of the outrage, there was no evidence that all the Bostonians were concerned. Why then should they be ALL implicated in the punishment? Time should be allowed for finding out the guilty, instead of hurrying the bill through Parliament. The law was inexpedient, as our own trade must suffer, and not only by preclusion from Boston; but that other colonies were equally inimical to the tea duty as Massachuset, and had discontinued, or at least diminished, their trade with Britain. In answer to that part which denied the justice of punishing a whole city for the act of certain inhabitants, Lord North alledged the analogy of the law of England, which ordained that a whole district should indemnify a person robbed within its precincts, because its police, if vigilant and active, might have prevented the crime. He adduced also the case of the city of Edinburgh, the whole inhabitants of which had been fined for. the riot of a part, in the case of Porteus. * Burke

*As some readers may not recollect this case, although very noted, I shall mention it in a few words. A riat

shewed the diversity of the cases of Boston and Edinburgh.

From his speeches the following statement of difference was drawn, and transcribed into the periodical publications of the time.

PROCEEDINGS AGAINST

EDINBURGH.

Begun the 10th of February, 1737, and ended June 21st, having continued four months.

The Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh, the Judges of Scotland, and many other witnesses, examined at the bar of the House.

Counsel and evidence for the Magistrates and City fully heard at the bar.

BOSTON.

Begun the 14th, and ended the 31st of March, 1774, being in all seventeen days.

Witnesses examined by the Privy Council, and their evidence suppressed.

The Agent refused a hearing at the bar.

having taken place in Edinburgh, in 1736, at the execution of a smuggler, the military were called in. Porteus, their Captain, ordered them to fire before the hour was expired. Some persons were killed. Porteus was tried and condemned for murder, but pardoned. A mob, incensed at this pardon, seized Porteus, and hanged him.

April 19, 1774, a motion was made by Mr. Rose Fuller, for repealing the tea duty. In support of this proposition, Burke made a speech more celebrated than any he had

yet spoken. This speech is generally known by the title of Burke's Speech on American Taxation. He deduced the history of the American colonies, and the policy of this country from their first settlement to the commencement of the present reign. He demonstrated the advantages accruing to this country from the old system of policy, and shewed that the measures of this King's Ministers were a deviation from that system; a deviation injurious both to Britain and the colonies. He divided our policy into four parts, comprehending four periods antecedent to Lord North's administration: first, during former. reigns, when Britain pursued trade and forgot revenue; when the only restraint imposed on America was the Navigation Act. He winds up a most exact and masterly account of the first period in the following words:

'All this was done by England, whilst England pursued trade, and forgot revenue. You not only acquired commerce, but you actually created the very objects of trade in America; and by that creation you raised

the trade of this kingdom at least four fold. America had the compensation of your capital, which made her bear her servitude. She had, except the commercial restraint, every characteristic mark of a free people in all her internal concerns. She had the image of the British Constitution. She had the substance-she was taxed by her own. representatives. This whole state of commercial servitude and civil liberty, taken together, is certainly not perfect freedom; but, comparing it with the ordinary circumstances of human nature, it was an happy and a liberal condition.'

The second period is that from the first idea of a revenue from America to the Stamp Act. A new scheme of government was adopted (by court favouritism); a necessity was declared of keeping up no less than twenty new regiments, with twenty colonels capable of seats in the house. Country gentlemen, the great patrons of economy and the great resisters of a standing armed force, would not have voted for so large and