be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend
buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife,
as we do roasting pigs.

A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose
virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on
this matter, to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said, that
many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their
deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well
supply'd by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding
fourteen years of age, nor under twelve; so great a number of
both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of
work and service: And these to be disposed of by their parents if
alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due
deference to so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I
cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my
American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that
their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our
school-boys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable,
and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the
females, it would, I think, with humble submission, be a loss to
the publick, because they soon would become breeders themselves:
And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people
might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very
unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess,
hath always been with me the strongest objection against any
project, how well soever intended.

But in order to justify my friend, he confessed, that this
expedient was put into his head by the famous Salmanaazor, a