here Mr. B. proceeds to what we may juítly call a profound investigation of * In the text the author has adopted Hodfon's tables; in the notes thofe of Dr. A. Smith. The latter, we conceive, are most accurate. the the causes, which have operated in producing at different times a greater or less importation of gold and filver, or which have tended, after the importation of thefe metals, to augment or diminish the relative proportion of the stock of coin in this country, when compared with the production of our own natural commodities. There are some statements connected with this part of the fubject of peculiar importance. Mr. B. obferves, that until the year 1765, we had a great export trade.Since the year 1771 a conftant import has been necessary for our Supply. "Two caufes may be affigned for this; the first of which shall be barely ftated, without entering into any difcullion upon it. Although the number of the inhabitants of the villages be increased, together with their fkill in agriculture, whereby its product is confiderably augmented; yet it appears evident, that our manufactures and manufacturers, who are here to be taken only as confumers thereof, have increased with greater celerity: thus the product of the country is not fo great as formerly, in proportion to the number of perfons to fubfift upon it. "The fecond is, that a greater confumption of wheat has taken place, by equal numbers of the lower claís, in the latter period than the former. This may be shown to be in the highest degree probable, from the prices of the table to the end of the war of 1740 For, from the beginning to the end of that term, which confiderably exceeded half a century, fome advance, and that not inconfiderable, was made in the wages of artizans and labourers in hufbandry. But if, contrary to all teftimony, and the reafon of the thing, we fuppofe them to have for that term remained fixed, the effect of this long fall of prices would be the fame in kind, but inferior in degree only. "While the price of the grain, reputed the beft for bread, was decreafing in every period, and the weekly income of the lower class, who had before very much fubfifted on substitutes for it, was encreafing, or even remaining fixed; it is natural to fuppofe that they would defert the ufe of the latter, or at leaft greatly diminish it, and indulge themselves in that of the former in its ftead. At the conclufion of the laft, and the beginning of the present, century, a mixture of rye or barley with wheat was very common in the bread of the lower clafs: the former was called maflin. Houghton, in his collections on trade and husbandry*, informs us, that barley-bread was in fuch general use in fome parts of England, that of feventeen quarters of corn ground weekly, at a mill in one parish in Buckinghamfhire, fixteen were of barley: and in Wales, that a bread had been long in ule, made of equal weights of wheat meal and of boiled turnips, the juice being preffed out of them. That bread entirely of wheat was not much eaten by the poor, may be allo inferred, from what he fays of that which was made of wheatmeal, with the coarfe bran fifted out. This fort,' he informs us, is chiefly in the country, among able folk, that do value good bread." "But the principal grain used in making bread, together with * Vol... jɔ, April 20, 1694." wheat wheat, or by itself, was rye. In the year 1688, Mr. King computed the quantity of wheat, grown for confumption, at fourteen millions of bufhels; and of rye at ten millions *. Thus taking the confumption to have been as the product, the wheat was only 788 583 of the bread-corn confumed: but previous to the year 1772, the author of the Political Effays on the British Empire, informs us, that the consumption of wheat had been encreased to 3,840,000, while that of rye had been diminished to 1,030,coo quarters + : therefore the confumption of wheat was now become of the whole of our bread-corn; or the average confumption of wheat per head was now increased in the proportion of 788 to 583; or that of four to three nearly. This circumftance, joined to the relative increase of our artizans and manufacturers, has chiefly contributed to change our export trade of wheat, into an import. The ufe of the inferior corns in bread is now confined to a narrow diftri&t; continually encroached upon and diminifhing, by the borderers falling into the intire use of wheat. "The state of the labourer, in every department, must have been extremely eafy in the first of the terms, that of the fall of prices, ending in the war of 1740. This brought on an augmentation of their indulgences, in the ufe of wheat for rye; which becoming cuftomary in certain parts of the kingdom, now became to be reputed at least as a neceffary. This was not the only one of which they contracted fuch fixed habits, that it became fuch; others might be mentioned. When the price of wheat and other commodities began to rife greatly, great additions in the poor's rate took place on thofe two accounts jointly. This confequence of what has been faid, is of too much general importance to have been paffed by unno ticed, but not enough connected with the fubject to dilate any further upon it." The general conclufion as ftated by the author, and never was man better qualified to ftate his conclufion with confidence, is that "the effect of war is to reduce the price of wheat, and it is probable, by parity of reason, that of all the prime neceffaries of life which are not directly taxed." A conclufion fo important to be made known at this time that we have felt it our duty to be more than ordinarily copious in our notice of this publication, which a regard for the dearest interefts of the community induces us to recommend to the attention of all defcriptions of readers. We cannot conclude without obferving, that the author has eftablished, in a note, a pofition to which, in a future edition, we hope he will allot a more prominent fituation as well as a more ample dif cuffion, viz. that an encreafe of taxes does not tend to produce any augmentation in the price of wheat. This is illuftrated by a reference to the fyftem of encreased taxation which took place about the time of the revolution, and in spite of which the price of wheat fell for more than half a century. *Whitworth's Davenant, Vol. II. p. 216." † “P. 97, 98. Account of Wheat from the three tracts on the Corn Trade: that of Rye probably from the fame writer," RESOLUTIONS OF COMMON SENSE, FOR PREVENTIVG OF TOPULAR DELUSION, FROM POLITICAL ORATORS. I. COMMON SENSE RESOLVES, THAT HAT fubjects have no common rights, because all men are not fit for all things: 1. In their natural capacity. The fool has no right to fit at the council-board; nor the coward to be the leader of an army. 2. In their moral capacity. The thief has no right to be a feward for the public: the idle man has no right to the wages of the Induftrious. 3. Leaft of all in their religious capacity. The few has no right to be a Bishop: the Turk has no right to be a Schoolmaster for the teaching of Chriftian Children. Men have been guilty of more cruelty and injuftice and robbery on motives of false religion, than on any others whatsoever-Heathens against Chriftians -Papifts against Proteftants-Puritans against the Church and Government of England. Tantum religio potuit fuadere malorum ! II. That the natural rights of man, are the rights of man in a fate of nature only that is, of man confidered as an unfocial independ ent favage. Thefe are, the rights of eating, drinking, fleeping, hunting, fishing, propagating his fpecies, whipping his children, and defending himself againft wild men and wild beafts. III. That as foon as man becomes a member of fociety, and property is divided by authority, and fecured by laws; he is bound as a moral agent. All his natural rights are under restraint, and he can. not exercise them at his will, for fear of an executive power, ordained to prevent it. They are now no longer natural, but are changed into civil rights. IV. That upon the reception of the Chriftian Religion, natural rights are farther reftrained by the divine authority of the ten commandments; which forbid robbery, murder, falfe witness, difobedience, and even the defire of another man's property: and man himself rises from a moral, into a religious agent. V. That therefore, if any member of a Chriftian Society now pleads his natural rights, he thereby declares, that he intends (or wishes) to break through the laws of civil fociety, and the restraints of religion, and go back, as faft as he can, on atheistical principles, to the fate of nature; that is, to reduce things, if he and his fellows fhall be able, to a political chaos, or ftate of anarchy, under which there fhall be no diftinction of right, or property, but fuch as they themselves shall be graciously pleafed to fettle. If all the beafts of the foreft and the defart were mingled into one fociety with fheep, goats, oxen, and horfes; against which God's providence hath wifely provided; Common Senfe foresees what muft happen, when they begin to purfue and exercise their common rights. And the fame will hold good in human fociety: for mankind, like other creatures, are diftinguished by birth, humour, and education, into the wild and the tame, the cunning and the imple, the peaceable and the rebellious, the temperate and the infatiable, the harmless and the blood-thirty; and have no more claim to the exercife of com, mon rights than the beasts have, NO. XXVIII, VOL, VII, R Therefore, Therefore, as beafts are under man, man is under law, humán and divine; and if he knows his own intereft, he will plead for a due diftinction of rights, and do all he can to ftrengthen the hands of the government under which he lives, in return for the fecurity he enjoys. Happy is he who is made wife by seeing mifery in others, rather than by feeling it in himself. Great Britain, February 16, 1790. + POETRY. CENA CIVICA. Apud Pridie Nonas Novembris. Nulla crepido vacat? nufquam Pons? aut tegetis Pars E mea deftituat fopitus pectora fervor, Juv. Sat. 5. v. §. NEMontta nova, et femper furgens de face popelli Portentofum aliquid caput exerit. Ah! ubi rifus, : error Sæcula flexanimo ne dogmate fenfibus At folenne dies hæc feftum poftulat-esto. Pindari (Petri) fales bene lacefferet Lucretius Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipfis floribus angit, Hunc alea decoquit, ille In venerem eft putris Perfius ‡ Anna, meæ malè confcia culpæ. OVID, EPIST. |