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Irishmen, but vicarages, tidewaiters places, &c. therefore no reason to make them worse.

The modus upon the flax in England affects only lands reclaimed since the year 1690, and is at the rate of five shillings the English acre, which is equivalent to eight shillings and eightpence Irish, and that to be paid before the farmer removes it from the field. Flax is a manufacture of little consequence in England, but is the staple in Ireland; and if it increases (as it probably will) must in many places jostle out corn, because it is more gainful.

The clergy of the established church have no interest, like those of the church of Rome, distinct from the true interest of their country; and therefore ought to suffer under no distinct impositions or taxes of any

kind.

The bill for settling the modus of flax in England, was brought in the first year of the reign of king George I, when the clergy lay very unjustly under the imputation of some disaffection; and to encourage the bringing in of some fens in Lincolnshire, which were not to be continued under flax; but it left all lands, where flax had been sown before that time, under the same condition of tithing, in which they were before the passing of that bill: whereas this bill takes away what the clergy are actually possessed of.

That the woollen manufacture is the staple of England, as the linen is that of Ireland; yet no attempt was ever made in England, to reduce the tithe of wool, for the encouragement of that manufacture. This manufacture has already been remarkably favoured by the clergy, who have hitherto been generally content with less than half, some with sixpence a garden, and some have taken nothing.

Employ

Employments, they say, have been taxed; the reasons for which taxation will not hold with regard to property, at least till employments become inheritances. The commons always have had so tender a regard to property, that they never would suffer any law to pass, whereby any particular persons might be aggrieved without their own consent.

N. B. Some alterations have been made in the bill about the modus, since the above paper was written but they are of little moment.

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AN

ACCOUNT

OF THE

COURT AND EMPIRE OF JAPAN.

*

WRITTEN IN 1728.

REGOGE was the thirty-fourth emperor of Japan, and began his reign in the year 341 of the Christian era, succeeding to Nena †, a princess who governed with great felicity.

There had been a revolution in that empire about twenty-six years before, which made some breaches in the hereditary line; and Regoge, successor to Nena, although of the royal family, was a distant relation.

There were two violent parties in the empire, which began in the time of the revolution above mentioned; and at the death of the empress Nena, were in the highest degree of animosity, each charging the other with a design of introducing new Gods, and changing the civil constitution. The names of these two parties were Husiges and Yortes . The latter were those whom Nena the late empress most favoured toward the end of her reign, and by whose advice she governed.

* King George. † Queen Anne.

Whigs and Tories.

The

The Husige faction, enraged at their loss of power, made private applications to Regoge, during the life of the empress; which prevailed so far, that upon her death, the new emperor wholly disgraced the Yortes, and employed only the Husiges in all his affairs. The Japanese author highly blames his imperial majesty's proceeding in this affair; because it was allowed on all hands, that he had then a happy opportunity of reconciling parties for ever, by a moderating scheme. But he, on the contrary, began his reign by openly disgracing the principal and most popular Yortes, some of which had been chiefly instrumental in raising him to the throne. By this mistaken step, he occasioned a rebellion: which, although it were soon quelled by some very surprising turns of fortune; yet the fear, whether real or pretended, of new attempts, engaged him in such immense charges, that instead of clearing any part of that prodigious debt, left on his kingdom by the former war, which might have been done, by any tolerable management, in twelve years of the most profound peace, he left his empire loaded with a vast addition to the old encumbrance.

This prince, before he succeeded to the empire of Japan, was king of Tedsu, a dominion seated on the continent, to the west side of Japan. Tedsu was the place of his birth, and more beloved by him than his new empire; for there he spent some months almost every year, and thither was supposed to have conveyed great sums of money, saved out of his imperial

revenues.

There were two maritime towns of great importance bordering upon Tedsu: of these he purchased a litigated title; and to support it, was forced not only o entrench deeply on his Japanese revenues, but to engage

engage in alliances very dangerous to the Japanese empire.

Japan was at that time a limited monarchy, which, some authors are of opinion, was introduced there by a detachment from the numerous army of Brennus, who ravaged a great part of Asia; and those of them who fixed in Japan, left behind them that kind of military institution, which the northern people in ensuing ages carried through most parts of Europe; the ge~ nerals becoming kings, the great officers a senate of nobles, with a representative from every centenary of private soldiers; and in the assent of the majority in these two bodies, confirmed by the general, the legislature consisted.

I need not farther explain a matter so universally known; but return to my subject.

The Husige faction, by a gross piece of negligence in the Yortes, had so far insinuated themselves and their opinions into the favour of Regoge, before he came to the empire, that this prince firmly believed them to be his only true friends, and the others his nortal enemies. By this opinion he governed all the actions of his reign.

The emperor died suddenly, in his journey-to Tedsu; where, according to his usual custom, he was going to pass the summer.

This prince, during his whole reign, continued an absolute stranger to the language, the manners, the laws, and the religion of Japan; and passing his whole time among old mistresses, or a few privadoes, left the whole management of the empire in the hands of a minister, upon the condition of being made easy in his personal revenues, and the management of

parties

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