"He

year to be levied from the Americans. is (says he) satisfied to repeat gravely, as he has done a hundred times before, that the Ame ricans are able to pay it. Well, and what then? Does he lay open any part of his plan how they may be compelled to pay it, without plunging ourselves into calamities that outweigh ten-fold the proposed benefit? or does he shew how they may be induced to submit to it quietly? or does he give any satisfaction concerning the mode of levying it?" He ridicules and exposes the folly of expecting any other revenue from our settlements in India, thân what results from duties on the trade from that country, and from the lease of the monopoly according to the charter. More advanced in political wisdom than when he advised a law declaratory of a right, without any practical benefit, he leaves barren generalities for expediency. "To talk (says he) of the rights of sovereignty is quite idle; different establishments supply dif ferent modes of public contribution. Our trading companies, as well as individual importers, are a fit subject of revenue by customs. Some establishments pay us by a monopoly of their consumption and their produce. This, nominally no tax, in reality comprehends all taxes. Such establishments are our colonies. To tax them, would be as erroneous in policy as rigorous in equity. Ireland supplies us by furnishing troops in war, and by bearing part

of our foreign establishment in peace. She
aids us at all times by the money that her ab-
sentees spend amongst us; which is no small
part of the rental of that kingdom. Thus Ire-
land contributes her part. Some objects bear
port duties; some are fitter for an inland ex-
cise. The mode varies; the object is the same.
To strain these from their old and inveterate
leanings, might impair the old benefit, and not
answer the end of the new project, Among all
the great men of antiquity, Procrustes shall never
be my hero of legislation; with his iron bed,
the allegory of his government, and the type of
some modern policy, by which the long limb
was to be cut short, and the short tortured into
length. Such was the state-bed of uniformity!
He would, I conceive, be a very indifferent
farmer, who complained that his sheep did not
plough, or his horses yield him wool; though
it would be an idea full of equality. They may
think this right in rustic economy, who think
it available in the politic;

Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina Mævi!
Atque idem jungat vulpes, et mulgeat bircos."

He proceeds to an attack upon the Grenville Administration, which, though somewhat exaggerated, is in many respects just; vindicates the Rockingham Ministry, not without evident partiality; makes a very high panegyric on his patron, and the connections of

1

the party; and animadverts, with cutting seve rity, on their successors in office.

There is one excellence which I shall have Occasion frequently to remark in the writings and speeches of Burke. They abound in the wisest general observations, descriptions of mankind, and lessons of conduct. This essay contains a very striking picture of political profligacy, in its progress and consequences. "There is something (he says) uncertain on the confines of the two empires which they first pass through, and which renders the change easy and imperceptible. There are even a sort of splendid impositions, so well contrived, that, at the very time the path of rectitude is quitted for ever, men seem advancing into some nobler road of public conduct. Not that such impositions are strong enough in themselves, but a POWERFUL INTEREST, often concealed from those whom it affects, works at the bottom, and secures the operation. Men are thus debauched away from their legitimate connections-gradually they are habituated to other company. Certain persons are no longer frightful when they come to be serviceable. As to their OLD FRIENDS, the transition is easy from friendship to civility; from civility to enmity: few are the steps from dereliction to persecution."

The nomination of Luttrel involved in it a totally different question from the expulsion of Wilkes. The expulsion was a question of

individual conduct; the nomination of constitutional right-whether, by the laws of the land, expulsion constituted disqualification. Burke made a most masterly speech on this subject, contending, and indeed proving, that there was neither statute nor applicable precedent resting the incapacitation of persons to be members of parliament in any thing but an act of the legislature. The substance of this speech is published only in the Parliamentary Debates. In the state in which they give it, it displays, a most extensive and accurate acquaintance with parliamentary history and cases, and the soundest notions of political expediency.

This session American affairs afforded Burke a subject for the exhibition of his eloquence and wisdom. It was proposed by Ministry to revive the satute of Henry VIII. by which the King is empowered to appoint a commission in England for the trial of treason committed beyond seas. Against this proposed revival Burke directed the force of his powers. The plan

of bringing delinquents from the province of Massachusets to England, to be tried, was, he 'contended, in its principle inconsistent with the law of England. In this country, a man charged with a crime is tried near the place where it is alledged to have been committed; that, if innocent, he may have the means of acquittal. It was iniquitous in its opération. By taking the accused to an immense distance from his

friends and business, it rendered it impossible, unless to men of great opulence, to endure the expence of bringing the evidence necessary to vindication. The judges, who were to be of the mother country, would be persons against whom the accused was supposed to have transgressed; the prosecution, in effect, would be condemnation, and so the great purposes of justice entirely defeated. Even if the mode proposed were just, it would be attended with such difficulty of execution as would, in every prudential view, amount to impracticability. The attempt would irritate the colonies, whilst its inefficacy would not restrain dangerous. practices. Unfortunately, experience confirmed the anticipation of sagacity, the proposal exasperated the Americans, the plan afforded ro obstruction to their disorders.

Whilst those measures of the House of Commons, respecting the colonies, which Burke opposed, were causing disturbances in America, the proceedings respecting Wilkes were excit ing discontents at home. They were considered as a gross violation of the rights of election. An alarm for the constitution was spread; an alarm much beyond its cause; since, admitting one unconstitutional assumption of power to have taken place, it did not follow, from a par ticular fact, that a general system was endan gered.

Dr. Johnson's False Alarm" endeavours