be trusted, shall we unite the offices of judge and jury, so wisely divided by the constitution, and trust implicitly to Lord Mansfield?—Are the judges of the court of King's Bench more likely to be unbiassed and impartial than twelve yeomen, burgesses, or gentlemen, taken indifferently from the county at large?—Or, in short, shall there be no decision, until we have instituted a tribunal from which no possible abuse or inconvenience whatsoever call arise?—If I am not grossly mistaken, these questions carry a decisive answer along with them.
Having cleared the freedom of the press from a restraint equally unnecessary and illegal, I return to the use which has been made of it in the present publication.
National reflections, I confess, are not justified in theory, nor upon any general principles. To know how well they are deserved, and how justly they have been applied, we must have the evidence of facts before us. We must be conversant with the Scots in private life, and observe their principles of acting to us, and to each other;—the characteristic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, the persevering assiduity,
