Among ourselves, unless we give our working people less employment, how can we, for what they do, pay them higher than we do? Out of what fund is the additional price of labour to be paid, when all our present incomes are, as it were, mortgaged to them? Should they get higher wages, would that make them less poor, if, in consequence, they worked fewer days of the week proportionably? I have said, a law might be made to raise their wages; but I doubt much whether it could be executed to any purpose, unless another law, now indeed almost obsolete, could at the same time be revived and enforced; a law, I mean, that many have often heard and repeated, but few have ever duly considered. Six days shalt thou labour. This is as positive a part of the commandment, as that which says, The SEVENTH day thou shalt rest. But we remember well to observe the indulgent part, and never think of the other. Saint Monday is generally as duly kept by our working people as Sunday; the only difference is, that, instead of employing their time cheaply at church, they are wasting it expensively at the alehouse. I am, Sir, &c. MEDIUS. [When I consider our fellow subjects in America as rational creatures, I cannot but wonder, that, during the present wide 1 Passages enclosed in brackets are not found in the Ms. in A. P. S. — Ed. difference of sentiments in the two countries, concerning the power of Parliament in laying taxes and duties on America, no application has been made to their understandings, no able and learned pen among us has been employed in convincing them that they are in the wrong; proving clearly, that, by the established law of nations, or by the terms of their original constitution, they are taxable by our Parliament though they have no representative in it. On the contrary, whenever there is any news of discontent in America, the cry is, "Send over an army or a fleet, and reduce the dogs to reason."] It is said of choleric People, that with them there is but a Word and a Blow. I hope Britain is not so choleric, and will never be so angry with her Colonies as to strike them. But that if she should ever think it may be necessary, she will at least let the Word go before the Blow, and reason with them. To do this clearly, and with the most probability of Success, by removing their Prejudices and rectifying their Misapprehensions (if they are such), it will be necessary to learn what those Prejudices and Misapprehensions are; and before we can either refute or admit to answer their Reasons, we should certainly know them. It is to that End I have handed the following Letters (lately published in America) to the Press here. [They were occasioned by the act made (since the repeal of the Stamp Act) for raising a revenue in America by duties on glass, paper, &c.] The Author is a Gentleman of Repute in that Country for his Knowledge of its Affairs, and, it is said, speaks the general Sentiments of the Inhabitants. How far those Sentiments are right or wrong, I do not pretend at present to judge. I wish to see first what can be said on the other Side of the Question. I hope this Publication will produce a full Answer, if we can make one. If it does, this Publication will have had its Use. No Offence to Government is intended by it; and it is hoped none will be taken. London, May 8, 1768. SIR, 471. TO SIR JOHN PRINGLE1 N. N. Craven Street, May 10, 1768. You may remember, that when we were travelling together in Holland, you remarked, that the trackschuyt in one of the stages went slower than usual, and inquired of the boatman, what might be the reason; who answered, that it had been a dry season, and the water in the canal was low. On being again asked if it was so low as that the boat touched the muddy bottom; he said, no, not so low as that, but so low as to make it harder for the horse to draw the boat. We neither of us at first could conceive that if there was water enough for the boat to swim clear of the bottom, its being deeper would make any difference; but as the man affirmed it seriously as a thing well known among them; and as the punctuality required in their stages, was likely to make such difference, if any there were, more readily observed by them, than by other watermen who did not pass so regularly and constantly backwards and forwards in the same track; I began to apprehend there might be something in it, and attempted to account for it from this consideration, that the boat in proceeding along the canal, must in every boat's length of her course, move out of her way a body of water, 1 From "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," London, 1769, P. 492. ED. VOL. V-K equal in bulk to the room her bottom took up in the water; that the water so moved, must pass on each side of her and under her bottom to get behind her; that if the passage under her bottom was straitened by the shallows, more of that water must pass by her sides, and with a swifter motion, which would retard her, as moving the contrary way; or that the water becoming lower behind the boat than before, she was pressed back by the weight of its difference in height, and her motion retarded by having that weight constantly to overcome. But as it is often lost time to attempt accounting for uncertain facts, I determined to make an experiment of this, when I should have convenient time and opportunity. After our return to England, as often as I happened to be on the Thames, I inquired of our watermen whether they were sensible of any difference in rowing over shallow or deep water. I found them all agreeing in the fact, that there was a very great difference, but they differed widely in expressing the quantity of the difference; some supposing it was equal to a mile in six, others to a mile in three, &c. As I did not recollect to have met with any mention of this matter in our philosophical books, and conceiving that if the difference should really be great, it might be an object of consideration in the many projects now on foot for digging new navigable canals in this island, I lately put my design of making the experiment in execution, in the following manner. I provided a trough of plained boards fourteen feet long, six inches wide and six inches deep, in the clear, filled with water within half an inch of the edge, to represent a canal. I had a loose board of nearly the same length and breadth, that being put into the water might be sunk to any depth, and fixed by little wedges where I would chuse to have it stay, in order to make different depths of water, leaving the surface at the same height with regard to the sides of the trough. I had a little boat in form of a lighter or boat of burthen, six inches long, two inches and a quarter wide, and one inch and a quarter deep. When swimming, it drew one inch water. To give motion to the boat, I fixed one end of a long silk thread to its bow, just even with the water's edge, the other end passed over a well made brass pully, of about an inch diameter, turning freely on a small axis; and a shilling was the weight. Then placing the boat at one end of the trough, the weight would draw it through the water to the other. Not having a watch that shows seconds, in order to measure the time taken up by the boat in passing from end to end, I counted as fast as I could count to ten repeatedly, keeping an account of the number of tens on my fingers. And as much as possible to correct any little inequalities in my counting, I repeated the experiment a number of times at each depth of water, that I might take the medium. following are the results. And the |
