Character of the Portuguefe. 306 enjoy delicacies without fraud or impofition. I have found no other manners or customs among the Portugueze, worthy imitation; a general abolition of taste and literature reign through the kingdom, which makes it the more furprifing, when we confider the many feminaries which are founded for ftudious applications and folitude. Philofophy is the principal ftudy purfued in their monafteries; from which one would imagine, Portugal, would produce the greatest philofophers in the world:-If man poffeffes genius, nothing can help it fo much as regularity and fobriety; and to appearances, nothing can exceed the fimplicity of their diet. But alas! there is very litthe religion, fenfe, or virtue amongst them:-The priesthood are the mok flagitious and abandoned of mankind; for all their fanctity confifts in fhaved heads, bare feet, and woollen garments, and fuch it must ever be, while Portugal adopts the fubfequent maxing: fear the man that thinks, the man that reads, and the man that writes.-The following laconic character of these people, was (with juftnefs) given me by an English lady who refides here. "The Portugueze, faid the, are peacocks in the streets, flovens in their own houfes, gluttons af other men's tables, and thieves and dunces, from the cradle to the grave." The ignorance of the people in general, is greatly owing to the villainy of the clergy, who fill them with fuperfti tion to keep them in awe, and deprive them of all the advantage of education. You never meet in any state, potentate, or republick, a Portugeze of any exalted abilities;-they feem and are an outcaft of the world, and if ever they poffefs the smallest talents, they are devoted and exercifed in murder, thefts, and lust. The kingdom of Portugal is moft undoubtedly governed by the clergy; they poffefs and enjoy every thing, and are certainly the only clafs who with truth can be faid to live: They lead the whole nation through fuch fuperftitious paths, that the rich cannot retain their wealth, when the church ftands in need of it. Indeed their appearance does credit to the publick who maintains them, for no Roman Catholicks can excel their ecclefiaftick fat and jollity; nor hath Venus June and Bacchus truer or ftricter votaries, for the nun and the bottle are their fole objects of real adoration. I am, fir, your's, &c. To the AUTHOR, &c. AM an old man, and little used to writing, but, Sir, as I fee you are fo obliging to others as to communicate their fentiments and complaints to the world, I dare fay you will mine. I was many years refident in London; but an old uncle, in the year 1729, dying and leaving me a tolerable eftate in Gloucefterfhire, I preferred ease to affluence, and retired from noife and bustle,, to peace and quiet. Among my friends in town was one Mr. Holland, a draper, in Cheapfide: He was a good, honeft, painstaking man; if you dined with him, a joint of meat and a pudding was the utmost of his entertainment; I never faw wine in his houfe but at Christmas, or on a wedding-day; we had a glass of good ale, and after dinner we went to our business, and did not fit three or four hours as you do now. He wore his cap the greateft part of the day, and wan't afhamed to take the broom and the fcraper and clean before his door. He had a good understanding, and was honeft to a degree of admiration: I fear I shall never fee his like again; he is dead poor man, died in July 1750, leaving ten thousand feven hundred pounds, all got by care and induftry, between feven children, share and share alike. Bufinefs, fir, calling me to town this fpring, (my daughter's marriage, good fir, if you must know). I refolved to enquire after my old friend's family. He had three fons: The eldest L found was ruined by horfe racing, and went to fettle at Lisbon; the next, Tom by name, became a bankrupt in fixty, by vice and extravagance, and went to America, where we must all go foon, at least the younger part of us. I got a direction for Jack, a haberdalher near the 'Change; I trudged to fee him laft Wednesday morning; I asked for Mr. John Holland, and to my very great furprize, was introduced to a gentleman as fine as my Lord Cockatoo, and his hair 'drefied as high and powdered as white; [ begged pardon, and told him, I fup. poled 1766. A JUST SATIRE. pofed the man had made a mistake; ed her empty pate against her father's Jolter! When we arrived, we were introduced to madam Holland; how he was dressed in jewels and gold! and then her hair curled fix inches from her head, (God forgive me if I am mistaken, but I believe it was a wig). Then, when the dinner came in, how was I amazed to fee the table covered with feven dishes, and more so when I was told there was a fecond courfe! The turbot cost 18s. the turkey polts 148. madam told us, for the gloried in her fhame. I beg pardon, fir, for having detained you thus long with fuch trifles, but you know old people will be prating. What I meant to tell you was our difcourfe after dinner. As I came from the country, Mr. Holland and Mr. Pattypan attacked me on the high price of provifions: "An't it a hame (fays Mr. Holland) that we, poor Londoners, fhould be paying fuch extravagant prices, when we live in a land of plenty poultry, meat, and 'butter, double the price they were twenty years ago; oats 20s. a quarter, hay 31. 10s. it cofts me more in one month than it did my father in a 307 year. I hall, inftead of faving ten thousand pounds, be obliged to run duce the price of provifions." My away, if fomething an't done to retily replied, "Whether fomething is, blood boiled with indignation; I haf done, or not, Mr. Holland, you must run away if you live thus; don't name your poor father, his table would have been furnished for a week. vifions were lefs, you fay, by a half in, for the money your turbot coft: Proyour father's time, but why were they frugality, and the confumption was fo? Because people lived with more days, would have thought he had enlefs: A city haberdasher, in those piece of beef and potatoes in the pan; tertained his friends nobly with a but I fee fourteen dishes in these luxIf your father, even in those cheaper urious times, are scarcely fufficient : times, had furnished his table like the prodigals of the prefent, he must, in-. tead of leaving ten thousand pounds, have lived and died a beggar; your father had no country house; he had a faying, that, Thofe, who do two houses keep, Must often wake when others fleep. Though the verse is not extraordimary, the moral is good; he had no hay hurt not him; he neither fubcoach, therefore the price of oats or fcribed to, nor idled his time at public affemblies; I may fay to you as the friend in Dan Prior fays to the fat man, you are making the very evil you complain of. In my younger days there wan't a fhopkeeper in London kept his coach; now fcarce one is to be found who condescends to walk, and notonly shop-keepers, but whores, dancing-mafters and fidlers have their equipages; you use an hundred times as much butter as was used formerly, with your fauces, fricaffees, and tea; your vanity employs five hundred times the horfes; you confound more of God's good creatures at one dinner, than would have feafted your ancestors for a month, and yet pretend to be amazed that things are not fo plentiful.. as they were: The fame ground can't keep cows, grow oats, breed cattle, fupply you with grain; the confe produce hay, pafture your horfes, and quence of which is, you fetch your luxuries at great expence from fevenRr 2 ty 308 On the Alliance ty miles diftance; whereas, in our time, ten miles round London fupplied the town with all neceffaries." I was going on, when Mr. Pattypan, yawn'd, and faid, " he did not come here for a lecture; and before I could anfwer him, Mr. Jackanapes, the haberdafher, faid, "Let's take a turn in the garden, and leave old fquare-toes to fwallow his fpittle." I here grew too angry to stay with the empty coxcombs; I took up my hat and cane and marched to the door; when the pastry cook called out, "You had better back in Mr. Holland's coach, go for it is too late to waik, and it will break your frugal heart to fpend a fhilling for a place in the stage." (Says 1)" No, Mr. Puf pafte, though I am an enemy to profusion, I fpend my money as chearfully as any body when my convenience requires it. Though I can't live at the expence of either of you, I believe I have eftate enough to buy all the pyes and tapes in your two fhops. I mean to live, and give my children fomething at my death, but you can't fupport your profufion long, you'll be bankrupts foon, and cheat your creditors out of nineteen fhillings in the pound. You'll live to feaft on gravy beef instead of having fauces, and at laft die in a goal, or feed hogs and eat the hufks, like your brother prodigal in the Gospel." Here I flounced out of the room, and fo ended our fcolding. I am, fir, your, &c. PETER MODERATION. On the Alliance between Church and State and the American Bishops. In fave Letters from a Gentleman in the Coun try to bis Friend in Town. THERE is a confiftent abfurdity, may fo exprefs it, in genuine popery-Tis but to fuppofe Christ left all power with Peter, and from bim to his fucceffors, bishops of Rome, who are infallible in cathedra, all elfe would follow of courfe. Want of proof is not half fo unlucky for them (tranfubftantiation itfelf may be wrangled for as the debates among themselves about the fuperior power of a general council, which many of them plead for, and which has led June others of them to an alliance between the pope and council, as thinking that joining them together, and uniting their power, might prevent debates about the feparate power of each. But thefe pleas and debates have ruined the confiftency and left the abfurdity to ftare in the face of those who dare to examine for how can any perfon plead for infallibility, as with the papifts, when they are not agreed themfelves where it is feated among them? and how can that be the means of ending all controverfies, about which there has been fuch violent contests among themfelves? Be this as it may, 'tis certain all proteftants think very lightly of St. Peter's pretended infalli ble fucceffors, and have moft juftly ejected them from the chair of their ufurped power. But would any one think that they, all confeffedly fallible, would have aimed at taking the chair themfelves-and that their church hiftories thould afford fuch striving for the mastery among them, and that there should have been fuch debates among their various and profeffedly fallible claimants for power.- Bishops and prefbyters jointly and feparately, the ecclefiaftic on the one hand, and the civil magistrate on the other; but whether or wherein, one or other, fupreme or fubordinate, with whom the right, in whom the claim, and how far it extends, have occafioned numberlefs debates, and will afford matter of difpute to the end of time, to fuch as may think proper to exercise themfelves therein, and entangle themfelves, and one another, in difficulties. -Of thefe difficulties the learned allance-writer cannot but be fenfible and therefore has contrived an alliance (not as honeft John Bunyan declared his pilgrim's progress to be under the fimilitude of a dream) to get rid of them that way. - Nor by telling us plainly who are the alliance-makers, and their authority, for had he attempted that, the very parties would have rofe up against him. -Kings and popes will never agree as to the bounds of their power-nor kings and bishops-nor the upper and lower houfe-nor the parliament and convocation. An act of parliament may jumble them all together, and the civil power may keep the ecclen aftical 1766. Between Church and State, &c. aftical quiet by the honours and wealth it has to beftow, and the restraints it has to use. The learned alliancewriter pafles these things by, and wraps up his matter without entering into fuch difquifitions; it is enough for him, that the two parties, whofoever they be, that he calls church and ftate, are represented by him as independent aud feparate at first, and, in procefs of time, entering into a treaty, and making mutual exchange of their refpective favours, incorporating themselves into one, by what he calls an alliance, whereby the commongood is to be fuppofed mutually promoted.I afk, which of the aforementioned parties ever appeared, and when, to make this treaty on the part of the church. To fay it was from the beginning must be a felf-contradiction -for then the parties could not ever have been feparate and independent. At what period then did it commence, and who then appeared on the part of the church?-Will he reckon from the time the empire became Chriftian, or this nation embraced the reformation? Let either be fixed, I am perfuaded, the bishop, with all his great learning, can make it out no better in fact than in right. Aware of this difficulty, for fcarce any thing efcapes his comprehenfive mind, he only wards off the point.When was the original contract figned between prince and people is the question he puts, as reducing you to dilemma, fo that either you must deny the contract, or mention the time. The former it is imagined you will not do, the latter you cannot: and juft fo he would infinuate the cafe of the alliance between church and ftate to be. To this I anfwer :The original contract is at the root of civil government itself. When God inftituted government, he caufed the contract to be then figned: It is God's inftitution to answer the great purpole for which civil government was originally defigned: The tye between the head and members of one body, for one and the fame great end.Not two separate independent bodies, originally inftituted for different purpofes, and afterwards incorporating; but the contract is fuppofed to exift the very moment government itself did: It has its rife in or from the nature of civil government, and the ne 309 ceffary relation between king and peo-. ple; whereas the alliance not taking its rife from the nature of church and ftate, as neceffarily and infeparably fubfifting from the time of their inftitution, but from the time two independent bodies, originally defigned for different purpofes, entered into alliance. It certainly becomes neceffary to ask, when dia this happen, and who had power to treat? and to which this learned writer has given no answer. I fubmit it to your reflectionsand request you would again ask yourfelf-If Mr. Lock's definition of a church and state be juft? What vifionary or real alliance can corfound it? uniformity and toleration are founded on oppofite principles; what alliance can unite? If perfecution be wrong in its nature, what alliance can juftify in any degree? Is it to be conceived, that ecclefiafticks in the church, or princes in the state, can have power from God to inflict corporal punishments?. pecuniary mulets, or civil incapacities, for your worshipping God according to the dictates of your confcience, or omitting to worship him in fuch forms as are contrary thereto, for where could fuch power be confiftently fixed? If in an ecclefiaftick, who or what is he, a pope, bifhop, or prefbyter, jointly or feparately, fallible or infallible; if in a king, where is he, in England, France, or Ruffia; if in one church and ftate only, where is that church and ftate to which that power is fo peculiarly given by God; if in all churches and ftates, what confufion and diftraction must there be amidst fuch various and contrariant claim: ants Has the king of France no right to render his diffenting fubjects incapable of offices for worshipping God according to the dictates of their confciences, or for not fubmitting to his religious tefts? What right can the king of Poland or Pruffia, England or Scotland, Bohemia or Hungary, have to treat theirs fo?--If he can punish by tefts, why not by mulets, if inulets, why not by stripes? Peo ple are quick-fighted enough to fee why themfelves any where ought not to have the lowest degree fixed on them, and true it is they ought not, but too few plead for it as a right belonging to the man and chriftian at all times and places.—It is too foon for got 340 EXTRACTS FROM got when they have power; then one and another fhall ftep forth from the pope as fupreme, the bishop as co-ordinate, the prefbyter as owning no fuperior from the king as head of the church, or as head of the ftate, or as fuppofed entering into a vifionary alliance with one or other of those ecclefiaftic heads, or from a real union of power by law. No matter how, they have a power to exclude and punish them, they are allied for that purpofe, and you are without the pale.— thall confider the cafe of the Americans in my next, and then conclude my letters on this subject. THE I am, tir, your, &c. HE Hiftory of the late Minority, just published, the fale of which has been extremely rapid, is apparently the work of a perfon, or perfons, who have been behind the curtain, and are well-informed in what they deliver. Many tranfactions, whofe true motives were never yet publickly known, are here explained. The writer feems to be of no party, and all parties feem to have felt his lafh alike, particularly the deferters from the Minority, who have excited his fevereft contempt and indignation. We fhall give an extract or two from this performance. Letters and Cards which passed between Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Martin. Great George-ftreet, Weftm. Nov. 16. SIR, complained yesterday be June the dark, was a cowardly, as well as a malignant and infamous scoundrel; and your letter of this morning's date acknowledges, that every paffage of the North-Briton, in which I have been named, or even alluded to, was written by yourself, I must take the liberty to repeat, that you are a malignant and infamous Scoundrel, and that I defire to give you an opportunity of fhewing me whether the epithet of cowardly was rightly applied or not. I defire that you may meet me in Hyde Park immediately, with a brace of piftols each, to determine our difference. I fall go to the ring in Hyde Park, with my piftols fo concealed, that nobody may fee them; and I will wait in expectation of you one hour. As I fhall call in my way at your house to deliver this letter, I propofe to ge from thence directly to the ring in Hyde Park, from whence we may proceed, if it be necefiary, to any more private place; and I mention that I fhall wait an hour in order to give you full time to meet me. I am, Sir, Your humble fervant, SAM. MARTIN.". Hotel de Luynes, Dec. 50, 1763. "Mr. Martin prefents his compliments to Mr. Wilkes, and defires to know how he does, flattering himself, from Mr. W's performance of so long a journey, at this season of the year, that his health is perfectly re-eltablished. Mr. M. cannot help taking this op "Yfore five hundred gentlemen, portunity to affure Dr. Wilkes, that that you had been ftabbed in the dark by the North-Briton, but I have reafon to believe you was not fo much in the dark as you affected, and thofe to be. Was the complaint made before fo many gentlemen, on purpose that they might interpofe? To cut off every pretence of ignorance as to the author, I whisper in your ear, that every paffage of the North-Briton, in which you have been named, or even alluded to, was written by, Your humble fervant, Mr. MARTIN's Anfauer. SIR, Abingdon-ftr. Nov. 6,1763. "AS faid in the houfe of commons yesterday, that the writer of the North-Briton, who had ftabbed me in he had defired Mr. Bradshaw to deliver up Mr. W's note, written to Mr. M. on the 16th of Nov. as it occurred to the latter that any imaginable ufe might be made of it to Mr. W's prejudice, and before Mr. M. had heard from Bradshaw that it was actually given up. Mr. M. returns his thanks to Mr. W. for his attention to Mr. M's fafety, by giving the early notice he did to Mr. Bradshaw, of his apprehending himself to be in danger. It is impoffible for Mr. M. to think of taking any part in any affair of Mr. W's that he may find depending in the house of commons, at his arrival in England. He propofes to fet off from hence on his return home, on Monday |