COMMUTATION OF TAXES. 



141 



cannot depart, Madam," added he, turning to my friend's amazed 

 lady, " without begging your acceptance of this ring, as a feeble 

 acknowledgment of your hospitality and politeness." 



THOMPSON. And this, Mr. Oliver, is a specimen of the honest, 

 upright British merchant, the glory of the empire in your good old 

 times 



OLIVER. I beg pardon I was not attending I did not exactly 

 hear ; for a friend, whom I particularly wish to speak with, has this 

 moment gone into the pposite coffee-room. Pray excuse my 

 abruptness. Good morning. 



COMMUTATION OF TAXES. 



IT is a maxim that has been pretty well accredited, by past events 

 and long established facts, that certain alterations or changes are 

 necessary, both in the government of a people and the provincial 

 enactments of a state, in order to befit its society for the burthen of 

 those necessary trammels which enforce the obligation and sense of 

 justice between man and his fellows, and which under a greater lati- 

 tude of action than the existence of the laws permits, would be totally 

 abolished, or frequently forgotten, amidst the passions and convulsions 

 of a mixed society. According therefore to this reasoning, the laws 

 which could restrain the turbulent spirits of the nation in the chivalric 

 feeling of the middle ages, and the mode by which they were enforced 

 during the reigns of that period, were necessarily of a more general 

 and less summary character than those which w r ere executed upon de- 

 linquents of the wandering tribes of an antecedent date ; and again 

 the inflictions of punishment which are now awarded to criminals, 

 together with the caution by which they are sentenced, bear, indeed, 

 but a resemblance scarcely to be recognised as a portion of that code 

 of ancient law, which first assumed the method of a science, under 

 the dawning reason of our Saxon ancestors. It has been argued on 

 all sides, and we think it has been as generally admitted, that the 

 British constitution, taken with its many anomalies, is as efficient as 

 any system of legislation in the world; yet has there been none 

 perhaps on which so many alterations have been effected, or so many 

 improvements engrafted. France, from remaining many years in- 

 active, at length threw off her ancient regime by the effort of revolu- 

 tion ; whilst Spain, and other continental nations of any standing, 

 have adopted alterations in their government at certain times, such as 

 were found expedient to suit the enlarged circle of population, which 

 was increased by the natural events of time and prosperity. It is 

 not therefore in England alone that change has been deemed expedient, 

 for it will be seen that other nations more venerable, and perhaps not 

 less celebrated than ours, have considered it wise to adopt alterations. 

 It may not be improbable that the kingdoms, whose history can 

 alone be traced in Holy Writ, may have framed codes without after- 

 wards amending them j but the fact that those governments have fallen 

 into decay is at least an argument that human institutions are not to 



