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contempt than I do; but you do not seem disposed to distinguish, and there we differ. Your story of the pea-shooter answers no end that I can see, but to shew how little the Earl of Stair values one of the noblest of intellectual arts. I give your Lordship credit for the elegance of your taste; but if you expected this passage would promote the reputation of your wit, I fear you have greatly deceived yourself.
Every sensible reader of your present work will be surprized to find a desertion of your protested principles. It cannot fail to be a matter of astonishment that the same man, who in January reprobates the Tories for losing America, should in November imply a manifest with that these very Tories were restored to conduct the government. To me, my Lord, it appears in a different light. I have formed an opinion of your Lordship from some parts of your former pamphlet, which makes your present work the less inconsistent. In that you did assert some mistakes, which any shopkeeper could set you right in. You said (for some strange purpose) that the greatest æra of England's felicity, was from 1765 to 1775, and that imagination can scarcely surpass it. My Lord, I affirm, that this country, since the massacres of the last century, never felt so
