A fifth essay, at removing national prejudices; with a reply to some authors, who have printed their objections against an Union with England:

The PREFACE.

I Confess, the Occasions of my appearing in Print again u|pon this Subject, are unexpected; and as the writing a Fifth Essay is Contrary to my real Design, and more so to my Inclination, I cannot but say something by way of In|troduction to it.

The Management of this present Treaty, I mean, with|out Doors, has something in it peculiarly odd, and to me very surprizing; Reason and Argument, nay even De|monstration cannot reach it; Men will argue against, nay Banter, and be Witty upon the several Branches, & yet at the end of the Discourse profess, They do not Understand them—They will be silenc't, and yet not at all Con|vinc't; they wont believe, when they cannot reply; when they own, they gain by it, they are not pleased; when they fancy, they are Losers, they are fond of Complaining; and when they can't make it out, rail on those that Endeavour to Confute them.

Words can have no Effect on such Persons, no Argument can touch them; either they Can't, or Won't, Understand any thing but what they like. Bitterness possesses their Souls, and breaks out too much at their Tongues: and I

must tell them, I think, I bear more than my Share of this from them too, and that without Cause.

'Tis hard, Gentlemen, that an Attempt calmly to remove Prejudices (and I am sure, I have done it both Calmly and Cautiously) should fill any Body with Prejudices at the Au|thor. Scotland has been in some Reputation for Courtesy to Strangers, & I should be very sorry, you should break in upon that part of your Character, only with a Reconciler. An Attempt to remove Prejudices, can have nothing in it; unless that the Truths spoken, move the Spleen of some, who would not be reconciled, and therefore cannot bear the Demon|stration.

Nor would I be mistaken here, I am far from being Concern'd at the Ribauldry of the Street, calling my Name about to every Ballad, making me the Author of Pa|pers I never saw; when Gentlemen lampoon one ano|ther, calling it mine, and the like, this is an old Method taken with me, and I am used to it.—

My Muse must be the Whore of Poetry, And all Apollo's Bastards laid to me.

The Gentlemen are wellcome, and the Mob of Writers by all their Witticisms, shall only provoke me to Silence. I remember, and I wish, some other Gentlemen here would take the hint as I do—My Lord Rochester advising

My Lord—not to reply to Satyr and Lampoon, has these two Merry Lines.

Fellows that ne'er were Heard or read of, If thou writ'st on, will write thy head off.

Others, I am told, are furnishing themselves with Scan|dal, and Design to answer my Arguments with Personal Reflection.

I thank GOD, my Life, however mixt with Misfor|tunes, has not been such, that I am asham'd to see it in Print. Nor shall I offer any Capitulations with such Gentlemen, only intreat them for their own Sakes, to say nothing but what is true:—and then to add at the Bottom of their Story, what mighty Signification it has to the Argument in hand.

When our Saviour had healed the Man born blind, and he, appearing before the Elders, answered them with a Testimony to the Divinity of the Healer, which they could not reply to, viz. That he must be GOD, since nothing of a Man could ha' wrought such a Cure—To answer the Conviction of his Reasoning, they fall upon the Poor Man, Thou wer't altogether born in sin and doest thon teach us—and they Cast him Out—and yet af|ter all what the Poor Man said, was very true—

Now Gentlemen, if what I say be true, why will you not hear it? if not true, why will ye not answer it?—

Let the Author be never so Despicable or Mean in your Eyes, he is in no Man's meaner than in his Own: but Truth in the meanest Hand, deserves your Regard; Accept the Truth, and use the Author as you like, he is perfectly un|concern'd about that.

But all this does not yet reach the Matter which I Com|plain of: But I think it hardest, when Gentlemen, who pre|tend to answer what pinches them in Fact, Charge me with Falsities, wrong representing things & the like, & to make it out, give their own Assertions only, without the least Proof either to make Good their own, or Detect mine.

When Gentlemen reflect on what I have wrote, as not true, and use me ill on that head, at the same time contra|dicting it, with nothing but what is manifestly false, impos|ing upon the World their own Affirmative without Proof against Arguments, which are, and can be prov'd by Undoubted and undeniable Authority; this, I must own, is using a Stranger very ill.

I shall give but two or three Instances of this here, and shall meet with the rest as I go.

1st. Here's a Gentleman tells me in Print, That the small Beer in England does pay more than 1 sh. 3. d. per Bar|rel if sold for above 6 sh: per Barrel; that the Foreign Salt payes 10 sh: per Busbel Custom, that there are Duties & Restrictions on the Export of the English Woollen Manu|facture and the like. And this the Gentleman calls a Con|futing my Fourth Essay.

Now as this wants but a short Answer, so that An|swer will detect the Gentleman's Ignorance first, and then his forwardness of Charging me vvithout Proof.

'Tis true, the Act of Parliament in England, prescribes the Excise to only tvvo Denominations of Beer, Small and Strong, and that the Small Beer is strictly call'd 6 sh: Beer: and I suppose in Charity to him, that he looked no further than the Letter of the Act.

But if he thinks fit to examine the Practice in England, and the Nature of the thing, he will find three things.

• 1. That there is no Small Beer sold in England at 6 Shillings per Barrel.
• 2. That the Houshold Beer sold in London, and Parts adjacent at 10 sh. per Barrel, and some at 12 sh. per Bar|rel, pays no more Excise than as Small Beer, viz. 1 sh. 3 d. per Barrel; and of this I can bring him several Witnesses of People of both Nations now here.
• 3. That by the Nature of the Act, it can be no otherwise, since the Act does not say, all Beer above 6 ss. shall pay as Strong Beer, but the word, Strong Beer, is governed by the Usage of Excise, and is all sold as Ale from 18 sh. per Bar|rel to above 40 sh.

If it is asked me, Why the Act calls it 6 sh. Beer? I answer, Because, that Act having been made above 30 Year ago, the Small Beer in those days, was sold at that price; and this Excise being but in two Heads or Denomi|nations

as before, the Term needed no Alteration, tho' the price of Sale was risen: since it follow'd by the Name of Small Beer, that nothing could pay as Strong, that had not the first Runnings of the Malt.

I need enlarge no further, to prove the justice of my Calculation, or the unfairness of being Charg'd here with Imposing on the World.

The second Case is in the same Gentleman's Paper, who tells me, the Duty on Foreign Salt is 10 ss. per Bushel; and to insult me the more, adds, That 'tis by them that know it as well as I.

Now as this showes the Gentleman's Heat to run before his Dis|cretion, I must tell him, there can be no just Comparison between any Man's Knowledge here, since the Acts of Parl. are plain, in which the Taxes upon Salt are settled, and that there may be no Dispute on the Difference of Measure, the Bushel is Determined to weigh 84 l: weight Avoir du pois, and if he pleases to search the said Acts, and the English Book of Rates, he will find the Duty stands thus.

By the Act. 5. and 6. Will. and Mary. Cap. 7.	3 d. per Gallon on Foreign Salt.
7. and 8. William III. Cap. 31.	the Duty Continued.
9. and 10. William III. Cap. 44.	7 d. per Gallon, Added,
	10 d. per Gallon

10 d. per Gallon—8 Gallon to the Bushel is 80 d. or 6. sh. 8. per Bushel. The Subsidies and Impost formerly laid amount to—2 d. ⅝ per Bushel—

2⅝

6. 10⅝ or thereabout.

Either I am Right or wrong: if wrong, let the Acts of Parliament decide that Controversy; if I am Right,—then this Gentleman and his Author, who, he says, knows it as well as I, have something more to account for to the world, than an homest Man cares to be charg'd with: and if I had used him so, I would frankly ask his Pardon.

As to the Duties and Restrictions on the Woollen Manufacture in England on Export, the 36 Minute of Parliament has answered and confuted it for me,—I need say nothing in my own Vindication after such an Authority, only recommend it to the Gentleman himself to consider, whether he has used either me or his Country honestly.