And here it is impossible to pass by, though the author has said nothing upon it, the vast addition to the mass of British trade, which has been made by the improvement of Scotland.  What does he think of the commerce of the city of Glasgow, and of the manufactures of Paisley and all the adjacent country?  Has this anything like the deadly aspect and facies Hippocratica which the false diagnostic of our state physician has given to our trade in general?  Has he not heard of the iron-works of such magnitude even in their cradle which are set up on the Carron, and which at the same time have drawn nothing from Sheffield, Birmingham, or Wolverhampton?

This might perhaps be enough to show the entire falsity of the complaint concerning the decline of our manufactures.  But every step we advance, this matter clears up more; and the false terrors of the author are dissipated, and fade away as the light appears.  “The trade and manufactures of this country (says he) going to ruin, and a diminution of our revenue from consumption must attend the loss of so many seamen and artificers.”  Nothing more true than the general observation:  nothing more false than its application to our circumstances.  Let the revenue on consumption speak for itself:—­

Average of net excise, since the new duties,
three years ending 1767 L4,590,734
Ditto before the new duties, three years
ending 1759 3,261,694
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Average increase L1,329,040

Here is no diminution.  Here is, on the contrary, an immense increase.  This is owing, I shall be told, to the new duties, which may increase the total bulk, but at the same time may make some diminution of the produce of the old.  Were this the fact, it would be far from supporting the author’s complaint.  It might have proved that the burden lay rather too heavy; but it would never prove that the revenue from, consumption was impaired, which it was his business to do.  But what is the real fact?  Let us take, as the best instance for the purpose, the produce of the old hereditary and temporary excise granted in the reign of Charles the Second, whose object is that of most of the new impositions, from two averages, each of eight years.

Average, first period, eight years, ending 1754 L525,317
Ditto, second period, eight years, ending 1767 538,542
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Increase L613,225

I have taken these averages as including in each a war and a peace period; the first before the imposition of the new duties, the other since those impositions; and such is the state of the oldest branch of the revenue from consumption.  Besides the acquisition of so much new, this article, to speak of no other, has rather increased under the pressure of all those additional taxes to which the author is pleased to attribute its destruction.  But as the author has made his grand effort against those moderate, judicious,