his hands into their bofoms; expreffed his fenfe of its being comfortable; and flept, when he was not roused to take nourishment. In this fituation he remained feveral hours, till they had compleated a road for his conveyance out of the pit. Whilft they were carrying him, he had a motion to make water and to go to ftool, but had not fufficient power to accomplish either. At one o'clock on Sunday morning, he was brought to his own houfe; put into bed, well covered, and fed with chicken broth. But his weakness rendered him indifferent to nourishment. He continued to doze and fleep; and, notwithstanding his pulfe feemed at firft to increase in vigour, it became quick about five o'clock, when he warned them of his approaching end, and expired, without a struggle, in a few minutes. Though Travis had been afthmatic for many years, his refpiration was remarked to be clear and easy, under the circumftances above defcribed. He remained perfectly fenfible till his death; but had no accurate idea of the duration of his confinement in the pit; for, on being interrogated concerning this point, he estimated the time to have been only two days; yet added, that he thought thofe days were very long.' Several other particulars are added to this affecting narrative; various phyfical obfervations are made on it; and certain portable compofitions are prescribed for alleviating the effects of famine. This paper, or memoir, by the excellent Dr. Percival, is an happy example of that union of philosophy with the practical purposes of life, which is the great end of the Manchester Inftitution. • Result of fome Observations made by Benjamin Rush, M.D. Profeffor of Chemistry in the Univerfity of Philadelphia, during his Attendance as Physician-General of the Military Hofpitals of the United States, in the late War. Communicated by Mr. Thomas Henry, F. R. S. Read Oct. 5, 17852 These observations are objects of great curiofity and utility. Thus we have laid before our readers a fuccinct view of the first-fruits of the Literary and Philofophical Society of Manchefter. This Society is evidently adorned with many men of great learning, of high genius, and, what is of much importance in giving the proper direction and application to literary investigation, of candid minds, and benevolent hearts. While the natural fublimity of their genius carries them onward to the most abstracted fpeculation, the GENIUS of the place, the bufy fpirit of Manchefter, feems, amidst all their views, ever and anon to remind them of the interefts of mankind. It is their glorious object to fubdue Nature by knowing, and yielding to her laws; from the ftores of fcience, to increase the resources, and to guide the hand of art; and, by the combined aid of both, to alleviate the miferies, and to multiply the enjoyments of human life. G 3 ART, ART. III. Abort Addrefs to the Public; containing fome Thoughts how the National Debt may be reduced, and all Home Taxes, including Land Tax, abolished. By William, Lord Newhaven. 8vo. Debrett. London. 1786. IS. LORD Newhaven, after a few pertinent obfervations on the present state of this nation, the commercial fpirit of the age, and the discouraging effects of taxes on manufactures and trade, quotes the reports of the commiffioners of the public accounts, in order to imprefs, on the minds of his readers, a just sense of the enormous magnitude of the national debt, and the neceffity of the most serious and vigorous efforts for its reduction. He then proceeds to propofe two schemes, either of which he thinks fitted for paying off the national debt, in the course of a very few years. First, he estimates the annual income of Great-Britain, in land, houses, and perfonal property, at one hundred millions; which, valued at the moderate rate of twenty years purchase, will make a principal of two thoufand millions, on which he fuppofes one per cent. to be charged annually, till the national debt be paid. This would afford a revenue of twenty millions yearly; the furplus of which, after all neceffary deductions for the annual intereft on the funded debt, on the unfunded debt, and the annual charges of management at the Bank and South-Sea Houfe, amounting to 11,301,0361. 5s. 11d. would pay off the national debt in a very fhort time; all internal taxes, including land-tax, to be abolished after the firft payment of one per cent. made at the receipt of his majefty's exchequer. Secondly, Lord Newhaven fuppofes, that There is to be found in Great Britain the following number of perfons, one with another, capable of paying the following annual rates, in confideration of which to abolish a certain part of the moft burthenfome taxes every year, in proportion to the money paid into the exchequer, fuch as thofe on foap, candles, leather, falt, window lights, land-tax, and houses, &c. viz. Two millions of perfons, at 121. 10s. would raise 25 millions per annum. One million of perfons, at 251. would raise 25 millions per annum. Five hundred thousand perfons, at 50l. would raise 25 millions per annum. Two hundred and fifty thousand perfons, at 100l. would raise 25 millions per annum. • One hundred and twenty-five thoufand perfons, at 2001. would raife 25 millions per annum. So that any of the above numbers, at these respective rates, would pay off 200 millions of the national debt in eight years; but to calculate culate with certainty upon the operation of these plans, and to pro portion it to each, the property of Great-Britain must be afcertained with as much precifion and accuracy as poffible, under the following heads: -The rental of lands. The rental of houses. The amount of perfonal property to be calculated from the rentof the houses each perfon occupies; and to come at as competent a knowledge of this as can be obtained, copies of the commiffioners of the land-tax, and the receivers of the house-tax books, by which the fame is collected, may be laid before the House of Commons, from the King's Remembrancer's Office of the Exchequer, into which, by the 30th Geo. II. the commiffioners of the land-tax are obliged, every year, to deliver a fchedule or duplicate in parchment, under their hands and feals, containing the whole fum affeffed upon each parish or place refpectively, in England and Wales, and Berwick upon Tweed. It will, no doubt, be faid, but how is the army, navy, and the other branches of the civil government, to be provided for, if the home. taxes are abolished? To this I answer, that, as I conclude foreign nations will not take off the duty on our commodities imported into their respective countries, I propofe ftill to continue the duty on goods imported, which I conceive will be nearly adequate to defray all expences, civil and military, in time of peace.' After this statement, it appears that there would be a small deficiency, which a variety of other favings would easily provide for. To give fome idea of the value of houses, he takes notice that their rental, in the fingle hundred of Offulfton, in the county of Middlesex, on which a three-penny rate was laid, to make good the damage done by the riots in 1780, amounted to the enormous fum of 1,605,0541. and this not above two-thirds of their value. Lord Newhaven proceeds to fhew the proper mode of carrying these schemes into execution, to obviate objections to their novelty, and to specify the principal advantages that would arise, from the arrangements propofed to the nation. What the author has fuggefted, doubtlefs, merits attention. It muft however occur to every perfon, who attends to the fchemes propofed, that the mode of eftimating the wealth of individuals that compofe the British nation, by the rentals of land and houses, is extremely imperfect, and therefore unjuft. Nor is it certain but the fudden transference of fo high a proportion of men's annnal income to the hands of government, would be attended with enormous public frauds, and private inconveniencies. So fudden and great a fhock to the usual course of industry of every kind, it might not perhaps be safe to hazard, especially as many of the richest, the most penurious, G 4 rious, the most felfish and odious part of fociety, according to the fchemes propofed, would be exempted from paying their fhare of the public debt. ART. IV. A Defcription, with Notes, of certain Methods of planting, training, and managing all Kinds of Fruit Trees, Vines, &c. for which his Majefty's Letters Patent have been granted to the Reverend Philip le Brocq, M. A. 8vo. 1s. 6d. Printed for the Author. Sold by Shepherson and Reynolds, 1786. THE HE author of this fhort treatise propofes feveral improvements in horticulture, which appear to be founded on folid principles, and fome of which, he affures us, have been made with effect. The walls of a garden, he fays, ought to be built in fuch a form, that the angles, not the broadfides, of the walls, be exactly oppofite to the four cardinal points. The two diagonal lines ought to be exactly from north to fouth, and from east to weft. Let any perfon delineate this plan, and. compare it with the ufual method of making the walls face the four cardinal points, and let him obferve in what manner the rays of the fun, from its rifing to its fetting, fall on the walls of each, externally and internally, and he will foon perceive, as our author obferves, that when the angles are op pofite to the four cardinal points, each of the walls will receive, more or lefs, within and without, the diurnal influence of the fun, and much more equally than according to the prevailing cuftom. He But our author is no friend to garden walls in any direction. Inftead of elevating trees and fhrubs by the aid of walls, he would make them foop to conquer, as it were, by training them on banks or beds, on horizontal or inclined planes; thus nourishing them with the genial heat of the fun, reflected by the kindly earth. This is the general principal of his improvements, which he judges, and indeed we are apt to think rightly, is a more effectual, as well as a more economical mode of raifing fruit trees than that of poles and walls. thinks that vineyards may moft certainly be made in various parts of this ifland with fuccefs; and that, in particular, there are eftates in the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Wilts, Dorfet, Hants, Suffex and Kent, which, by plantations of vines, would be doubled in value in a few years. And he hopes to live to fee the day, when it will be as common to call for a bottle of true weft-country, as it is now to ask for real or homebrewed porter of this he fays he has as full a conviction, as if he had already drank of it. In thefe expectations our author is certainly too fanguine. However, his improvements merit very serious attention: for, although the culture of vines in this country cannot be expected to become fo general in fo fhort a time; yet, when we reflect that there was a time when it was imagined that vines could not be raised with any advantage, even in Gaul and Germany, on the flow and gradual introduction of the beft fruits, from the warmer into the colder climates, and on the melioration of climates themfelves, by the progreffive cultivation of the foil, it appears not improbable, that the vine may be one day cultivated with fuccefs in England; although not with fuch rapidity, as would in the leaft influence the commercial treaty now on foot between this country and France. In the laying out ground, and the whole fcenery of nature as fufceptible of art, our author fhews judgment and taste. In literary compofition, particularly in his introduction, and conclufion, he is florid, light and abfurd. We have fine moral digreffion, as well as introductions and conclufions in Virgil's Georgics: and digreffion to human life from the culture of the earth is natural and pleafing; but, to invoke the fpirit of Yorick, father of digreffions, in one paragraph; and after ftarting afide, in his own phrafeology, like a broken bow, this way, that way, and every way, to lift up in the next his eyes to heaven in devout contemplation, and in the fame breath to talk of tutelar Gods, and the comfort of having a wife all this. is incongruous and offenfive. But invention, genius, and knowledge, are not feldom found in conjuction with even a monftrous depravity of tafte; the latter being formed only by an early and habitual converfation with the beft models of compofition, especially the Greek and Latin writers. ART. V. The prefent Politics of Ireland: confifting of I. The Right Honourable Mr. Hutchinfon's Letter to his Conftituents at Cork. II. Parliamentary Difcuffions of the Irish Arrangements; by Meffrs. Connolly, Grattan, and Flood, against them; Fitzgibbon, Mason, Forster, Hutchinfon, for them. III. Mr. Laffan's Obfervations on the relative Situation of Great Britain and Ireland: with Notes thereon, by an English Editor. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Stockdale, London, 1786. THE Subject of Mr. Hutchinfon's letter to his conftituents of Cork is of great importance, to both Great Britain and Ireland; and the matters in difpute between the fifter kingdoms are treated by that gentleman with much ability. The objections to the bill for effecting a commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland, were, Mr. Hutchin-" fon obferves, partly of a conftitutional, and partly of a commercial nature. The introduction of the bill was oppofed, prin cipally |
