leakage in the revenue: a sort of gratitude in the dark, a distant requital for such civilities as only the lowest poverty would accept, and which are a thousand per cent. above the value of the civility received. Yet there is no immediate collusion; the trader and officer are both safe; the design, if discovered, passes for error.

These, with numberless other evils, have all their origin in the poverty of the officers. Poverty, in defiance of principle, begets a degree of meanness that will stoop to almost any thing. A thousand refinements of argument may be brought to prove, that the practice of honesty will be still the same, in the most trying and necessitous circumstances. He who never was an hungered man may argue finely on the subjection of his appetite; and he who never was distressed, may harangue as beautifully on the power of principle. But poverty, like grief, has an incurable deafness, which never hears; the oration loses all its edge; and "To be, or not to be," becomes the only question.

There is a striking difference between dishonesty arising from want of food, and want of principle. The first is worthy of compassion, the other of punishment. Nature never produced a man who would starve in a well stored larder, because the provisions were not his own: but he who robs it from luxury of appetite de serves a gibbet.

There is another evil which the poverty of the salary produces, and which nothing but an augmentation can remove; and that is, negligence and indifference. These may not appear of such dark complexion as fraud and collusion, but their injuries to the revenue are the same. It is impossible that any office of business can be regarded as it ought, where this ruinous disposition exists. It requires no sort of argument to prove, that the value set upon any place or employment, will be in proportion to the value of it; and that diligence or negligence will arise from the same cause. The continual number of relinquishments and discharges always happening in the Excise, are evident proofs of it.

Persons first coming into the Excise, form very different notions of it, to what they have afterwards. The gay ideas of promotion soon expire; continuance of work, the strictness of the duty, and the poverty of the salary, soon beget negligence and indifference: the course continues for a while, the revenue suffers, and the officer is discharged: the vacancy is soon filled up, new ones arise to produce the same mischief, and share the same fate.

What adds still more to the weight of this grievance is, that this destructive disposition reigns most among such as are otherwise the most proper and qualified for the employment; such as are neither fit for the Excise, or any thing else, are glad to hold in by any means but the revenue lies at as much hazard from their want of judgment, as from the others' want of diligence.

In private life, no man would trust the execution of any important concern, to a servant who was careless whether he did it or not, and the same rule must hold good in a revenue sense. The commissioners may continue discharging every day, and the example will have no weight while the salary is an object so inconsiderable, and this disposition has such a general existence. Should it be advanced, that if men will be careless of such bread as is in their possession, they will still be the same were it better; I answer that, as the disposition I am speaking of is not the effect of natural idleness, but of dissatisfaction in point of profit, they would not continue the same. A good servant will be careful of a good place, though very indifferent about a bad one. Besides, this spirit of indifference, should it procure a discharge, is no way affecting to their circumstances. The easy transition of a qualified officer to a compting house, or at least a school master, at any time, as it naturally supports and backs his indifference about the Excise, so it takes off all punishment from the order whenever it happens.

I have known numbers discharged from the Excise, who would have been a credit to their patrons and the employment, could they have found it worth their while to have attended to it. No man enters into the. Excise with any higher expectations than a competent maintenance; but not to find even that, can produce nothing but corruption, collusion, and neglect.

Remarks on the qualification of Officers.

Is employments where direct labor only is wanted, and trust quite out of the question, the service is merely animal or mechanical. In cutting a river, or forming a road, as there is no possibility of fraud, the merit of honesty is of but little weight. Health, strength, and hardiness, are the laborer's virtues. But where property depends on the trust, and lies at the discretion of the servant, the judgement of the master takes a different channel, both in the choice and the wages. The honest and dissolute have here no comparison of merit. A known thief may be trusted to gather stones; but a

steward ought to be proof against the temptations of uncounted gold.

The Excise is so far from being of the nature of the first, that it is all, and more than can commonly be put together in the last: it is a place of poverty, of trust, of opportunity, and temptation. A compound of discords, where the more they harmonize, the more they offend.

To be properly qualified for the employment, it is not only necessary that the person be honest, but that he be sober, diligent, and skilful; sober, that he may be always capable of business; diligent, that he may be always in his business; and skilful, that he may be able to prevent or detect frauds against the revenue. The want of any of these qualifications is a capital offence in the Excise. A complaint of drunkenness, negligence, or ignorance, is certain death by the laws of the board. It cannot then be all sorts of persons who are proper for the office. The very notion of procuring a sufficient number for even less than the present salary, is so destitute of every degree of sound reason, that it needs no reply. The employment, from the insufficiency of the salary, is already become so inconsiderable in the general opinion, that persons of any capacity or reputation will keep out of it; for where is the mechanic, or even the laborer, who cannot earn at least 1s. 94d. per day? It certainly cannot be proper to take the dregs of every calling, and to make the Excise the common receptacle for the indigent, the ignorant, and the calamitous.

A truly worthy commissioner, lately dead, made a public offer, a few years ago, of putting any of his neighbors' sons into the Excise; but though the offer amounted almost to an invitation, one only, whom seven years apprenticeship could not make a tailor, accepted it; who, after a twelvemonth's instruction, was ordered off, but in a few days finding the employment beyond his abilities, he prudently deserted it, and returned home, where he now remains in the character of an husbandman.

There are very few instances of rejection even of persons who can scarce write their own names legibly; for as there is neither law to compel, nor encouragement to excite, no other can be had than such as offer, and none will offer who can see any other prospect of living. Every one knows that the Excise is a place of labor, not of ease; of hazard, not of certainty; and that downright poverty finishes the character.

It must strike every considerate mind, to hear a man with a large family, faithful enough to declare, that he cannot support himself on the salary with that honest independency he could wish. There is a great degree of affecting honesty in an ingenuous confession. Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell.

Of late years there has been such an admission of improper and unqualified persons in the Excise, that the office is not only become contemptible, but the revenue insecure. Collectors, whose long services and qualifications have advanced them to that station, are disgraced by the wretchedness of new supers continually. Certainly some regard ought to be had to decency, as well as

merit.

These are some of the capital evils which arise from the wretched poverty of the salary. Evils they certainly are; for what can be more destructive in a revenue office, than corruption, collusion, neglect, and ill qualifications.

Should it be questioned whether an augmentation of salary would remove them, I answer, there is scarce a doubt to be made of it. Human wisdom may possibly be deceived in its wisest designs; but here, every thought and circumstance establishes the hope. They are evils of such a ruinous tendency, that they must, by some means or other, be removed. Rigor and severity have been tried in vain; for punishment loses all its force where men expect and disregard it.

Of late years, the board of Excise has shown an extraordinary tenderness in such instances as might otherwise have affected the circumstances of their officers. Their compassion has greatly tended to lessen the distresses of the employment; but as it cannot amount to a total removal of them, the officers of Excise throughout the kingdom have (as the voice of one man) prepared petitions to be laid before the honorable house of commons on the ensuing parliament.

An augmentation of salary, sufficient to enable them to live honestly and competently, would produce more good effect than all the laws of the land can enforce. The generality of such frauds as the officers have been detected in, have appeared of a nature as remote from inherent dishonesty as a temporary illness is from an incurable disease. Surrounded with want, children, and despair,

what can the husband or the father do? No laws compel like nature-no connections bind like blood.

With an addition of salary, the Excise would wear a new aspect, and recover its former constitution. Languor and neglect would give place to care and cheerfulness. Men of reputation and abilities would seek after it, and finding a comfortable maintenance would stick to it. The unworthy and incapable would be rejected, the power of superiors be reestablished, and laws and instructions eceive new force. The officers would be secured from the temp tations of poverty, and the revenue from the evils of it; the cure would be as extensive as the complaint, and new health outroot the present corruptions.

THOMAS PAINE.