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Algerine mafter would never consent to his release upon fuch a pretence, at length contrived a method for the Caftilian to make his escape in the habit of a feaman. The Caftilian fucceeded in his attempt; and having sold his estate, being afraid left the money should mifcarry by the way, and determining to perish with it rather than lofe one who was much dearer to him than his life, he returned himself in a little vessel that was going to Algiers. It is impoffible to defcribe the joy he felt upon this cccañon, when he confidered that he should foon fee the wife whom he fo much loved, and endear himself more to her by this uncommon piece of generofity.

poverty by the wars, which for fome years have laid the whole country waste. The Caftilian having made his addresses to her and married her, they lived together in perfect happiness for fome time; when at length the husband's affairs made it neceflary for him to take a voyage to the kingdom of Naples, where a great part of his eftate lay. The wife loved him too tenderly to be left behind him. They had not been a shipboard above a day, when they unluckily fell into the hands of an Algerine pirate, who carried the whole company on fhore, and made them flaves. The Caftilian and his wife had the comfort to be under the fame mafter; who fecing how dearly they loved one an- The renegado, during the husband's other, and gafped after their liberty, abfence, fo infinuated himself into the demanded a moft exorbitant price for good graces of his young wife, and fo their ransom. The Caftilian, though turned her head with ftories of gallantry, he would rather have died in flavery that he quickly thought him the finelt himself, than have paid fuch a fum as gentleman fhe had ever converfed with. be found would go near to ruin him, To be brief, her mind was quite aliewas fo moved with compaffion towards nated from the honeft Caftilian, whom his wife, that he fent repeated orders to the was taught to look upon as a formal his friend in Spain (who happened to old fellow, unworthy the poffeffion of be his next relation) to fell his eftate, fo charming a creature. She had been and tranfinit the money to him. His inftructed by the renegado how to mafriend hoping that the terms of his ran- nage herself upon his arrival; so that fom might be made more reafonable, the received him with an appearance of and unwilling to fell an estate which he the utmoft love and gratitude, and at himfelf had fome profpect of inheriting, length perfuaded him to truft their comformed fo many delays, that three whole mon friend the renegado with the moyears paffed away without any thing be- ney he had brought over for their raning done for the fetting them at liberty. fom; as not queftioning but he would There happened to live a French re- beat down the terms of it, and nego negado in the fame place where the Ca- tiate the affair more to their advantage ftilian and his wife were kept prifoners. than they themselves could do. As this fellow had in him all the viva- good man admired her prudence, and city of his nation, he often entertained followed her advice. I wish I could the captives with accounts of his own conceal the fequel of this story, but fince adventures; to which he fometimes add- I cannot, I fhall difpatch it in as few ed a fong or a dance, or fome other words as poffible. The Caftilian havpiece of mirth, to divert them during flept longer than ordinary the next ing their confinement. His acquaintance with the manners of the Algerines, enabled him likewife to do shem feveral good offices. The Caftilian, as he was one day in converfation with this renegado, difcovered to him the negligence and treachery of his correfpondent in Caftile, and at the fame time asked his advice how he should be have himself in that exigency: he further told the renegado, that he found it would be impoffible for him to raise the money, unlets he himself might go over to difpofe of his estate. The renegado, after having reprefented to bip that his

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morning, upon his awaking found his wife had left him: he immediately arofe and enquired after her, but was told that he was feen with the renegado about break of day. In a word, her lover having got all things ready for their departure, they foon made their elcape out of the territories of Algiers, carried away the money, and left the Caftilian in captivity; who partly through the cruel treatment of the incenfed Algerine his matter, and partly through the unkind ufage of his unfaithful wife, died fome few months after.

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No CXCIX.

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N° CXCIX. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18.

-SCRIBERE JUSSIT AMOR.

LOVE BADE ME WRITE.

HE following letters are written with fuch an air of fincerity, that I cannot deny the inferting of them.

MR. SPECTATOR,

THOUGH you are every where in your writings a friend to women, I do not remember that you have directly confidered the mercenary practice of men in the choice of wives. If you would please to employ your thoughts upon that fubject, you would easily conceive the milerable condition many of us are in, who not only from the laws of custom and modefty are restrained from making any advances towards our withes, but are alfo from the circumftance of fortune, out of all hope of being addreffed to by thofe whom we love. Under all these difadvantages, I am obliged to apply myself to you, and hope I fhall prevail with you to print in your very next paper the following letter, which is a declaration of paffion to one who has made fome faint addrefles to me for fome time. I believe he ardently loves me, but the inequality of my fortune makes him think he cannot answer it to the world, if he pursues his defigns by way of marriage; and I believe, as he does not want difcernment, he difcovered me looking at him the other day unawares, in fuch a manner as has raised his hopes of gaining me on terms the men cail eafier. But my heart was very full on this occafion, and if you know what love and honour are, you will pardon me that I use no further arguments with you, but hasten with my letter to him, whom I call Oroondates, because if I do not fucceed, it shall look like romance; and if I am regarded, you fhall receive a pair of gloves at my wedding, fent you under the name of Statira.

SIR,

TO OROONDATES.

AFTER very much perplexity in myfelf, and revolving how to acquaint you with my own fentiments,

OVID. EP. IV. VER. 10.

and expoftulate with you concerning yours, I have chofen this way, by which means I can be at once revealed to you, or, if you pleafe, lie concealed. If I do not within few days find the effect which I hope from this, the whole affair fhall be buried in oblivion. But alas! what am I going to do, when I am about to tell you that I love you? But after I have done fo, I am to allure you, that with all the paffion which ever entered a tender heart, I know I can banifh you from my fight for ever, when I am convinced that you have no inciinations towards me but to my dif honour. But alas! Sir, why fhould you facrifice the real and effential happiness of life, to the opinion of a world, that moves upon no other foundation, but profeffed error and prejudice? You all can obferve that riches alone do not make you happy, and yet give up every thing elfe when it ftands in competition with riches. Since the world is fo bad, that religion is left to us filly women, and you men act generally upon principles of profit and pleasure, I will talk to you without arguing from any thing but what may be molt to your advantage as a man of the world. And I will lay before you the state of the cafe, fuppofing that you had it in your power to make me your miftrefs, or your wife, and hope to convince you that the latter is more for your intereft, and will contribute more to your pleasure.

We will fuppofe then the fcene was laid, and you were now in expectation of the approaching evening wherein I was to meet you, and be carried to what convenient corner of the town you thought fit, to confummate all which your wanton imagination has promised you in the poffeffion of one who is in the bloom of youth, and in the reputation of innocence: you would foon have enough of me, as I am fpright.y, young, gay, and airy. When fancy is fated, and finds all the promifes it made itself

falfe, where is now the innocence which charmed you? The first hour you are 3.C 2

alone

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alone you will find that the pleasure of
a debauchee is only that of a destroyer;
he blafts all the fruit he tastes, and
where the brute has been devouring,
there is nothing left worthy the relifh of
the man. Reafon refumes her place af-
ter imagination is cloyed; and I am,
with the utmost diftrefs and confufion,
to behold myself the caufe of uneasy re-
fections to you, to be visited by stealth,
and dwell for the future with the two
companions (the most unfit for each
other in the world) folitude and guilt.
I will not infift upon the fhameful ob-
fcurity we should pafs our time in, nor
run over the little fhort fnatches of fresh
air, and free commerce which all people
must be fatisfied with, whofe actions
will not bear examination, but leave
them to your reflections, who have feen
of that life, of which I have but a mere
idea.

On the other hand, if you can be fo good and generous as to make me your wife, you may promise yourself all the obedience and tenderness with which gratitude can inspire a virtuous woman. Whatever gratifications you may promife yourself from an agreeable perfon, whatever compliances from an eafy temper, whatever confolations from a fincere friendship, you may expect as the due of your generofity. What at prefent in your ill view you promife your felf from me, will be followed by dif taste and fatiety; but the tranfports of a virtuous love are the leaft part of it's happiness. The raptures of innocent paffion are but like lightening to the day, they rather interrupt than advance the pleasure of it. How happy then is that life to be, where the highest pleafures of fenfe are but the lowest parts of it's felicity?

Now I am to repeat to you the unnatural request of taking me in direct terms. I know there ftands between me and that happinefs, the haughty daughter of a man who can give you fuitably to your fortune. But if you weigh the attendance and behaviour of her who comes to you in partnership of your fortune, and expects an equivalent, with that of her who enters your house as honoured and obliged by that permiffion, whom of the two will you choose? You, perhaps, will think fit to spend a day abroad in the common entertainments of men of fenfe and fortune; she will think herself ill ufed in that abfence, and contrive at home an expence proportioned to the appearance which you nuuake in the world. She is in all things to have a regard to the fortune which he brought you, I to the fortune to which you introduced me. The commerce between you two will eternally have the air of a bargain, between us of a friendship: joy will ever enter into the room with you, and kind wishes attend my benefactor when he leaves it. Afk yourself, how would you be pleased to enjoy for ever the pleasure of having laid an immediate obligation on a grateful mind? Such will be your cafe with me. In the other marriage you will live in a constant comparifon of benefits, and never know the happiness of conferring or receiving

any.

It may be you will, after all, a&t rather in the prudential way, according to the fenfe of the ordinary world. I know not what I think or fay, when that melancholy reflection comes upon me; but fhall only add more, that it is in your power to make me your grate ful wife, but never your abandoned miftrefs.

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which has turned my prefent thoughts upon political arithmetic, an art of greater ufe than entertainment. My friend has offered an effay towards prov. ing that Lewis XIV. with all his acquifitions, is not mafter of more people than at the beginning of his wars; nay, that for every fubject he had acquired, he had loft three that were his inheritance: if Philarithmus is not mistaken in his calculations, Lewis must have been impoverished by his ambition.

The prince for the public good has a fovereign property in every private perfon's eftate, and confequently his riches must increase or decrease in proportion to the number and riches, of his fubjects. For example: if fword or peftilence fhould destroy all the people of this metropolis, God forbid there fhould be room for fuch a fuppofition! but if this fhould be the cafe, the queen muft needs lofe a great part of her revenue, or, at leaft, what is charged upon the city must increase the burden upon the reft of her fubjects. Perhaps the inhabitants here are not above the tenth part of the whole; yet as they are better fed, and clothed, and lodged, than her other fubjects, the customs and excifes upon their confumption, the impofts upon their houses, and other taxes, do very probably make a fifth part of the whole revenue of the crown. But this is not all; the confumption of the city takes off a great part of the fruits of the whole ifland; and as it pays fuch a proportion of the rent or yearly value of the lands in the country, fo it is the cause of paying fuch a proportion of taxes upon thofe lands. The lofs then of fuch a people muft needs be fenfible to the prince, and vifible to the whole kingdom.

On the other hand, if it should please God to drop from heaven a new people equal in number and riches to the city, I should be ready to think their excifes, cuftoms, and house-rent, would raise as great a revenue to the crown as would be loft in the former cafe. And as the confumption of this new body would be a new market for the fruits of the country, all the lands, especially thofe moft adjacent, would rife in their yearly value, and pay greater yearly taxes to the public. The gain in this cafe would be as fenfible as the former lofs.

Whatfoever is affeffed upon the general, is levied upon individuals. It were worth the while then to confider what is

paid by, or by means of, the meaneft

fubjects, in order to compute the value of every fubject to the prince.

For my own part, I fhould believe that feven-eights of the people are without property in themfelves or the heads of their families, and forced to work for their daily bread; and that of this fort there are feven millions in the whole ifland of Great Britain: and yet one would imagine that seven-eighths of the whole people fhould confume at leaft three-fourths of the whole fruits of the country. If this is the cafe, the fubjects without property pay three-fourths of the rents, and confequently enable the landed men to pay three-fourths of their taxes. Now if fo great a part of the land-tax were to be divided by feven millions, it would amount to more than three fhillings to every head. And thus as the poor are the caufe, without which the rich could not pay this tax, even the pooreft fubject is upon this account worth three fhillings yearly to the, prince.

Again: one would imagine the confumption of feven-eighths of the whole people, fhould pay two-thirds of all the cuftoms and excifes. And if this fum too fhould be divided by feven millions, viz. the number of poor people, it would amount to more than feven fhillings to every head: and therefore with this and the former fum every poor subject, without property, except of his limbs or labour, is worth at least ten fhillings yearly to the fovereign. So much then the queen lofes with every one of her old, and gains with every one of her. new fubjects.

When I was got into this way of thinking, I prefently grew conceited with the argument, and was just preparing to write a letter of advice to a member of parliament, for opening the freedom of our towns and trades, for taking away all manner of diftinctions between the natives and foreigners, for repealing our laws of parifh-fettlements, and removing every other obstacle to the increase of the people. But as foon as I had recollected with what inimitable eloquence my fellow-labourers had exaggerated the mifchiefs of felling the birth-right of Britons for a fhilling, of fpoiling the pure British blood with foreign mixtures, of introducing a confufion of languages and religions, and of letting in strangers to eat the bread out of the mouths of our own people, I became fo humble as to let my project

fall

fall to the ground, and leave my country to increase by the ordinary way of gene

ration.

As I have always at heart the public good, fo I am ever contriving fchemes to promote it; and I think I may with out vanity pretend to have contrived fome as wife as any of the caftle-builders. I had no fooner given up my former project, but my head was prefently full of draining fens and marthes, banking out the fea, and joining new lands to my country; for fince it is thought impracticable to increafe the people to the land, I fell immediately to confider how much would be gained to the prince by increafing the land to the people.

If the fame omnipotent Power which made the world, fhould at this time raise out of the ocean and join to Great Britain an equal extent of land, with equal buildings, corn, cattle, and other conveniencies and neceffaries of life, but no men, women, nor children, I fhould hardly believe this would add either to the riches of the people, or revenue of the prince; for fince the prefent buildings are fufficient for all the inhabitants, if any of them should forfake the old to inhabit the new part of the island, the increase of houfe rent in this would be attended with at least an equal decreafe of it in the other: befides, we have fuch a fufficiency of corn and cattle, that we give bounties to our neighbours to take what exceeds of the former off our hands, and we will not fuffer any of the latter to be imported upon us by our fellowfubjects; and for the remaining product of the country it is already equal to all our markets. But if all these things fhould be doubled to the fame buyers, the owners must be glad with half their prefent prices, the landlords with half their prefent rents; and thus by fo great an enlargement of the country, the rents in the whole would not increafe, nor the taxes to the public.

On the contrary, I fhould believe they would be very much diminished; for as the land is only valuable for it's fruits, and thefe are all perishable, and for the most part muft either be used within the year, or perish without ufe, the owners will get rid of them at any rate, rather than they should wafte in their poffeffion: fo that it is probable the annual production of thofe perishable things, even of one tenth part of them, evond all poffibility of ufe, will reduce he half of their value. It feems to be

for this reafon that our neighbour merchants who ingrofs all the fpices, and know how great a quantity is equal to the demand, deftroy all that exceeds it. It were natural then to think that the annual production of twice as much as can be used, muft reduce all to an eighth part of their prefent prices; and thus this extended ifland would not exceed one-fourth part of it's present value, or pay more than one-fourth part of the prefent tax.

It is generally obferved, that in countries of the greatest plenty there is the pooreft living; like the fchoolmen's afs in one of my fpeculations, the people almost starve between two meals. The truth is, the poor, which are the bulk of a nation, work only that they may live; and if with two days labour they can get a wretched fubfiftence, they will hardly be brought to work the other four: but then with the wages of two days they can neither pay fuch prices for their provifions, nor fuch excifes to the government.

That paradox therefore in old Heliod

or warree, or half is more than the whole, is very applicable to the prefent cafe; fince nothing is more true in political arithmetic, than that the fame people with half the country is more va luable than with the whole. I begin to think there was nothing abfurd in Sir W. Petty, when he fancied if all the highlands of Scotland and the whole kingdom of Ireland were funk in the ocean, fo that the people were all faved and brought into the lowlands of Great Britain; nay, though they were to be reimburfed the value of their eftates by the body of the people, yet both the fovereign and the subjects in general would be enriched by the very lofs.

If the people only make the riches, the father of ten children is a greater benefactor to his country, than he who has added to it ro,000 acres of land and no people. It is certain Lewis has joined vast tracts of land to his dominions: but if Philarithmus fays true, that he is not now mafter of fo many fubjects as before; we may then account for his not be. ing able to bring fuch mighty armies into the field, and for their being neither fo well fed, nor clothed, nor paid as formerly. The reafon is plain, Lewis mult needs have been impoverished not only by his lofs of fubjects, but by his acqui fition of lands.

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N° CCI,

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