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on their top, now under them, now around them, considered the sufficiency of every part, the strength of the machines, the exactnefs of all the preventatives; and when he corrected detected insufficiencies by his orders, by his encouragement, by his penetration, and by the nimble fkill of his indefatigable hands. By this unremitting attention, by this constancy, unconquerable in labour the fabulous celeri ty of antiquity, was in the days of Peter actually examplified.

How agreeable these succefses in naval affairs so highly advantageous to the glory of the country, and the offspring of his own attention, were to this great man, it is easily to conceive, not only from the rewards he gave to his fellow labourers in the work, but also by the noble marks of gratitude shown to inanimate wood. The streams of Neva* are covered with vefsels and streamers; its banks cannot contain the number of collected spectators; the air trembles and groans with the shouts of the people, with the noise of cars, with the voice of trumpets, at the crack of fire rifting machines. What happinefs, what joy does Heaven now dispense to us? To meet whom does our monarch go out with such magnificence? Ant old boat! but the origin of a new and powerful navy! Considering the majesty, beauty, energy, and glorious effects of this, and at the same time the smallness and badness of that, we conclude

* River that runs through Petersburgh.

+ This old boat is carefully preserved in the castle at Petersburgh in a brick building costructed for this purpose,

that nothing could have brought about this change, but, in undertaking the giant like boldnefs, and in prosecution the unwearied afsiduity of Peter.

In power and martial fkill our great Protector was on land supreme, and at sea complete.

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From this fhort fketch, containing a small portion of his toils, I already suffer wearinefs, hearers; But what an extensive field for praise do I yet see before me! Thus that my strength and time may not fail me in finishing my discourse, I fhall use all possible brevity.

To be continued.

ON THE MODE OF PROVIDING FOR THE POOR.

IT is admitted by all civilized nations, that those who, from age, disease, or accidental debility, are unable to provide for themselves, ought to be furnished with a subsistence, in one way or other, by the community to which they belong. It was on this principle that the law imposing an involuntary poors rate in England' was grounded, a law which, though founded on the principles of justice and humanity, has given rise to more multiplied acts of injustice, and by consequence has more frequently outraged the principles of humanity, than perhaps any other law that ever was enacted by man.

Before that system was devised, the providing for the poor, especially under the Christian dispensation, was considered as a moral duty rather than a civil obliga

tion, and acts of charity and benificence were recommended as among the most effectual means of conciliating the divine favour. This is a principle so congenial to the feelings of the human mind, that it has been very universally received among all sects of religion; and artful men taking advantage of this bias, have contrived in all ages to extort considerable sums from pious persons, under this pertext, which have in many cases been applied to very different uses than those for which such pious benefactions were originally intended. This formed one of the great sources of that corruption of which the profefsors of the Roman Catholic religion were so justly accused, and which finally brought about that schism in the Christian church. which has since been called the reformation; a change which, though beneficial to mankind upon the whole, has, like every innovation in religion or government, given rise to abuses of a kind that were not formerly felt, and which were not foreseen at the time that the foundation for these abuses were laid.

The sums that had been appropriated for charitable uses before the reformation were immense, and the wealth that had been accumulated through a succefsion of ages by mendicant orders of religious persons were inconceivably great, nor was it in power of any laws to confine men who were in the pofsefsion of such wealth from gratifying those desires which money can so easily find means of supplying. Yet among the various abuses to which

the

this opulence had given rise, these religious orders had never so far lost sight of their original institution as ever to neglect the poor. These were indeed provided for by them with an indiscriminate profusion of largefse, better proportioned to their own opulence, than to the wants of the claiments, who were too often, without examination, all equally served, whether deserving or undeserving of that bounty they claimed. This indescriminate profusion of charitable doles was indeed in itself an abuse that by encouraging another species of idleness produced disorders in the state, which though not se loudly complained of by the reformers as the luxurious lives of the religious orders themselves, was not perhaps lefs destructive to the energy of the

state.

When the religious houses, as they were called, were entirely suppressed at the reformation, and the wealth that belonged to them was diverted into other channels, the poor, who had been in use to receive their support from thence, were of course left entirely destitute of that support on which they were used formerly with so much confidence to rely. This must have been immediately felt as a great grievance by them; and considering the disorderly lives of many of those who ranked in this clafs, it must have been the sourse of infinite clamour and disturbance in the state. Accordingly we find from that moment this evil was so severely felt in England as to have been a sourse of frequent complaint in parli

Νου. Οι ament, and soon became so intolerable as to excite a very universal desire to have it remedied. After many temporary palliatives had been tried without producing any material benefit, it at last became a matter of the most serious deliberation in parliament, which at length produced, in England, the famous statute of the 43d of Elizabeth which upon the principles they afsumed, was constructed with a cautious forethought that can perhaps be equalled by few laws that ever were enacted'; and if prospective reasoning alone were to be relied on in matters of legislation, it seemed impofsible to amend it: Yet experience has now proved with a most demonstrative certainty, that it was in fact one of the most pernicious laws that was ever made.*

*Perhaps no subject has afforded a more ample field for declamation, or more justly, than the poor laws of England; but declamation is to be here avoided. The following facts speak a forcible language.

When the poors rate was first imposed by Elisabeth, it did not almost any case amount to twopence in the pound of rent ;-at present it is scarcely in any case under five fhillings in the pound; in many cases it rises to eight, ten, twelve shillings; and the writer of this article was afsured by a gentleman of the first character for veracity and integrity in this country, who had sat near thirty years in parlia ment, that two instances at least had occurred to him; in which the poors rates exceeded twenty fhillings in the pound; that is to say, if a tenant agreed to pay twenty fhillings rent to his landlord, he must pay upwards of twenty fhillings to the poor; so that in that case half the real rent of the land went to the poor. Let landed gentleman attend to this fact, and let them likewise advert that the claims of the poor in consequence of this vast supply are so far from being ap peased, that they are daily becoming more and more importunate, and fresh disorders are every day originating in this source.

For a long period the rise in the poors rate was moderate, till time had matured the system, and enabled all the parties who were to be fharers in the prey, to discover how they could best get at it; but now it is advancing with hasty strides indeed. In the year 1774, par

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