The Official Departments could not possibly exceed the following number, with the salaries annexed, viz.

If a nation chose, it might deduct four per cent. from all the offices, and make one of twenty thousand pounds per annum, and style the person who should fill it, King, or Majesty, (or Madjesty) or give him any other title.

Taking, however, this sum of one million and a half, as an abundant supply for all the expences of Government under any form whatever, there will remain a surplus of nearly six millions and a half out of the present taxes, after paying the interest of the national debt; and I have shewn, in the Second Part of the Rights of Man, what appears to me the best mode of applying the surplus money; for I am now speaking of expences and savings, and not of systems of Government.

I have, in the first place, estimated the poor-rates at two millions annually, and shewn that the first effectual step would be to abolish the poor-rates entirely, (which would be a saving of two millions to the housekeepers) and to remit four millions out of the surplus taxes to the poor, to be paid them in money, in proportion to the number of children in each family, and the number of aged persons.

I have estimated the number of persons of both sexes in England, of fifty years of age and upwards, at 420,000, and have taken one third of this number, viz. 140,000 to be poor people.

To save long calculations, I have taken 70,000 of them to be upwards of fifty years of age and under sixty, and the other to be sixty years and upwards; and to allow six pounds per annum to the former class, and ten pounds per annum to the latter. The expence of which will be

Seventy thousand persons at £.6 per ann....... 420,000 Seventy thousand persons at £.10 per dittto... 700,000

£.1,120,000

There will then remain of the four millions, £.2,380,000. I have stated two different methods of appropriating this money. The one is to pay it in proportion to the number of children in each family, at the rate of three or four pounds per annum for each child; the other is to apportion it according to the expence of living in different countries; but in either of these cases it would, together with the allowance to be made to the aged, completely take off taxes from onethird of all the families in England, besides relieving all the other families from the burthen of poor-rates.

The whole number of families in England, allotting five souls to each family, is one million four hundred thousand, of which I take one third, viz. 466,666 to be poor families, who now pay four millions of taxes, and that the poorest pays at least four guineas a year; and that the other thirteen millions are paid by the other two-thirds. The plan, therefore, as stated in the work is, first, to remit or repay, as is already stated, this sum of four millions, to the poor, because it is impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish the poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the commutation tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars of all which are set forth in the work, and to which I desire Mr. Adam to refer for particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to a town of the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its favour, compared with the present state of things, of upwards of fifty thousand pounds annually, and so in proportion to all other places throughout the nation. This certainly is of more consequence, than that the same sums should be collected to be afterwards spent by riotous and profligate courtiers, and in nightly revels at the Star and Garter Tavern, Pall-Mall.

I will conclude this part of my letter with an extract from the Second Part of Rights of Man, which Mr. Dundas (a man rolling in luxury at the expence of the nation) has branded with the epithet of "wicked."

"By the operation of this plan, the poor-laws, those instruments of civil torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful expence of litigation prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of age begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to place to breathe their last, as a reprisal of

parish upon parish. Widows will have a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on the death of their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children will no longer be considered as increasing the distresses of their parents. The haunts of the wretched will be known, because it will be to their advantage, and the number of petty crimes, the offspring of poverty and distress, will be lessened. The poor, as well as the rich, will then be interested in the support of Government, and the cause and apprehensions of riots and tumults will cease. Ye who sit in ease, and solace yourselves in plenty, and such there are in Turkey, and Russia, as well as in England, and who say to yourselves, are we not well off? Have ye thought of these things? When ye do, ye will cease to speak and feel for yourselves alone."-Rights of Man, Part II. p. 98.

After this remission of four millions be made, and the poor-rates and house and window-light tax be abolished, and the commutation tax changed, there will still remain nearly one million and a half of surplus taxes; and as by an alliance between England, France, and America, armies and navies will, in a great measure, be rendered unnecessary; and as men who have either been brought up in, or long habited to, those lines of life, are still citizens of a nation in common with the rest, and have a right to participate in all plans of national benefit, it is stated in that work (Rights of Man, Part II.) to apply annually £507,000 out of the surplus taxes to this purpose, in the following

manner :

To fifteen thousand disbanded soldiers, 38. per week clear (of deduction) during life....... Additional pay to the remaining soldiers, per

аппит....

£

117,000

19,500

To the officers of the disbanded corps, during life, the same sum of............................

117,000

To fifteen thousand disbanded sailors, 3s. per

week during life..........

117,000

Additional pay to the remaining sailors......

19,500

To the officers of the disbanded part of the navy, during life.......

117,000

£.507,000

The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter,

will not admit of my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas, because he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose, to appear conspicuous; put the purport of it is to justify myself from the charge which Mr. Adam has made.

This gentlemen, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter, considers the writers of Harrington, Moore, and Hume, as justifiable and legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so doing, they shewed plans and systems of Government, not only different from, but preferable to, that of England; and he accuses me of endeavouring to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of that which I had reasoned against; whereas, the fact is, that I have not only reasoned by comparison of the representative system against the hereditary system, but I have gone farther, for I have produced an instance of a Government established entirely on the representative system, under which much greater happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes required, and much higher credit is established, than under the system of Government in England. The funds in England have risen since the war only from £.54 to £.97, and they have been down since the proclamation, to £.87, whereas the funds in America rose in the mean time from £.10 to £. 120. His charge against me "of destroying every principle of subordination," is equally as groundless, which even a single paragraph of the work will prove, and which I shall here quote

"Formerly, when divisions arose respecting Governments, recourse was had to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the new system, and recourse is had to a national convention. Discussion, and the general will, arbitrates the question, and to this private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted."-Rights of Man, Part II. p. 120.

That two different charges should be brought at the same time by a member of the Legislative, for not doing a certain thing, and the other by the Attorney-General, for doing it, is a strange jumble of contradiction. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the work will go on.

I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objection I found against the plan and principles contained

in the Second Part of Rights of Man, when I had written the book, was, that they would beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for men to act from the direct and disinterested principle of honour; but the prosecution commenced has fortunately removed that objection, and the approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate impulse of honour added to that of national interest.

I am, Mr. Dundas,

Not your obedient humble Servant,

But the contrary,

THOMAS PAINE.