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Enter ŞERVANT in haste.

Ser. Sir, your long row of buildings is all in flames! Don P. Impossible!They were all to be insured

to-morrow.

Ser. It is seriously true! and the roofs are now tumbling to the ground!

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Don P. Then immediately call all hands, and put fire to this, and every other building I possess; that they may all go to destruction together.

2d Ten. That looks something like giving wings to your riches.

Don P. If I had had one thimble full of brains, I should have got them insured before. O horrible catastrophe! Not only wicked men and devils, but even the elements themselves have turned against me.

Law. Compose yourself, dear Sir. Your best friend won't be so cruel as to forsake you, at this critical mo

ment.

Don. P. Is my money safe? If that is burnt, I'll burn myself. Oh that I had permitted my tenants to remain, that they and their property might all have perished in the flames together.

LORD MANSFIELD'S SPEECH, IN SUPPORT OF A BILL FOR PREVENTING DELAYS OF JUSTICE, BY REASON OF PRIVILEGE OF PARLIAMENT, 1770.

I

MY LORDS,

HAVE waited with patience to hear what arguments might be urged against the bill: but I have waited in vain the truth is, there is no argument that can weigh against it. The justice and expediency of the bill are such as render it self-evident. It is a proposition of that nature, that can neither be weakened by argument, nor entangled with sophistry.

We all know, that the very soul and essence of trade are regular payments; and sad experience teaches us,

that

that there are men, who will not make their regular payments without the compulsive power of the laws. The law then ought to be equally open to all. Any exemption to particular men, or particular ranks of men, is, in a free and commercial country, a solecism of the grossest nature.

I will not trouble your lordships with arguments for that which is sufficiently evident without any. I shall only say a few words to some noble lords, who foresee much inconveniency from the persons of their servants' being liable to be arrested. One noble lord observes, that the coachman of a peer may be arrested while he is driving his master to the House; and, consequently, he will not be able to attend his duty in Parliament. If this were actually to happen, there are so many ways by which the member might still get to the House, that I can hardly think the noble lord is serious in his objection. Another noble peer said, that by this bill we might lose our most valuable and honest servants. This I hold to be a contradiction in terms; for he can neither be a valuable servant, nor an honest man, who gets into debt which he is neither able nor willing to pay, till compelled by law.

If my servant, by unforeseen accidents, has run into debt, and I still wish to retain him, I certainly would pay the debt. But upon no principle of liberal legislation whatever, can my servant have a title to set his creditors at defiance, while for forty shillings only, the honest tradesman may be torn from his family, and locked up in a jail. It is monstrous injustice! I flatter myself, however, the determination of this day will entirely put an end to all such partial proceedings for the future, by passing into a law the bill now under your lordships' consideration.

I come now to speak, upon what indeed, I would have gladly avoided, had I bot been particularly pointed at for the part I have taken in this bill. It has been said by a noble lord on my left hand, that I likeise am running the race of popularity. If the noble

lord

lord means by popularity, that applause bestowed by after-ages on good and virtuous actions, I have long been struggling in that race. But if he mean that mushroom popularity, which is raised without merit and lost without a crime, he much mistakes in his opinion.

I defy the noble lord to point out a single action of my life where the popularity of the times ever had the smallest influence on my determinations. I have a more permanent and steady rule for my conduct, the dictates of my own breast. Those who have foregone that pleasing adviser, and given up their mind to be the slave of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity. I pity them still more, if their vanity leads them to mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of fame. Experience might inform them, that many who have been saluted with the huzzas of a crowd, one day, have received their execrations the next; and many, who, by the popularity of their times, have been held up as spotless patriots, have, nevertheless, appeared upon the historian's page, when truth has triumphed over delusion, the assassins of liberty.

Why then the noble lord can think I am ambitious of present popularity, that echo of folly, and shadow of renown, I am at a loss to determine. Besides, I do not know that the bill now before your lordships will be popular. It depends much upon the caprice of the day. It may not be popular to compel people to pay their debts; and, in that case, the present must be a very unpopular bill. It may not be popular neither to take away any of the privileges of parliament; for I very well remember, and many of your lordships may remember, that not long ago the popular cry was for the extension of privilege; and so far did they carry it at that time, that it was said that the privilege protected members even in criminal actions. Nay, such was the power of popular prejudices over weak minds, that the very decisions of some of the courts were tinctured with that doctrine.

It

L

I

It was undoubtedly an abominable doctrine. thought so then, and think so still but nevertheless, it was a popular doctrine, and came immediately from those who were called the friends of liberty; how de servedly time will show. True liberty, in my opinion, can only exist when justice is equally administered to all; to the king, and to the beggar. Where is the justice, then, or where is the law, that protects a member of parliament more than any other man, from the punishment due to his crimes? The laws of this country allow of no place, nor any employment, to be a sanctuary for crimes and where I have the honor to sit as judge, neither royal favour, nor popular applause shall ever protect the guilty.

:

EXTRACT FROM A SERMON ON
OF JUDGMENT.

L

THE DAY

ET us endeavour to realize the majesty and terror of the universal alarm on the final Judgment Day. When the dead are sleeping in the silent grave; when the living are thoughtless and unapprehensive of the grand event, or intent on other pursuits; some of them asleep in the dead of night; some of them dissolved in sensual pleasures, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage; some of them planning or executing schemes for riches or honors; some in the very act of sin; the generality stupid and careless about the concerns of eternity, and the dreadful day just at hand; and a few here and there conversing with their God, and looking for the glorious appearance of their Lord and Saviour; when the course of nature runs on uniform and regular as usual, and infidel scoffers are taking umbrage from thence to ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" In short, when there are no more visible appearances of this approaching day, than of the destruction of Sodom, on that clear morning in which Lot fled away; or of the deluge, when Noah enI

tered

tered into the ark then, in that hour of unapprehensive security, then suddenly shall the heavens open over the astonished world; then shall the alarming clangor break over thir heads like a clap of thunder in a clear sky.

Immediately the living turn their gazing eyes upon the amazing phenomenon: some hear the long-expected sound with rapture, and lift up their heads with joy, assured that the day of their redemption is come; while the thoughtless world are struck with the wildest horror and consternation. In the same instant the sound reaches all the mansions of the dead; and in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, they are raised, and the living are changed. This call will be as animating to all the sons of men, as that call to a single person, "Lazarus, come forth." O what a surprise will this be to the thoughtless world! Should this alarm burst over our heads this moment, into what a terror would it strike many in this assembly? Such will be the terror, such the consternation, when it actually comes to pass. Sinners will be the same timorous, selfcondemned creatures then as they are now. And then they will not be able to stop their ears, who are deaf to all the gentler calls of the gospel now.

Then the trump of God will constrain them to hear and fear, to whom the ministers of Christ now preach in vain. Then they must all hear; for, "all that are in their graves," all without exception, “shall hear his voice." Now the voice of mercy calls, reason pleads, conscience warns; but multitudes will not hear. But this is a voice which shall, which must reach every one of the millions of mankind, and not one of them will be able to stop his ears. Infants and giants, kings and subjects, all ranks, all ages of mankind, shall hear the call. The living shall start and be changed, and the dead rise at the sound. The dust that was once alive and formed a human body, whether it flies in the air, floats in the ocean, or vegetates on earth, shall hear the new-creating fiat. Wherever the fragments of the human frame are scattered, this all-penetrating call

shall

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