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Show 68 ONSMUGGLING2 [G.P.] haps much poorer neighbours? He will perhaps, be ready to tell me, that he does not wrong his neighbours; he fcorns the imputation; he only cheats the King :1 little, who is very able to bear it. This however is a miftuke. The public treafure is the treafure of the nation, to be applied to national purpofes. And when a duty is laid for a particular public and necefl'ary purpofe, if through fmuggling that duty falls fhort of railing the fum required, and other duties mufl: therefore be laid to make up the deficiency; all the additional fum laid by the new duties and paid by other people, though it fhould amount to no more than a halfpenny or a farthing per head, is fo much actually picked out of the pockets of thofe other people by the fmugglers and their abettors and encouragers. Are they then any better or other than pickpockets ? and what mean, low, rafcally pickpockets muft thofe be, that can pick pockets for halfpence and for farthings P I would not however be fuppofed to allow in The King and the public in this cafe are different names for the fame thing; 69 him fall under the fcripture woe, pronounc ed againft the fon t/Jzzz‘ roééetb [mflzl/Jer, (lizd/Zzz't/{w 22‘ 2} mfl/z. Mean as this practice is, do we not daily fee people of character and fortune engaged in it for trifling advantages to themftlves P-Is any lady alhamed to requef'r of a gentleman of her acquaintance, that when he returns from abroad, he would fmuggle her home a piece of filk or lace from France or Flanders P Is any gentlema n athamed to undertake and execute the comm if- fionP-Not in the lealt. They will talk of it freely, even before others whofe pockets they are thus contriving to pick by this piece of knavery. Among other branches of the revenue, that of the Pof't-Oflice is, by a late law, appro pri- ated to the difcharge of our public debt, to de- fray the expences of the Hate. None but members of parliament, and a few public oflicers have now a right to avoid, by a frank, the payment of pof'tage. When any letter not written by them whatI have jul't faid, that cheating the King is a lefs offence againtt honef'cy, than cheating the public. AND ITS VARIOUS SPECIES. but if pron their bufinefs, is franked by any of them , 1t 18 a hurt to the revenue; an injury which they mutt now take the pains to conceal by writing the whole fuperfcription themfelves. And yet, fuch is our infenfibility tojuftice in this particu- we confider the King difiiné‘tly it will not leflen lar, that nothing is more common than to fee, the crime: it is nojuf'fification of a robbery, that even in a reputable company, a 71er {may} gen- the perfon robbed was rich and able to bear it. The King has as much right to juttice as the tleman or lady declare, his or her intention to cheat the nation of three-pence by a frank ; and meaneft of his fubjeéts; and as he is truly the Without bluihing apply to one of the very legif- common fatlaer of his people, thofe that rob lators themfelves, with a model]: requefi: that him he |