and fordid. Through the revenue alone, the body politic can act in its true genius and character, and therefore, it will difplay juft as much of its collective virtue, and as much of that virtue which may characterise those who move it, and are, as it were, its life and guiding principle, as it is poffeffed of a just revenue. For from hence not only magnanimity, and liberality, and beneficence, and fortitude, and providence, and the tutelary protection of all good arts, derive their food, and the growth of their organs, but continence, and felf-denial, and labour, and vigilance, and frugality, and whatever elfe there is in which the mind fhews itfelf above the appetite, are no where more in their proper element than in the provifion and diftribution of the public wealth. It is therefore not without reafon that the fcience of Speculative and practical finance, which must take to its aid fo many auxiliary branches of knowledge, ftands high in the estimation not only of the ordinary fort, but of the wifeft and beft men; and as this fcience has grown with the progrefs of its object, the profperity and improvement of nations has generally encreased with the encrease of their revenues; and they will both continue to grow and flourish, as long as the balance between what is left to ftrengthen the efforts of individuals, and what is collected for the common efforts of the ftate, bear to each other a due reciprocal proportion, and are kept in a clofe correfpondence and communication. And perhaps it may be owing to the greatnefs of revenues, and to the urgency of ftate neceffities, that old abuses in. the conftitution of finances are difcovered, and their true nature and rational theory comes to be more perfectly understood; infomuch, that a fmaller revenue might have been more diftreffing in one period, than a far greater is found to be in another; the proportionate wealth even remaining the fame.-Reflec tians on the Revolution in France.

KUIN (NATIONAL.)

The French ftiled the ableft Architects of.

THE French have fhewn themselves the ableft ar thitects of ruin that have hitherto exifted in the world. In that very short space of time they have completely pulled down to the ground, their monarchy; their church; their nobility; their law; their revenue; their army; their navy; their commerce; their arts; and their manufactures. They have done their bufinefs for us as rivals, in a way in which twenty Ramilies or Blenheims could never have done it. Were we abfolute conquerors, and France to lie proftrate at our feet, we fhould be afhamed to fend a commiffion to fettle their affairs, which could impose so hard a law upon the French, and fo deftructive of all their confequence as a nation, as that they have im posed upon themselves.-Speech on the Army Estimates.

RUSSEL (HOUSE OF.)

Mr. Burke contrafts his own Merit with that of the Founder of the Houfe of Ruffel.

THE merit of the origin of his Grace's (Bedford) fortune was in being a favourite and chief adviser to a prince, who left no liberty to their native country. My endeavour was to obtain liberty for the municipal country in which I was born, and for all defcriptions and denominations in it.-Mine was to fupport with unrelaxing vigilance every right, every privilege, every franchise, in this my adopted, my dearer and more comprehenfive country; and not only to preserve those rights in this chief feat of empire, but in every nation, in every land, in every climate, language and religion, in the vaft domain that ftill is under the protection, and the larger that was once under the protection, of the British crown.

His founder's merits were, by arts in which he ferved his master and made his fortune, to bring po

verty, wretchednefs and depopulation on his country. Mine were under a benevolent prince, in promoting the commerce, manufactures and agriculture of his kingdom; in which his majefty fhews an eminent example, who even in his amufements is a patriot, and in hours of leisure an improver of his native foil.

His founder's merit, was the merit of a gentleman raifed by the arts of a court, and the protection of a Wolfey, to the eminence of a great and potent lord. His merit in that eminence was by inftigating a tyrant to injuftice, to provoke a people to rebellion.

My merit was, to awaken the fober part of the country, that they might put themfelves on their guard against any one potent lord, or any greater number of potent lords, or any combination of great -leading men of any fort, if ever they fhould attempt to proceed in the fame courses, but in the reversẹ order, that is, by inftigating a corrupt populace to rebellion, and, through that rebellion, should introduce a tyranny yet worfe than the tyranny which his Grace's anceftor fupported, and of which he profited in the manner we behold in the defpotifm of Henry the Eighth.

after

The political merit of the first penfioner of his Grace's houfe, was that of being concerned as a counsellor of flate in advising, and in his perfon executing the conditions of a difhonourable peace with France; the furrendering the fortrefs of Boulogne, then our out guard on the continent. By that furrender, Calais, the key of France, and the bridle in the mouth of that power, was, not many years wards, finally loft. My merit has been in refifting the power and pride of France, under any form of it's rule; but in oppofing it with the greateft zeal and earneftnefs, when that rule appeared in the worst form it could affume; the worft indeed which the prime cause and principle of all evil could poffibly give it. It was my endeavour by every means to excite a fpirit in the houfe, where I had the honour of

a feat, for carrying on with early vigour and decifiori, the moft clearly juft and neceffary war, that this or any nation ever carried on; in order to fave my country from the iron yoke of it's power, and from the more dreadful contagion of its principles; to preserve, while they can be preferved pure and untainted, the ancient, inbred integrity, piety, good nature, and good humour of the people of England, from the dreadful peftilence which beginning in France, threatens to lay wafte the whole moral, and in a great degree the whole phyfical world, having done both in the focus of it's moft intenfe malignity.

The labours of his Grace's founder merited the curfes, not loud but deep, of the Commons of England, on whom he and his mafter had effected a complete parliamentary reform, in making them in their flavery and humiliation, the true and adequate reprefentatives of a debafed, degraded, and undone people. My merits were, in having had an active, though not always an oftentatious fhare, in every one. act, without exception, of undifputed conftitutional utility in my time, and in having fupported on all occafions, the authority, the efficiency, and the privileges of the Commons of Great Britain. I ended my services by a recorded and fully reasoned affertion on their own journals of their conftitutional rights, and a vindication of their conftitutional conduct. I laboured in all things to merit their inward approbation, and (along with the affiftants of the largeft, the greateft, and best of my endeavours) I received their free, unbiaffed, public, and folemn thanks.

Thus ftands the account of the comparative merits of the crown grants which compofe the duke of Bedford's fortune as balanced against mine. In the name of common fenfe, why fhould the duke of Bedford think, that none but of the house of Ruffel are entitled to the favour of the crown? Why fhould he imagine that no king of England has been capable of judging of merit but king Henry the Eighth? Indeed,

he will pardon me; he is a little mistaken; all virtue did not end in the first earl of Bedford. All difcernment did not lofe its vifion when his creator closed his eyes. Let him remit his rigour on the difpro-, portion between merit and reward in others, and they will make no enquiry into the origin of his fortune. They will regard with much more fatisfaction, as he will contemplate with infinitely more advantage, whatever in his pedigree has been dulcified by an expofure to the influence of heaven in a long flow of generations, from the hard, acidulous, metallic tincture of, the fpring. It is little to be doubted, that feveral of his forefathers in that long feries, have degenerated into honour and virtue. Let the duke of Bedford (I am fure he will) reject with fcorn and horror, the counfels of the lecturers, those wicked panders to avarice and ambition, whơ would tempt him in the troubles of his country, tô feek another enormous fortune from the forfeitures of another nobility, and the plunder of another church. Let him (and I trust that yet he will) em. ploy all the energy of his youth, and all the refources of his wealth, to crufh rebellious principles which have no foundation in morals, and rebellious movements, that have no provocation in tyranny.

Then will be forgot the rebellions, which, by a doubtful priority in crime, his ancestor had provoked and extinguished. On fuch a conduct in the noble duke, many of his countrymen might, and with fome excufe might, give way to the enthusiasm of their gratitude, and in the dashing style of fome of the old declaimers, cry out, that if the fates had found no other way in which they could give a* duke of Bedford and his opulence as props to a tottering world, then the butchery of the duke of Buckingham might be tolerated; it might be regarded even with complacency, whilft in the heir of confifcation they

At fi non aliam venturo fata Neroni,