been treated, at the most critical and alarming periods, with the utmost tenderness and lenity. How honourable is this account to the government of Holland, when compared with the treatment of the state prisoners in England! The government of no country can be supposed to entertain a personal animosity against thieves and felons, their treatment, therefore, almost invariably proceeds from circumstances for which the executive power cannot be praised or censured; but if the executive power, where itself is intimately concerned, proceeds against individuals suspected of state crimes with inordinate severity, rigour, and harshness, incarcerating them in noxious cells, secluding them from all intercourse with their friends, and treating their well-founded remonstrances with insolence (the insolence of office and authority acting illegally), it may readily and with certainty be concluded, that such measures are pursued, not to answer the ends of public justice, but to gratify personal resentments, or party animosities.
