spirit of the paper called The British Merchant: he encouraged the gentlemen concerned to meet, heard and assisted their debates, and, being zealous above all things that the trade of Great Britain should flourish, he not only continued his influence and advice to the last, but, out of his usual and unbounded liberality, contributed very largely to this work; a considerable sum being raised to carry it on." Stanhope, again, was the person who, suddenly coming into the House of Commons when the vote was about to pass for taking off the duties on French wines for two months, got up a debate on the question, and prevailed upon the House to consent that, before it was carried, the merchants should be heard. The consequences, indeed, that were represented as certain to follow from the treaty were sufficiently alarming, and might well make the legislature pause. "I shall make it appear," says one of the writers in The British Merchant, "that, if the 8th and 9th articles of the treaty of commerce between France and us had been rendered effectual by a law, this very thing had been more ruinous to the British nation than if the city of London were to be laid in ashes. This city has been once burned to the ground, but the people were still in being. They were, notwithstanding this calamity, a constant mart for the product and manufactures of the country. But, if such a law as I have mentioned had passed, France would have gone on from that moment to exhaust the treasures of the kingdom. We should have presently lost our best markets both at home and abroad, our gentlemen must have felt a sudden and universal decay of their rents, and our common people must have either starved for want of work, come to the lands or the parish for subsistence, or have retired to foreign parts for bread." The controversy, this eloquent gentleman proceeds, was not party against party, Tory against Whig, protestant against papist, or church-man against dissenter; but nation against nation—the trade of Britain against the trade of France:—"The questions upon this bill are, whether France, after all her ill successes in the late war, be suffered during the present peace, under the colour of a commerce, to exhaust our
