ing impreffions on your minds, of his Majefty's tender regards and parental affection for his people of Ireland. The public tranquillity has, I flatter myself, been effectually fecured, not only by the exemplary punishment inflicted on feveral private perfons engaged in those wicked and dangerous outrages, which had fo long infefted fome parts of this kingdom, but by the act for the detection and punishment of those offenders, which has now received the royal affent. Popular infurrections, when quelled, have often, in other countries, proved unfavourable to liberty; but we have this feffion an improvement made in our conftitution, extending even to the case of thofe infurgents themselves, by the act for regulating trials in cafes of high treafon ; a memorable inftance of his Majefty's just confidence in the duty and loyalty of his faithful fubjects of this kingdom. Gentlemen of the house of I have the king's commands to return you thanks in his name, for the ufual fupplies granted by you, with your accuftomed unanimity; and to exprefs his Majefty's fatisfaction, that you have eafed your fellow-fubjects, by reducing the intereft of part of the national debt. I am alfo to return you his Majefty's thanks, for your chearful concurrence in the proper measures for the difpofition and accommodation of the king's troops, fo as to render them of moft ufe for the fafety and defence of this kingdom: a work of the most important utility. Your zeal and unanimity upon that occafion, and the truft repofed in me, demand my most grateful acknow ledgements. I cannot fufficiently commend your pains, care, and attention, in providing for the building and repairing of churches, in which you may reft affured of my bett and moft hearty affilance. I am particularly to thank you for the unfolicited mark of your confidence and efteem, by the truit placed in me, of raising money, if the exigencies of government should require it: a power which fhall not be executed, unless the exercise of it fhall be juftified by the most evident neceflity. Happy must that country be, where a mutual intercourfe of truft and confidence, and a reciprocal exchange of affection and gratitude, have fo long and fo uniformly fubfifted between the king and his people. My Lords, and Gentlemen, The affectionate addreffes of both houfes of parliament. repeatedly prefented to me, convey the most honourable teftimony of your approbation of my conduct, and give me lome hopes, that I have not been altogether an unprofitable fervant to my royal mafter, and to his people, in this arduous ftation, which it has been the king's pleasure to place me. I fhall endeavour to deferve the continuance of your favourable opinion, by fhewing, upon every occafion, the highest regards to the true intereft of this kingdom, and the ftricteft attention to the just prerogative of the king, and to the liberties of the people: and let me earnestly recommend unto you, in your feveral ftations, to inculcate, by precept, authority, and example, a love and veneration for the laws, and a dutiful fubmiffion to the conftitutional rights of the crown, the firmeft fecurity of civil liberty, and the strongest bar rier against diforder and anarchy: to enforce the execution of juftice, and a due obedience to the magif trate; to explain to the people the excellence of our happy conftitution; to promote and confirm in them a juft fenfe of the many bleffings they enjoy, and the most grateful fentiments of the justice, moderation, and benignity of the king's government; and particularly, to point out the great benefits which this kingdom has obtained this feffion of parliament, by his Majelty's goodness in affenting to fo many ufeful laws. I have great fatisfaction to find, that the act to prohibit the exportation of corn for a limited time, has produced the defired effects, by preventing the dreadful calamity of a famine; I have ufed every endeavour in my power to promote the defign of this law, by encouraging, the importation of corn, and by leffening the price to the poor in thofe places, where, by applications made to me for that porpofe, it appeared to be moft neceffary: apprehenfions of the fame calamity had occafioned a law of the fame nature in Great Britain, but with an exception for this kingdom; an inftance of the most affectionate attention from his Majefty, and from our fellow-fubjects of that kingdom, of which, I am perfuaded, we fhall entertain the most grateful remem brance. I cannot take my leave of you, without affuring you, that I look upon myfelf as obliged in juftice, in intereft, and in gratitude, to reprefent your conduct to his Majefty in the most favourable manner; to continue my conftant endeavours, in every situation, for the advance ment of your trade, the affiftance of your manufactures, and the encou ragement of your tillage; to maintain the honour and dignity of the crown; and to promote the profperity and happiness of the people of Ireland. Copy of a declaration delivered on the 4th of November, 1766, to the King and Republic of Poland, by Mr. Wroughton, the British minifter at Warjaw, in behalf of the Diffidents of that kingdom. Britannic Majesty, ever Hexcited by reasonable defires of protecting by all methods the Chriftian Proteftants, efpecially thofe who, by virtue of particular conventions, have a right to expect his affiftance, finds himself obliged to repeat his preffing reprefentations in favour of that oppreffed part of the Polish nation, known by the name of Diffidents; wherefore the undersigned, in conformity to fresh orders from the King, his moft gracious fovereign, has the honour to reprefent to you, Sir, and to the republic of Poland, that his Britannic Majefty, befides the many folid motives of juftice and humanity, which give him reafon to hope for a happy fuccefs of the prefent negotiations relative to this affair, finding himself compelled, by a ftrict alliance with the courts of Petersburg, Berlin, and Copenhagen, to intereft himself in behalf of the Diffidents, in all the forms of law, and in quality of guarantee of the treaty of peace of Oliva, wifhes that, in the prefent diet, this virtuous but unhappy part of the Polish fubjects may be re-established, as members of the ftate, in the poffeffion of their rights and privileges, as well as in the peaceable enjoyment of their mode of worship, which every one knows knows belonged to them before the figning of the faid treaty of Oliva. At the fame time his Britannic Majefty confiders how great is the connection between the interefts even of the republic and the juftice of this affair, as well as the fundamental laws of the kingdom; laws which were not only obferved for two centuries, but renewed by treaties, with the northern powers, fo folemn, that they do not permit the leaft alteration to be undertaken, unless with the general confent of the contracting parties. For thefe caufes his Britannic Majefty, filled with confidence of the equity and penetration of his Polish Majefty, who, from the beginning of his reign, has given fo many teftimonies of zeal for the happiness of mankind, and of love towards the administration of juftice in the republic, has not the leaft doubt that his juft defires will no longer be oppofed by references to inefficacious conftitutions, eftablished in the midst of inteftine troubles, contradicted by the formal proteftations and express declarations on the part of foreign powers. Although the rights and privileges of the Diffidents are founded on a doctrine, whofe principles of charity and benevolence make it characteristical of Christianity; and the divinity of its inftitutor, who first preached it, renders it ftill lefs a matter of doubt; yet it is this religion, of which the exercife is dif turbed, and of which its profeffors are excluded from all honourable employments, and deprived of all means of ferving their country. Nethertheless, their rights and privileges have been confirmed to them by many ordinances of the kingdom, fettled by fo many treaties, fupported on foundations fo facred and fo evident to the eyes of all nations, that the underfigned minifter of a monarch who preferves towards the republic thefincereft fentiments of friendship and of inclination to give proofs of them on every occafion, flatters himself that the mediation of the King his mafter will produce the effects, which he may naturally promife himfelf; that the wifdom of the nation affembled will afford a remedy to the evils which rend the flate, and opprefs the Diffidents; and that with regard to things ecclefiaftical and civil, they may be re-established in the fituation they were in before the treaty of Oliva. As to the reft, the fincere wishes of his Britannic Majefty, for the glory of the King of Poland, and for the profperity of the republic, are fo notorious that it would be useless to give fresh affurances of them. In the mean while, the underfigned cannot avoid reiterating them, as an inconteftable proof of their reality. (Signed) WROUGHTON." CHA CHARACTERS. MEMOIRS of Madame la Marquife an effay, and endeavoured to have de POMPADOUR, wherein are discovered the motives of wars, and treaties of peace, embaffies, negotiations in the different courts of Europe; plots and fecret intrigues; the character of generals, that of minifters of state, the causes of their elevation and difgrace; and in general what ever remarkable has passed at the court of France during the twenty laft years of the reign of LEWIS XV. Written by herself. THough we gave, in our last year's volume, fome account of the life of the celebrated Madam Pompadour; Jet we flatter ourselves that the following extract from the memoirs of her life, lately published, and said to be written by berfelf, will be far from being difagreeable or tirefome to our readers. We are not infenfible that the authenticity of these memoirs is called in queftion, and that it is doubted whether they were literally wrote by the remarkable perfonage to whom they are attributed. We shall avoid entering into this difcuffion, as it is neither our province, nor a matter eafily determined. If we confider the vanity of the French, and the violent paffion for memoirwriting, which it generally inspires them with; it will be the lefs furfrifing to us, if the Memorialist, who is well known to have wanted neither wit nor parts, fhould have made fuch VOL. IX. varnished over the conduct of a life, fo universally obnoxious as she knews her own to be. Whether he only furnished materials, and had them put into the present form by the affiftance of fome man of letters, is immaterial; there is nothing in the matter or conduct of the work, but what may be very well expected from a woman of her character, without any afiftance, especially one who had the opportunities of information, which The poffelled for fo many years. We may venture to fay, whoever thefe memoirs were really wrote by, the many curious anecdotes they contain, cannot fail of making them highly entertaining. life which I undertake to write T is not about the hiftory of my my defign is more extenfive, as aiming at drawing a picture of the court of France under the reign of Lewis XV. The private memoirs of a favourite are little interefting of themselves; but it is not indifferent to know the character of the prince who raised her. to favour, the intrigues of his reign, the genius of the cour tiers, the fchemes of the minifters, the defigns of the great, the projects of the ambitious; in fhort, all the hidden fprings that have fet in motion the politics of her time. The public feldom judge foundly of what paffes in the cabinet. B They |