<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0067" id="link2H_4_0067"></SPAN></p>
<h2> To Dr LEWIS. </h2>
<h3> DEAR LEWIS, </h3>
<p>Lismahago is more paradoxical than ever.—The late gulp he had of his
native air, seems to have blown fresh spirit into all his polemical
faculties. I congratulated him the other day on the present flourishing
state of his country, observing that the Scots were now in a fair way to
wipe off the national reproach of poverty, and expressing my satisfaction
at the happy effects of the union, so conspicuous in the improvement of
their agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and manners—The
lieutenant, screwing up his features into a look of dissent and disgust,
commented on my remarks to this effect—'Those who reproach a nation
for its poverty, when it is not owing to the profligacy or vice of the
people, deserve no answer. The Lacedaemonians were poorer than the Scots,
when they took the lead among all the free states of Greece, and were
esteemed above them all for their valour and their virtue. The most
respectable heroes of ancient Rome, such as Fabricius, Cincinnatus, and
Regulus, were poorer than the poorest freeholder in Scotland; and there
are at this day individuals in North-Britain, one of whom can produce more
gold and silver than the whole republic of Rome could raise at those times
when her public virtue shone with unrivalled lustre; and poverty was so
far from being a reproach, that it added fresh laurels to her fame,
because it indicated a noble contempt of wealth, which was proof against
all the arts of corruption—If poverty be a subject for reproach, it
follows that wealth is the object of esteem and veneration—In that
case, there are Jews and others in Amsterdam and London, enriched by
usury, peculation, and different species of fraud and extortion, who are
more estimable than the most virtuous and illustrious members of the
community. An absurdity which no man in his senses will offer to maintain.—Riches
are certainly no proof of merit: nay they are often (if not most commonly)
acquired by persons of sordid minds and mean talents: nor do they give any
intrinsic worth to the possessor; but, on the contrary, tend to pervert
his understanding, and render his morals more depraved. But, granting that
poverty were really matter of reproach, it cannot be justly imputed to
Scotland. No country is poor that can supply its inhabitants with the
necessaries of life, and even afford articles for exportation. Scotland is
rich in natural advantages: it produces every species of provision in
abundance, vast herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, with a great number
of horses; prodigious quantities of wool and flax, with plenty of copse
wood, and in some parts large forests of timber. The earth is still more
rich below than above the surface. It yields inexhaustible stores of coal,
free-stone, marble, lead, iron, copper, and silver, with some gold. The
sea abounds with excellent fish, and salt to cure them for exportation;
and there are creeks and harbours round the whole kingdom, for the
convenience and security of navigation. The face of the country displays a
surprising number of cities, towns, villas, and villages, swarming with
people; and there seems to be no want of art, industry, government, and
police: such a kingdom can never be called poor, in any sense of the word,
though there may be many others more powerful and opulent. But the proper
use of those advantages, and the present prosperity of the Scots, you seem
to derive from the union of the two kingdoms!'</p>
<p>I said, I supposed he would not deny that the appearance of the country
was much mended; that the people lived better, had more trade, and a
greater quantity of money circulating since the union, than before. 'I may
safely admit these premises (answered the lieutenant), without subscribing
to your inference. The difference you mention, I should take to be the
natural progress of improvement—Since that period, other nations,
such as the Swedes, the Danes, and in particular the French, have greatly
increased in commerce, without any such cause assigned. Before the union,
there was a remarkable spirit of trade among the Scots, as appeared in the
case of their Darien company, in which they had embarked no less than four
hundred thousand pounds sterling; and in the flourishing state of the
maritime towns in Fife, and on the eastern coast, enriched by their trade
with France, which failed in consequence of the union. The only solid
commercial advantage reaped from that measure, was the privilege of
trading to the English plantations; yet, excepting Glasgow and Dumfries, I
don't know any other Scotch towns concerned in that traffick. In other
respects, I conceive the Scots were losers by the union.—They lost
the independency of their state, the greatest prop of national spirit;
they lost their parliament, and their courts of justice were subjected to
the revision and supremacy of an English tribunal.'</p>
<p>'Softly, captain (cried I), you cannot be said to have lost your own
parliament, while you are represented in that of Great-Britain.' 'True
(said he, with a sarcastic grin), in debates of national competition, the
sixteen peers and forty-five commoners of Scotland, must make a formidable
figure in the scale, against the whole English legislature.' 'Be that as
it may (I observed) while I had the honour to sit in the lower house, the
Scotch members had always the majority on their side.' 'I understand you,
Sir (said he), they generally side with the majority; so much the worse
for their constituents. But even this evil is not the worst they have
sustained by the union. Their trade has been saddled with grievous
impositions, and every article of living severely taxed, to pay the
interest of enormous debts, contracted by the English, in support of
measures and connections in which the Scots had no interest nor concern.'
I begged he would at least allow, that by the union the Scots were
admitted to all the privileges and immunities of English subjects; by
which means multitudes of them were provided for in the army and navy, and
got fortunes in different parts of England, and its dominions. 'All these
(said he) become English subjects to all intents and purposes, and are in
a great measure lost to their mother-country. The spirit of rambling and
adventure has been always peculiar to the natives of Scotland. If they had
not met with encouragement in England, they would have served and settled,
as formerly, in other countries, such as Muscovy, Sweden, Denmark, Poland,
Germany, France, Piedmont, and Italy, in all which nations their
descendants continue to flourish even at this day.'</p>
<p>By this time my patience began to fail and I exclaimed, 'For God's sake,
what has England got by this union which, you say, has been so productive
of misfortune to the Scots.' 'Great and manifold are the advantages which
England derives from the union (said Lismahago, in a solemn tone). First
and foremost, the settlement of the protestant succession, a point which
the English ministry drove with such eagerness, that no stone was left
unturned, to cajole and bribe a few leading men, to cram the union down
the throats of the Scottish nation, who were surprisingly averse to the
expedient. They gained by it a considerable addition of territory,
extending their dominion to the sea on all sides of the island, thereby
shutting up all back-doors against the enterprizes of their enemies. They
got an accession of above a million of useful subjects, constituting a
never-failing nursery of seamen, soldiers, labourers, and mechanics; a
most valuable acquisition to a trading country, exposed to foreign wars,
and obliged to maintain a number of settlements in all the four quarters
of the globe. In the course of seven years, during the last war, Scotland
furnished the English army and navy with seventy thousand men, over and
above those who migrated to their colonies, or mingled with them at home
in the civil departments of life. This was a very considerable and
seasonable supply to a nation, whose people had been for many years
decreasing in number, and whose lands and manufactures were actually
suffering for want of hands. I need not remind you of the hackneyed maxim,
that, to a nation in such circumstances, a supply of industrious people is
a supply of wealth; nor repeat an observation, which is now received as an
eternal truth, even among the English themselves, that the Scots who
settle in South-Britain are remarkably sober, orderly, and industrious.'</p>
<p>I allowed the truth of this remark, adding, that by their industry,
oeconomy, and circumspection, many of them in England, as well as in her
colonies, amassed large fortunes, with which they returned to their own
country, and this was so much lost to South-Britain.—'Give me leave,
sir (said he), to assure you, that in your fact you are mistaken, and in
your deduction erroneous. Not one in two hundred that leave Scotland ever
returns to settle in his own country; and the few that do return, carry
thither nothing that can possibly diminish the stock of South-Britain; for
none of their treasure stagnates in Scotland—There is a continual
circulation, like that of the blood in the human body, and England is the
heart, to which all the streams which it distributes are refunded and
returned: nay, in consequence of that luxury which our connexion with
England hath greatly encouraged, if not introduced, all the produce of our
lands, and all the profits of our trade, are engrossed by the natives of
South-Britain; for you will find that the exchange between the two
kingdoms is always against Scotland; and that she retains neither gold nor
silver sufficient for her own circulation.—The Scots, not content
with their own manufactures and produce, which would very well answer all
necessary occasions, seem to vie with each other in purchasing
superfluities from England; such as broad-cloth, velvets, stuffs, silks,
lace, furs, jewels, furniture of all sorts, sugar, rum, tea, chocolate and
coffee; in a word, not only every mode of the most extravagant luxury, but
even many articles of convenience, which they might find as good, and much
cheaper in their own country. For all these particulars, I conceive,
England may touch about one million sterling a-year.—I don't pretend
to make an exact calculation; perhaps, it may be something less, and
perhaps, a great deal more. The annual revenue arising from all the
private estates of Scotland cannot fall short of a million sterling; and,
I should imagine, their trade will amount to as much more.—I know
the linen manufacture alone returns near half a million, exclusive of the
home-consumption of that article.—If, therefore, North-Britain pays
a ballance of a million annually to England, I insist upon it, that
country is more valuable to her in the way of commerce, than any colony in
her possession, over and above the other advantages which I have
specified: therefore, they are no friends, either to England or to truth,
who affect to depreciate the northern part of the united kingdom.'</p>
<p>I must own, I was at first a little nettled to find myself schooled in so
many particulars.—Though I did not receive all his assertions as
gospel, I was not prepared to refute them; and I cannot help now
acquiescing in his remarks so far as to think, that the contempt for
Scotland, which prevails too much on this side the Tweed, is founded on
prejudice and error.—After some recollection, 'Well, captain (said
I), you have argued stoutly for the importance of your own country: for my
part, I have such a regard for our fellow-subjects of North-Britain, that
I shall be glad to see the day, when your peasants can afford to give all
their oats to their cattle, hogs, and poultry, and indulge themselves with
good wheaten loaves, instead of such poor, unpalatable, and inflammatory
diet.' Here again I brought my self into a premunire with the disputative
Caledonian. He said he hoped he should never see the common people lifted
out of that sphere for which they were intended by nature and the course
of things; that they might have some reason to complain of their bread, if
it were mixed, like that of Norway, with saw dust and fish-bones; but that
oatmeal was, he apprehended, as nourishing and salutary as wheat-flour,
and the Scots in general thought it at least as savoury.—He
affirmed, that a mouse, which, in the article of self-preservation, might
be supposed to act from infallible instinct, would always prefer oats to
wheat, as appeared from experience; for, in a place where there was a
parcel of each, that animal has never begun to feed upon the latter till
all the oats were consumed: for their nutritive quality, he appealed to
the hale, robust constitutions of the people who lived chiefly upon
oatmeal; and, instead of being inflammatory, he asserted, that it was a
cooling sub-acid, balsamic and mucilaginous; insomuch, that in all
inflammatory distempers, recourse was had to water-gruel, and flummery
made of oatmeal.</p>
<p>'At least (said I), give me leave to wish them such a degree of commerce
as may enable them to follow their own inclinations.'—'Heaven
forbid! (cried this philosopher). Woe be to that nation, where the
multitude is at liberty to follow their own inclinations! Commerce is
undoubtedly a blessing, while restrained within its proper channels; but a
glut of wealth brings along with it a glut of evils: it brings false
taste, false appetite, false wants, profusion, venality, contempt of
order, engendering a spirit of licentiousness, insolence, and faction,
that keeps the community in continual ferment, and in time destroys all
the distinctions of civil society; so that universal anarchy and uproar
must ensue. Will any sensible man affirm, that the national advantages of
opulence are to be sought on these terms?' 'No, sure; but I am one of
those who think, that, by proper regulations, commerce may produce every
national benefit, without the allay of such concomitant evils.'</p>
<p>So much for the dogmata of my friend Lismahago, whom I describe the more
circumstantially, as I firmly believe he will set up his rest in
Monmouthshire. Yesterday, while I was alone with him he asked, in some
confusion, if I should have any objection to the success of a gentleman
and a soldier, provided he should be so fortunate as to engage my sister's
affection. I answered without hesitation, that my sister was old enough to
judge for herself; and that I should be very far from disapproving any
resolution she might take in his favour.—His eyes sparkled at this
declaration. He declared, he should think himself the happiest man on
earth to be connected with my family; and that he should never be weary of
giving me proofs of his gratitude and attachment. I suppose Tabby and he
are already agreed; in which case, we shall have a wedding at
Brambleton-hall, and you shall give away the bride.—It is the least
thing you can do, by way of atonement for your former cruelty to that poor
love-sick maiden, who has been so long a thorn in the side of</p>
<p>Yours, MATT. BRAMBLE Sept. 20.</p>
<p>We have been at Buxton; but, as I did not much relish either the company
or the accommodations, and had no occasion for the water, we stayed but
two nights in the place.</p>
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