raised is true.
In part this rise may be owing to some measures not so well considered
in the beginning of this war; but the grand cause has been the
reluctance of that class of people from whom the soldiery is taken to
enter into a military life,--not that, but, once entered into, it has
its conveniences, and even its pleasures. I have seldom known a soldier
who, at the intercession of his friends, and at their no small charge,
had been redeemed from that discipline, that in a short time was not
eager to return to it again. But the true reason is the abundant
occupation and the augmented stipend found in towns and villages and
farms, which leaves a smaller number of persons to be disposed of. The
price of men for new and untried ways of life must bear a proportion to
the profits of that mode of existence from whence they are to be bought.

So far as to the stock of the common people, as it consists in their
persons. As to the other part, which consists in their earnings, I have
to say, that the rates of wages are very greatly augmented almost
through the kingdom. In the parish where I live it has been raised from
seven to nine shillings in the week, for the same laborer, performing
the same task, and no greater. Except something in the malt taxes and
the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax imposed for very many
years past which affects the laborer in any degree whatsoever; while, on
the other hand, the tax upon houses not having more than seven windows
(that is, upon cottages) was repealed the very year before the
commencement of the present war. On the whole, I am satisfied that the
humblest class, and that class which touches the most nearly on the
lowest, out of which it is continually emerging, and to which it is
continually falling, receives far more from public impositions than it
pays. That class receives two million sterling annually from the
classes above it. It pays to no such amount towards any public
contribution.

I hope it is not necessary for me to take notice of that language, so
ill suited to the persons to whom it has been attributed, and so
unbecoming the place in which it is said to have been uttered,
concerning the present war as the cause of the high price of provisions
during the greater part of the year 1796. I presume it is only to be
ascribed to the intolerable license with which the newspapers break not
only the rules of decorum in real life, but even the dramatic decorum,
when th