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extravagances, fcenic mummery at their own manfions, and other expedients equally light and contemptible.

Frequently would Henry clafp his infant daughter to his arms, and often would he fupplicate heaven to pour down its bleffings on her head while his amiable partner united with him in the acl of petition, thankfulness, and praise.

Thus comforted with mutual felicity, year after year påffed on in a series of calm and uninterrupted content; while their Harriet grew up the darling of her parents, and the admiration of their friends, until her thirteenth year closed upon that happiness which was fated never to return! Farewel now to innocence and tranquillity! The cup of woe was filled, and they were condemned to fwallow the draught of bitterness.

[To be concluded in our next.]

Aboufaber, or the Eulogy of Patience;-an

Oriental Tale.

(Tranflated from Nouveaux Contes Arabes,

jul published at Paris.)

BOUSABER, a wealthy farmer, was

A ended with an uncommon degree of patience; and, as if fome fuperior being had decreed, that it was requifite, by frequent fuffering, that it fhould approach even to perfection, his patience was put to fuch a variety of fevere trials, as, one would imagine, it was impoffible for any mortal to fup port. One day, in particular, he was unjuftly accufed of murder: his goods were confifcated, and he was driven into exile. A troop of robbers had carried off his children, When the party who conducted him to the place of exile, had left him, Aboufabar found it neceffary to leave his wife, for fome time, in order to explore the country for a proper habitation. He prevailed, therefore, upon his wife, who was much fatigued, to take fuch repofe, in the mean time, upon the fhore. He had not depart ed long, when an Arabian horfeman chanc ed to ride near, and beholding the folitary beauty, carried her off as his lawful prize. The wife of Aboufaber, incapable of refiftance, could obtain, with difficulty, the liberty of writing on the fand, this melancholy adieu : Alas! Aboufabar, you have no longer a wife remember that you are the most patient of men.'-Aboufaber, at his return, read the fatal characters. He felt as was natural, the lofs of the beloved conpanion of his life; but fill his patience was unfubdued; and having now no other refource than the labour of his hands, he engaged himself among a party of workmen,

:

who were building a palace for the king of • the country. One of his companions happened to fall from his fcaffold, and break his leg: Be patient under this misfortune,' faid Aboufaber: Were a man at the bottom of the deepest well, patience can extricate him from it, and even exalt him to a throne.'The king, who came every day to encou rage the workmen by his prefence, happened to be there, when Aboufaber was making this eulogy on patience. The fuppofition of the good man appeared to him a very extraordinary one; and he was determined to try whether he was the perfon who could realize it. Accordingly he ordered him to be let down into the bottom of a very deep dry well, which ferved as a kind of prifon. Let us fee,' he added, what miracles pa tience can perform; and that he may exercife his a little, let him be allowed only two cakes a day. Aboufaber followed the officers to the well with fubmiffive filence. This Ring was a cruel tyrant: he had confined his own brother in the fame prifon; but no one knew, that there, likewife, he had caufed him to be affaffinated, and the body to be privately removed, The natural confequence

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of infupportable tyranny enfued an univer fal revolt. The guards were maffacred : the tyrant was depofed; and it was determined to raise his brother to the throne. They hattened to the prifon. What a fight! A fofitary human being, whom no one could recollect, from the palenefs and rags that dif guifed him! In vain did this figure of woe proteft that he was not at all related to the king. Not one would believe him. Aboufaber was conveyed in triumph to the palace, and crowned wit the greatest folemnity and fplendour. He caufed enquiries to he immediately made after his wife and children, and he had the happinefs to find them. Aboufaber, on a throne, poffeffed all the wifdom that had diftinguifhed his former humble lot; and the patient piety of unmerited fuffering was now changed into the active exertions of inexhauftible benevolence, and the unfpeakable fatisfaction of that virtue, which was confcious of being inceffantly intent on the happiness of thousands. Often would he recollect the scenes of woe that were paft, and, contrafting them with his prefent fitua tion, would adore the difpenfations of Heaven. 'Who,' faid he, can doubt the exiftence of a Divine Providence? From the depth of a well to be exalted to a throne ! May my example inftruct the fuffering man, that the evils with which it may please the Deity to afflict us, are but fo many triale, by which it is his pleasure that we merit tranquility and joy.

The

The Political Hiftory of Europe for the Years 1784 and 1785.

IN

(Concluded from Page 376.)

N confequence of this double game, the whole Carnatic has, at one time or other, been covered by those locufts, the English fou cars. During these operations, what a scene-> has that country produced! The ufurious Eu ropean affignee fuperfedes the nabob's native farmer of the revenue-The farmer flies to the nabob, to claim his bargain; whiift his fervants murmur for wages, and his foldiers mutiny for pay. The mortgage to the European affignee is then refumed, and the native farmer replaced; replaced, again to be removed on the new clamour of the European affignee. Every man of rank and landed fortune being long fince extinguished, the remaining miferable laft cultivator, who grows to the foil, after having his back fcored by the farmer, has it again flayed by the affignee; and is thus, by a ravenous, because a fhort-lived fucceffion of claimants, lafhed from oppreffor to oppreffor, whilft a drop of blood is left, as the means of extorting a fingle grain of corn. Far from painting, he added, that he did not reach the fact, nor approach it. This tyrannous exaction brought on servile conceal ment, and that again called forth tyrannous coercion--till at length nothing of humanity was left in the government, no trace of integrity, fpirit, or manlinefs in the people, who drag out a precarious or degraded existence under fuch a fyltem of outrage upon human nature.

The ministers, he observed, had thought fit to renew the company's old order against contracting private debts in future. They begin by rewarding the violation of the ancient law; they then gravely re-enact provisions, of which they bad given bounties for the breach; and they conclade with positive directions for again contracing the debts they pofitively forbid. They order the nabob to allot L. 480,000 a year, as a fund for the debts before us. For the punctual payment of this annuity, they order him to give foucar [bankers] fecurity. These foucars are no other than the creditors themselves, who thus become creditors again on a new account, and receive an additional twenty-four per cent. for condefcending to take the country in mortgage, and being fecurity to themselves for their own claims.

Mr. Burke, after fome obfervations on the motives to this fhameful conduct, and on the perfon [Mr. Paul Benfield] in whofe tavour all thefe rules had been violated, concluded with declaring his opinion, that if the scene on the other fide of the globe, which rempts, invites, almost compels to tyranny and rapine, be not infpected with the eye of a fevere and unremitting vigilance, shame and deftruction must enfue. For one, fays he, the worft event of this day, though it may deject, fhall not break or fubdue me-The call upon us is authoritative Let who will fhrink back, I fhall be found at my post-Baffled, discountenanced, fubdued, difcredited, as the caufe of juftice and humanity is, it will be only the dearer to me-Whoever, therefore, fhall at any time bring before you any thing towards the reliet of our diftreffed Gent. Mag. Aug. 1788.

fellow-citizens in India, and towards a fubver-fion of the prefent moft corrupt and oppreffive fyftem for its government, in me fhall find, a weak I am afraid, but a steady, earneft, and faithful affiftant.

The house then divided, when there appeared, for the motion 69, against it 164.

The business of a reform in parliament, the confideration of which had now for a certain period annually occupied the attention of parliament, was this feffion brought to a final deter mination.

The weight and influence of government had hitherto been exerted more or lefs in oppofition to this measure; but the prefent minifter having pledged himself to exercile the whole weight of his official situation to attain it, the prefent opportunity was looked upon as the most favourable it could ever experience.

The question was accordingly brought before the house of Commons on the 18th day of April, by Mr. Pitt himself, who concluded a fpeech of confiderable length with moving, "That leave be given to bring in a bill to amend the reprefentation of the people of England in parliament."

The plan which he propofed for this purpose, was to tranfer the right of chufing reprefenta tives from 36 of fuch boroughs as had already, or were falling into decay, to the counties, and to such chief towns and cities as were at prefent unreprefented-That a fund fhould be provided, for the purpose of giving to the owners and holders of fuch boroughs disfranchised, an ap preciated compensation for their property-That the taking this compenfation fhould be a voluntary act of the proprietor, and if not taken at prefent, fhould be placed out at compound intereft, until it became an irresistible bait to fuch proprietors. He also meant to extend the right of voting for knights of the fhire to copyholders as well as freeholders. Such was the outline of his fyftem, which was not altogether approved of by those who fupported the motion in general. Mr. Fox, particularly, objected to the mode laid down, of purchafing the boroughs, though he adopted the transferring of the right of chufing reprefentatives from them to the counties and principal towns and cities.

The chief arguments delivered in favour of a reform, were derived from what was ftated to be the prefent defective and partial reprefentation of the kingdom at large-That an active, reforming, and regulating principle, which kept pace with the alterations in the ftate, was requifite to preserve the conftitution in its full force and vigour-That as any part of the conftitution decayed, it had ever been the wisdom of the legislature to renovate and restore it by fuch means as were most likely to answer the end proposed; and that hence had arifen the frequent alterations that had taken place with respect to the rule of reprefentation, both before and at the revolution.

On the other hand, it was objected to the motion, that it was not called for by the people, and particularly not by the unreprefented large towns and cities, which it was stated had a right to claim the benefit which would refult from fuch a measure-That if a bill of reform was Hhh

once

a year.

once introduced, mens minds were fo unfettled high, the fummer quarters were proportionably and various on the fubject, that there was no low alfo, that the two quarters taken by Mr. knowing to what extent it might be carried Pitt, contained together 15 days more than half That what were called rotten and decayed boroughs, were frequently reprefented by gentlemen who had the greateft ftake in the country, and confequently were as much concerned in its welfare, and in that of the conftitution, as any other fpecies of reprefentatives, in whatsoever manner they might be chofen, could be ;-and, finally, that whilst no, neceffity was fhewn for fuch a reform, and whift the rights and liberties of the people remained fafe and fecure under the prefent mode of reprefentation, it was hazardous in the extreme to alter what was found to be good by experience, the only test of truth.

The motion, aiter much extraneous debate, and much perfonal allufion and animofities from both fides of the house, at length paffed in the negative, the numbers against it being 248, for it 164.

Previous to the opening the budget for the prefent year, Mr. Pitt called the attention of the houfe to a general review of the national finances. The whole of the public expenditure (including the intereft of the public debt, together with the probable expences of the peace establishment) he eftimated at 14,400,000 per annum; and, in cider to compare this yearly expenditure with the yearly income of the fate, he propofed examining the net produce of the taxes for the quarters ending the 5th of January and the 5th of April 1784, and the produce of thofe ending the 5th of January and the 5th of April 1785. The refpective produce of these four refpective quarters in progreffion was ftated to be as folJows: the first at£. 2, 585,000, the second at £2,198,000, the third at £2,738,000, the fourth at .3,066,000. According to the increafed produce of the taxes in thefe quarters, he made a variety of calculations on their probable amount for the whole year; the highest of which he placed at £. 12,600,000, and the loweft at near £. 12,000,000 per annum. There was another calculation, on which he did not lay fo much ftrefs, and that was by expecting a progreffive increase in each fucceeding quar ter, proportionate to the fuperiority of the quarter ending on the 5th of April 1785, over thofe preceding, which would raise the yearly amount of the taxes to upwards of fourteen millions and a balf. The land and malt tax (at £. 2,450,000, added to this computed product of the other tax

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he expected would leave an overplus of nearly £1,000,or for the purpose of a fioking fund, to be applied to the discharge of the national debt; but the neceffary measures for such an appropriation, although he wished parliament well to confider the fubject, he did not intend to put in execution urtil the year following.

Many objections were made by the oppofition to the mode of calculation pursued by Mr. Pitt; the chief of which were, that it was impoffible to get at the true annual amount of taxes, by extracing particular quarters and feafons of the year in which perhaps the greatest part of the taxes were received, inftead of taking the whole twelve months together; and it was particularly fhewn, from a pole of the amount of the customs, that whenever the fpring quarters rofe fingularly

The aggregate amount of the supplies voted this year, was ftated by Mr. Pitt at £9,737,868; the ways and means which had already been vot ed towards providing for these fupplies, including the computed growing produce of the finking fund up to the 10th of October next, the money ftill remaining in the exchequer, and what had been paid in by the paymasters, left together a deficiency of . 1,000,000: this fum he intended borrowing from the bank at 5 per cent, and he fhould do fo, because the bank wou'd pay the money in as government called for it, and the intereft was to be calculated only from the time the fums were advanced. The intereft of this loan he should state at £. 50,000.

But the most serious part of the present budget was, the funding the remainder of the navy bills and ordnance debentures, which had stood over from the laft feffion. Thefe together, notwithftanding they amounted to 10,010,000, he intended funding, he faid, the present year.

He oblerved, that £6,000,000 of the navy bills had been provided for laft year at an intereft of 4 per cent.; that the fum required for the intereft of the remainder would now be no more than £. 320,000, and which, together with the £50,000 for the loan from the bank, and

40,000 to replace the tax on call coes, which was now repealed, would make the whole fum to be raised about £. 413,000.

With regard to what ttock he should fund in, he gave a preference to the 5 per cents. because, although in the 5 per cents, there was a prefent loss of about 6s. per £. 100, or about £30,000 in all, yet it would be amply repaid from the nature of that fort of stock affording a more eafy and expeditious means of paying it off, in confequence of which, whenever that came to be done, there would be a faving of near £. 3,000,000.

The taxes, which were impofed, in order to raife the fum of £. 413,000, for the interest upon this funded debt, paffed with a few regulations and amendments.

That on female fervants met with the most op pofition.

In addition to the different bills which had paffed for the purpofe of regulating the public offces of the kingdom, Mr. Pitt brought one in this feffion" for appointing commissioners to en• quire into the fees, gratuities, perquifites, and emoluments, which are or lately have been received in the several public offices to be therein mentioned; to examine into any abuses which may exift in the fame; and to report fuch ob• fervations as fhall occur to them, for the better conducting and managing the bufiness transacted in the faid offices.' The oppofition this measure encountered was confiderable. The bill was ftated to be needlefs, futile, and illegal. Needlefs, because the treasury board had every power neceffary to make fuch enquiries as the bill pro posed, already vefted in them. Futile, because nothing fubflantial, or equivalent to the exten five powers granted by it, could be obtained, it being the appearance of a reform, without the

effect.

effect. And illegal, inasmuch as there was a claule enabling the commiffioners to fend for perfons, and to examine them when and where they pleated; a principle directly militating against magna charta, and the law of the land. On the other hand, it was argued, that the bill, appointing the commiffioners of public accounts, af forded a very recent precedent for granting fuch powers as were now complained of; and that, although the objects of the reform in question were not of equal magnitude with fome others which had appeared before the house, yet, on the other hand, they became important on account of their number and extent. The question on this bull was finally put and carried, in the houfe of commons on the 14th of June, the numbers for it being 74, against it 15. It afterwards paffed the house of lord, where it received feveral amendments, and one in particular which fubjected the commiffioners to the controul of the board of treafury. The commiffioners appointed were two of the comptrollers of the army accounts, and Mr. Francis Baring.

The arrangement of the commercial intercourfe between Great Britain and Ireland took up a confiderable part of this feffion; but as the prefent volume has already fwelled greatly beyond its ufual fize, we muft beg leave to defer the hiftory of that important fubject to another

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Macleod; I force her to speak aloud, but the will feldom fpeak loud enough.

Raarfa is an inland about fifteen miles long and two broad, under the dominion of one gentleman, who has three fons and ten daughters; the eldest is the beauty of this part of the world, and has been polished at Edinburgh: they fing and dance, and without expence have upon their table most of what fea, air, or earth can afford.

Bolwell, with fome of his troublesome kindnets, has informed this family and reminded me that the 18th of September is my birth-day. The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to efcape. I can now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diverfified by misery, spent part in the singgishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy difcontent or importunate diftrefs. But perhaps I am better than I fhould have been if I had been lefs afflicted. With this I will try to be content.

In proportion as there is lefs pleasure in retrofpective confiderations, the mind is more difpofed to wander forward into futurity; but at fixty-four what promifes, however liberal, of imaginary good can futurity venture to make? yet fomething will be always promised, and fome promifes will always be credited. I am hoping and I am praying that I may live better in the time to come, whether long or short, than I have yet lived, and in the folace of that hope endravour to repofe. Dear Queeney's day is next, I hope the at fixty-four will have lefs to regre.

ces.

Lady Macleod is very good to me, and the place at which we now are is equal in ftrength of fituation, in the wildness of the adjacent country, and in the plenty and elegance of the domeftic entertainment, to a caftle in Gothic romanThe fea with a little inland is before us; cafcades play within view. Clofe to the house is the formidable skeleton of an old caftle probably Danish, and the whole mafs of building ftands upon a protuberance of rock, inacceffible till of late but by a pair of stairs on the fea-fide, and secure in ancient times against any enemy that was likely to invade the kingdom of Skie.

Macleod has offered me an inland; if it were would be pleafanter than Brighthelmftone, if not too far off I should hardly refuse it my island you and my mafter could come to it; but I cannot think it pleasant to live quite alone.

Oblitufque meorum, oblivifcendus et illis.

fome account of the isle of Skie, of which, You will now expect that I should give you though I have been twelve days upon it. I have little to say. It is an ifland perhaps fifty miles long, fo much indented by inlets of the fea that there is no part of it removed from the water more than fix miles. No part that I have feen is plain, you are always climbing or defcending, ald every step is upon rock or mire. A walk upon ploughed ground in England is a dance upon carpets, compared to the toillome drudgery of wan lage in the island, nor have I feen any house t dering in Skie. There is neither town nor vil

Hhha

Macie

Macleod's, that is not much below your habitation at Brighthelmftone. In the mountains there are ftags and roebucks, but no hares, and few rabbits; nor have I feen any thing that intereft ed me as a zoologift, except an otter, bigger than I thought an otter could have been.

You are perhaps imagining that I am withdrawn from the gay and the bufy world into regions of peace and paftoral felicity, and am enjoying the reliques of the golden age; that I am furveying nature's magnificence from a mountain, or remarking her minuter beauties on the flowery bank of a winding rivulet; that I am invigorating myself in the funthine, or delighting my imagination with being hidden from the invafion of human evils and human paffions in the darkness of a thicket; that I am bufy in gathering fhells and pebbles on the shore, or contemplative on a rock, from which I look upon the water, and confider how many waves are rolling between me and Streatham.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to fee them as they are. Here are mountains which I should once have climbed, but to climb fteeps is now very laborious, and to defcend them dangerous; and I am now content with knowing, that by fcrambling up a rock, I fhall only fee other rocks, and a wider circuit of barren defolation. Of ftreams, we have here a fufficient number, but they murmur not upon pebbles, but upon rocks. Of flowers, if Chloris herself were here, I could prefent her only with the bloom of heath. Of lawns and thickets, he muft read that would know them, for here is little fun and no fhade. On the fea I look from my window, but am not much tempted to the fhore; for fince I came to this fland, almost every breath of air bas been a form, and what is worse, a form with all its feverity, but without its magnificence, for the fea is here to broken into channels that there is not a fufficient volume of water either for loftyfurges or a loud ioar. On Sept. 6th, we lett to vilit Raar fa, the land which I have already mentioned. We were received on the fea-fide, and after clambering with fome difficulty over the rocks, a labour which the traveller, wherever he repofes himfelf on land, muft in these iflands be contented to endure; we were introduced into the houfe, which one of the company called the court of Raaria, with politenefs which not the Court of Vertailles could have thought defective. The houfe is not large, though we were told in our paffage that it had eleven fine rooms, nor magnificently furnished, but our utenfils were moft commonly filver. We went up into a diningroom, about as large as your blue room, where we had fomething given us to eat, and tea and coffee.

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Kaarfa himself is a man of no inelegant appearance, and of manners uncommonly refined. Lady Raarfe makes no very fublime appearance for a fovereign, but is a good housewife, and a very prudent and diligent conductrels of her family. Milk Flora Maclend is a celebrated beauty; has been admired at Edinburgh, dreifes her head very high; end has manners fo lady-like, that I with her head-drefs was lower. The rett

of the nine girls are all pretty; the youngest is between Queeney and Lucy. The youngest bay, of four years old, runs barefoot, and wandered with us over the rocks to fee a mill. I believe he would walk on that rough ground without fhoes ten miles a day.

Raarfa and its provinces have defcended to its prefent poffeffor through a fucceffion of four hundred years, without any increate or diminution, It was indeed lately in danger of forfeiture, but the old Laird joined fome prudence with his zeal, and when Prince Charles landed in Scotland, made over his eftate to his fon, the prefent Laird, and led one hundred men of Raarfa into the field, with officers of his own family. Eighty-fix only came back after the last battle. The Prince was hidden, in his diftrefs two nights at Raarfa, and the king's troops burnt the whole country, and killed tome of the cattle.

You may guefs at the opinions that prevail in this country; they are, however, content with fighting for their king; they do not drink for him. We had no foolish healths. At night, unexpectedly, to us who were ftrangers, the carpet was taken up; the fiddler of the family came up, and a very vigorous and general dance was begun. We were two-and-thirty at fupper; there were full as many dancers; for though all who fupped did not dance, fome danced of the young people who did not fup. Raaifa himfelf danced with his children, and old Malcolm, in his filibeg, was as nimble as when he led the Prince over the mountains. When they had danced themselves weary, two tables were pread, and I luppole at least twenty difhes were upon them. In this country fome preparations of milk are always ferved up at fupper, and fometimes in the place of tarts at dinner. The table was not coarfely heaped, but at once plentiful and elegant; they do not pretend to make a loaf; there are only cakes, commonly of oats or barley, but they made me very nice cakes of wheat flour. I always tat at the left hand of Lady Raarfa, and young Macleod of Skie, the chieftain of the clan, fat on the right.

After fupper a young lady who was visiting Tung Earfe fongs, in which Lady Raarfa joined prettily enough, but not gracefully; the young ladies futtained the chorus better. They are very little uled to be asked questions, and not well prepared with answers. When one of the songs was over, I asked the prince's that fat next me, What is that about? I question if the conceived that I did not understand it. For the entertainment of the company, faid fhe. But, Madam, what is the meaning of it? It is a love fong. This was all the intelligence that I could obtain; nor have I been able to procure the tranflation of a single line of Earte.

At twelve it was bed time. I had a chamber to myself, which, in eleven rooms to forty people, was more than my share. How the company and the family were diftributed is not ealy to tell. Macleod the chieftain. and Bofwell, and I, had all fingle chambers on first floor. There remained eight room only for at least leven-andthirty lodgers. I fuppofe they put up temporary beds in the dining-room, where they flowed all the young ladies. There was a room above

ftairs

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