public contribution. Our _trading_ companies, as well as individual importers, are a fit subject of revenue by customs. Some establishments pay us by a _monopoly_ of their consumption and their produce. This, nominally no tax, in reality comprehends all taxes. Such establishments are our colonies. To tax them would be as erroneous in policy, as rigorous in equity. Ireland supplies us by furnishing troops in war; and by bearing part of our foreign establishment in peace. She aids us at all times by the money that her absentees spend amongst us; which is no small part of the rental of that kingdom. Thus Ireland contributes her part. Some objects bear port-duties. Some are fitter for an inland excise. The mode varies, the object is the same. To strain these from their old and inveterate leanings, might impair the old benefit, and not answer the end of the new project. Among all the great men of antiquity, _Procrustes_ shall never be my hero of legislation; with his iron bed, the allegory of his government, and the type of some modern policy, by which the long limb was to be cut short, and the short tortured into length. Such was the state-bed of uniformity! He would, I conceive, be a very indifferent farmer, who complained that his sheep did not plough, or his horses yield him wool, though it would be an idea full of equality. They may think this right in rustic economy, who think it available in the politic: Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carimna, Maevi! Atque idem jungat vulpes, et mulgeat hircos. As the author has stated this Indian taxation for no visible purpose relative to his plan of supply, so he has stated many other projects with as little, if any distinct end; unless perhaps to show you how full he is of projects for the public good; and what vast expectations may be formed of him or his friends, if they should be translated into administration. It is also from some opinion that these speculations may one day become our public measures, that I think it worth while to trouble the reader at all about them.