happiness who, living above their fortunes, are more anxious to
outshine their neighbours than to allow their household the innocent
enjoyments they earn?

It is, in fact, much more difficult for servants, who are tantalised
by seeing and preparing the dainties of which they are not to
partake, to remain honest, than the poor, whose thoughts are not led
from their homely fare; so that, though the servants here are
commonly thieves, you seldom hear of housebreaking, or robbery on
the highway. The country is, perhaps, too thinly inhabited to
produce many of that description of thieves termed footpads, or
highwaymen. They are usually the spawn of great cities--the effect
of the spurious desires generated by wealth, rather than the
desperate struggles of poverty to escape from misery.

The enjoyment of the peasantry was drinking brandy and coffee,
before the latter was prohibited, and the former not allowed to be
privately distilled, the wars carried on by the late king rendering
it necessary to increase the revenue, and retain the specie in the
country by every possible means.

The taxes before the reign of Charles XII. were inconsiderable.
Since then the burden has continually been growing heavier, and the
price of provisions has proportionately increased--nay, the
advantage accruing from the exportation of corn to France and rye to
Germany will probably produce a scarcity in both Sweden and Norway,
should not a peace put a stop to it this autumn, for speculations of
various kinds have already almost doubled the price.

Such are the effects of war, that it saps the vitals even of the