Lismahago is more paradoxical than ever.--The late gulp he had of his
native air, seems to have blown fresh spirit into all his polemical
faculties. I congratulated him the other day on the present flourishing
state of his country, observing that the Scots were now in a fair way
to wipe off the national reproach of poverty, and expressing my
satisfaction at the happy effects of the union, so conspicuous in
the improvement of their agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and
manners--The lieutenant, screwing up his features into a look of dissent
and disgust, commented on my remarks to this effect--‘Those who reproach
a nation for its poverty, when it is not owing to the profligacy or vice
of the people, deserve no answer. The Lacedaemonians were poorer than
the Scots, when they took the lead among all the free states of Greece,
and were esteemed above them all for their valour and their virtue. The
most respectable heroes of ancient Rome, such as Fabricius, Cincinnatus,
and Regulus, were poorer than the poorest freeholder in Scotland; and
there are at this day individuals in North-Britain, one of whom can
produce more gold and silver than the whole republic of Rome could raise
at those times when her public virtue shone with unrivalled lustre; and
poverty was so far from being a reproach, that it added fresh laurels
to her fame, because it indicated a noble contempt of wealth, which was
proof against all the arts of corruption--If poverty be a subject
for reproach, it follows that wealth is the object of esteem and
veneration--In that case, there are Jews and others in Amsterdam and
London, enriched by usury, peculation, and different species of fraud
and extortion, who are more estimable than the most virtuous and
illustrious members of the community. An absurdity which no man in his
senses will offer to maintain.--Riches are certainly no proof of merit:
nay they are often (if not most commonly) acquired by persons of sordid
minds and mean talents: nor do they give any intrinsic worth to the
possessor; but, on the contrary, tend to pervert his understanding, and
render his morals more depraved. But, granting that poverty were really
matter of reproach, it cannot be justly imputed to Scotland. No country
is poor that can supply its inhabitants with the necessaries of life,
and even afford articles for exportation. Scotland is rich in natural
advantages: it produces every species of provision in abundance, vast
herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, with a great number of horses;
prodigious quantities of wool and flax, with plenty of copse wood, and
in some parts large forests of timber. The earth is still more rich
below than above the surface. It yields inexhaustible stores of coal,
free-stone, marble, lead, iron, copper, and silver, with some gold. The
sea abounds with excellent fish, and salt to cure them for exportation;
and there are creeks and harbours round the whole kingdom, for the
convenience and security of navigation. The face of the country displays
a surprising number of cities, towns, villas, and villages, swarming
with people; and there seems to be no want of art, industry, government,
and police: such a kingdom can never be called poor, in any sense of the
word, though there may be many others more powerful and opulent. But the
proper use of those advantages, and the present prosperity of the Scots,
you seem to derive from the union of the two kingdoms!’
I said, I supposed he would not deny that the appearance of the country
was much mended; that the people lived better, had more trade, and a
greater quantity of money circulating since the union, than before.
‘I may safely admit these premises (answered the lieutenant), without
subscribing to your inference. The difference you mention, I should
take to be the natural progress of improvement--Since that period, other
nations, such as the Swedes, the Danes, and in particular the French,
have greatly increased in commerce, without any such cause assigned.
Before the union, there was a remarkable spirit of trade among the
Scots, as appeared in the case of their Darien company, in which they
had embarked no less than four hundred thousand pounds sterling; and in
the flourishing state of the maritime towns in Fife, and on the eastern
coast, enriched by their trade with France, which failed in consequence
of the union. The only solid commercial advantage reaped from that
measure, was the privilege of trading to the English plantations; yet,
excepting Glasgow and Dumfries, I don’t know any other Scotch towns
concerned in that traffick. In other respects, I conceive the Scots were
losers by the union.--They lost the independency of their state, the
greatest prop of national spirit; they lost their parliament, and their
courts of justice were subjected to the revision and supremacy of an
English tribunal.’
‘Softly, captain (cried I), you cannot be said to have lost your own
parliament, while you are represented in that of Great-Britain.’ ‘True
(said he, with a sarcastic grin), in debates of national competition,
the sixteen peers and forty-five commoners of Scotland, must make a
formidable figure in the scale, against the whole English legislature.’
‘Be that as it may (I observed) while I had the honour to sit in the
lower house, the Scotch members had always the majority on their side.’
‘I understand you, Sir (said he), they generally side with the majority;
so much the worse for their constituents. But even this evil is not the
worst they have sustained by the union. Their trade has been saddled
with grievous impositions, and every article of living severely taxed,
to pay the interest of enormous debts, contracted by the English, in
support of measures and connections in which the Scots had no interest
nor concern.’ I begged he would at least allow, that by the union the
Scots were admitted to all the privileges and immunities of English
subjects; by which means multitudes of them were provided for in the
army and navy, and got fortunes in different parts of England, and its
dominions. ‘All these (said he) become English subjects to all intents
and purposes, and are in a great measure lost to their mother-country.
The spirit of rambling and adventure has been always peculiar to the
natives of Scotland. If they had not met with encouragement in England,
they would have served and settled, as formerly, in other countries,
such as Muscovy, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Germany, France, Piedmont, and
Italy, in all which nations their descendants continue to flourish even
at this day.’
By this time my patience began to fail and I exclaimed, ‘For God’s
sake, what has England got by this union which, you say, has been so
productive of misfortune to the Scots.’ ‘Great and manifold are the
advantages which England derives from the union (said Lismahago, in
a solemn tone). First and foremost, the settlement of the protestant
succession, a point which the English ministry drove with such
eagerness, that no stone was left unturned, to cajole and bribe a few
leading men, to cram the union down the throats of the Scottish nation,
who were surprisingly averse to the expedient. They gained by it a
considerable addition of territory, extending their dominion to the sea
on all sides of the island, thereby shutting up all back-doors against
the enterprizes of their enemies. They got an accession of above a
million of useful subjects, constituting a never-failing nursery of
seamen, soldiers, labourers, and mechanics; a most valuable acquisition
to a trading country, exposed to foreign wars, and obliged to maintain
a number of settlements in all the four quarters of the globe. In the
course of seven years, during the last war, Scotland furnished the
English army and navy with seventy thousand men, over and above those
who migrated to their colonies, or mingled with them at home in the
civil departments of life. This was a very considerable and seasonable
supply to a nation, whose people had been for many years decreasing in
number, and whose lands and manufactures were actually suffering for
want of hands. I need not remind you of the hackneyed maxim, that, to a
nation in such circumstances, a supply of industrious people is a
supply of wealth; nor repeat an observation, which is now received as
an eternal truth, even among the English themselves, that the Scots who
settle in South-Britain are remarkably sober, orderly, and industrious.’
I allowed the truth of this remark, adding, that by their industry,
oeconomy, and circumspection, many of them in England, as well as in her
colonies, amassed large fortunes, with which they returned to their own
country, and this was so much lost to South-Britain.--‘Give me leave,
sir (said he), to assure you, that in your fact you are mistaken, and
in your deduction erroneous. Not one in two hundred that leave Scotland
ever returns to settle in his own country; and the few that do
return, carry thither nothing that can possibly diminish the stock of
South-Britain; for none of their treasure stagnates in Scotland--There
is a continual circulation, like that of the blood in the human body,
and England is the heart, to which all the streams which it distributes
are refunded and returned: nay, in consequence of that luxury which our
connexion with England hath greatly encouraged, if not introduced,
all the produce of our lands, and all the profits of our trade, are
engrossed by the natives of South-Britain; for you will find that the
exchange between the two kingdoms is always against Scotland; and
that she retains neither gold nor silver sufficient for her own
circulation.--The Scots, not content with their own manufactures and
produce, which would very well answer all necessary occasions, seem to
vie with each other in purchasing superfluities from England; such as
broad-cloth, velvets, stuffs, silks, lace, furs, jewels, furniture of
all sorts, sugar, rum, tea, chocolate and coffee; in a word, not only
every mode of the most extravagant luxury, but even many articles of
convenience, which they might find as good, and much cheaper in their
own country. For all these particulars, I conceive, England may touch
about one million sterling a-year.--I don’t pretend to make an exact
calculation; perhaps, it may be something less, and perhaps, a great
deal more. The annual revenue arising from all the private estates of
Scotland cannot fall short of a million sterling; and, I should imagine,
their trade will amount to as much more.--I know the linen manufacture
alone returns near half a million, exclusive of the home-consumption
of that article.--If, therefore, North-Britain pays a ballance of a
million annually to England, I insist upon it, that country is
more valuable to her in the way of commerce, than any colony in her
possession, over and above the other advantages which I have specified:
therefore, they are no friends, either to England or to truth, who
affect to depreciate the northern part of the united kingdom.’
I must own, I was at first a little nettled to find myself schooled in
so many particulars.--Though I did not receive all his assertions
as gospel, I was not prepared to refute them; and I cannot help now
acquiescing in his remarks so far as to think, that the contempt for
Scotland, which prevails too much on this side the Tweed, is founded on
prejudice and error.--After some recollection, ‘Well, captain (said I),
you have argued stoutly for the importance of your own country: for my
part, I have such a regard for our fellow-subjects of North-Britain,
that I shall be glad to see the day, when your peasants can afford to
give all their oats to their cattle, hogs, and poultry, and indulge
themselves with good wheaten loaves, instead of such poor, unpalatable,
and inflammatory diet.’ Here again I brought my self into a premunire
with the disputative Caledonian. He said he hoped he should never see
the common people lifted out of that sphere for which they were intended
by nature and the course of things; that they might have some reason to
complain of their bread, if it were mixed, like that of Norway, with saw
dust and fish-bones; but that oatmeal was, he apprehended, as nourishing
and salutary as wheat-flour, and the Scots in general thought it at
least as savoury.--He affirmed, that a mouse, which, in the article of
self-preservation, might be supposed to act from infallible instinct,
would always prefer oats to wheat, as appeared from experience; for, in
a place where there was a parcel of each, that animal has never begun
to feed upon the latter till all the oats were consumed: for their
nutritive quality, he appealed to the hale, robust constitutions of
the people who lived chiefly upon oatmeal; and, instead of being
inflammatory, he asserted, that it was a cooling sub-acid, balsamic and
mucilaginous; insomuch, that in all inflammatory distempers, recourse
was had to water-gruel, and flummery made of oatmeal.
‘At least (said I), give me leave to wish them such a degree of commerce
as may enable them to follow their own inclinations.’--‘Heaven forbid!
(cried this philosopher). Woe be to that nation, where the multitude is
at liberty to follow their own inclinations! Commerce is undoubtedly
a blessing, while restrained within its proper channels; but a glut
of wealth brings along with it a glut of evils: it brings false taste,
false appetite, false wants, profusion, venality, contempt of order,
engendering a spirit of licentiousness, insolence, and faction, that
keeps the community in continual ferment, and in time destroys all the
distinctions of civil society; so that universal anarchy and uproar must
ensue. Will any sensible man affirm, that the national advantages of
opulence are to be sought on these terms?’ ‘No, sure; but I am one of
those who think, that, by proper regulations, commerce may produce every
national benefit, without the allay of such concomitant evils.’
So much for the dogmata of my friend Lismahago, whom I describe the
more circumstantially, as I firmly believe he will set up his rest in
Monmouthshire. Yesterday, while I was alone with him he asked, in some
confusion, if I should have any objection to the success of a gentleman
and a soldier, provided he should be so fortunate as to engage my
sister’s affection. I answered without hesitation, that my sister was
old enough to judge for herself; and that I should be very far from
disapproving any resolution she might take in his favour.--His eyes
sparkled at this declaration. He declared, he should think himself the
happiest man on earth to be connected with my family; and that he should
never be weary of giving me proofs of his gratitude and attachment. I
suppose Tabby and he are already agreed; in which case, we shall have
a wedding at Brambleton-hall, and you shall give away the bride.--It is
the least thing you can do, by way of atonement for your former cruelty
to that poor love-sick maiden, who has been so long a thorn in the side
of
Yours, MATT. BRAMBLE Sept. 20.
We have been at Buxton; but, as I did not much relish either the company
or the accommodations, and had no occasion for the water, we stayed but
two nights in the place.
To Sir WATKIN PHILLIPS, Bart. of Jesus college, Oxon.