i__252 anccJoles. Fib. 15. 



but the evils to wliich tlie removal of them would give rise 

 will generally be a tliousaad times greater ; but for the 

 most part it will be found, that the supfiosed evils they 

 produce, have been real benefits of great importance.- 



From these considerations, I cannot help warning my 

 countrymen, never to permit the smallest infraction of 

 establijhed forms, if they value their freedom, and to guard 

 against the dispensing power of revenue officers, and of 

 judges, as the greatest political malady that can attack the 

 state. Where the laws are too severe to admit of being 

 strictly enforced, let them be mitigated " by the authori- 

 ty of the legislature ;''^ — but let no one else attempt to do 

 it. When Britain ihall seriously adopt this system, flie 

 may mark tii?.t period as tlie asra from whence flie is to 

 date the commencement of her prosperity. Till (he doe5 

 so fhe may boast of freedom, — but (he pofsefses it not. 

 She may vaunt of her prosperity, — but it must be a pros- 

 perity of a sickly and distempered hue, which owes even 

 the very notion of its existence, rather to the compara- 

 tive weaknefs of others, than to her own health and 

 vigour. 



To be continued. 



ANECDOTES. 



■L'uRiNG the late war, eighty old German soldiers, who, af- 

 ter having long served under diiTerent monarchs of Eu- 

 rope, had retired to America, and converted their swords 

 into ploughlhares, voluntarily formed themselves into a 

 company, and distingullhed themselves in various actions, 

 on the side of liberty. The captain was nearly one hun- 

 dred years old, and had been in the army forty years, and 

 present in seventeen battles. The drummer was ninetv- 

 four ; and the youngest man in the corps on the verge of 

 seventy. Instead of a cockade, each man wore a piece of 

 b^ack crape, as a mark of sorrow for being obliged, at so 

 advanced a period of life, to bear arms : " But," said tliC 

 veterans, " we (liould be deficient in gratitude, if we did 

 not act in defence of a country, which has afloTded us a. 



