lion apply? Remember, you are told every day, that the present is a
contest between the two countries, and that we in England are at war for
_our own_ dignity against our rebellious children. Is this true? If it
be, it is surely among such rebellious children that examples for
disobedience should be made, to be in any degree instructive: for who
ever thought of teaching parents their duty by an example from the
punishment of an undutiful son? As well might the execution of a
fugitive negro in the plantations be considered as a lesson to teach
masters humanity to their slaves. Such executions may, indeed, satiate
our revenge; they may harden our hearts, and puff us up with pride and
arrogance. Alas! this is not instruction.

If anything can be drawn from such examples by a parity of the case, it
is to show how deep their crime and how heavy their punishment will be,
who shall at any time dare to resist a distant power actually disposing
of their property without their voice or consent to the disposition, and
overturning their franchises without charge or hearing. God forbid that
England should ever read this lesson written in the blood of _any_ of
her offspring!

War is at present carried on between the king's natural and foreign
troops, on one side, and the English in America, on the other, upon the
usual footing of other wars; and accordingly an exchange of prisoners
has been regularly made from the beginning. If, notwithstanding this
hitherto equal procedure, upon some prospect of ending the war with
success (which, however, may be delusive) administration prepares to act
against those as _traitors_ who remain in their hands at the end of the
troubles, in my opinion we shall exhibit to the world as indecent a
piece of injustice as ever civil fury has produced. If the prisoners who
have been exchanged have not by that exchange been _virtually pardoned_,
the cartel (whether avowed or understood) is a cruel fraud; for you have
received the life of a man, and you ought to return a life for it, or
there is no parity or fairness in the transaction.

If, on the other hand, we admit that they who are actually exchanged
are pardoned, but contend that you may justly reserve for vengeance
those who remain unexchanged, then this unpleasant and unhandsome
consequence will follow: that you judge of the delinquency of men merely
by the time of their guilt, and not by the heinousness of it; and you
make fortune and accidents, and n