The works of the Rev. William Thom, late minister ... - waughfamily.ca

432 LETTERS, TRACTS, e^rV.There is one thing for which you are highly blameable: When a peribn writes with no other defign thanto do you good, you will not be at the pains to readhis advices ; and you neither know, inquire, nor care,who are your friends or who are your enemies ; nay,you often miltake the one for the other. I can live,thank God, in a tolerable way, though the price of 'grain be dear, and the rent of land ever fo high : Ican expe£l no benefit from you, neither can I reapany advantage from what I now write, except the fatisfa6tionof imparting fome ufeful and necelTary ad-vices to a numerous clafs of people, who are of theutmoft importance in fociety, but who are circumventedand opprefled by their fuperiors, and renderednjiferable by their own folly. I cannot but pity yourprefent condition j but I hope to fee you in better circumftances,if you will behave as you ought.A roup, efpecially that kind of roup by which youare impoverilhed, is commonly the child of avariceand imprudence, foftered by cunning. In fome countries,the origin of it is very ancient. In old times,when a powerful and merciiefs people had conqueredfome of their neighbours, thofe who were not flaughteredon the field of battle were condemned to perpetualflavery, and, like beafts, fold by auftion to the "*higheft bidder ; an inhuman and barbarous trade ; andaccordingly the au6lioneer was held in univerfal deteftationand abhorrence. In thofe days, human creatureswere, by auction, enflaved at once ; now, bythat fame trade, you are llripped of your fubftance,and fomewhat more flowly indeed, but as fatally andeffectually, reduced to beggary, and condemned tofluverv for ever.In this country, roups, at leafl fuch roups as Ifpeak of, have not been long in fafliion : For ought1 know, it is but about forty or fifty years fince thisllratagem of getting monpy b«gan to be in ufe \ aridthen too our lairds would have difdained to enrichi