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LETTER TWELFTH.

Return to London-reflections on the impoverished condition
of the people-Tithes, taxes, and poor rates-Causes of
the unhappy situation of the poor,

LETTER THIRTEENTH.

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Marchioness of HDukes br: ****, ********, Sus-
sex, and Calabria-General

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LETTER NINETEENTH.

Hereditary honours and wealth-Nobility-Franklin,

LETTER TWENTIETH.

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ADVERTISEMENT OF THE EDITOR.

THE following Letters were addressed to a gentleman residing in one of the Eastern states, without any view to their publication.

The person to whom they were written has, however, been induced to offer them to the public, in consequence of having lately seen the Travels of Howitt, Howison, Welby, &c.; and also the prospectus of a new work on the comparative state of crime in this country and in England. These works are evidently written with the exclusive objects of discouraging emigration to the United States, and at the same time, exhibiting to the world a picture, calculated to make the most injurious impressions, with regard to the state of our manners, morals, and religion.

It was believed that the explanations and details of a writer, who appears to have had good opportunities of obtaining information ca subjects hitherto not well understood in the United States, might, in some degree, not only account for the perpetual recurrence of these scandalous' productions by developing the views of the writegs and their patrons; but, at the same time, arrest their influence, by showing the impure sources whence they originate. These letters, though not actually written with that express purpose, seem well calculated to do away the impression, which it is the favourite object of this conspiracy against us to create; to wit, that the freedom of our institutions and government has a direct tendency to

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ADVERTISEMENT.

render the people more profligate, unmanageable, and rude, than are the subjects of a limited monarchy; that republicanism and infidelity, licentiousness and freedom, are almost convertible terms, and that they seldom, if ever, are found apart.

A comparison has been drawn between the government of England, its laws and customs, and those of the United States; the corruptions which disgrace every branch of their system are exposed; and the reflections of the writer upon the condition of that people cannot fail, it is thought, to strengthen our attachment to the simplicity and purity of our own republican institutions.

It is proper to state, that the arrangement of these letters is not strictly according to the order of their dates, but rather according to the connexion of the subjects of which they treat. Sometimes, also, seve. ral letters have been cast into one, for the sake of collecting and embodying many facts and arguments, dispersed and isolated, all bearing on the same points. The whole has been transcribed in the family of the editor, omitting only such passages as were of a private or personal nature.

YRARBLI

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YOUR Complaints of the long intervals between my letters, and their silence on certain points concerning which you have requested information, are not altogether unreasonable; neither, in truth, are they altogether reasonable; for after travelling all day, and employing every interval of leisure to visit old castles and stately churches, the one ruined by time and violence, the other preserved by a sentiment of piety or pride, one has little inclination of an evening to describe them. I contented myself with merely noting in my memorandumbook such observations and reflections as seemed worth remembering, with a view to communicate them to you at my leisure.

Being now settled here during the pleasure of the ***** ***, and my present situation allowing both leisure and opportunity, I mean to become the very mirror of letter-writers. But VOL. I. B

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