Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/315

Rh His exertions in prosecution of this great object were long and unceasing. We cannot enter here into any details; and therefore, we shall only state, in general, that he appears to have made himself master of the nature and history of almost every manufacture, and to have corresponded largely, both with the statesmen, the philosophers, and the merchants of his day, about the means of introducing them into Scotland. The result was, that he not only planted the roots of those establishments which are now flourishing all over the country, but had the pleasure (as he states in a memorial to government) of seeing "a commendable spirit of launching out into new branches" excited. He was so successful in this way, that the manufactures of Scotland are called, by more than one of his correspondents, "his ain bairns;"—an expression which he himself uses in one of his letters to Mr Scroope, in which he says that one of his proposals "was disliked by certain chiefs, from its being a child of mine."

Notwithstanding the immense good which he thus accomplished, and the great judgment and forbearance he evinced in pushing his improvements, it is amusing to observe the errors into which he fell, with respect to what are now some of the clearest principles of taxation, and of political economy. These, in general, were the common errors of too much regulation; errors, which it requires the firmest hold of the latest discoveries in these sciences to resist, and which were peculiarly liable to beset a man, who had been obliged to do so much himself in the way of direction and planning. One example may suffice—being the strongest we have been able to find. In order to encourage agriculture, by promoting the use of malt, he presented to government a long detoiled scheme, for preventing, or rather punishing, the use of tea.

"The cause," says he, "of the mischief we complain of, is evidently the excessive use of tea; which is now become so common, that the meanest familys, even of labouring people, particularly in burroughs, make their morning's meal of it, and thereby wholly disuse the ale, which heretofore was their accustomed drink: and the same drug supplies all the labouring woemen with their afternoon's entertainments, to the exclusion of the twopenny."

The remedy for this, is, to impose a prohibitory duty on tea, and a penalty on those who shall use this seducing poison, "if they belong to that class of mankind in this country, whose circumstances do not permit them to come at tea that pays the duty." The obvious difficulty attending this scheme strikes him at once; and he removes it by a series of provisions, calculated to describe those who are within the tea line, and those who are beyond it. The essence of the system is, that when any person is suspected, "the onus probandi of the extent of his yearly income may be laid on him;" and that his own oath may be demanded, and that of the prosecutor taken. "These provisions," the worthy author acknowledges," are pretty severe;" and most of his readers may be inclined to think them pretty absurd. But it must be recollected, that he is not the only person, (especially about his own time, when the first duty of a statesman was to promote the malt tax), who has been eloquent and vituperative on the subject of this famous plant. Its progress, on the contrary, has been something like the progress of truth; suspected at first, though very palatable to those who had courage to taste it; resisted as it encroached ; abused as its popularity seemed to spread; and establishing its triumph at last, in cheering the whole land, from the palace to the cottage, only by the slow and resistless efforts of time, and its own virtues. Nor are the provisions for enforcing his scheme so extraordinary as may at first sight appear. The object of one half of our existing commercial regulations, is to insure the use of our own produce, and the encouragement of our own industry; and his personal restrictions, and domiciliary visits, are utterly harmless, when compared with many excise regula-