The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a letter from London, Feb. 13.

The Administration is now likely to remain settled for some considerable time. The Duke of Grafton is the cement of the whole; and though he hath neither many family connections, nor, what is still more necessary to one in his station, many Parliamentary ones, he possesses much of the publick esteem and confidence; and all acquiesce in his continuing to take the lead, which is somewhat singular, as he is yet a very young man.

"Immense sums are daily given to secure seats in Parliament, and it is reckoned that not fewer than 30 or 40 Nabobs will get into the House this ensuing election; men who, in the East, by rapine and plunder, in most cases attended with the most shocking instances of barbarity, have suddenly acquired immense wealth. Such you will, perhaps, think not the most proper guardians of our constitution and liberties."

"The bill for continuing the restraint of East India dividends to 10 per cent. for one year longer, is now past both Houses, though not without satellite opposition. Mr. Dowdeswell, in the Commons, proposed, with a view to protract the matter, to refer the examination of the Company's affairs to a select committee; but Lord North showed so clearly the expediency of the bill, and the absurdity of appealing to a committee, in a point wherein the House itself had already decided, that the motion was dropped without a division. Indeed every disinterested honest man must see the propriety of this restraint, especially those who know and consider the precarious tenure upon which they hold their territorial revenues, which are collected by a method that varies very little from military execution, and in which service our army there are employed in the field near 9 months in the year. Add to this the difficulty of investing these revenues (for they cannot be remitted in specie) and of converting their commodities into money, when the European markets are so glutted. Lord Clive hath of late been extremely ill, and set out about 3 weeks ago for Nice, as the only chance he has of prolonging his life."

"Last Monday I heard Lord North open the budget, which he did to the general satisfaction. It is needless to give the particulars, but there are to be no new taxes this year. We lessen the national debt a trifle, and borrow, by a loan, and a lottery, 1,900,000 l. at three per cent. He assured us that we were, in general, in a very prosperous condition; that the present peace was like to be lasting; but that if, contrary to all expectation, a fresh war should break out, care should be taken to put the state in the best condition possible, to exert ourselves with glory in the prosecution of it. Mr. Grenville, as usual, endeavoured to find fault, but to no purpose. His speech was unanimated and confused, and was plainly dictated by discontent and disappointment, though he affected to say he reckoned it an honour to be out of place; an honour, however, I dare say, he would wish very soon to be stripped of. In all his speeches, he never fails to bring in North America: in this he observed that after all the expense we had incurred during the late war, in ridding them of their enemies the French, the protection of the conquests we had made there cost us annually 500,000l. a sum which, in our exhausted state, with such a load of debt, we were by no means able to bear."

"I see the commotions in Boston, and other places, are not yet wholly subsided, and that some over zealous patriots endeavour to keep up the ball of contention, by prompting the people to make publick resolutions against wearing our more expensive manufactures; resolutions in themselves by no means blameable, nor of real importance to the Mother Country, if they are not in a situation to pay for them. But why all this bustle about it, just at this juncture, and just after the total repeal of the Stamp Act? I will freely give you my opinion, which is that nothing is to be apprehended from all this, for that the growing state of the colonies, both as to numbers of people and the extent of their settlements, will afford an ample field for the consumption of all the manufactures we can spare them (let them encourage manufactures among themselves as much as they please) for a long period to come; and as to their allegiance, which some are apprehensive about here, that is secured by their natural connexion with and strong attachment to this country, as well as by their want of our protection, without which they are not in a condition to defend themselves against their and our common enemies. Am I, or am I not, mistaken?"