fource fpring the complaints of the great decay of trade, and this is the true caufe why fo many of you, Gentlemen, are found in the lift of Bankrupts. Let each of you go to his compting-house and mind his own bufinefs; and believe me, this will contribute more to the public welfare than by infulting the king, mobbing the minifter, or abufing the legislature." MR. DEPUTY AND GENTLEMEN OF THE "Gentlemen, "You complain, and I believe with great truth, of the profligacy and corruption of the times. Men MAKE the times, and there is not any body of men which contributes more to the general profligacy than the company of VINTNERS. They encourage in their houses every fpecies of extravagance, riot, and debauchery; and I verily believe that the prefent heats and ill-humours of the body politic are owing to their adulterated inflammatory pota'tions. "You likewife complain grievously of the measures of Government whether thefe your complaints are well founded or not, I shall not take M. 3 take upon me to determine; but permit me to fay, that I have often heard loud and violent complaints against YOUR measures, Gentlemen: These complaints are general, and of long standing, but remain to this hour unredreffed; -firft correct the abufes in your own houfes; amend your own bad measures, and then you may come with a better grace to remonstrate to your Sovereign against the measures of his government, and the two houfes of parlia ment." MR. DEPUTY AND GENTLEMEN OF BRIDGE WARD. "Gentlemen, "Your eyes are fo eagerly bent towards Weftminster, that you overlook what is passing under your very noses. For God's fake, look at home, attend to the navigation of the river, on which the trade and profperity of this great city ultimately depends, and (instead of attempting to remove the King's ministers) remove those dangerous nuifances, the fand banks and chalk hills on both fides the bridge. Gentlemen, I am forry to fay that the bridge itfelf is a nuifance, a glaring publie nuisance, which, in spite of re-peated complaints, remains a monument of your want want of taste and want of humanity, obftructing the navigation, and deftroying the lives of your fellow fubjects. Let it be immediately pulled down and rebuilt on a proper plan, and employ the city revenue better than in greasy feasts and idle fwan-hopping. "To conclude: I fhould have talked to the bakers of their fhort weights and adulterated bread; to the fifhmongers of their deftroying large quantities of fish in order to create an artificial fcarcity, and to keep up the market price. I fhould have talked very freely to the corn diftillers, thofe makers of pernicious inflammatory fpirits,' converting to a curfe what was meant for a bleffing, or perhaps grinding the face of the poor under the notion' of a miller. In fhort, as every profeffion has fome weak fide, or fome BAD HINGE that wants mending, I fhould have offered every one of them a little wholesome advice in the plain, blunt language of truth and fincerity; and I dare fay, in the cool moments of reflection (after the rage of party had fubfided) this language would have funk deep in the minds of my fellow-citizens :-They would have remembered it with gratitude, when the hollow, fawning, flattering, time-ferving speeches of BRASS CROSBY had been configned to oblivion M. 5 (livion; and I fould have cried out triumpkantly, in the words of a celebrated citizen of Rome, Exegi monumentum Ære perennius; I have erected a monument more lasting tham BRASS. I am, With all due respect, Mr. BRASS, Your very humble Servant, RICHARD STEEL, THE THE ALDERMAN IN RETIREMENT, TIR'D of debate, of party and of power, To build, to drink, to fan his am'rous fires; For power and popularity to quit retreat. "Staunch friend to Wilkes, and doft thou thus forego The helm of state that London calls thee to ? |