sf 
1992. _ on the coal duties in Scotland. 304-3 
represent their case; and because the richest and most 
manufacturing and commercial districts, both in Scotland 
and. England, were not to be materially affected by that 
law. In England, the large extensive and manufacturing. 
counties of York; as also Westmoreland, Lancahhire, 
Shropfhire, G’c. pofsefsing inexhaustible mines of coals, 
which could be distributed to the manufacturing inland 
counties every where, by means of the Ouse, the Trent, the 
Humber and the Severn; and the rivers or canals leading 
from or to them, were not in the smallest degree affected 
by it ; and in Scotland the fhires of Renfrew, Lanark, and 
Ayr, every where abounding in coal; together with that 
rick and populous district along the frith of Forth, the legal 
limits of which had been fixed at St Abbs Head on the 
south, and the Red Head on the north, being, as a frith, 
not liable to pay any coal duty, were also unaffected by 
this law. But the places beyond that, being then poor, and 
in a great measure unknown, and at that time chiefly sup- 
plied with fuel from the plentiful peat mofses which then 
abounded there, did not oppose the law, and were of 
course disregarded. 
Thus, was establifhed, by the Britith parliament, unweet- 
ingly, a fiscal regulation, which has proved, in its opera- 
tion, the most hurtful of any law that ever was adopted 
in a civilized country; and it has since been continued 
unrepealed, merely because the baneful-influence of its 
operations have not been sufficiently adverted to. 
To obtain an increase of. revenue could be the only 
motive for originally imposing that tax: but the experi- 
ence of near a century has proved, that, in this respect, 
those who recommended it had judged erroneously ; and 
if administration had been as attentive to the general in- 
terests of the people, as they ought to have been, or had 
adverted to the rule for discriminating between oppref- 
