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LETTER

TO

JOHN BULL, ESQ.

FROM HIS

SECOND COUSIN THOMAS BULL,

AUTHOR OF THE

FIRST AND SECOND LETTERS

TO HIS

BROTHER JOHN.

112

A

LETTER

ΤΟ

JOHN BULL, ESQ.

SIR,

You belong to an honourable branch of our family; but you have never despised your poor relations. I am therefore well assured, that this address, which comes from one of them, will meet with a kind reception. To Brother John I can say what I please, and treat him with a jest or two, when he wants it, because he and I are upon easy terms: but when I speak to You, Sir, I must observe the formalities due to a person of a superior station.

Thomas Bull is a plain farmerly man, given up to the business of his calling, and finding in it that contentment, which you great gentlemen do not always find in the higher ways of life. It must be some pressing occasion which draws him out of his obscurity, to embroil himself

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with adversaries of more words than he has to spare he knows with how much trouble and hazard to himself, every man that undertakes it, must encounter public error; and that they, who cannot answer, will never cease to rail. But he is supported under these discouragements by some short and plain considerations. He is told of human life, that the way of it is a pilgrimage; and that the time of it is short. He must therefore pass through the world as he would ride through a town; where, if the peōple are rude, and the boys stout, and the dogs bark, a little patience and a quiet horse will soon convey him to the silence and safety of a private road. It was also inculcated very early into his mind, that no danger is to be avoided. when the good of our country is at stake, and that it is far more eligible to perish for it than with it. If life itself is due to our country, every wise and honest man will readily offer to it his care and his reputation. He saw with how much industry that wicked libel of Thomas Pain was dispersed, and even conveyed by stealth (like a rotten egg) into people's pockets, to poison the minds of the common sort, and prepare them for some deadly mischief; how it was posted up, to be sold, even along with old

shoes

shoes, and butchers' meat. He heard how the approach of equal liberty and equal property, the universal downfal of Royalty and Religion, were trumpeted about by persons affected to the anarchy of France; he had also received private intimations of a confederacy of a very dangerous description: and though not with such evidence as was clear enough to bring it forward, yet sufficient to alarm a private person, and convince him that some great evil was intended that no time was to be lost, and that no language could be too strong to secure the people against the prevailing delusion of French politics. Common understandings having been deceived, were to be addressed in a common way, and argued with from the plain principles of common sense and religious duty, such as they imbibed when they learned their Catechism; and such as Thomas Bull, having always been used to them, could handle better than any other. The man in lower life, who writes by the light of a farthing candle, cannot be expected to see so far into some things as gentlemen do who burn wax. His first address however, with all its faults, was received with unexpected approbation, and had certainly a great and sudden effect in opening the eyes and paci

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