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178 RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. -
price of things, fo that he is not able to export the produce of his lands; and a part of
the beit land in Europe mult have remained uncultivated, had not parliament granted
fuch large bounties on exportation, as enabled the holders of it to fupport the compe-
tition of other nations: nor can even this precarious ftate of the corn trade laft longer
than till fuch times as the navy of Ruflia and other ftates, which border on Poland, fhall
improve. Asfoon as Ruiha and Pruffia fhall have a fufficient navy, and the agriculture
of Poland is become what it is capable of being brought to, the Englifh corn trade will
of courfe be deltroyed. That fyitem of convenience, which Great Britain has taken up
for fo many years paft in defiance of juftice and the law of nations, is as oppreflive to
the farmer, as it is advantageous to the nobility and trading part of the country. It
is the former who mutt fight out the wars which this fyftem introduces ; they are prin-
cipally affected by the ftagnation and fall of national credit, the immenfe debt of the
country, and the exchange of coin for paper-money. ‘The increafe of taxes, in the cafe
of a war, all fall ultinaately upon them, as this event at once takes a great number of
hands from the plough, and the internal confumption is leflened by the abfence of fo
many thoufand men from their native country. The dangers of the fea, and the poli-
tical {tate in which Great Britain has been for thefe fourfcore years paft, almoft confine
their corn trade to the countries from which the largeft quantities are exported in time
of peace. A long war neceffarily occafions a great increafe of {treet robbers and thieves,
who are all of the clafs of farmers, and are a new plague to the country people. The
wars England has been engaged in during the laft century, which taken altogether oc-
cupy half that period, have diminifhed the population, to the great detriment of agricul-
ture. Whatever is faid of the population of England, it does not bear any proportion to
thofe of France, Italy, and Germany, the fize of the refpective countries being taken
intothe account. In thefe countries there are two thoufand five hundred men to every
fquare mile, and in England hardly one thoufand nine hundred; and yet it has a greater
proportion of the neceffaries of life than any country.
Blinded by a falfe appearance of freedom, the Englifh farmer thinks that he is fight-
ing for the good of his country, whilft in fact he is fighting to fupport the vices of the
great, This the true caufe why fome Englith writers have thought, that inftru€ting
farmers prejudiced the {tate, and have contended for keeping them ina ftate of favage
barbarity, as a thing effential to the happinefs of the whole. The true meaning of this
is, that the nation would have foldiers and failors to fight through ftorms and batteries
for a freedom which hardly a twentieth part of the nation poffeffes.
Dr. Moore thinks that the King of Pruffia’s reafon for contributing fo much to the
profperity of his farmers is, that they may fupply him with foldiers. None but an Eng-
lifhman, who is ufed to diftort every thing to the opinion which beft fuits his prejudices,
could have had fuch an idea. Hardly two-fifth of the Pruflian army confift of farmers
fons; above half are foreigners, and the other half is made up equally from town and
country. Pilati flatly contradicts Moore in this particular. He informs us, that the
Pruffian armies are made up of men which ancient Rome would not have accepted of
for her defenders, to wit, manufacturers. I fhall not take up your time nor my own in
writing down any more of thefe conceits, which only make a fenfible man laugh, The
King of Pruffia, as the reafon of things directs, and far differently from the Englith le-
giflature, confiders the peafants as the moft ufeful members of the community. He
does not trouble himfelf with foreign colonies, which deprive the land of the hands ne-
ceflary to till it, and which the peafant is obliged to defend for the advantage of the dif-
fipated part of the nation. His fy{tem of politics refts neither on being mafter of the
fea, nor on the vanity of interfering in all the concerns of the European powers, for the
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