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"L'atrocité des loix en empêche l' exécution.

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Lorfque la peine eft fans mcfure, on est souvent obligé de lui préférer l'impuniê.

"La caufe des tous les reláchemens vient de l'impunité des crimes, et non de la moderation des peines.

It is faid by thofe who know Europe generally, that there are more thefts committed and punished annually in England than in all the other nations put together. If this be fo, there must be a cause or caufes for fuch depravity in our common people. May not one be the deficiency of justice and morality in our national government, manifefted in our oppreffive conduct to fubjects, and unjust wars on our neighbours ? View the long persisted in, unjust, monopolizing treatment of Ireland, at length acknowledged ! View the plundering government exercifed by our merchants in the Indies; the confifcated war made upon the American colonies; and, to fay nothing of thofe upon France and Spain, view the late war upon Holland, which was feen by impartial Europe in no other light than that of a war of rapine and pillage; the hopes of an immense and eafy prey being its only apparent, and probably its true and real motive and encouragement. Juftice is as strictly due between neighbour nations as between neighbour citizens. A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang, as when fingle; and a nation that makes an

unjuft war is only a great gang. After employing your people in robbing the Dutch, it is strange that, being out of that employ by peace, they ftill continue robbing, and rob one another? Piraterie, as the French call it, or privateering, is the univerfal bent of the English nation, at home and abroad, wherever fettled. No lefs than feven hundred privateers were, it is faid, commiffioned in the last war! Thefe were fitted out by merchants, to prey upon other merchants, who have never done them any injury. Is there probably any one of thofe privateering merchants of London, who were fo ready to rob the merchants of Amfterdam, that would not as readily plunder another · London merchant of the next ftreet, if he could do it with the fame impunity! the avidity, the alieni appetens is the faine; it is the fear alone of the gallows that makes the difference. How then can a nation, which, among the honefteft of its

people, has fo many thieves by inclination, and whofe government encouraged and commiffioned no less than feven hundred gangs of robbers; how can fuch a nation have the face to condemn the crime in individuals, and hang up twenty of them in a morning! It naturally puts one in mind of a Newgate anecdote. One of the prifoners complained, that in the night fomebody had taken his buckles out of his fhoes. "What the devil!" fays another," have we then thieves amongst us? It must not be fuffered. Let us fearch out the rogue, and pump him to death."

There is, however, one late inftance of an English merchant who will not profit by fuch ill-gotten gain. He was, it feems, part owner of a fhip, which the other owners thought fit to employ as a letter of marque, and which took a number of French prizes. The booty being shared, he has now an agent here enquiring, by an advertisement in the Gazette, for those who fuffered the lofs, in order to make them, as far as in him lies, reftitution. This confcientious man is a Quaker. The Scotch prefbyterians were formerly as tender; for there is ftill extant an ordinance of the town-council of Edinburgh, made foon after the Reformation, "forbidding the purchase of prize goods, under pain of lofing the freedom of the burgh for ever, with other punishments at the will of the magistrate; the practice of making prizes being contrary to good confcience, and the rule of treating Chriftian brethren as we would wish to be treated; and fuch goods are not to be fold by any godly men within this burgh." The race of thefe godly men in Scotland is probably extinct, or their principles abandoned, fince, as far as that nation had a hand in promoting the war against the colonies, prizes and confifcations are believed to have been a confiderable motive.

It has been for fome time a generally-received opinion, that a military man is not to enquire whether a war be juft or unjust; he is to execute his orders. All princes who are difpofed to become tyrants, must probably approve of this opinion, and be willing to eftablish it; but is it not a dangerous one? fince, on that principle, if the tyrant commands his army to attack and destroy, not only an unoffending neighbour nation, but even his own fubjects, the army is bound to obey. A negro flave, in our colonics, being

commanded by his mafter to rob or murder a neighbour, or do any other immoral act, may refufe; and the magiftrate will protect him in his refusal. The flavery then of a foldier is worse than that of a negro; A confcientious officer, if not restrained by the apprehenfion of its being imputed to another caufe, may indeed refign, rather than be employed in an unjuft war, but the private men are flaves for life and they are perhaps incapable of judging for themfelves. We can only lament their fate, and ftill more that of a failor, who is often dragged by force from his honeft occupation, and compelled to imbrue his hands in perhaps innocent blood. But methinks it well behoves merchants (men more enlightened by their education, and perfectly free from any fuch force or obligation) to confider well of the justice of a war, before they voluntarily engage a gang of ruffians to attack their fellow-merchants of a neighbouring nation, to plunder them of their property, and perhaps ruin them and their families, if they yield it; or to wound, maim, and murder them, if they attempt to defend it. Yet these things are done by Christian merchants, whether a war be just or unjuft; and it can hardly be just on both fides. They are done by English and American merchants, who, nevertheless, complain of private theft, and hang by dozens the thieves they have taught by their own example.

It is high time, for the fake of humanity, that a stop were put to this enormity, The United States of America, though better fituated than any European nation to make profit by privateering, (most of the trade of Europe, with the Weft-Indies paffing before their doors) are, as far as in them lies, endeavouring to abolish the practice, by offering, in all their treaties with other powers, an article, engaging folemnly, that, in cafe of future war, no privateer fhall be commiffioned on either fide; and that unarmed merchant-fhips, on both fides, fhall purfue their voyages unmolested. This will be a happy improvement of the law of nations. The humane and the juft cannot but wifh general fuccefs to the propofition.

With unchangeable efteem and affection,
I am, my dear friend,

Ever yours.

REMARKS CONCERNING THE SAVAGES OF

SAVAGES

NORTH-AMERICA.

AVAGES we call them, becaufe their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they

think the fame of theirs.

Perhaps, if we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude as to be without any rules of politene's; nor any fo polite as not to have fome remains of rudeness.

The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors; when old, counsellors; for all their government is by the courfel or advice of fages; there is no force, there are no prifons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment. Hence they generally study oratory; the beft fpeaker having the most influence.. The Indian women till the ground, drefs the food, nurfe and bring up the children, and preferve and hand down to pofterity the memory of public tranfactions. Thefe employments of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leifure for improvement by converfation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they efteem flawifh and bafe; and the learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and ufele's. An inftance of this occured at the treaty of Lancafter, in Pennsylvania, anno 1741, between the government of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principle bufinefs was fettled, the commiffioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a speech, that there was at Williamsburgh a college, with a fund, for educating Indian youth; and that if the chiefs of the Six Nations would fend down half a dozen of their fons to that college the government would take care that they fhould be well provided for, and inâructed in all the learning of the white people. It is one of the Indian rales of politenefs not to anfwer a public propofition the fame day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light matter; and they fhew it refpećt by taking time to confider it, as of a maiter important. They therefore deferred their anfwer till the day following: when their fpeaker began, by exprofing their deep fenfe of the kindnefs of the Virginia

government, in making them that offer: "for we know (fays he) that you highly efteem the kind of learning taught in thofe colleges, and that the maintenance of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your propofal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are wife muft know, that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will theretore not take it amifs, if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the fame with yours. We have had fome experience of it: feveral of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces: they were inftructed in all your fciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad runners; ignorant of every means of living in the woods; unable to bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy: fpoke our language imperfectly were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, or counfellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the lefs obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it : and to fhow our grateful fenfe of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will fend us a dozen of their fons, we will take great care of their education, inftru&t them in all we know, and make men of them."

Having frequent occafions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men fit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmoft. The bufinefs of the women is to take exaft notice of what paffes, imprint it in their memories, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preferve tradition of the flipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, when we compare with our writings, we always find exact. He that would fpeak, rifes. The reft obferve a profound filence. When he has finished, and fits down, they leave him five or fix minutes to recollect, that if he has omitted any thing he intended to fay, or has any thing to add, he may rife again and deliver it.--To interrupt an other, even in common converfation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this is from the conduct of a polite British

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