Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Extract of a letter from England.

April 15, 1785.

"We have had in this place the greatest mortality that has been known for this twenty eight years past, and the severest winter that can be remembered by the oldest man here. Cockermouth, like the other parts of the kingdom, has got a retrograde motion-We may, like Ireby, boast of our chartered rights, but where are they? Were our liberties attacked by open force, we then might have a chance to defend them; but a system of corruption is established here, which pervades all ranks of people, and is more formidable than all the armies sent to America--There is now depending before the House, a bill of Irish affairs, which if it passes it will drive many of our principal manufacturers to Ireland, where provisions are low and taxes light. The nailors have agreed that they can make nails eight per cent. lower in Ireland than in England :-- Twenty at Wolverhampton have declared that if the bill passes, they will go to Ireland. One man in Manchester, who employs six thousand hands, and pays directly twenty thousand pounds a year in taxes, has also made the same declaration; judge what all his workmen must pay indirectly. They write from York, that large subscriptions are entered into for purchasing lands in Ireland, for the establishment of manufactories. We read of seven thousand in Israel, who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, and that a small number of righteous persons would have saved Sodom, could they have been found: but I think the measure of our iniquity is full, and that this is a devoted country. Our taxes come upon us like one pound additional weight on the back of a good horse every day; and though the beast does not perceive it; yet at last he will sink under it; in like manner will England sink under her taxes. Mr. -- in Cumberland, pays 4l. 10s. a year for his house and window tax; other taxes &c. will make it fifteen pounds a year, and that is as much as it would let for.

"A lad was sent home from Jersey, because he could not do the duty of a soldier; in his discharge they call him an idiot, but I really believe his capacity is not inferior to that of great George our --. The Turks have a great veneration for lunaticks and idiots, and say they are God's elect. The English outdo them; they even pay divine honors to such a being: The soldiery have some honesty, or at least some sense; when they get a being that is useless to them, they turn him off,--but our great folks, if they once get wrong, instead of mending the matter, go on in error until it is past remedy. It is a comfortable reflection that the Almighty does not deal with us as he did to the Israelites; their carcases were to fall in the wilderness. We have an asylum opened unto us, Ireland for the timid and aged, and America for the young and enterprising."