The power of gold displayed: in the humane proposal of the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to bring forward an act to put His Majesty into the disagreeable situation of signing a decree, that no sick or lame person, or diseased cattle, ... shall have a medicine of repute without paying tribute; ... By Frs. Spilsbury.

The power of gold displayed: in the humane proposal of the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to bring forward an act to put His Majesty into the disagreeable situation of signing a decree, that no sick or lame person, or diseased cattle, ... shall have a medicine of repute without paying tribute; ... By Frs. Spilsbury.

Table of contents

Title page

To the BOOKSELLERS of GREAT BRITAIN, Who had imposed on the Public, Stamps with the common Medicines, only through fear of an Exchequer Threat.

THE NEW MEDICINE ACT CONSIDERED, AS NOW SUBSTITUTED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULY 8, 1785.

POSTSCRIPT.

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THE POWER OF GOLD DISPLAYED, IN THE HUMANE PROPOSAL OF THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT, CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,

TO BRING FORWARD

An Act to put his MAJESTY into the disagreeable Situation of signing a Decree, that no sick or lame Person, or diseased Cattle, in Great Britain, shall have a Medicine of Repute without paying Tribute; which the Writer contends, is not justifiable either by the Law of God, or Man, and is a disgraceful Impost, as it places the Life of a human Being in competition with a Three-penny or Six-penny Stamp, &c.

By Frs. SPILSBURY.

IT IS THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY I PLEAD.

LONDON: SOLD at the DISPENSARY, SOHO SQUARE.

Price 6d.

[Entered at Stationers Hall.]

To the BOOKSELLERS of GREAT BRITAIN, Who had imposed on the Public, Stamps with the common Medicines, only through fear of an Exchequer Threat.

[Page]

GENTLEMEN,

IS there occasion to address myself once more on this mournful subject, to persuade you to act as men, endowed with reason, as citizens of a free country, blessed with the name of Britons? Survey your fetters, woven by imaginary power, rivetted by terror, which have disgraced yourselves, and reflect no credit either on your King or country. The Barons of the Exchequer, the guardians of constitutional freedom, are now your friends; they have declared from the bench of Justice, no such acts as the medicine act is, (which operates only by fear, in a partial manner on the subject, contrary to the dictates of reason, justice, and humanity, founded on no decree of the Legislature,) ought to exist in this land; at the same time they observed, the more they read the act, the less they understood it, and with alacrity granted Messrs. Wray a new trial, who had been found guilty of the heinous crimes of selling two tooth brushes with tooth powder.

Gentlemen, have I not reason to rejoice, have I not reason to triumph, who at the first commencement of this ambiguous, ill-shapen act, opposed its monstrous stride; and whose leviathan maw was only to be satiated with all that a man, or a minister of state, should hold worth preserving, viz. the honour of his King, the liberty of the subject, the dignity of his country? For these have I pleaded, for these have I braved danger, in my tracts, Advice to Booksellers, Discursory Thoughts, &c. How could you, ye men of books, sacrifice to fear your known good opinion of your Monarch? How could you believe his royal heart delighted to add distress to misery? What have you observed in your King, to credit the disgraceful story? A King signing an act, that when his subject was bit by a mad dog, it demanded a tribute from the terrified sufferer, or no medicine to heal his wound; or that his Majesty's finances were so reduced, as to oblige him to countenance an edict, which bows to the prostitute, in pleasing view; by her, that baneful curse of health shall spread its poignant sting, which demands inevitably the swift aid of medicine, fettered with a stamp. Would Rome have thus chid her sons who had indiscreetly sacrificed to nature's laws? No — it is only at a Stamp Office where Haman's fell principles in epitome are remembered. Can you reconcile to your minds, a King, and such a paternal King as ours is, blest with a Queen, an amiable Queen, whom even slander ne'er whispered surmise of ill; could her King, and our Monarch, sign so ungracious an act, which wrests a tax from the helpless female servant, because the imbecility of her sex demands the friendly aid of medicine at certain times? It is not possible. Can a King take against his own subjects, and exult in their misery? Is royalty a bar to disease? Will FEVERS, GOUT, DROPSY, CONSUMPTION, EVIL, LEPROSY, STONE, CHOLIC, stand at a distance, nor dare invade the palace? Then may we suppose that Kings feel not as common men. Is it not enough for human nature to bear the ills which sickness, disease, or accidents create, without being tortured by forward, cruel servants of the crown, who to gratify the lust of power, trample on all laws, human and divine? Whilst they reprobate a highwayman's proceedings, they act on the same principle, only diversified in the application; for have not servants of the crown demanded of you, by threats, to act contrary to the constitution of this country, which militated against yourselves, and aggrandized your neighbour; which must transfer your business to another shop, where no crossed stamp mark'd the threshold, Who would have credited the report, should it have been foretold, that ministers of this country would have insisted on their servants to go round the kingdom with the Exchequer cudgel in their hand, and threaten booksellers to commit an act which human nature revolts at, To refuse a woman in labour a cheap medicine to ease her pains without paying for a stamp. Let her die first, is the language of the Stamp Office; or, We'll exchequer you. Again, find a parallel in any history, state, or country, of the following impost; I challenge all the antiquarians of the age to do it; a tax (proclaim not the disgraceful badge) which the officers of the crown of Great Britain have demanded, in the King's name, on a Pot of Ointment to cure the Itch; and insisted the polluted out-cast wretch, though scarce cloaths to cover his nakedness, should pay Threepence for a stamp, or [Page]his disease should worry him to death; or, what would turn to a better profit for the Stamp Office, he might infect other persons, and then, joyful sound, more stamps would be disposed of.

These are the decrees, formed under the construction of the King's Stamp Office! Are these deeds proper to be ranged in the Historian's page, as acts of George the IIId? Why, then, not procure a law, that whatever person is shipwrecked on your coast, he shall take so many stamps; or those persons who have their houses burnt down, they shall be obliged to buy your paper currency, id est stamps. These acts, ministers may say, are disgraceful, and no nation but an abandoned one, would enact them. Are they so? Not more than the imaginary medicine act, which is so pious, so loyally construed for the honour and interest of the King, and he that will not gulp the creed down, is flagelated with the Exchequer scourge, to urge the bookseller to be upon the watch; where, if he sees a fellow-creature fall from his horse and bruise himself, the unfortunate person must purchase a stamp before he can receive a medicine to sooth his pain. Can there be (to Britons I appeal) a more humiliating, disgraceful circumstance in this country, than to see a set of loyal subjects pointed at by a malignant partiality founded in a jealous surmise, harrassed by the Stamp Office, under the shadow of an act of Parliament, to commit actions which are almost as unnatural as if they were required to sell their children. Yet no act of Parliament exists which will warrant such encroachments on the subject. For the dignity of human nature, for the honour of my King and Country, I have pleaded and opposed these arbitrary unjustifiable deeds, which heretofore were never countenanced in this or any other free country.

Who will join issue, and say, such heavy imposts torn from the sick, the lame, the diseased part of the community, are to be countenanced in this Christian land? Not the House of Commons, not the House of Lords, not his Majesty, nor even the Hon. Wm. Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose great power stands unrivalled; witness, Britons wearing a stamp on their heads. Then, if there is no act of Legislature to justify these shameful, pilfering depredations from the people, why does a minister withhold his protection one sessions after another from a set of men, only sufferers because they are loyal, because they are conscientious men, because they are fearful to contend with Government? Is it for the honour of a minister to sport his strength with the man unarmed by power, naked as to riches, and whom he can terrify with the anathema, wrote in Exchequer form, in like manner as the approach of a wolf spreads terror to the flock? Do ministers of the crown expect the people to act virtuously, to live honestly, to possess integrity; let ministers look at the medicine act; there they will see oppression stalk with gigantic stride, treading on the liberty of the subject, laughing at justice, and sacrificing humanity to malignancy and avarice. Why will ministers of state form such crippled paths for the inferior ranks of mankind to walk on? Why will not the Rulers of the nation, when they find errors in their acts of parliament, shew a readiness to correct them? For interest they will do it. Has, then, honour nor justice no claim to attention? Is it not, ye guardians of the land, a sore affliction to the owner of cattle, to hear his beast low with pain? Is that beast, or is an infant dying with disease, an object of taxation? I only ask the question. Are they fit objects for sport? If they are, throw off the mask, enact a law, that every person shall consume a stamp between his bread and butter every morning; or that the people inhabiting Great Britain shall be bled four times a year, or take a stamp. These laws, these acts, would be more honourable, more equitable, than your proceedings on the medicine act, where you doom a fellow-creature to death, rather than lose selling a stamp with a common medicine conveyed by a bookseller, although no act of Legislature exists to justify such proceedings. To tax Quacks, or any other titulary traders, if hurtful to the community, I am not concerned; but when I observe his Majesty's honourable Commissioners of the Stamp Office breathing a language, instead of villainous deceitful Quack, it is now, Dear brother, good creature, sell your medicines, sell your stuff, sell your poisons, or what you will, only sell our stamps. When I hear that men in so honourable a station send their emissaries round the country, insisting on booksellers taking out a Five Shilling Licence, on pain of being exchequered, and oblige them to sell stamps, and say, you are the persons Government meant to tax, as we construe it so and so; and at the same time let a next door neighbour sell without stamps, the same commodity; can a person, unless he is lost to all seeling which adorns the soul, do less [Page]than reprobate such actions, which disgrace man, mar the beauty of our constitution, and render our Monarch the object of pity. Reflection, awake not, lest thou bring to remembrance what this country was a few years back, when the people paid their taxes as chearful as one who giveth his corn to be ground and received flour in return: but now, our corn is demanded, and bran is thought a sufficient recompence.

In former administrations, Justice and Humanity adorned our superiors' councils; but now, an avaricious deceitful principle sways the officers of the crown, who luxuriously bask in the thought of the vast wedges of gold which are produced from scraps of paper, forgetting that the gold is wrung, from their own bankers, the people, the strength of the nation; for this country, at this present moment, is fast consuming its vital principle, on which its very existence as a state depends; and a little time will loudly proclaim the deep decline of this once flourishing empire.

N. B. The foregoing letter was partly printed when I read the medicine act was to be cancelled, and a new one introduced of a more extensive nature, by the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer. In all my strictures on the act, I never dictated what I thought was proper to be done on the occasion, being persuaded whenever the medicine act came to be discussed, it would at once appear with such a horrid aspect, that no minister, nor no other person who had retained the principles of honour and humanity, would patronize the act in any shape.

THE NEW MEDICINE ACT CONSIDERED, AS NOW SUBSTITUTED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JULY 8, 1785.

BY the new proposed bill as stated in the public prints, I observe the medicine act is to be equalized, the rich as well as the poor are to swallow stamps with their medicines, without exceptions: So far this may be thought just. Does it alter the principles of the act? reconcile it to your minds, you who consider medicines as only articles fit for TRAFFIC I abhor the act; a tax on medicines is but a Title, but it has an object, as a warrant has, which ends with an order for the execution of a fellow creature. Does it militate against pleasure? No. — Luxury? No. — Or healthy persons? No. It is an act which eyes the sink of corruption settled in the limb of a fellow creature; gladdens in the reverberated sound of distress. Achs, pains, and groans, are music to the spirit of the act, they are its very life; illness or disease, are its proper food, for what is an act to raise specie without it is made productive? Frequent alarms of the people being in danger of fevers may be raised, and the usual time of quarantine dispensed with, that the plague may spread its baneful insluence; the wells of water contaminated; then men, women, and children will be seen in the streets grasping medicines most gorgeously decorated with stamps, whilst the table of the illustrious supporters of this most amiable christian device, shall smoke with the fat of venison, and rich viands grace the board, equal to the lordly Despots.

To those who judge of these matters by what quantity of bullion this act produces, this act will not want for embellishing titles, any more than the marble monument a polish to render it pleasing to the sight, which covers a rotten carcase. Call the medicine act by what name you please, I will protest against it; it is armed with a sting against distress, groaning under insupportable agony; it is a brutal act — a brutal act did I say? — from whence borrowed we that idea? — Do brutes prey on the same denominated race? — Will lions welter in the blood of lions? No. — Will a tyger seek a tyger to mangle his limbs for food? No. — Whence then the term [Page]brutal? — Beast acts towards beast agreeable to the laws of nature; it is only man "who feeds on man," who talks of reformation, of more refined notions, yet this man, arrayed in scarlet or in purple, does not always remember the dignity of his station, but ferrits, tortures, nay, for interest — devours his fellow creature; then, which deserves the epithet of brute most, man or beast?

Such a proposed medicine act no Heathen, Jew, or Mahometan Minister was ever recorded to have even brooded such a detested thought of, much more dare stand up in a collective assembly to propose to force a tribute from women with child, children afflicted with the small-pox, colds, sore throats, convulsions, and from men afflicted with ulcerated legs, from whence purulent matter ouzes in hot steams so virulent as to scald the seeming sound part of the skin, or with other maladies, which our tinder constitutions are likely to catch, even from the air we breathe in. This glorious discovery, this friendly act of commisseration, which is to act as the Salvator of the nation, verging on bankruptcy, a Christian claims the honour; not a professor of the Roman Catholic religion; no, a purer one than that, the reformed one, a Protestant of the Church of England. Who will credit the story? Does a minister of Great Britain (will they say,) think to impose on the King's understanding, and cloud his sensibility, with golden arguments, to sign the decree against his doleful subjects, who stand in need of all the protection, either care or power can bestow, that like a ship (which has been tossed by cross winds and storms, puts into port to fit it once more to combat the boisterous wave) they become renovated so as to pursue the course of life.

Let foreign nations, whom yet humanity blesses, reject the report with scorn; as when a traveller relates he saw a lamb forsake the grass and feed on vulture's prey; if Fame, in pity to Britannia, refuses to sound Avarice's triumph; let Truth declare, last week the Senators of Great Britain met, where it was proposed in parliament, under the sanction of a medicine tax, to raise supplies from a spoil, extorted from his Majesty's most piteous unfortunate subjects, stretched on the tenterhook of pain, tormented with diseases, which terrify the poor or rich wretch, worse than any torments Hell can inflict, as far as we know, or have a right to think. — Harsh and ungenerous would be the sojourner's surmise, whom night had overtaken in a lonely place, should he find a hospitable roof, where himself and beast are bade a hearty welcome, expressed by officious care, should he imagine, all this courteous kindness was but a prelude to some horrid purpose, when fast in sleep his outward centinels are locked; yet thus ungrateful man oft judges of his Creator's bounty, ere he sheds the encumbered mantle, how will he smile at his childish fears when robing with immortality, whilst experimentally he feels the attributes of a God.

A tax on illness! — Set dogs to gnaw a human creature, bears no comparison to those pains mankind feel when thus diseased, for dogs lead to mercy; in their gripe they introduce that blessed friend DEATH, the great deliverer from oppression, tyranny, disease, and misery.

Who can behold even a dog in pain that can avoid pity if he cannot relieve; but to see officers of the crown harrassing a fellow creature, worried with the evil, with a cancerous gashing wound, with a scald head, a human body covered with ulcers, stinking most disgustfully horrible, detested by its inmate, the soul chained to so vile a pestilential body, which is shunned by society, and whose corrupted form breathes poisonous vapours, which petrify the man by profession bred a champion in nature's cause, — walking familiar with disease, yet here pauses, and shrinks from power so, dreadfully armed, is a sorry sight. Whilst from such diseased objects, and from diseased cattle, a Minister of State, with as much composure as a rat-catcher kills vermin, meditated an act of parliament which would pointedly militate against the welfare of the human and brute creation, loaded with insupportable infirmities, for he enacted that medicines of established reputation; which were administered either by outward or inward application, should not be applied unless they gave a stipulated sum for a piece of paper.

What is this decree but a secondary one to Nebuchadnezzar's which threatened death to those who did not bow to the idol of Gold? Yet this medicine act, under the dispensation of the gospel, is far more cruel. Does Christian power act here like a Samaritan, to pour oil into the wound? How reversed! Does it act, like the Levite and Priest, who are held up by the Saviour of the world as men actuated by selfish principles, void of compassion? No. — The Priest and the Levite, if they did not relieve [Page]the wounded man, were not as yet such hardened monsters as to take advantage of his distress. Formerly Kings of Albion delighted to act the physician's part, and invested the unhappy mortal, afflicted with the EVIL, with a piece of gold; Heaven sanctified the deed: Now a minister urges his Majesty to levy on his own diseased subject a piece of money, or neither he, nor yet his beast, if ill, shall be entitled to the general benefits of medicine, Heaven's gift, which by providence was designed to be as free for all nature's children as the air we breathe, or the water of the earth; the wretch who taxes one, would, could his unhumanized soul find means, curse the other with his official breath — for lucre.

The medicine act, whilst in debate, is the minister's; but when the King signs the mandate it is then cloathed with royalty, it speaks majestic, and awes the subject to compliance with tremendous voice; the inhabitants of Great Britain must hear a King speak to his officers of state agreeable to the act: "Let no one of my subjects, who are grievously tormented with pains, mortifications, gangrene wounds, fluxes, and other deadly diseases, have certain medicines they desire, unless they pay a tribute, on pain of my displeasure, and the heavy penalties the act prescribes."

Is not this a fair delineation of the intended act? — Divines say bad thoughts and diabolical actions originate below, from whence we pretend to borrow colours to paint an infernal scene; but the original design, I am inclined to think, is too often borrowed from earth.

Suppose a minister should have power to persuade the King to approve of the edict — what is this edict? Man may stile it a medicine act, but I call it a redemptory act — What says the act? pay a tribute, or no medicine; woe to the man who dares let any person have a medicinal packet without a stamp; here is your redemption, or rather a passport to shew you have the King's leave — to live — Courteous Royal bequest — what wonderful condescension. Is not this the true explanation and intent of the act, fabricated in this once truly honoured island, the envy of all foreign powers? Rather than thus inflict the sickly diseased subject, I ask the Minister, I ask the Rt. Hon. William Pitt, whether it would not redound more to his honour as a man, as minister of collossian power, to send round a party of guards to the healthy persons, and demand of them to give sixpence for the emblazoned paper or put them to death, rather than go to the sick man, expiring with disease, tormented with ulcers and carious bones, and insist on his taking the official stamps, by which the gold already produced being sufficient to turn any minister's brain, he imagines he is in character of the king's huntsman, head over the hounds, hunting deer instead of his Majesty's people.

What sentiments do ministers imbibe by attending a king's throne? Is the life of a Briton to be put in competition with a three-penny, six-penny, or a one shilling stamp? Britons! there was a time you were not held so cheap; but now, if no stamp at hand no medicine, or perhaps the needy shopkeeper may have a stamp which may be turned to money, sells an old decayed medicine, which buys a loaf to feed a famished child, whilst the parent of a worthy family falls a sacrifice to the degenerate humanity of ministers, who enjoined a medicine to be embalmed in red stripes, true emblem of the merciless act.

Wherewithal shall a minister find a charm to fascinate a king to sign an act, which inadvertently may cost hundreds of his subjects their lives? — Of what materials do ministers suppose our Sovereign is composed of? — Has not his Majesty amiable fair daughters? — Are they not women? — Are they not princely flowers nursed with peculiar state? — Yet all the care Art and Nature can bestow, sometimes those pretty plants will droop, nay die. — If pain attacks them does their royal birth fortify them to be indifferent as to the effects or consequences? — They are attended in stately forms, physic arrayed in pomp; do the courts of princes make the power of physicians equal to the desires and the necessities of their royal patients? suppose they do; what are the thousands of females who reside in the inferior walk of life to do, who cannot afford to charm the dispenser of health to visit them? — Reason and experience hint a cheap remedy, which may shorten their pains and restore them to health. How horrid the idea, ye servants of the crown, to take advantage of the frailties of the semale sex, not brought on by choice, by accident, or by remissness, to raise a revenue? Is it not sporting with the great Creator who ordained these causes for most important [Page]ends, which none but fools would mention but with solemnity? But to raise money under pretence of supporting the honor of a King, and the dignity of the nation, by such means, who would suggest and countenance?

To apologize for such a noxious act, specious reasons will not be wanted; money may be the minister's plea for such an unprecedented step; it may bring in thousands of pounds to the Treasury; let it bring in more gold than all the nation's worth, not all the gold which earth can produce can wipe away the stain — Great Britain bartering Honour and Humanity for Gold.

Let ministers use all the art they are masters of to harmonise the canibal deed, which muzzles the noble science of physic, and proclaims in tyrannical accents to the sick, "you shall swallow our stamps, or linger under your disease;" I trust this unexampled mode of taxation will not find patrons in the House of Lords.

The Right Hon. Mr. Pitt may plead, he only corrects the medicine act, first formed by Lord John Cavendish, against the five patent medicines, but now extends it to all medicines, pharmaceutical ones excepted. Is this justice? why tax one medicine more than another, because the one has gone through an expensive trial, before it has gained universal approbation to stamp its credit as the best remedy we can ascertain, for such and such complaints, or for a better reason, because ye know the afflicted will as regularly turn to the advertised medicine for redress as the cattle go to the river to quench their thirst, when the usual fountain ceases to relieve their wants. Is that Mr. Pitt's excuse, let him enjoy it. Let him turn his thoughts to that stately monument in Westminster Abbey reared by national gratitude, to the Earl of Chatham, whereon is inscribed, "Under whose administration Divine Providence exalted Great Britain to an height of prosperity and glory unknown to any former age;" and let this question be asked him "if it would be agreeable to his feelings as a Minister, to the love he bears his country, to his zeal for the King's honour to let the sculptor add:" The son of this illustrious nobleman, who was Prime Minister, proposed to his sovereign, 1785, to raise a subsidy under the tenor of a medicine act, from the inhabitants of Great Britain, who were afflicted with the ITCH, STONE, GOUT, LEPROSY, ULCERS, WEAK EYES, SORE THROATS, DISEASED CATTLE, and other complaints, of a nature too bad to describe in this sanctuary: This second inscription, which points to the lamentable changes of State Maxims and Affairs, is a memento of the sudden transition of worldly GRANDEUR."

If the Right Hon. Mr. Pitt is not the proposer, chief patron and engineer—who raises on this occasion this unnatural barrier in the afflicted's road, who wish to gain a little ease, a small respite, before they are numbered with the dead—I do most respectfully beg his pardon for introducing any idea that may appear personal. — The reviewers have said, I am warm on the occasion. Happy should I be, could I find a friend to prove the medicine act, bowed only to reason and good policy, not swayed by lucre. At first, the plea was, the dart was levied at Quacks, a supposed nefarious unprincipled set of beings. Was that the case, how poor, how abject, a Minister would render his Monarch to persuade him to become their patron, a nominal sharer of the spoil. Is not this to a witness, a god kissing carrion? To heaven I appeal, I had rather see all Quackery, or what you please to call it, banished from the land, than live to see a British State, dependent on such vile prostitution to support its existence as a kingdom.

May Heaven preserve our King in health, although his Majesty should be constrained by looking through false mediums, to extort a tax from an unfortunate yet loyal subject, because through accident he may be bit by a mad dog, or infected with some dangerous loathsome disease.

Dispensary, Soho Square, July 15, 1785.

Francis Spilsbury.

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[Page]

THE proposed medicine act, I have read; perhaps it may now lay before that venerable, truly honourable House of Lords, for their consideration, either to countenance or reject.

Cool and dispassionate, as if now before their Lordships, I solemnly declare in my humble opinion, the medicine act as now engrossed, cannot with propriety be complied with; it requires moral impossibilities, and has many absurdities; let it be tried by the penetration of wisdom; it is an impolitic proposal, it militates powerfully against the interest of government, and the life of the subject. Unhappy consequences will prove its baneful effects; nor shall I wonder when a woman's mind is agitated with the cries of her infant, she seeks the usual remedy on these occasions, and is told the King demands a tax for a stamp, or no medicine; your child may perish. In astonishment she forgets the mother, when she hears the monarch has forgot he is a father — drops her child insensibly, and marks the earth with BLOOD. Is there justice in the act?—No;—justice is violated, the poor sick man is the glorious prize which this act drags in triumph. — Will Benevolence patronize the deed?—No; — cruelty stands confessed. Mark the essence of the words, the very criterion of the act. To tax all medicinal nostrums which are used either to heal the human body by internal or external application, when diseased. Heavens!!! what a crime it is now deemed to endeavour to restore health, the fountain of strength and beauty to the sons and daughters of the land; rather say, what a heart that man must have, if man you can call him, who could dictate these inimical wishes, with a view to stamp them into a law. Let the prosecuted wretch who steals for bread, plead this illustrious example of depravity in a higher power; then let government put to death the victim, and be satisfied he suffered justly; in the sight of his Maker, reason and equity will declare him murdered. Will Christianity adopt this maxim of taxation for one of her precepts?—No,—nor no other religion in the world; nor can there be even a faint trace of any state, nation, or human being so unhappily divested of the feelings of humanity since the world began, as the authors of this uncharitable mode of taxation. What is this but engrafting the tenets of an inquisition on a British stock? Exact money, or let a person remain in torture; define it otherwise candor, if you can. Inquisitors of Spain would abhor the idea of adding distress to the afflicted for the sake of gain, they would abjure such a doctrine as the one now proposed by the Minister of Great Britain; not to let a sick or lame, or diseased person have a medicine to remedy his pain, his complaint, and render himself once more a useful member to society, without paying a tribute; what a language does this refined system of taxation display in this land, boasting of a superlative degree of piety towards God? It is an awful circumstance, and a new phenomenon, to behold the hand writing of a king, acting partially to his innocent subjects, first cut off from the general society of the world by illness, now made the proposed objects of singular chastisement of their Sovereign. Let Britain talk no more of virtue, honour, valour, humanity, charity, or whatever enobles man, exalts a state or dignifies a king, that scrawl indented on the parchment, that hostile declaration against all diseased subjects, or whatsoever preserves the human body from decay, if enforced, cancels all pretensions to greatness, or whatsoever is praise-worthy.

If the arguments of sensibility intimately connected with the distresses of mankind, cannot prevail against the only strong irresistable plea a minister's salvo—the treasury wants food,—then ye sick and diseased victims of power be composed, ye shall on this occasion be honourably embalmed and most royally entombed.

FINIS.

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Title statement

The power of gold displayed: in the humane proposal of the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to bring forward an act to put His Majesty into the disagreeable situation of signing a decree, that no sick or lame person, or diseased cattle, ... shall have a medicine of repute without paying tribute; ... By Frs. Spilsbury.

Spilsbury, Francis.

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University of Michigan Library

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Ann Arbor, Michigan

Date

2012 January

ID [DLPS]

004808939

ID [ESTC]

T5274

ID [DOCNO]

CW104803407

ID [TCP]

K022835.000

ID [GALEDOCNO]

CW3304803407

ID [CONTENTSET]

ECSS

ID [IMAGESETID]

0568100800

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— The power of gold displayed: in the humane proposal of the Right Hon. William Pitt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, to bring forward an act to put His Majesty into the disagreeable situation of signing a decree, that no sick or lame person, or diseased cattle, ... shall have a medicine of repute without paying tribute; ... By Frs. Spilsbury., Spilsbury, Francis..

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8p. ; 2⁰.

sold at the Dispensary, Soho Square,. London :: [1785?]. (On the medicine act of 1785 (25 Geo. 3, c.79).) (Dated at end: July 15, 1785.) (Reproduction of original from the British Library.) (English Short Title Catalog, ESTCT5274.) (Electronic data. Farmington Hills, Mich. : Thomson Gale, 2003. Page image (PNG). Digitized image of the microfilm version produced in Woodbridge, CT by Research Publications, 1982-2002 (later known as Primary Source Microfilm, an imprint of the Gale Group).)

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Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.

Editorial practices

EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.

EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).

The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.

Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.

Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.

Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.

The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.

Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).

Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.