ForTHE GENERAL ADVERTISER.
Palace Yard, March 12, 1778.
SIR,
THE Romans were wont to decree public honors on the man who was so fortunate as to save the life of a citizen; a noble act of policy, founded on true humanity, to stimulate the endeavours of every individual towards acts of benevolence and brotherly regard to each other. Actuated by zeal to my prince, and love to my country—Imean to deserve well of both, by publishing, through the channel of your paper, a plan for greatly diminishing the national debt; or, in case a war with the House Bourbon should be inevitable, for raising three or four years supplies, without oppresing the merchant, mechanic, or labouring husbandman; in short, without abridging one needful indulgence, or laying any fellow-subject under the least self-denying restraint.
Mr. Editor, we all know that in noble families plate is merely ideal wealth—and in very many houses of your first connexions and over-grown fortunes, there are vast quantities of it old and useless, kept merely for the antiquity of its fashion, and the ostentatious proof of the grandeur of ancestry. Our neighbours the French (if I mistake not) in the last war had the spirit (when the treasures of their Grand Monarque were nearly exhausted) to send their plate generously to the mint, in aid of national honour and security. Their churchmen have often shewn the laity the glorious example of aiding the state. We, to our immortal honour, have never yielded them thepalm in courage, wisdom, or gallantry. Let every gentleman, whose landed property exceeds 500l.per annum, give up, without reserve, his useful family plate, all except knives, forks, and spoons, which may be deemed useful and necessary. I trust, such is the exalted spirit of the British nobility and gentry, that they will resign with chearfulness what they can so well do without. Should this meet (as I hope it will) with the chearful assent of the public, let the quantities, so nobly given, be printed against the names of the patriotic donors, as a lasting testimony of their zeal for the public good, and a glorious proof of the internal riches of this queen of isles!
Africanus.