The Virginia Gazette

The present tottering State of publick Credit is truly alarming. The late capital Failures, and the many more which are expected, have put an End to all Confidence; in so much that every Day has the Appearance of being a Scramble among Individuals, each for his own Property. In this Consternation and Confusion, almost every Banker's Shop in Town is spoke of. Scotland is said to be undone. Did the Matter end there, it would not be of much Importance. But, unhappily, such are the Connexions of Trade, the English are too deeply concerned. Whatever may be the End of this most alarming Business, whether it stops here, or whether it proceeds to a general Bankruptcy, it is impossible to express the Indignation which every Man shows at the astonishing Unconcern and Supineness with which the King and his Ministers behold the approaching Ruin of a great Number of respectable Families: Lord Sandwich revelling in the Arms of a Strumpet; Lord North hugging himself in two Yards of blue Riband; the Arch-Traitor, or rather the greatest Villain that ever the Laws left unpunished, viewing the Storm from his Retreat at Canewood; Bradshaw, and the Duke of Grafton, plotting some new Wound on the Constitution, or making some infamous Bargain with some profligate Peer to vote away the Rights of the People; the two trusty Scots, Sir Gilbert Elliot and Stuart Mackenzie, conveying the Secret Orders of the Earl of Bute to the Council; and the two Messengers, Jenkinson and Dyson, to the rest of the placed and pensioned Traitors, who are all paid with the publick Money (dearly and hardly earned by the unhappy People) to destroy their Country.

ceasing Care, Anxiety, and Labour, of the industrious Trader) to support a scandalous and detestable System of Power. Every Evil with which the Nation is afflicted is owing to the Weakness and Wickedness of this Administration. The Nation has no Confidence in this Set of Men. What are the Abilities of Lord North? Confessedly beneath Estimation; a Clerk of yesterday under Mr. Grenville. Lord Mansfield and Lord Bute are the Advisers, Men who are known to hold Principles incompatible with the Freedom of this Country. And the King has set himself at the Head of these Men, and seems determined not to part with them, because they are the Creatures of his Will. It is this hopeless Prospect which has destroyed all publick Faith, and that will inevitably be followed by the entire Destruction of all publick Credit. When Government is every Where hated and despised, Individuals must look to themselves. Each Man must take Care of his own Property, for there are neither Abilities nor Honesty in Administration to lift a Finger in Protection of the Whole.