is done by horses. The latter are said to require twice the quantity of land to maintain them; and after all are not good to eat, at least we do not think them so.. Here is a waste of land that might afford subsistence for so many of the human species. Perhaps it was for this reason, that the Hebrew lawgiver, having promised that the children of Israel should be as numerous as the sands of the sea, not only took care to secure the health of individuals by regulating their diet, that they might be fitter for producing children, but also forbade their using horses, as those animals would lessen the quantity of subsistence for men. Thus we find, when they took any horses from their enemies, they destroyed them; and in the commandments, where the labor of the ox and ass is mentioned, and forbidden on the Sabbath, there is no mention of the horse, probably because they were to have none. And, by the great armies suddenly raised in that small territory they inhabited, it appears to have been very full of people.*

Food is always necessary to all, and much the greatest part of the labor of mankind is employed in raising provisions for the mouth. Is not this kind of labor, then, the fittest to be the standard by which to measure the values of all other labor, and consequently of all other things whose value depends on the labor of making or procuring

There is not in the Jewish law any express prohibition against the use of horses; it is only enjoined, that the kings should not multiply the breed, or carry on trade with Egypt for the purchase of horses: Deuteronomy xvii. 16. Solomon was the first of the kings of Judah who disregarded this ordinance. He had forty thousand stalls of horses, which he brought out of Egypt: 1 Kings iv. 26; and ibid. x. 28. From this time downwards horses were in constant use in the Jewish armies. It is true that the country, from its rocky surface and unfertile soil, was extremely unfit for the maintenance of those animals.-A. F. TYTLER.

them? May not even gold and silver be thus valued? If the labor of the farmer, in producing a bushel of wheat, be equal to the labor of the miner in producing an ounce of silver, will not the bushel of wheat just measure the value of the ounce of silver? The miner must eat; the farmer indeed can live without the ounce of silver, and so perhaps will have some advantage in settling the price. But these discussions I leave to you, as being more able to manage them; only, I will send you a little scrap I wrote some time since on the laws prohibiting foreign commodities.

I congratulate you on your election as president of your Edinburgh Society. I think I formerly took notice to you in conversation, that I thought there had been some similarity in our fortunes, and the circumstances of our lives. This is a fresh instance, for, by letters just received, I find that I was about the same time chosen president of our American Philosophical Society, established at Philadelphia.

I have sent by sea, to the care of Mr. Alexander, a little box, containing a few copies of the late edition of my books, for my friends in Scotland. One is directed for you, and one for your Society, which I beg that you and they would accept as a small mark of my respect.

Το Samuel The Parliament remain fixed in their resoCooper, dalution not to repeal the duty acts this session, ted London, 27 April, 1769. and will rise next Tuesday. I hope my country folks will remain as fixed in their resolutions of industry and frugality, till these acts are repealed. And, if I could be sure of that, I should almost wish them never to be repealed; being persuaded, that we shall reap more solid and extensive advantages from the steady practice of those two great virtues, than we can possibly suffer damage from

B

all the duties the Parliament of this kingdom can levy on

us.

They flatter themselves you cannot long subsist without their manufactures. They believe you have not virtue enough to persist in such agreements. They imagine the colonies will differ among themselves, deceive and desert one another, and quietly one after the other submit to the yoke, and return to the use of British fineries. They think, that, though the men may be contented with homespun stuffs, the women will never get the better of their vanity and fondness for English modes and gewgaws. The ministerial people all talk in this strain, and many even of the merchants. I have ventured to assert, that they will all find themselves mistaken; and I rely so much on the spirit of my country, as to be confident I shall not be found a false prophet, though at present not believed.

I hope nothing that has happened, or may happen, will diminish in the least our loyalty to our Sovereign, or affection for this nation in general. I can scarcely conceive a King of better dispositions, of more exemplary virtues, or more truly desirous of promoting the welfare of all his subjects. The experience we have had of the family in the two preceding mild reigns, and the good temper of our young princes, so far as can yet be discovered, promise us a continuance of this felicity.* The body of this people,

The original of this letter, with several others belonging to Dr. Cooper, was seized by a British officer in Boston, soon after the battle of Lexington, when many of the inhabitants, and Dr. Cooper among them, had left the town. The parcel was sent to the King, and the letters themselves, in their original form, are now preserved in the British Museum, having been contained in the library presented by George IV. to that institution. Copies of the letters in that collection have been procured for this work, and the above letter is one of the number. Hence the complimentary paragraph, intended only for a private friend, was seen by the King five years

too, is of a noble and generous nature, loving and honoring the spirit of liberty, and hating arbitrary power of all sorts. We have many, very many, friends among

them.

But, as to the Parliament, though I might excuse that which made the acts, as being surprised and misled into the measure, I know not how to excuse this, which, under the fullest conviction of its being a wrong one, resolves to continue it. It is decent, indeed, in your public papers to speak as you do of the "wisdom and the justice of Parliament;" but now that the subject is more thoroughly understood, if this new Parliament had been really wise, it would not have refused even to receive a petition against the acts; and, if it had been just, it would have repealed them, and refunded the money. Perhaps it may be wiser and juster another year, but that is not to be depended on.

If, under all the insults and oppressions you are now exposed to, you can prudently, as you have lately done, continue quiet, avoiding tumults, but still resolutely keeping up your claims and asserting your rights, you will finally establish them, and this military cloud that now blusters over you will pass away, and do no more harm than a summer thunder shower. But the advantages of your perseverance in industry and frugality will be great and permanent. Your debts will be paid, your farms will be better improved, and yield a greater produce; your real wealth will increase in a plenty of every useful home production, and all the

after it was written, when Franklin was a member of the Continental Congress, and when, from subsequent experience, his sentiments had changed in regard to the King's good dispositions towards at least one part of his subjects.-S.

true enjoyments of life, even though no foreign trade should be allowed you;* and this handicraft, shop-keeping state, will, for its own sake, learn to behave more civilly to its customers.†

*The following extract from a letter addressed by Samuel Cooper to Dr. Franklin in August following is an interesting commentary upon these

statements:

Britain is not sensible what she has already lost by the late impolitic and severe measures. Those, that take only a superficial view of things, imagine the country is safe, because they do not see large quantities of American manufactures stand for sale. They do not consider how greatly the demand for British goods is diminished, through the industry of families privately supplying themselves, from what this demand would have been from our increasing numbers, had mild and prudent methods been pursued. I can however give a striking instance, that may be depended on, of a manufacture, that was almost wholly imported, and now furnishes no inconsiderable article of our exportation. The single town of Lynn makes yearly not less than eighty thousand pairs of women's shoes, better and cheaper than any that we can import, and not only supplies the maritime towns around it with this article, but sends large quantities of it to the southern colonies and the West Indies. I could not believe this, till, upon particular inquiry, I found it to be undoubtedly true.”

†The associations, as they were called, or resolutions not to import goods from Great Britain, had been unequally observed in the different colonies, as will appear by the following statement, taken from the custom-house entries, of the value of all the goods exported from England to the several colonies enumerated, from Christmas 1767 to Christmas 1769:

This summary shows a large decrease in the amount of goods exported to the eastern and middle colonies, particularly New York and Pennsylvania, but an increase at the south. This is in part explained by the fact, that the necessities of the southern colonies for foreign goods were much greater than at the east, where domestic manufactures had to some extent become established. The statement is transcribed from a letter written by Mr. W. S. Johnson, in London, March 6th, 1770.-S.