pitious to vegetation; some clays seem to be of the same noxious quality, and this, if true, makes an exception to deep-ploughing upon bottoms mixed with such substances, supposing the principle of deep-ploughing to be otherwise generally sound. Under this head comes the general objection of farmers against ploughing up the dead earth, or going beyond what is called the staple; that is, that body of dark-coloured mould, which seems to be in part formed of rotten vegetables and animal substances. All these are

doubts and questions not to be passed over lightly; especially the last, because it comes from men of much experience, and is not a local objection, from the particular nature of a certain substratum, but supposes an universal inaptitude in all soils, beyond a certain depth, for the purposes of vege

tation.

TO CHARLES TOWNSHEND, ESQ.

DEAR SIR, October 17th, 1771. I am much obliged to for the kind part you you have taken, on the report of our friend Fitzherbert's conversation about the author of Junius. You have done it in a manner that is just to me, and delicate to both of us. I am indeed extremely ready to believe, that he has had no share in circulating an opinion so very injurious to me, as that I am capable of treating the character of my friends, and even my own character, with levity, in order to be able to attack that of others with the less suspicion. When I have anything to object to persons in power, they know very well that I use no sort of managements towards them, except those which every honest man owes to his own dignity. If I thought it necessary to bring the same charges against them into a more public discussion than that of the House of Commons, I should use exactly the same freedom, making myself, in the same manner, liable to all the consequences. You observe very rightly, that no fair man can believe me to be the author of Junius. Such a supposition might tend, indeed, to raise the estimation of my powers of writing above their just value. Not one of my friends does, upon that flattering principle, give me for the writer; and when my enemies endeavour to fix Junius upon me, it is not for the sake of

giving me credit of an able performance. My friends I have satisfied;-my enemies shall never have any direct satisfaction from me. The ministry, I am told, are convinced of my having written Junius, on the authority of a miserable bookseller's preface, which I have read since I saw you, in which there are not three lines of common truth or sense, and which defames me, if possible, with more falsehood and malignity, than the libellers whom they pay for that worthy purpose. This argument of theirs only serves to show how much their malice is superior to their discernment. For some years, and almost daily, they have been abusing me in the public papers; and (among other pretences for their scurrility) as being the author of the letters in question. I have never once condescended to take the least notice of their invectives, or publicly to deny the fact upon which some of them were grounded. At the same time, to you, or to any of my friends, I have been as ready as I ought to be, in disclaiming in the most precise terms, writings, that are as superior perhaps to my talents, as they are most certainly different in many essential points from my regards and my principles. I am, with the greatest truth and affection, My dear Sir,

Your most obedient and humble servant,

EDM. BURKE.

I only wait my brother's arrival to pay my visit to Frognall.

SIR,

TO A PRUSSIAN GENTLEMAN.

1772.

Permit me to return you my most sincere thanks for the honour of your very obliging letter. Nothing can be more polite than the offer of your correspondence, and nothing more acceptable than your specimen of it.

I hope you will not look on the long delay of my acknow ledgments, as a proof that I want the fullest sense of the great favour I have received. I owed you the best considered and the best informed judgment I could make, on the question which you proposed. your property, which you will give matter far from indifferent to me.

The answer might affect me leave to regard as a After all, I am obliged

to own to you that the more I have inquired, and the more I have reflected, the less capable I find myself of giving you any advice on which I can venture to confide. I have never had any concern in the funds of the East India Company, nor have taken any part whatsoever in its affairs, except when they came before me in the course of parliamentary proceedings. Of late years the intervention of the claims and powers of government, the magnitude of the possessions in the East, which have involved the concerns of the Company with the contentions of parties at home, and with the mass of the politics of Asia and Europe, together with many other particulars, have rendered all reasonings upon that stock a matter of more intricacy and delicacy than whilst the Company was restrained within the limits of a moderate commerce. However, one advantage has arisen from the magnitude of this object, and the discussions which have grown from its importance, that almost everything relative to it is become very public. The proceedings in parliament and in the India House have given as many lights to the foreign stockholders as to the inhabitants of this kingdom. Many persons on the continent, as well as here, are more capable of giving you good information than I am; I dare not risk an opinion. I am persuaded you will have the goodness to excuse a caution, which has its rise from my extreme tenderness towards your interest.

With regard to general politics, you judge very properly that we are more removed from them than you are, who live in the centre of the political circle. However, though situated in the circumference, we have our share of concern and curiosity. I am happy to receive that information which I have no right to expect, and no ability to requite. My situation is very obscure and private, and I have scarce anything to do, but with the minute detail of our own internal economy. To this I confine myself entirely. As to the grand machine, I admire its effects, without being often able to comprehend its operations, or to discover its springs. I look on these events as historical. The distance of place, and absence from management, operate as remoteness of time. I am obliged to you for your account of his Prussian Majesty's military arrangements. I make no doubt that a prince so

wise and politic will improve his new acquisitions (for I am not to call them conquests) to the best advantage for his power and greatness. I agree no less with your observation, that it was extremely fortunate the three great allied powers were able to find a fourth which was utterly unable to resist any one of them, and much less all united. If this circumstance had not concurred with their earnest inclinations to preserve the public tranquillity, they might have been obliged to find a discharge for the superfluous strength of their plethoric habits in the destruction of the finest countries in Europe. One great branch of the alliance has not been quite so fortunate. Russia seems to me still to retain, though under European forms and names, too much of the Asiatic spirit in its government and manners to be long well poised and secure within itself; and without that advantage, nothing I apprehend can be done in a long struggle. Turkey is not prey, at least, for those whose motions are sometimes indeed precipitate, but seldom alert. The nature of the Turkish frontier provinces, an immense foss-ditch (if I may so call it) of desert, is defence made indeed, in a great measure, at the expense of mankind, but still it is a great defence; and the applicability, if not the extent, of the Turkish resources are much greater than those of their northern enemy. It is not now likely that my paradoxical wish should be answered, or that I should live to see the Turkish barbarism civilized by the Russian. I don't wish well to the former power. Any people but the Turks, so seated as they are, would have been cultivated in three hundred years; but they grow more gross in the very native soil of civility and refinement. I was sorry for the late misfortunes of the Russians; but I did not so well know how much of it they owed to their own obstinacy. Misfortunes are natural and inevitable to those who refuse to take advantage of the king of Prussia's lights and talents. You say that he was their Cassandra: if so, these people are inexcusable indeed; surely nothing could be less remote than his predictions from the ravings of vir gin simplicity. They were oracles directly from the very tripod of Apollo. The rest of mankind do more justice to the heroic intellect, as well as to the other great qualities, of the king your master.

Pray, dear sir, what is next? These powers will con

tinue armed. Their arms must have employment. Poland was but a breakfast, and there are not many Polands to be found. Where will they dine? After all our love of tranquillity, and all expedients to preserve it, alas, poor Peace!

DEAR SIR,

TO WILLIAM BURGH, ESQ.1

Westminster, February 9, 1775. I beg you will not think that my delay in returning you the proof-sheet of your most ingenious and most obliging dedication could proceed from a want of the liveliest sensibility to the great honour you have done me. I now return the proof with my sincerest and most grateful acknowledgments.

Some topics are touched in that dedication, on which I could wish to explain myself to you. I should have been glad to do it through Mr. Mason; but to my great loss, on this and many other accounts, he left town suddenly. Indeed, at that time and ever since, the pressure of American business on one hand, and a petition against my election on the other, left me not a single minute at my disposal, and I have now little leisure enough to explain myself clearly on some points in that dedication, which I either misunderstand, or they go upon a misapprehension of some part of my public conduct; for which reason I wish, if I might presume to interfere, that they may be a little altered.

It is certain that I have, to the best of my power, supported the establishment of the church, upon grounds and principles which I am happy to find countenanced by your approbation. This you have been told; but you have not heard that I supported also the petition of the dissenters, for a larger toleration than they enjoy at present under the letter of the act of King William. In fact, my opinion in favour of toleration goes far beyond the limits of that act, which was no more than a provision for certain sets of men, under certain circumstances, and by no means what is commonly called "an act of toleration." I am greatly deceived, if my opinions on this subject are not consistent with the strictest and the best supported church

1 Author of a scriptural confutation of Mr. Lindsey's Apology; and, of an inquiry into the belief of the Christians of the first three centuries.