y presence forgot that their attendants had
human feelings as well as forms. I do not know a more agreeable sight
than to see servants part of a family. By taking an interest, generally
speaking, in their concerns you inspire them with one for yours. We must
love our servants, or we shall never be sufficiently attentive to their
happiness; and how can those masters be attentive to their happiness who,
living above their fortunes, are more anxious to outshine their
neighbours than to allow their household the innocent enjoyments they
earn?

It is, in fact, much more difficult for servants, who are tantalised by
seeing and preparing the dainties of which they are not to partake, to
remain honest, than the poor, whose thoughts are not led from their
homely fare; so that, though the servants here are commonly thieves, you
seldom hear of housebreaking, or robbery on the highway. The country is,
perhaps, too thinly inhabited to produce many of that description of
thieves termed footpads, or highwaymen. They are usually the spawn of
great cities--the effect of the spurious desires generated by wealth,
rather than the desperate struggles of poverty to escape from misery.

The enjoyment of the peasantry was drinking brandy and coffee, before the
latter was prohibited, and the former not allowed to be privately
distilled, the wars carried on by the late king rendering it necessary to
increase the revenue, and retain the specie in the country by every
possible means.

The taxes before the reign of Charles XII. were inconsiderable. Since
then the burden has continually been growing heavier, and the price of
provisions has proportionately increased--nay, the advantage accruing
from the exportation of corn to France and rye to Germany will probably
produce a scarcity in both Sweden and Norway, should not a peace put a
stop to it this autumn, for speculations of various kinds have already
almost doubled the price.

Such are the effects of war, that it saps the vitals even of the neutral
countries, who, obtaining a sudden influx of wealth, appear to be
rendered flourishing by the destruction which ravages the hapless nations
who are sacrificed to the ambition of their governors. I shall not,
however, dwell on the vices, though they be of the most contemptible and
embruting cast, to which a sudden accession of fortune gives birth,
because I believe it may be delivered as an axiom, that it is only in
proportion to the industry