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CHARACTER S.

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Tmonarchy exhibit two fuccer. HE annals of the French

five reigns fcarcely paralleled in the hiftory of other nations. Lewis XIV. reigned feventy-two years, and the late king, his great grandfon, fiftynine. Few princes ever bore the fway of a great empire with fuch uncommon longevity, and with an equally amazing viciffitude of fortune. These two reigns form one of the most interesting periods in modern hiftory, as the intrigues of their courts and cabinets, their ambition, their politics, their wars, their treaties, their acquifitions, their conquefts, their loffes, and their defeats, totally changed the face of Europe. Lewis XIV.was the only fovereign of our continent truly powerful, formidable, and magnificent; his pride and ambition awoke the refentment of the fovereigns he defigned to enflave, and at laft raised against him that famous confederacy of almost all the other princes of Europe, at the head of which was king William III. He was fo well ferved, that he baffled for feveral years all the warlike VOL. XVII.

efforts of this alliance; but having provoked the English by his repeated infidelities, their arms, under the invincible Marlborough, with the Auftrians, commanded by the immortal Eugene, rendered the latter part of his life as miferable as His reign on the Yes the beginning of it was splendid.

1711, was one continued series of defeats and calamities; and he had the humiliation to fee the enemies he had formerly infulted and defpised, display their victorious ftandards on thofe very places he had acquired by force and artifice. Juft as he was reduced, old as he was, to the defperate refolution of collecting his people, and dying at their head, he was faved by the English withdrawing from their allies, and concluding the peace of Utrecht, in 1713. He furvived his deliverance but two years, for he died on the firft of September, 1715, having furvived all his pofterity but Philip of Anjou, (whom in his difafters he had offered to facrifice to his competitor in the Spanifh monarchy, and a fickly infant, his fucceffor to the crown.

This was Lewis XV. the late king, born Feb. 15, 1710: he remained in the hands of women, fuperintended by the duchefs of Ventadour, a lady of refpectable character, till the duke of Villeroy,

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his governor, and the bishop of Frejus, his preceptor, afterwards cardinal Fleury, fhared amongit them the principal departments of his princely education. The duke was a nobleman of unfpotted honour, and a probity proof against all the contagious examples of a court immerfed in voluptuoufnefs and effeminacy, wholly influenced by glittering fycophants, whofe tranfient favour is the reward of the meanest adulation and fervility. He was grave and decent in his deportment, a philofopher amidst grandeur, frank, generous, open, affable, and popular; but his merit chiefly confifted in good breeding, and his knowledge, skill and gracefulness in dancing, fencing, and riding, which the French nobility and gentry confider as the most effential accomplishments.

The bishop of Frejus was better qualified for the fpiritual government of his small diocese, than for the education of a prince born to rule over a great empire. He was a prelate of great candour, purity of manners, and moderation, but a fhallow politician; a meek, pufillanimous man, who had never been converfant enough with books and men for the tuition of his royal pupil.

The partiality of Lewis XIV.for his natural children might have involved France in a civil war, had not the regency been feized upon by Philip duke of Orleans, the next legitimate prince of the blood, a man of genius and fpirit, bold, enterprifing, irreligious, and diffolute. In 1716, the whole fpecie of France, in gold and filver, was computed to be about feventeen millions fterling; and though the crown was then doubly a bankrupt,

being in debt about 100 millions fterling, or 2000 millions of livres, yet by laying hold of almost all the current money in the kingdom, and by arbitrarily raising or lowering the value of coins, in four years time the duke regent of France published a general ftate of the public debts, by which it appeared the king fcarcely owed 340 millions of livres this being done by a national robbery, we can form no idea but that of defpotifm of the means by which fo great a reduction was effected.

Philip V. king of Spain, had beheld with a jealous eye the regency folely vefted in the duke of Orleans, and the bold fteps he had taken to force the parliament of Paris to recognize his title. Cardinal Albe roni, the Spanish minister, a most enterprizing genius, proud, active, and turbulent, capable to form confpiracies, and to delineate the revolutions of empires, but wanting that judgment, fagacity, and perfeverance, which command fuccefs, planned an unnatural alliance with Charles XII. king of Sweden, whose ambition confifted in dethroning monarchs, and bestowing kingdoms upon his allies. The Swedish hero, unfhaken by his defeats, his exile, and his calamities, profeffed the highest displeasure at George I. having entered into a confederacy against him in his abfence. His implacable vengeance prompted him to fecond the project of Aiberoni in reftoring the Pretender in England. The death of Charles, who was killed by a cannon-ball, at the fiege of Frederickstadt, foon put an end to the difquietudes of George I. from that quarter.

The prince of Cellamare, ambaffador from Spain to the court of

France,

France, was put under an arreft in his palace, his papers feized and examined, and the whole confpiracy, which had been formed to dethrone George I. and deprive the duke of Orleans of the regency, difcovered. The mutual intereft and fecurity of these two princes engaged them to conclude the quadruple alliance between the emperor, England, France ́and Holland.

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In 1718, the regent of France joined England in a declaration of war against Spain, and the bad fuccefs of the Spanish arms in Sicily, and elfewhere, induced at laf the king of Spain to fign the quadruple alliance.

Thus the duke of Orleans, with equal vigour and deliberation, furmounted all the obstacles he met with in maintaining the privilege of his birth, and ufed every precaution that fagacity could fuggeft for fecuring himself in the regency.

In the year 1720, John Law, a Scotchman, had erected a company in France, under the name of the Miffiffippi, which at firft promised the deluded people immenfe wealth, but too foon appeared an impofture, and left the greatest part of the nation in ruin and diftrefs.

The minifter of France, during the regency, was Cardinal Dubois, the companion of the duke of Orleans's debaucheries, and the partner of his promifcuous amours. His nation had raised him to the purple from the lowest origin: for his convivial licentioufnefs and fecret fervices, this apothecary's fon became an ecclefiaftical prince, lived openly in fornication and adultery; impious, profane, immoral, and abandoned to the laft stage of his diffolate life, he lived defpifed, and

left behind him no other memorial but his vices and his infamy.

He had talents, however, for public adminiftration, but his levity and diffipation did not allow him to attend regularly the affairs of ftate; he was a votary to pleasure, and an enemy to labour and application.

Lewis XV. was the handsomest youth in France; he had a fwarthy complexion, fine features, a gracious afpect, and an interefting phyfiognomy; the fire and expref fion of his eyes were ftriking: he was ftrong and mufcular; had an elegant perfon, and a majestic and graceful deportment: he was a prince of good fenfe and found judgment, not a man of genius and lively imagination. He understood a little Latin and Italian, could read English, and was well read in modern hiftory. What he applied himself moft to, was, to speak and write French with precifion, ele. gance, and propriety, in which he excelled moft men in his court. He was averfe to ftudy and close application to foreign politics, and interior adminiftration; naturally prone to venery, and fond of convivial pleasures in a felect company; in all manly and academical exercises he was inferior to none of his courtiers, for grace, skill, and dexterity. The firft ten years of his marriage, faithful and uxoriaus, always a polite hufband, a tender father, a kind mafter, and wellmeaning, though beguiled fover reign.

The king was crowned at Rheims, the 25th of October, 1722, and the year after declared of age, whilft in his fourteenth year, according to the laws of the kingdom.

The regent, on the fecond of December that year, was carried

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3. That a duty of 1 s. fterling money per gallon be laid upon all rum, or other fpirits, which fhall be imported or brought from any other of his majefty's colonies or dominions in America into the faid provincę.

4. That a duty of 1 s. fterling money per gallon be laid upon all foreign brandy, or other fpirits, of foreign manufacture, imported or brought from Great-Britain into the faid province.

7. That a duty of 6 d. fterling money per gallon be laid upon all melaffes and fyrups, which fhall be imported or brought into the faid province in any other fhips or veffels in which the fame may be legally imported.

8. That the faid duties be levied and paid, over and above all other duties now payable in the faid province of Quebec by virtue of any former actor acts of parliament. 1 9. That a duty of 1 1. 16 s. fterling money be paid for every licence which fhall be granted, by the governor, lieutenant governor, or commander in chief, of the faid province, to any perfon or perfons, for keeping a houfe of public en. tertainment, or for felling or retailing wine, brandy, rum, or any other liquors, within the faid province.

5. That a duty of 1 s. fterling money per gallon be laid upon all rum, or fpirits, of the produce or manufacture of any of the colonies or plantations in America, not in the poffeffion or under the dominion of his majefty, which fhall be imported or brought from any other place, except Great-Britain, into the faid province.

6. That a duty of 3 d. fterling money per gallon be laid upon all melaffes and fyrups, which fhall be imported or brought into the faid province in fhips or veffels belonging to his majefty's fubjects in Great-Britain or Ireland, or to his majesty's fubjects in the faid province.

By the first refolution of Jan. 27.
By the fecond of ditto
By that of Feb. 1

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By that of April 19
By the first of May 17
By third of May 19
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By the first of May 26
By the fecond of ditto
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10. That the faid duties to be raised in the faid province be applied, in the first place, in making a more certain and adequate provifion for the charge of the adminiftration of juftice, and the fupport of civil government, in the faid province; and that the refidue of the faid duties be referved for the difpofition of parliament.

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By the fourth of ditto

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STATE

STATE PAPER S.

His Majesty's most gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, on Thursday, January 13, 1774. My Lords and Gentlemen,

TH

HE unufual length of the laft feflion of parliament made me defirous of giving you as long a recefs as the publick fervice would admit. I have, therefore, been glad to find myself under no neceffity of calling you from your refpective counties at an earlier feafon; and I doubt not but you are now met together, in the best difpofition, for applying yourselves to the difpatch of the publick bufinefs.

You will, I am perfuaded, agree with me in regretting, that the peace, fo long expected and fo very defirable, is not yet effected between Ruffia and the Porte; but it is with real fatisfaction I can repeat, that other foreign powers continue ftill to have the fame pacifick difpofitions with myfelf. I can have no other with than to fee the general tranquillity restored: for the establishment, and fubfequent prefervation of which, no endeavours of mine, confiftent with the honour of my crown and the interefts of my people, fhall ever be wanting.

In this ftate of foreign affairs, you will have full leifure to attend to the improvement of our internal and domeftick fituation; and to

the profecution of measures more immediately refpecting the prefervation and advancement of the revenue and commerce of the kingdom. Among the objects which, in this view, will come under your confideration, none can better deferve your attention than the state of the gold coin; which I must recommend to you in a more particular manner, as well on account of its very high importance, as of the peculiar advantages which the prefent time affords, for executing with fuccefs fuch measures as you may find it expedient to adopt with refpect to this great national

concern.

The degree of diminution which that coin had actually fuffered, and the very rapid 'progrefs which the mifchief was daily making, were truly alarming. It is with much fatisfaction that I have seen the evil, in a great measure, checked by the regulations made in the last feflion of parliament. I truft, however, that you will not top here, nor think that you have discharged your duty, either to your country or your fellow-fubjects, without ufing your beft endeavours for putting the gold coin upon fuch a footing, as may not only completely remove the prefent grievance, but render the credit and commerce of the kingdom fufficiently fecure from being again expofed to the like danger.

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