Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/475

No. 156] governours have been sometimes given them only that a great man might get ease from importunity, and that they have had judges not always of the deepest learning, or the purest integrity, we have no great reason to doubt, because such misfortunes happen to ourselves. Whoever is governed will sometimes be governed ill, even when he is most concerned in his own government.

improper officers or magistrates are sent, is the crime or folly of those that sent them. When incapacity is discovered, it ought to be removed ; if corruption is detected, it ought to be punished. No government could subsist for a day, if single errors could justify defection.

of their complaints is not such as can claim much commiseration from the softest bosom. They tell us, that we have changed our conduct, and that a tax is now laid by Parliament on those which were never taxed by Parliament before. To this we think it may be easily answered, that the longer they have been spared, the better they can pay. is certainly not much their interest to represent innovation as criminal or invidious ; for they have introduced into the history of mankind a new mode of disaffection, and have given, I believe, the first example of a proscription published by a Colony against the Mother-country.

what is urged of new powers granted to the Courts of Admiralty, or the extension of authority conferred on the judges, it may be answered in a few words, that they have themselves made such regulations necessary ; that they are established for the prevention of greater evils ; at the same time, it must be observed, that these powers have not been extended since the rebellion in America. . ..

were a curious, but an idle speculation to inquire, what effect these dictators of sedition expect from the dispersion of their letter among us. If they believe their own complaints of hardship, and really dread the danger which they describe, they will naturally hope to communicate their own perceptions to their fellow-subjects. But probably in America, as in other places, the chiefs are incendiaries, that hope to rob in the tumults of a conflagration, and toss brands among a rabble passively combustible. Those who wrote the Address, though they have shown no great extent or profundity of mind, are yet probably wiser than to believe it : but they have been taught by some master of mischief, how to put in motion the engine of political electricity ; to attract