of the auditor of his Majesty’s revenues, within the said principality, that his mines and forests have produced very little profit either to the public revenue or to individuals";—­and therefore they appoint Mr. Probert, with a pension of three hundred pounds a year from the said principality, to try whether he can make anything more of that very little which is stated to be so greatly diminished. “A beggarly account of empty boxes.”  And yet, Sir, you will remark, that this diminution from littleness (which serves only to prove the infinite divisibility of matter) was not for want of the tender and officious care (as we see) of surveyors general and surveyors particular, of auditors and deputy-auditors,—­not for want of memorials, and remonstrances, and reports, and commissions, and constitutions, and inquisitions, and pensions.

Probert, thus armed, and accoutred,—­and paid,—­proceeded on his adventure; but he was no sooner arrived on the confines of Wales than all Wales was in arms to meet him.  That nation is brave and full of spirit.  Since the invasion of King Edward, and the massacre of the bards, there never was such a tumult and alarm and uproar through the region of Prestatyn.  Snowdon shook to its base; Cader-Idris was loosened from its foundations.  The fury of litigious war blew her horn on the mountains.  The rocks poured down their goatherds, and the deep caverns vomited out their miners.  Everything above ground and everything under ground was in arms.

In short, Sir, to alight from my Welsh Pegasus, and to come to level ground, the Preux Chevalier Probert went to look for revenue, like his masters upon other occasions, and, like his masters, he found rebellion.  But we were grown cautious by experience.  A civil war of paper might end in a more serious war; for now remonstrance met remonstrance, and memorial was opposed to memorial.  The wise Britons thought it more reasonable that the poor, wasted, decrepit revenue of the principality should die a natural than a violent death.  In truth, Sir, the attempt was no less an affront upon the understanding of that respectable people than it was an attack on their property.  They chose rather that their ancient, moss-grown castles should moulder into decay, under the silent touches of time, and the slow formality of an oblivious and drowsy exchequer, than that they should be battered down all at once by the lively efforts of a pensioned engineer.  As it is the fortune of the noble lord to whom the auspices of this campaign belonged frequently to provoke resistance, so it is his rule and nature to yield to that resistance in all cases whatsoever.  He was true to himself on this occasion.  He submitted with spirit to the spirited remonstrances of the Welsh.  Mr. Probert gave up his adventure, and keeps his pension; and so ends “the famous history of the revenue adventures of the bold Baron North and the good Knight Probert upon the mountains of Venodotia.”