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public? There are now, brother John, many thousands of Frenchmen, who have taken to themselves that power which belonged to their king: where shall we get oil enough to anoint them all? And what would they be when we had done it? They would not be the Lord's anointed; they would be the mob's anointed: and there is little doubt but that, proud as they are at present, somebody will anoint them well at last.

That God never made a king is a great lie; when we hear him telling us in his own words-yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Sion! Did not our Saviour say he was King of the Jews; and was not he crucified for saying so? The Jews who crucified him have never had a king of their own from that day to this: not because they dislike a king, but because they are not good enough to have one. They are the only nation upon earth that ever were or ever will be in a state of equality: and it has been a great and mighty work of God to make them so. power can make men equals, but that which makes men kings. And what should we get by it? We should be just where the Jews are; a proverb to all nations; a monument of the divine wrath; and a disgrace to the world.

No

Kings are very expensive things, said the Presbyterian at Birmingham, when they were going to make their French revolution dinner.

That may be true, brother John: but if kings keep us from such miseries as the want of a king has produced in France, they deserve to be well maintained, let them be who they will. When there is no king, then every man does that which is right in his own eyes; and, mind, John, not in the eyes of any body else: and you may see in your Bible, how people were

given up to sodomy and murder, and how sixty-five thousand of them presently fell in battle, because there was nobody at that time set over them. Look about you like a man of sense, and you will soon see that bad subjects cost more money than good kings. Our national debt, for which we are now paying such heavy taxes, was doubled by the troubles in America, all brought upon us from the beginning by the Dissenters, there and here. Did not Dr. Price write for them? And did not the Birmingham doctor (late one of the kings elect of France) encourage them, and write mob-principles of government to justify them? Yet these people, who brought our burdens upon us, are they that rail most at the expensiveness of our government, and use it as a handle for overturning it just like the devil, who drives men into sin, and then gets them damned for it if he can: and then he is pleased, because he delights to be the author of misery: that is his greatness; and some people have no notion of any other: so they massacre poor priests; rob and plunder their country and their church; put kings and queens in prisons; and then sing ça İra, for joy that Hell is broke loose!

I have nothing more to say (till my next letter) but that the government which is most wicked, be the form of it what it will, is generally the weakest in itself, and the most expensive to the people: and so, after all that can be said, honesty is the best policy, and the honest man is the best subject. Keep this in your mind, brother John; and farewell.

From

your loving brother,

1792.

THOMAS BULL.

P.S. Perhaps they may tell thee, John, that thou

hast nothing to lose, and that any change may be to thy advantage; but thou hast a body and a soul: and if thy body goes to the gallows, and thy soul to the devil, won't that be a loss, John?

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ONE PENNY-WORTH MORE,

OR

A SECOND LETTER

FROM

THOMAS BULL TO HIS BROTHER JOHN.

DEAR BROTHER,

So kindly as you have received my former letter, I feel as if I should be much wanting in my duty, if I did not send you a few more of my thoughts, at this critical time. The hand of Providence, brother John, is very manifest: all my neighbours see it, and talk about it. The French, they say, are as great an example of punishment as of perfidy. They tried to ruin old England, by sending their soldiers to fight against our government in America; and in so doing they taught them the evil lesson of fighting against their own government at home. They came back with the itch of rebellion upon them, and gave it to their old comrades; while our honest fellows, who took the other side, brought home as much loyalty, or more, than they carried out, and have kept it ever since. The boundless expenses of that wicked attempt, by land and by sea, brought the French nation to beggary: and from beggars they turned into thieves: like the gipsies, who are either the one or the other as it suits their

convenience: and so they have got a gipsy government. Their famous Fayette is fallen, with all his money, into the hands of the enemy: and may forfeit his head if he comes home. Such is the fate of their noble general. The poor king, when he set his hand to that vile treaty with America, did not foresee that he was signing his own death-warrant. The queen, who persuaded him (because she never loved the English) is in prison with him: both of them in danger of being murdered (if they are not already) by a mock-trial, like our king Charles. These are strange things, brother John, and almost make my hair stand on end! Many people said, years ago, it would come home to them; and now their words are fulfilled beyond all that could have been thought of: for the French are at this time the most distracted nation under Heaven; and, what is worse, they are the most wicked. Was not their good-will to this country the same as ever, when they picked out two famous Englishmen, Thomas Paine and the Birmingham doctor, to sit in their new assembly, and assist them in the work of teaching John Bull to eat revolution-soup, dished up with human flesh and French pot-herbs? I love liberty with law, such as we have in England, as well as any body does; but that liberty without law, which makes men eat one another, can come only from the devil, who would eat us all. I thought those frightful stories that came from France were past belief: but a gentleman of our county, who was there last summer, says he will take his Bible oath before any justice, that he saw the blood of people they had killed run out of the mouths of their murderers.-When they had shut up three hundred and fifty poor helpless priests in a pound, and were putting them to death as one would kill hogs for the navy, an English gentleman was walking along the

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