manufacture of the country, should be protected by adequate import duties; as that principle is generally observed with regard to every article except wool, and must be in a country so heavily tithed, and necessarily burdened with such an extraordinary degree of taxation. Previously to the year 1793, no direct or assessed tax, affecting agriculture, was tolerated, and surely it is now expedient, whenever possible, to relinquish those taxes which particularly affect that most essential interest of the country, and to adopt such other measures as will enable it to support the heavy imposts which fall upon it. The legislature might now show attention to the grievances of the occupiers of land, by relinquishing all the direct taxes imposed on agriculture during the late war; and it will only be common justice to protect the wool of the country from being debased in value, by the import of wool from every part of the world free of duty, and it is not difficult to demonstrate that a moderate duty on the import of foreign wool would not affect, even in a slight degree, the great mass of our woollen manufacture.... The levity of the public on the most interesting and important subjects is often not only very extraordinary, but even ridiculous. The well-founded alarm on the ruinous and impolitic management of the poor, which appeared to make a deep and general impression, seems now to be forgotten except by the oppressed occupiers of lands, who so severely feel the effects of it. The public mind is not yet ripe for such a great measure as might prove an effectual remedy; but in the meantime I think something might be done. Is your Lordship disposed to repeal all the laws relating to the poor (heterogeneous, discordant, impracticable, unintelligible, and absurd as they are), to the 43d of Elizabeth, and to re-enact all those parts of them which the circumstances of the times may require (defining the powers of the magistrates, the parish officers, and the claims of the poor), and form them into a regular intelligible code? for I verily believe there is not one magistrate, nor any clerk (who governs him) who is acquainted with them all. I believe I am one of the oldest magistrates in the kingdom, being in my fiftieth year, and yet I have never met with any man who seemed fully acquainted with them. If an intelligent select committee, having a practical knowledge of the subject (without which the ablest men are not competent to it), could be induced to undertake this work, I have no doubt but that a law could be so framed as to lead to a great amelioration of our present vile system, if not gradually to a complete remedy. But I must not impose more of my notions on your Lordship. You must be now quite tired of me. If you think there is any thing in this letter worthy of Lord Liverpool's attention, I wish it to be communicated to him; but as I inflicted on his Lordship some time ago a large dose respecting the poor, I refrain from a direct communication.