determined to bring about should happen. ‘The ballot has fallen upon me to furnish a man and a horse to the Provisional Cavalry,[183] which has occasioned me much trouble and vexation. The expense, had it been double, I would have paid with alacrity, for the defence of everything dear to honest men, during such a war and with such enemies; but the business of recruiting, clothing, accoutring, &c., is so new to men of peace, that they know not how to go to work. Three substitutes that I had engaged have disappointed me, and the horse I have purchased I am not sure will pass muster. Had Government levied a tax of five or ten guineas upon each horse that was kept for pleasure, either in or out of harness, and done the business of raising a certain number of cavalry themselves, it would have been better done, and ladies and superannuated gentlemen (like my worship) would have escaped infinite plague and vexation. ‘I am exceedingly sorry that your dear and charming little daughter is not well. ‘I am, with sincere regard, ‘My dear Sir, ‘Your affectionate Friend, ‘CHARLES BURNEY.’ From Edmund Burke, Esq., alluding to the projects in Parliament before named for regulating the price of labour. ‘Bath: May 23, 1797. ‘Dear Sir,—I am on the point of leaving Bath, having no further hope of benefit from these waters; and as soon as I get home (if I should live to get home) should I find the papers transmitted me by your Board I shall send them faithfully to you; though, to say the truth, I do not think them of very great importance. ‘My constant opinion was, and is, that all matters relative to labour ought to be left to the conversations of the parties. That the great danger is in Government intermeddling too much. What I should have taken the liberty of addressing to you, had I possessed strength to go through it, would be to illustrate or enforce that principle. ‘I am extremely sorry that any one in the House of Commons should be found so ignorant and unadvised as to wish to revive the senseless, barbarous, and, in fact, wicked regulations made against free trade in matters of provision which the good sense of late Parliaments had removed. I am the more concerned at the measure, as I was myself the person who moved the repeal of the absurd code of statutes against the most useful of all trades, under the invidious names of forestalling and regrating. But, however, I console myself on this point by considering that it is not the only breach by which barbarism is entering upon us. It is, indeed, but a poor consolation, and one taken merely from the balance of misfortunes.