20 COBBETT'S [No. 



and servants to rob their masters, and that they thus 

 "let loose the ligaments of property and civil society." 

 I fancy that it would require a pretty large portion of 

 that sort of faith which induced this Protestant judge 

 to send witches and wizards to the gallows ; a pretty 

 large portion of this sort of faith, to make us believe, 

 that the "casuists of France," who, doubtless, had 

 servants of their own, would teach servants to rob 

 their masters ! In short, this prattle of the judge 

 seems to have been nothing more than one of those 

 Protestant effusions which were too much in fashion 

 at the time when he wrote. 



24. He begins his second paragraph, or paragraph 

 B., by saying, that he " takes it " to be so and so ; 

 and then comes another qualified expression ; he talks 

 of civil government " as here in England" Then 

 he says, that the rule of GROTIUS and others, against 

 which he has been contending, u he takes to be false, 

 at least," says he, " by the laws of England." After 

 he has made all these qualifications, he then pro- 

 ceeds to say* that such taking is theft; that it \$ felony; 

 and it is a crime which the laws of England punish 

 with death! But, as if stricken with remorse at 

 putting the frightful words upon paper ; as if feeling 

 shame for the law and for England itself, he in- 

 stantly begins to tell us, that the judge who presides 

 at the trial is intrusted, " by the laws of England," 

 with power to reprieve the offender, in order to the 

 obtaining of the King^s mercy I Thus he softens - 

 it down. He will have it to be LAW to put a man 

 to death in such a case ; but he is ashamed to leave 

 his readers to believe, that an English judge and an 

 English king WOULD OBEY THIS LAW ! 



25. Let us now hear the reasons which he gives 

 for this which he pretends to be law. His first rea- 

 son is, that there would be no security for property, 

 if it were laid open to the necessities of the indigent, 

 of which necessities no man but the takers them" 

 selves could be the judge. He talks of a " strange 

 insecurity ;" but, upon my word, no insecurity could 

 be half so strange as this assertion of his own. 





