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ing impreffions on your minds, of his Majefty's tender regards and parental affection for his people of Ireland.

The public tranquillity has, I fatter myself, been effectually fecured, not only by the exemplary punishment inflicted on feveral private perfons engaged in those wicked and dangerous dutrages, which had fo long infefted fome parts of this kingdom; but by the act for the detection and punishment of thofe offenders, which has now received the royal affent. Popular infurrections, when quelled, have often, in other countries, proved unfavourable to liberty; but we bave this feffion an improvement made in our conftitution, extending even to the cafe of those infurgents themselves, by the act for regulating trials in cafes of high treafon; a memorable inftance of his Majesty's just confidence in the duty and loyalty of his faithful fubjects of this kingdom.

Gentlemen of the house of

Commons,

I have the king's commands to return you thanks in his name, for the ufual fupplies granted by you, with your accustomed unanimity; and to express his Majefty's fatisfaction, that you have eafed your fellow-fubjects, by reducing the inteteft of part of the national debt. I am alfo to return you his Majesty's thanks, for your chearful concurrence in the proper measures for the difpofition and accommodation of the king's troops, fo as to render them of moft ufe for the fafety and defence of this kingdom: a work of the most important utility. Your zeal and unanimity upon that occafion, and the truft repofed in me, demand my most grateful acknow

ledgments. I cannot fufficiently commend your pains, care, and attention, in providing for the building and repairing of churches, in which you may reft affured of my beft and moft hearty affittance.

I am particularly to thank you for the unfolicited mark of your confidence and esteem, by the truit placed in me, of raifing money, if the exigencies of government fhould require it: a power which fhall not be executed, unless the exercise of it fhall be juftified by the most evident neceffity. Happy muft that country be, where a mutual intercourfe of truft and confidence, and a reciprocal exchange of affection and gratitude, have fo long and fo uniformly fubfifted between the king and his people.

My Lords, and Gentlemen, The affectionate addreffes of both houfes of parliament, repeatedly prefented to me, convey the most honourable teftimony of your approbation of my conduct, and give me fome hopes, that I have not been altogether an unprofitable fervant to my royal master, and to his people, in this arduous ftation, which it has been the king's pleasure to place me. I fhall endeavour to deferve the continuance of your favourable opinion, by fhewing, upon every occafion, the highest regards to the true intereft of this kingdom, and the strictest attention to the just prerogative of the king, and to the liberties of the people: and let me earnestly recommend unto you, in your feveral flations, to inculcate, by precept, authority, and example, a love and veneration for the laws, and a dutiful fubmiffion to the conflitutional rights of the crown, the firmeft fecurity of civil liberty, and the ftrongeft bar-.

rier against diforder and anarchy: to enforce the execution of juftice, and a due obedience to the magiftrate; to explain to the people the excellence of our happy conftrution; to promote and confirm, in them, a just fenfe of the many bledlings they enjoy, and the moft grateful fentiments of the justice, moderation, and benignity of the king's government; and particularly, to point out the great benefits which this kingdom has obtained this feffion of parliament, by his Majesty's goodness in affenting to fo many ufeful laws.

I have great fatisfaction to find, that the act to prohibit the exportation of corn for a limited time, has produced the defired effects, by preventing the dreadful calamity of a famine; I have ufed every endeavour in my power to promote the defign of this law, by encouraging the importation of corn, and by leffening the price to the poor in thofe places, where, by applications made to me for that purpofe, it appeared to be moft neceffary: apprehenfions of the fame calamity had occafioned a law of the fame nature in Great Britain, but with an exception for this kingdom; an inftance of the most affectionate attention from his Majefty, and from our fellow-fubje&ts of that kingdom, of which, I am perfuaded, we fhall entertain the moit grateful remembrance.

I cannot take my leave of you, without affaring you, that I look upon myfelf as obliged in juftice, in interelt, and in gratitude, to reprefent your conduct to his Majefty in the molt favourable manner; to continue my conftant endeavours, in every fituation, for the advancement of your trade, the affiftance of your manufactures, and the encourage

mènt of your tillage; to maintain the honour and dignity of the crown; and to promote the profperity and happiness of the people of Ireland.

Copy of a declaration delivered on the 4th of November, 1766, to the King and Republic of Poland, by Mr. Wroughton the British minifter at Warsaw, in behalf of the diffidents of that kingdom.

H

IS Britannic Majefty, ever excited by reasonable defires of protecting by all methods the Chriftian Proteftants, efpecially thofe who, by virtue of particular conventions, have a right to expect his affiftance, finds himself obliged to repeat his preffing reprefentations in favour of that oppreffed part of the Polish nation, known by the name of Diffidents; wherefore the underfigned, in conformity to fresh orders from the King, his most gracious fovereign, has the honour to reprefent to you, Sir, and to the republic of Poland, that his Britannic Majefty, befides the many folid motives of juftice and humanity, which give him reafon to hope for a happy fuccefs of the prefent negotiations relative to this affair, finding himself compelled, by a firict alliance with the courts of Peterburg, Berlin, and Copenhagen, to intereft himfelf in behalf of the Dif fidents in all the forms of law, and in quality of guarantee of the treaty of peace of Oliva, wifhes that, in the prefent dict, this virtuous but unhappy part of the Polish fubjects may be re-cfablished, as members of the flate, in the poffeffion of their rights and privileges, as well as in the peaceable enjoyment of their mode of worship, which every one

knows

knows belonged to them before the figning of the faid treaty of Oliva, At the fame time his Britannic Majefty confiders how great is the connection between the interefts even of the republic and the juftice of this affair, as well as the fundamental laws of the kingdom; laws which were not only observed for two centuries, but renewed by treaties with the northern powers, fo folemn, that they do not permit the least alteration to be undertaken, unless with the general confent of the contracting parties. For thefe caufes his Britannic Majefty, filled with confidence of the equity and penetration of his Polish Majefty, who, from the beginning of his reign, has given fo many teftimonies of zeal for the happiness of mankind, and of love towards the adminiftration of juftice in the republic, has not the leaft doubt that his juft defires will no longer be oppofed by references to inefficacious conftitutions, eftablished in the midst of inteftine troubles, contradicted by the formal proteflations and exprefs declarations on the part of foreign powers.

Although the rights and privileges of the Diffidents are founded on a doctrine, whofe principles of charity and benevolence make it characteristical of Chriftianity; and the divinity of its inflitutor, who firit preached it, renders it fill lefs a matter of doubt; yet it is this religion, of which the exercife is difturbed, and of which its profeffors

are excluded from all honourable employments, and deprived of all means of ferving their country. Nevertheless, their rights and privileges have been confirmed to them by many ordinances of the kingdom, fettled by fo many treaties, fupported on foundations fo facred and fo evident to the eyes of all nations, that the undersigned minister of a monarch who preferves towards the republic the fincereft fentiments of friendship and of inclination to give proofs of them on every occasion, flatters himfelf that the mediation of the King his mafter will produce the effects, which he may naturally promife himfelf; that the wifdom of the nation affembled will afford a remedy to the evils which rend the ftate, and opprefs the Diffidents, and that with regard to things ecclefiaftical and civil, they may be re-established in the fituation they were in before the treaty of Oliva. As to the reft, the fincere wishes of his Britannic Majefty for the glory of the King of Poland, and for the profperity of the republic, are fo notorious that it would be ufelefs to give fresh affurances of them. In the mean while, the underfigned cannot avoid reiterating them, as an inconteftable proof of their reality.

(Signed)

WROUGHTON."

СНА

CHARACTERS.

MEMOIRS of Madame la Marquife an essay, and endeavoured to have de POMPADOUR, wherein varnished over the conduct of a life, are difcovered the motives of so universally obnoxious as she knew wars, and treaties of peace, em- her own to be. Whether fhe only baffies, negotiations in the different furnished materials, and bad them courts of Europe; plots and fe put into the prefent form by the af cret intrigues; the character of fiftance of fome man of letters, is imgenerals, that of minifters of ftate, material: there is nothing in the the causes of their elevation and matter or conduct of the work, but difgrace; and in general whate- what may be very well expected from a ver remarkable has paffed at the woman of her character, without any court of France during the twenty affiftance, especially one who had the laft years of the reign of LEWIS opportunities of information, which XV. Written by herself. Jhe poffeffed for fo many years. We may venture to fay, whoever these memoirs were really wrote by, the many curious anecdotes they contain, cannot fail of making them highly enter taining.

THough we gave, in our last year's volume, fome account of the life of the celebrated Madam Pompadour; yet we flatter ourselves that the following extract from the memoirs of her life, lately published, and said to be written by herself, will be far from being difagreeable or tirefome to our readers. We are not infenfible that the authenticity of thefe memoirs is called in queftion, and that it is doubted whether they were literally wrote by the remarkable perfonage to whom they are attributed. We shall avoid entering into this difcuffion, as it is neither our province, nor matter easily determined. If we confider the vanity of the French, and the violent paffion for memoirwriting, which it generally inspires them with; it will be the less furprifing to us, if the Memorialift, who is well known to have wanted neither wit or parts, should have made fuch VOL. IX.

a

I

T is not about the hiftory of my life which I undertake to write; my defign is more extenfive, as aiming at drawing a picture of the court of France under the reign of Lewis XV. The private memoirs of a favourite are little interefting of themselves; but it is not indifferent to know the character of the prince who raised her to favour, the intrigues of his reign, the genius of the courtiers, the fchemes of the ministers, the defigns of the great, the projects of the ambitious; in fhort, all the hidden fprings that have fet in motion the politics of her time.

The public feldom judge foundly of what paffes in the cabinet.

B

They

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