"Cowards to cruelty are still inclin'd, But generous pity fills each Briton's mind. Bounteous as brave; and though their hearts are steel'd With native intrepidity, they yield To Charity's soft impulse: this their praise, The proud to humble, and th' oppress'd to raise: Nor partial limits can their bounty know;-- It aids the helpless alien, though a foe. Hear this, ye French, who urge the insidious strife That arms the Indian with the murdering knife; Who, to your foes less cruel, leave your own Starving in sad captivity to groan. Think of th' inhuman policy--and then Confess, ye fight not, nor ye feel, like men. Britons, this night your kind compassion flows For near-felt mis'ries and domestic woes; The dire distress with horror we recall;-- 'Twas death, 'twas dreadful devastation all. The sleepers were alarm'd with wild dismay, As lull'd in calm security they lay; While each perhaps in dreams forgot his pains, And fondly counted o'er his honest gains. But oh! the poor mechanic, scarce with life Himself escap'd, his children and his wife, Cold, naked, hungry, whither can they roam, No friend to succour, and without a home? Their little _all_ with sorrow they survive, And hardly deem it mercy, that they live. Your tender care their present wants supplies, And gives to industry new means to rise; Nor needed yet this bounteous act to prove Your wide humanity, and social love; All, all who want it, your protection find; For Britons are the friends of all mankind." The continued rains of May 1761 had almost ruined the haymakers assembled near the Metropolis, and compelled them to enter it as suitors for charity, which they received to the amount of 16_l._ 12_s._ from the Merchants on Change spontaneously. 129 persons shared the above sum. In a work of this description the thoughts of respectable writers cannot but be acceptable; one of those observed, in July 1761, "that parish charges (were) every where justly complained of; but how insupportable would they be, were it not for the hospitals erected in the Metropolis, and of late in several county towns, which, so far as they extend, for they go no farther than to relieve such sick or lame poor as there is a probability of curing, are of infinite use, not only to London and the county towns, but to the country for many miles around them.