a ministry and a parliament, who are neither to be persuaded by argument, nor instructed by experience.
Lord North, I presume, will not claim an extraordinary merit from any thing he has done this year in the improvement or application of the revenue. A great operation, directed to an important object, though it should fail of success, marks the genius and elevates the character of a minister. A poor contracted understanding deals in little schemes, which dishonour him if they fail, and do him no credit when they succeed. Lord North had fortunately the means in his possession of reducing all the four per cents at once. The failure of his first enterprise in finance is not half so disgraceful to his reputation as a minister, as the enterprise itself is injurious to the public. Instead of striking one decisive blow, which would have cleared the market at once, upon terms proportioned to the price of the four per cents six weeks ago, he has tampered with a pitiful portion of a commodity which ought never to have been touched but in gross;—he has given notice to the holders of that stock, of a design formed by government to prevail upon
