TIT

N.B.ITLE PAGE to Whiteford, the date 1796.-I request. that this may be read 1795. It was expected that the whole book would have been printed in that year; but by various delays, too well known to authors, it was not completed till the month of March 1796. I therefore beg the reader would confider that the feveral references which may be fuppofed to relate to 1796 can only intend 1795: for example, p. 161. 1. 9. next feafon' means the wheat-fowing season of that year. 'In the next year,' means 1796. The attentive reader will discover many other references of that kind.

PAGE 99, after paragraph 2d.—We retain in Whiteford church the decent service of praying for the fick, instead of lazily finking it into the xxixth fupplication of the Litany. The prayers on that occafion are fo pathetic, fo admonitory to the congregation, that I am amazed that any minister should remain infenfible of the impropriety of the omiffion.

I Now cannot but most earnestly exhort the fquires of every parish to attendance on divine fervice, if it was only to hear the fad catalogue of the miferable objects which compofe the largest part of those for whom the devotions I allude to are intended. It will direct their benevolence to their relief. They may find among them objects of their charity, whom they may never otherwise have heard of. They may find tenants to whom they ought to be fathers. They certainly will find congenerous duty of humanity is enjoined by the SAThis I fhould hope is thus irresistibly

beings, to whom every VIOUR of the world; enforced :

COME, YE BLESSED OF MY FATHER, INHERIT THE KINGDOM

PREPARED FOR YOU FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD.

FOR I WAS AN HUNGRED, AND YE GAVE ME MEAT; I WAS THIRSTY, AND YE GAVE ME DRINK; I WAS A STRANGER, AND YE TOOK ME IN; NAKED, AND YE CLOATHED ME; I WAS SICK, AND YE VISITED ME; I WAS IN PRISON, AND YE CAME UNTO ME. THEN SHALL THE RIGHTEOUS ANSWER HIM, SAYING, LORD, WHEN SAW WE THEE AN HUNGRED, AND FED THEE? OR THIRSTY, AND GAVE THEE DRINK?

WHEN SAW WE THEE A STRANGER, AND TOOK THEE IN? OR NAKED, AND CLOTHED THEE?

OR WHEN SAW WE THEE SICK, OR IN PRISON, AND CAME UNTO THEE?

AND THE KING SHALL ANSWER, AND SAY UNTO THEM, VERILY I SAY UNTO YOU, INASMUCH AS YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE MY BRETHREN, YE HAVE DONE IT UNTO ME.

To these benedictory verfes let me add one, in which the penalty, as well as the reward is united. I cannot resist the impulfe, as it is fo admirably adapted to the times. It fhall be followed by an extract from p. 164 of this work, which I communicated to the public through the channel of the Chefter paper, followed by fome declarations to prevent the mistaking of any part. I fervently wish to promote a friendly agreement between landlord and tenant; between tenant and every poor laborer. The benevolent Duke of BEAUFORT, and I believe others of the benevolent GREAT, have made the attempt; and, to

the

the glory of landlord and tenant, are to this moment difpenfing their generous plan to a grateful people. Such an agreement was entered into by the farmers of part of this and a neighboring county; but to their infamy, many of them withdrew from their words and their fignatures. May the landlords become the inftruments of compelling them to accept the bleffing offered in the last part of the line, and to fhun the curfe denounced in the first! There is one defcription of men, on whom it should fall in a moft exemplary manner. The badger, or factor, employed to exhauft the ftock of corn and other provifions, not by fair agreement, but by openly raifing the price, by offering more than the farmer would have asked; and even telling them, in open market, Afk what you will, and we will give it.' The poor, fince the repeal of the 5th and 6th of Edward IV. by the 12th of George III. are left defenceless. The means of inflicting the punishment by the ftatute is taken away, and they are to seek justice through the tedious expenfive labyrinths of the common law.

HE THAT WITHHOLDETH CORN, THE PEOPLE SHALL CURSE HIM: BUT BLESSING SHALL BE UPON THE HEAD OF HIM THAT SELLETH IT.

SIR,

Proverbs, chap. xi. ver. 26.

To the EDITOR of the CHESTER COURANT.

PERMIT me to convey, through the channel of your paper, a paragraph from a book which is ftill in the prefs 'I would never grant a leafe to a great corn-tenant. I would preserve a power over his granary, which legislature will not, or

" cannot

'cannot affume. Should he attempt by exportation to exhaust it in years of fcarcity, and not leave a fufficient fupply for the country which produced the grain ;-should he attempt a monopoly ;-fhould he refufe to carry a proper quantity to the next market;-or fhould he refufe to fell, to the poor who cannot attend the market, corn in fmall quantities, I WOULD

.

INSTANTLY ASSUME THE POWER OF THE LANDLORD, AND EXPEL

HIM FROM MY ESTATE. A juft punishment for the tenant, who, through rapacity, declines to comply with my defires, excited with no other view than to promote the good of the public.'

THE evil which we wish by the above radically to correct, may foon be paft cure, I therefore commit the extract to your hands. The evil is entirely local; other parts of Great Britain are poffibly unaffected by it, and have no occafion to take alarm. We do not wish the farmers folely to feed the poor; we only requeft them to referve in the country corn enough of EVERY kind to enable others to exert their benevolence to their poorer neighbors; not by gratuitous donations, but by felling it at reasonable prices to those who are in want; we do not afk it from the farmers at the prices of good times. GOD forbid that we should deny them FAIR profits, such as every other dealer has a right to. I wish to inculcate univerfal juftice; but let us remember that CHARITY begins at home. We fhall gladly impart our fuperfluity to our moft diftant neighbors, even fhould we be obliged to pay more for the bare competency we may reserve.

DOWNING, February, 1796.

T. P.

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