mouth, foon after the holidays, on affairs of the last importance to their trade to that kingdom. We hear that a large packet of fecret dispatches of the fufpenfion of the council of Grenada, was lately tranfmitted from the government-house there, to a certain member of the board of trade, who is not the most remarkable for always diftinguishing and patronizing the best men; but it is hoped he will nevertheless shew himself difcerning and unbiassed on this occafion. It is faid that a certain perfon now in town from Grenada, who has been fome time foliciting the collection of the 4 and half per cent. duty in that ifland, having been disappointed in his expectations, has nobly refolved that nobody elfe fhall receive it; and to that end, has commenced a profecution to try the legality of the impofition. This is a modern Hampden. SIR, any decla I THINK the measure taken between Britain and France, in going to war by commencing hoftilities before ration, and by furprizes on each other, ftrongly contradictory to the law of nations, and to the welfare of the individual, who is fo much the support, and even strength, of a trading nation; from fuch procedures we can never determine our fafeties, but by a guard to oppofe, where fuch can, with fo great a facility too, be admitted: The prefent occafion, that has formed me to wish for those in power more immediately to advert, is, the practicability of demolishing no lefs a place than this yard, and that, too, with fo fmall a force as three fhips of the line, that may plaufibly be fitting out to relieve their ftationed hips, fitted for their purpose, a wefterly wind, and half flood, and under fhew of Ruffian colours, with the ufual fignal, our ships (and thefe of late) make for affiftance on fuch an occafion, they not only pafs the forts unmolefted, but will be ufhered in by all our boats, fent to our fuppofed friends affiftance. Arrived within the harbour, they no longer need conceal, for what therein are they to fear? Not our men of war commiffioued, termed guard-fhips, who, without powder, or fhot, or arms, or men, lie each like a lord-mayor's barge, their upper deck guns blunt-loaded for faJutes; purfuing fuch advantage, burn the admiral and all our fquadron, the wefterly wind and top of high water, drive them blazing on the front of our hardy veterans, drawn up from their barrack, ready for the reception of another-guess vifitor, but who, refolute as they may have formerly proved them felves, will here avail nought, but must give way to the conflagration, spreading itfelf over the whole dock yard, the confequence whereof would be fatal, and can but too well be conjectured, for me to pafs judgmeut on; nor would they, with any difficulty, fear a retreat, their wind and contrary tide hurrying them too faft paft our batteries for them to receive much damage: So great a stroke, with fuch impunity, is too obvious to be neglected by Frenchmen, or, waving the reflection, by any nation, did they but know how carelefly fecure the British navy rides here. Should my furmifes be unjust, my breaft is eafed; it becomes not further, Great-Britain and her minifters, to be dictated to by Portsmouth-Harbour, Dec. 7, 1769. A Guardship Officer. To the KING. H'ledged to be the treasure of times palt, and the best guide ISTORY, moft gracious Sovereign, is truely acknow for the prefent for therein are prefented to our view, both the virtues and the vices, the perfections and the defects, the good and the evil, the lives and the deaths of all preceding governors and governments. By hiftory we are taught that the nation hath ever been managed with one idea or form of government, namely by the laws direction; the King's rule; the Senate's advice; and the magistrate's difcipline. But though the form of government hath continued the fame, it hath produced fruits of feveral kinds, proceeding from the ufe or abuse of the law's direction; the virtue or error of the King's rule; the good or evil of the Senate's advice; the juftice or injuftice of the Magiftrate's difcipline. For as good government is the difpenfer of human happinefs, and the director of public benefit, fo is ill government the devouring tyrant of the fubject's advantages, and the venomous poisoner of the nation's tranquility. The LA W S. The laws, by which the veffel of this government hath been invariably steered, are of these three kinds: the firft, the com mon law, grounded on or drawn from the law of God, the law of reason, and the law of nature; and that is not mutable. The fecond, the pofitive law, founded, changed, and altered by and through the occafions and policies of times. The third, cuftoms and ufages, practifed and allowed with time's approbation without known beginnings. All these feveral forts of laws have been framed according to the capacity, nature, difpofition, and humour of the place and people; and by them this nation hath ever been commanded, governed, fupported, and maintained. To the King, they are his fceptre; to the Senate, the oracle of council; to the judge, the rule of justice; to the magiftrate, the guide of difcipline; to the fubject, the ftandard of obedience; and generally to all, the bond that tieth man to man, and to a civil and orderly courfe of life. Laws are the dials of true direction; direction, the weapon of government; government, the guardian of peace; and peace, the true perfection of all worldly happiness. On the contrary, no laws, no direction; no direction, no government; no government, no peace; no peace, utter destruction: for neither houfe nor city, nor nation, nor mankind, nor the nature of things, without laws, can fubfift. And yet the Good or Ill both of laws and of all worldly things, confifteth in the ufe or abufe of the fame: if well used, they yield the fweet of their true property; but if abused, that sweet is turned to four; or if not used, lofe their virtue. As food being well used, maintaineth and fupporteth the life and nature of man; but abufedly taken by furfeit, destroyeth the body; or, if Vol. VI. F not not used, remaineth of no value; fo the laws, if well difpofed are the rudder that fteereth the veffel of civil government; but perverted, become the inftruments of deftruction; or not executed, become a mere body without a foul; and therefore are to receive either life or death, by the good or ill of the King's rule, the Senate's advice, and the Magiftrate's discipline. The blifs or bane of a King's government proceedeth from his nature, his understanding, and education: for as we who are below must receive either light or darkness from above; fo doth the fubject from the Prir.ce's aims and inclinations, receive either happiness or mifery; and melancholy experience proveth, that the condition of state changeth with the alteration of Princes. The private errors, vices, and even crimes of Princes, are but little hurtful, when compared with their erroneous public principles and actions, by which their minifters become infected, and their people perish. The law may direct, the Senate may advife, and the magiftrate execute; but all will be in vain, or worse than vain, unlefs the King meaneth fairly and honeftly. An excellent Turkish proverb moft truly telleth us, that the fib always beginneth to flink at the head. The commands of a King ought to be juft and mild: for he is the father, and the subjects are his children. They ought to be prefervative, and not devouring for he is the fhepherd, and they the flock. They ought rather to prevent the cause of offence than punish the offender. They ought to be warranted by law for both by office and by oath he is bound to his law. They ought to proceed from reafon, and not from childish partiality, favour, or paffion : for thereby he will be reverenced as a God among men. They ought to be prudent for that will make him deified with fame and renown. Lycurgus never commanded any thing to be done which he would not do himself; and this made him reverenced, honoured, and obeyed; whilft Sylla commanding juftice, truth, and frugality, practised himself the contrary; and this made him hated, contemned, and ridiculed and thus will it happen to every King, who, whilft he promifeth by his proclamation to encourage virtue and morality, promoteth only the moft profligate and abandoned. It was a good queftion of him, who demanded, whether he would be a good leader of a band, who fhould fuffer the performers to tranfgrefs the rules of mufic? Being answered, No he replied, neither is he a good King, who influenceth or fuffereth his minifters to tranfgrefs the law. Theopompus being afked why Lacedæmon did fo flourish, anfwered, because their king knew how to govern. Things juftly and lawfully commanded, exact performance; but things unduly and unlawfully required, breed dislike, and sometimes enforce refusal and refiftance. Claudian therefore concludeth wifely : Peraget tranquilla Poteftas, Princes Princes by knowing themfelves not to be more than men, and their fubjects not to be lefs; by juftice, humanity, and an attention to the general welfare of mankind, become acceptable to God, renowned in the world, beloved by their people, admired with reverence by all men, and in the end, immortalized with glory. But if they are unjuft, unmerciful, cruel, devouring, lawlefs, partial, unreafonable and imprudent; that is, in fhort, if they misplace the objects of reward and punishment, which are the two hinges of government and the fanétion of all laws, both divine and human, they do then justly forfeit the glorious title of Kings, and become eternized with the deathlefs infamy of hellish Tyrants. As the laws have the first, and the King the fecond, fo hath the fenate the third place in the common-wealth. No King can with his own perfonal diligence and wifdom alone, equally govern the whole state; for it is rather the virtue of God than man, effectually to know all things belonging to government; and therefore as it is neceffary for a Prince to fee with his own eyes, to hear with his own ears, and to direct by his own judgment; fo it is requifite for a Prince to have many eyes, many ears, many tongues, many hands, many feet, and many wits to fee, to hear, to difpatch, to inform, and advife, concerning the public ftate, as preparatives to his commanding judgment, and the prefervatives against the common evil: Romulus therefore refufed to undergo the burthen of government alone, but chose to have added to himself an hundred Senators. Trajan ufed to call the Senate his father; for as a father forewarneth his fon of the good or ill that may befall him, fo ought the Senate to admonish the King of things profitable and unprofitable to him and the state. If a Prince, therefore, having fuch a Senate, fuch Counsellors, provided for his affiftance by the wisdom of the conftitution, fhould endeavour by corruption or intimidation, to bend or break them to his own private will, what would it be but the height of arrogance and weakness, as well as wickedness, thus to attempt to refolve every thing into his own perfonal, unaffifted wisdom and diligence? A corrupted or dependent fenate is no fenate. Their counfel is no counfel, because it will ever be dictated, either by flattery, which never yet was a true counfellor; or by cowardice, which never yet was a good subject: the Senate therefore, ought to know, and only to regard the law, the liberties, the cuftoms, the ufe, and difcipline, wherewith the ftate is governed. They ought not only to know and purfue the means whereby the fenate may be beautified, amplified and preferved; but they ought alfo to confider and avoid thofe whereby it may be fullied, weakened, or fubverted. They ought to know what is the juft (because wholesome and beneficial) prerogative of the Crown, and what is the due right and liberty of the fubject; for they are the barrier, the intermediate power, tationed between force and fear, fervitude and freedom, the King and his people. A Senate, whofe aim is the public good, and whofe direction the law of the land, who are temperate and equal, not paffionate and partial in their decrees, are themfelves a graceful ornament to the law, a rock of fafety to the King, an abfolute guide to government, and a beloved oracle to the people. But if they are corrupt in their motives, and violent in their refolutions, not juftly wife in their advice, but influenced in their counfel, and vicious in their difpofition, then do they become to the law a difgraceful blemish and devouring worm at the core, to the King a deceitful fnare, to the government, a blind diffolute guide, and to the people an abhorred fcourge, oppreffor, and deceiver. The MAGISTRATE. The next place is the Magiftrate's; for in vain are the Law's direction, the King's command, and the Senate's advice, if not executed by the Magiftrate's difcipline; laws, command, and advice, receive not their authority when they are framed, given, or advised, but when they are executed; not when they are enacted, but when they are obferved; and therefore the commonwealth doth expect from the magiftrate, pure, impartial, and ftrict juftice.The Roman magiftrate faid well-My mother hath brought me into the world of a flexible and yielding difpofition, fed Refpublica me feverum fecit. Laws are delivered to the magiftrate as a fword to cut off the guilty and protect the innocent but if the magiftrate for courtly purposes keep it fheathed to ministerial criminals, what bad man will dread fo blunted and fo harmless a weapon? If for the fame reasons he fharpen and brandish it against the affertors of truth and defenders of public liberty, what good man will not execrate fo deftructive and illdirected an iuftrument? If through corruption, through favour or refentment, he fhall bend the laws to and fro, according to his own crooked discretion, is there any man that will not defpife fo flexible, fo leaden a rule? It were better to live under the government of Nerva, where all things were faid to be lawful, or under the government of Domitian, where nothing was lawful, than under the curfe of fuch a magiftrate who fhould fo complicate the disorders of both, as at the fame time to make all things lawful to one fet of men, and all things unlawful to another. The Magiftrate ought to be fciens, juftus et fortis; to know what he is to execute; to be juft in his execution; to be regardless of all things, but right in that which he executeth; for he is the living law, and the law the dumb magiftrate and nothing is is more pernicious to a common-wealth than an ignorant, unjuít, or time-ferving magiftrate. To conclude, as the end of the failor's endeavour is good paffage; the phyfician's study, health; the foldier's conteft, victory; fo the well difciplining of the people ought to be the magiftrate's fole aim; which if he faithfully performs, then is he to the ftate a good pilot, a provident phyfician, a victorious captain, and in one word, a juft, welldeferving magiftrate. But if he be ignorant, remifs, partial, unjuft |