dear Barangaroo, my patience ran away from me, and I fwore by my father's bones, that the people of this country must be mad. The Englishman, to whom I was fpeaking, and who, I believe, is not quite so mad as the reft, faid, with the tears fhining in his eyes, that he was afraid fo too; and that very learned men had proved, that the whole tribe of English-gal went mad once in feven years." And is there no way of preventing it?" faid I.-" Alas! no," anfwered he; "for we never find out that we have been mad till seven years after."

It has been propofed to me to go and throw my spear at the French; but I have always faid, that as the French never took away my wife, or ftole my fishingnets, lines, and throwing-ftick, I was not angry with them; and that I could not fight without being angry. No, my dear Barangaroo, I hope to escape in fafety from this mad country; and in the mean time, I beg of the great Spirit to fave you from lightning, sharks, and red men. What can I fay more? Gazetteer.

BANEELON.

MY POOR TURKEYS*.

MR. EDITOR,

H

AVING a confiderable number of turkeys to fend to town, I trufted my 'fecond fon with the care of driving them, and gave him a proper charge, on his fetting off, to be very careful that he loft none by the way; he then flourished his red rag, at the word of command, and departed with the whole corps in ex

*This letter appeared fhortly after the Duke of York received his first reinforcement of cavalry; at the embarkation of which, our most gracious Sovereign attended in perfon, and generously gave the foldiers one fhilling each. His Majesty is also said to have encouraged the foldiers, by faying---" Hurra, my boys! this is my war." But this latter fact we do not affirm, and should he loth to believe.

cellent

cellent order. The firft half mile was attended with no accident worth mentioning, except the lofs of three fowls, which were fwept into a gypsey woman's apron; but, a little farther on, when he came to a bridge, he drove twenty-five of them. into the ftream, and fuffered five more to tumble through the balluftrades, all of which were loft irrecoverably. It appears, that in the next two miles he loft but three in all, two of which were run over by a broad-wheel waggon, and the other was fnugly depofited in a tinker's wallet. Still, however, he went on without miffing them, though four more fell down a cellar-window by the market-place at Norwich, fixteen were ftolen by a foraging party of militia-men; nine walked into a farm-yard, and two of the largest in the whole flock were flogged up into the boot of a mailcoach, while his head was turned another way. At laft, being informed that his number was diminished, he wrote to me for a reinforcement, which I attended myself on their journey for a part of the way, and I had the fatisfaction to hear that they joined him in good order; but, by the fame exprefs, I found that he had lamed thirty-five of the first flock, by driving over flint-ftones, and had borrowed more than as many butcher's skewers to fplice the legs of others; that three fhepherd's dogs had killed eleven, and left fixteen more. without hopes of recovery; that a penny pye-man had hid two fine cocks in his basket; that a countryman, ftaggering drunk from the fair, had knocked down two more, miftaking them for weazles; and that a higgler coming by in the night, while my boy was found afleep, had condefcended to load his cart with them. I fhall fay nothing of the one hundred and fifty that ftrayed away; of the dozen that dropped into a well; of the four-and-forty that were trod to death by a drove of oxen; of the feven-and-twenty demolished by poachers; of the nineteen that took phyfic for indigeftion, and died under the operation; but content myself with obferving, that nine-tenths of my Turkeys were at

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length deftroyed, and that of the few which remained, there were hardly any worth faving. As faft as I fent fupply, my turkeys difappeared: till at length I could not help exclaiming, with a deep figh from the bottom of my heart---" I have brought my turkeys to a fine market !" Chronicle.

I

SIR,

A NORFOLK FARMER.

BURGESSIANA.

AM fürprized you should have lately have permitted a paper, generally fo correctly conducted as the Morning Chronicle, to become a channel of the groffeft flander, on the character of a private and harmless individual. A malicious writer in your paper, no doubt by impofing on your credulity, has repeatedly endeavoured to imprefs the public with an opinion that Mr. BURGESS, the Oil and Pickleman, in the Strand, is the fame perfon as Mr. BURGESS, Under Secretary of State. The intereft I feel in the credit of your paper, and the refpect I entertain for Mr. B. the oilman, induce me to contradict fo vile an attack on his credit and reputation. Whether the calumny has originated from an enemy of Mr. B. the oilman, or a lying friend of the Under Secretary's, I cannot conjecture. But as I know the family of Mr. B. the oilman, friendship and juftice towards them require me to declare, that Mr. Č. the Under Secretary is not related to, or even in any manner connected with them. The calumniator of Mr. B. the oilman, could only have been led to invent such a falfehood from the name being the fame with the Under Secretary's; as in most

*The following whimsical series of letters were written in 1793, to ridicule Mr. Burgefs, now Sir James Bland Burgefs, on account of the share he was fuppofed to have in the property, if not in the compofition, of a strange newspaper, called very improperly the True Briton, which was at that time particularly acrimonious in its attacks upon Mr. Fox.

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other refpects they are extremely different. Mr. B. the oilman is a worthy man, and does no dirty work, except in his shop and his cellar; is ingenious in his bufinefs; and when he advertises for cuftom, does it openly and fairly: he is grateful for favours, and civil to his customers. His family is refpectable; all his near relations being decent, and one of them an honour to the clerical profeffion. He continues to follow the honeft business to which he has been bred, and in which he is raising by commendable industry a confiderable fortune; and I can affure you, from my own knowledge, Mr. B. the oilman, does not ever wish to force himself, by meannefs, into any fituation for which his paft habits of life, and education, render him unqua lified.

Chronicle.

I am, Mr. Editor,

Your fincere well-wisher and conftant reader,

A FRIEND TO THE HONEST BURGESSES.

SIR,

You

OU have inferted a letter in your paper of Saturday, in which a friend of Mr. Burgess, the oilman, has taken great pains to prove the faid oilman to be a different perfon from the Under-Secretary Burgefs. I know not how this may be; if it be true, certainly it was the duty of every fincere friend of the oilman to vindicate him from the afperfion. But this vindication, however well meant, has done me a fignal injury, by a transfer of the fame difgrace. Mr. Under-Secretary, it feems, now difclaims all relationship to the oilman; pleads a difference of spelling in the two names; and derives his own title and defcent from an antient and refpectable Italian family. Confidering myself as the only branch of my family refident in this country, I cannot, in juftice to myself, fit down patiently under fuch an imputation, and hall therefore briefly refute all the claims fet up by this pretender,

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that I may no longer be exposed to the hard thoughts of the credulous, or the hard words of the malignant. His firft proof of his country and his extraction, is his talent for poetical and mufical compofitions. But I hereby caution the public "to beware of counterfeits," and to reject with difdain the loathfome stuff to which he may affix my name. For though I have no relations bigh in the church, nor am in the way, I am afraid, of acquiring a confiderable fortune, I truft I am as honest a man, and have as hearty a contempt for every thing that is low and mean, as any oilman in the Strand. What might contribute to circulate a report fo pernicious to my character, is a circumftance of which I have been informed by more than one or two government clerks, that this pretender often amufes himself, and annoys them, by reading paragraphs and paraphrafes out of fome outlandish newspaper. Thefe he never fails to cry up to the fkies; and if they do not take the hint (which they indeed are feldom apt to do at first) he praises them in a still louder key, and hints pretty broadly, that they are written by one of our family, inuendo, himfelf. At other times, I am told, he torments these unfortunate clerks by ftrumming for hours together what he calls mufical compofitions, from the fame quarter.* Now, Sir, as I dare fay you

* Mr. Burgefs ufed not only to entertain his clerks in this way, but alfo his friends and acquaintance. If he chanced to find a harpfichord in any room, down the Under-Secretary would fit une invited; and would play--- heaven how he would play, without end, or measure! He is alfo a poet; and it cannot be denied that his verses are very fmooth and very pretty. The most celebrated of his poems is called the Birth and Triumph of Love; and was written to illuftrate a feries of allegorical defigns made by the Princess Elizabeth. The Triumph of Love confifts in the little god's purfuit of two very curious objects, which he at last tranffixes with a fingle fhaft; and which prove to be the tender hearts of our auguft Sovereigns, King George, and Queen Charlotte.--Two bleeding, confequently bloody hearts, hopping about upon their nether ends, form a fublime and beautiful poetical image, beyond even the magnificent imagination of the late Mr. Burke.