the price of provisions. But if such things were done here, what must we suppose was doing in the great marts of the kingdom, where men's ideas of trade must consequently be more enlarged, and whose capital would enable them to carry into effect their speculative plans to almost any desirable extent? I am truly sensible that when the general supply, particularly in such a bulky and perishable an article as grain, becomes greater than the general demand, it is not in the power of all the merchants and jobbers in the kingdom to produce a scarcity in the market, or greatly, for any serious period, to enhance the price but when the supply is less than the demand, the case is widely different, and there cannot be the smallest doubt entertained that it is then in the power of such men, if avariciously disposed, to produce an artificial scarcity, and enhance the price to a degree both iniquitous and oppressive, by circulating reports, too hastily credited, that the failure of the previous crops are greater than they really are, both at home and abroad, and the expectations of supplics are much less from all favourable quarters; by purchasing large quantities out of the market, and thus producing local scarcity, and withholding those large quantities for a time, and obstructing their being produced regularly in a measure to supply the demand. The inland and foreign merchant will seriously tell you that he considers himself a general benefactor to his country, and that if it were not for himself and such men, the country in similar cases would suffer much more than it did :

Decipimur specie recti." So he certainly would, were his views single and his conduct consistent with his professions. But when the importer withholds

an article necessary for the very existence of the people, by this means depriving the poor of bread till be can procure the highest price his avarice could wish, or his calculations advise, I feel indignant at his effrontery, while I pity his iniquity: for however the interested trader may speciously reason upon the advantages of these large magazines to the community, depend upon it that every merchant's granary, where avarice is over the door, is a river stopped: and such withholding of corn a general curse. How these things are reconcileable with a profession of Christianity I know not-Christianity did I say? with common honesty, with the principles of heathenism. And the judgment of an Heathen moralist shall decide upon the question. It is given in Cicero De Offic. L. 3. Tit. "In contractibus communis &c." and I need only say to you, the example there adduced is a case in point.

I am Yours, &c. J. E.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XI.

IN my last I slightly adverted to some of the infamous practices and evil consequences too often the concomitants of trade. In this I shall turn your attention with pleasure to a more interesting theme. The country I shall now invite you to go over with me is religious ground, and I am confident you will feel an equal degree of veneration with me in surveying those scenes, where Christianity at an early period took her station, and erected her standard in Britain; and in calling to recollection the holy ex

amples of such men as Patric, David, Sulien, and a long list in the records of pious fame, that here afforded their exertions of christian zeal and charity. The country from Haverford to St. David's Head is as barren and bleak as can be imagined, destitute of cultivation, devoid of inclosures, and scarcely a single tree or bush decorates this wild extremity of Pembroke. The road lies over a loose sandy tract, with a few miserable huts here and there scattered about. Leaving a single tower, all that remains of Roach Castle, winding down to the beach of Newgal, we there crossed a bridge thrown over a river unnoticed in any map we have seen of this part of the country. It rises in a moor in the parish of St. Edrin, and passing Tankerdstown receives a rill from the east at Roach Mill, and falls into the sea below the bridge into the bay of St. Bride's. This bay is of little advantage to mariners, being so much exposed to the violent western gales, that it is often considered more perilous to be embayed here, than to lie at single anchor on the coast.

On this beach a phenomenon has more than once occurred, which I shall relate, because it corroborates an observation made in a former tour. (Vid. North Wales.) "That the sea has been continually gaining on the western and south western parts of the island;" and it may be accounted for from the nature of the elements, and the diurnal motion of the earth. It was noticed by Gyraldus, "that when Henry II. was in Ireland, the coast was laid bare by violent storms, and land appeared which for ages had been covered by the sea; and that the trunks of trees which had been felled were discovered with the marks of the axe as fresh as though the strokes

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had been made yesterday; with very black earth, and stools of trees like ebony; so that it put on the appearance of a decayed grove, rather than the seashore. It must have been a wood, by a miraculous metamorphosis perhaps as old as the deluge or at least very anciently, consumed and swallowed up by the violence of the sea continually incroaching upon the land." A similar phenomenon is related by the Icarned G. Owen, Esq. which appeared A. D. 1590. (Vid. his MSS.) "It happened," says he," that the sea sands at Newgal, which are covered every tide, were by some extraordinary violence of the waves so washed off, that there appeared stocks of trees doubtless in their native places, for they retained many evident signs of the stroke of the axe at the felling of them. The sands being washed off in winter, these butts remained to be seen all the following summer; but the rest of the year the same were covered again with the sands. By this it appears that the sea in that place hath intruded upon the land. Moreover I have been told by the neighbours of Coed Traeth near Tenby, that the like hath been seen upon those sands. It is in the tradition of the neighbourhood, that a whole district was swallowed up here; and a small hamlet on the sea shore, without the vestige of a tree, still retains the name of Tre' Coed, i. e. the half wooded town." A striking and corroborating fact is related by Borlase, in his History of the Scilly Isles: where in the memory of man an island has been thus divided into several smaller ones, and the tides continuing to flow between them.

Near this place a high promontory of limestone

rock called Pebidiog* protrudes itself into the ocean, the Octopitarum of the Roman geographer, Ptolomy, termed by the English St. David's Head. Separated only by a narrow frith is the Island of Ramsey, called Inys Devanog, (the Linden of the Romans) from a chapel once upon it dedicated to that Saint.

This Island is in shape like that of Cyprus,

* On the most westerly point is the Lusus Naturæ, celebrated for ages as the wonder of the place, termed y Maen Sigl. It is a fragment of the upper part of the cliff, fallen in such a position as to have obtained a state of almost equipollency; for on touching it with your finger you might perceive it shake. A similar rocking stone we noticed in Caernarvonshire, and many have been found in Cornwall and Ireland. Some have conjectured that these were of human contrivance in the druidical ages, for the purpose of impressing the minds of the vulgar with an idea that those priests possessed miraculous power.

This has long ceased to shake, and the cause is attributed to the fanatics during the civil war, who threw it off its balance that it might no longer administer food to superstition. When it is considered that the stone in question is calculated to be of a weight greater than a hundred oxen could draw, we begin to hesitate, and rather conjecture that it was placed in the fanciful position by some convulsion of nature; and by a similar and subsequent convulsion, the wonder might have ceased.

+ The distance from hence to Raven Point in Ireland is about nineteen leagues. When Henry II. stood upon these rocks, and beheld the country he wished to conquer, he observed he could easily make a bridge of boats whereon he could walk from hence into that kingdom. Such is the rhodomontade of imagination, flushed by ambition. You will smile at a similar boast of a French raft, and recollect the ingenuity of the author of a Journey to the Moon. (Bishop Wilkins.) "That the lunar traveller might subsist upon the smell of hot bread."

Devanog or Devanus came into Britain with Faganus, sent by Bishop Eleutherius to preach the Gospel to the inhabitants, A. D. 186; Lucius then being king of Britain.