or Happy Order of Things. But, to be able to institute and establish the Design in spite of the opposition and resistances it must be expected to encounter, a Ministry to be entrusted with effecting it should be formed, composed of all the talents and principal leaders of the parties in Parliameat, as was indeed not long ago his Majesty's wish should take place; and it should be effectually supported, both by the Crown, the whole Royal Family, and the People. Farther, the Design will never be introduced by the Executive Government and the two Houses of Parliament, unless the whole People petition in the most earnest manner for its establishment; unless they therefore be fully informed and enlightened in respect of its inappreciable importance to all our interests, by its being explained to them, in their several residences, and in their usual places of resort, the principal market-towns of the kingdom, and their affections be thus procured for its success, and the ef fecting of a moderate Reform of Parliament, which is essential to its support and final perfection. Yet public affairs should in the first place be rectified through the Design; which being done, the part of the design remaining to be accomplished will be brought into a narrow compass.

The mode of effecting the above important purposes is, the employment of the practical Art and System of human welfare, which certain executive powers, or the following twelve heads, actually constitute; and of the simple and compound practical plans and expedients that may be derived and formed from them. I, however, cannot produce these as I have them by me, in a letter, but may be allowed to refer to Dr. George Edwards' different publications as a proof wherein such are contained; even the plans of the income or property tax, as Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox have adopted them; and I now propose, if faction have not suppressed both public virtue and public genius, that we should supersede all his labours by the great and joint efforts of the whole Nation, Legislature, and Royal Family, combined for the purpose.

The following heads, which he first suggests, will be found to comprebend every national and individual

service we can require; and viewed together, also assisted with the reflections which naturally present themselves, a consideration so important will give us a sufficiently picturesque and interesting description of the De sign, or Happy Order of Things. For the detail of the Design is too long for your insertion; and it cannot be avoided: it can only be regretted, that the limits of a letter afford no oppor unity of answering objections, which, however, can all be answered, in respect of a Design, whereby Providence has intended mankind should in all countries be duly elevated, and raised above the low views that agitate and distress them everywhere in the extreme. At any rate, a studious reflection on the combined result of those heads cannot fail to impress any man of a moderate capacity, and the publick at large, with a warm sense of all the exonerations, relief, advantages, services, comforts, blessings, pleasures, and transports, which they will receive through the institution of the present Design; and consequently will not fail to engage their affections in favour of Parliamentary Reform, as a material part of it; at least if we proceed little farther in this Reform, than sufficiently to shorten the duration of Parliaments; to suppress merely the venal boroughs belonging to the subject, compensating their owners; to distribute the seats so suppressed in favour of popu lation, as they can, in the present local arrangements of the kingdom, be conveniently allotted for this purpose; and to take the necessary collateral measures which these or similar moderate reformations may require.

HEAD I. National Organization, shewing more particularly of what extent and diversity of territory a kingdom or empire should be constituted; what subdivisions, which may be called the distributive circles of a kingdom, are most suitable and convenient for paying due attention to the local and individual interests of a country, and advancing its complete improvement; those circles being neither so large as counties, nor so small as to be parishes and townships; and how the population of a state should be subdivided into one sole chief or monarch, and into the people consisting of different orders and `stations; what are the proper royal functions

of

of government; how far the monarch should depute the exercise of them to others, and permit a certain participation of his power; what the duties of the people are; what submission they should pay him in law, and from gratitude; and how, for the purpose of excluding all'oligarchy whatever, any coequality between the king and subject may be desirably avoided through a subsequent head, denominated the Subadministrative Power of human Welfare.

II. The due Organization of operative device and executive genius, resident in a country, as a meliorative and superintending instrument, in different boards and departments of state, and employed to prepare whatever may contribute to promote and improve national and individual happiness and prosperity.

III. Public Agency, as it may consist of all species of Agency, including ordinary police, and can desirably, in all respects, be exercised or permitted of by government; and here as it principally consists, on one hand, of a general agency, that enables government effectually to attend to the individual and the local interests and improvement of every distributive circle of national organization; and, on the other hand, of a humane, duly tempered, and patriotic society of the inhabitants of every such circle, whether to support such agency and government in all respects, to control such agency, or to render all possible services to such circle, according to suitable regulations prescribed by law.

IV. The Subadministrative Power of human Welfare, mentioned under the first Head; as the Crown should always depute the dispensation of law and justice to an independent and wellregulated and constituted judicature; and as the people, which is actually the case in our two Houses of Parliament, should acquire what is called a Constitution, to give the Crown the advantage of their collected genius and information, to concur in the formation and reformation of the laws of the land, and the practice of them, and to possess a national control over the Crown and its servants, without the two Houses of Parliament and their constituent members, through the abuse of their authority, and misconduct, being able, or being allowed,

to do any thing inconsistent with the real interests of their country, and the happiness of the king and his subjects; and as this power, according to Mr. Burke's declaration, is no other than the restoration of our antient constitution.

V. National, or manual and mental Industry, as they may, through appropriate ways and means, be employed on the extensive scale required in future by us, in perfecting our agriculture and manufactures, in consummating the improvements and resources of the United Kingdom and Empire; in multiplying, as consumption rationally demands, necessaries, and gratifications of every kind; in augmenting employment, population, affluence, and strength; in exploring and accomplishing all great and useful designs; in completing the arts, sciences, and embellishments of the United Kingdom; and in rendering the improvement of a kingdom a simple art.

VI. Finance; as through the proper use of taxation, through different great undertakings, such as the Postoffice, productive of revenue, not by oppressing but by serving the subject, through a masterly arrangement of our politicks, an adequate capital may be procured for effecting the public views and purposes of our national improvements; and an adequate revenue gained, whereby service and merit may be rewarded; the national dignity and expenditure maintained in every respect; our burdens relieved, and debt liquidated; and all individual privations the general good requires, amply compensated.

VII. Politicks, or the accomplishment of the grand objects of arranging the different interests of the nations of the world under the highest sanctions, and in a manner best adapted to prevent war and enmity, to forward the welfare and improvement of each and all of them, and multiply in the greatest possible quantum and perfection their several diversified productions, services, and relations to one another; and of giving them in common the infinite advantages that would hence result, and by their reciprocity complete the wealth, happiness, and prosperity, of each of them, and of the world! Considerations that in the end must lead us not to regret the loss of that endless source of war, the late

numerous

the purpose; and upon monarchs and all nations promiscuously and in common, that place under the government of one divine scheme or order whereby God has determined to rule all nations by the same views and laws, they may realise the scheme, and more especially make and maintain perfect and permanent peace through the pacific expedients of true politicks, as well as through implicit reverence for inter-national duties, a relation which his sacred will prescribes, and for the scrupulous observance of which he has given us Religion in the books both of Nature and Scripture.

Thus, Sir, I have been so fortynate, through your indulgence, as to acquire the high distinction of communicating to the publick that truc system of practical measures and improvement, and of national and individual interest, which is the order intended for man by the Almighty; the services of which are now indispensable to us; and, if I be not an arrant pretender in the eyes both of God and man, will be followed, as has already been stated, with all the exonerations, relief, advantages, services, comforts, blessings, pleasures, and transports, human genius is able, by divine fayour, to dispense in the establishment of that system, according to the original intentions of our Creator. I therefore have the honour of remaining, Sir, your truly obliged servant,

I

A FRIEND OF MEASURES, NOT OF MEN.

Mr. URBAN,

July 1. SEND you a letter I received from a Friend at Hampstead, so far back as the year 1782, which I think you will consider as not unworthy of being preserved. Yours, &c.

A CONSTANT READER. "I am sorry you was disappointed when your goodness led you to call here for a description of my illness the beginning of last month, caused by the vermin at that time in webs on the bushes and trees near London. Having heard of their smell when burnt, and a large web being put in the fire, I was led to hold my head over it, on which I was immediately affected with a strong scent like copper, and I had a working within me, and increasing illness; soon after my extremities were very cold; I put woollen socks on my feet, with worsted hose, and had a brick heated

and tied in a cloth to keep my feet warm in bed. Having slept about about three quarters of an hour, I waked in a great heat and a violent ferment, my head much confused, and so very giddy, that on getting out of bed, I had difficulty to keep from falling on the floor, and could not put on my clothes. After getting into bed, I slept about half an hour, and awaked again in a great heat and fermentation; and had frequent occasion to be out of bed. A violent flux continued for several days; on the seventh I was surprised at perceiving the smell of copper, like the effluvia of musk filling a room from a grain that can not be perceived to be lessened in weight. The little that went into my blood caused a breaking out about my nose and mouth; my tongue and inside of my mouth were sore. My nose and outside of my mouth were well in about a fortnight, but it was near a month before the inside of my mouth was quite well. It appears to me that if it had not been thrown off in the violent manner mentioned, I could not have lived twenty-four hours. To this may be added, that a gentleman of this place said, an acquaintance of his killed one of those vermin by bruising it with his finger; and happening to put his finger soon af terwards to his cheek, it caused blisters, and the next day his face was much swelled. Another gentleman who resides in this parish said, that, on finding the verdure of a hedge likely to be destroyed, he ordered his man to beat those vermin from the bushes with a long stick, that they might be taken up with a shovel to be cast into a pit to be buried; after the man had done, his face broke out in blotches. Sometime after, on observing some trees likely to be defaced by more of those vermin, he spoke to his man to beat them off with a long pole, as before,from the hedge. After itwas done, the man was again disordered in his face. The person who had the care of seeing those burnt that were gathered at the expence of the parish of Hampstead, although of a very hearty strong constitution, said, that one evening being too near the fume, he found the ill effect of it afterwards in his head. I was also told of a gentleman who came from France the beginning of this year, and said, that when the Police in that country ordered them to