ity and humanity,
however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the
state of man, and the system of things. That the innocent should be
confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil
which no care or caution can prevent. National crimes require national
punishments, of which many must necessarily have their part, who have
not incurred them by personal guilt. If rebels should fortify a town,
the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the harmless
burghers and the criminal garrison.

In some cases, those suffer most who are least intended to be hurt. If
the French, in the late war, had taken an English city, and permitted
the natives to keep their dwellings, how could it have been recovered,
but by the slaughter of our friends? A bomb might as well destroy an
Englishman as a Frenchman; and, by famine, we know that the inhabitants
would be the first that should perish.

This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but
cannot be blamed. The power of lawful government must be maintained; and
the miseries which rebellion produces, can be charged only on the
rebels.

That man, likewise, is not a patriot, who denies his governours their
due praise, and who conceals from the people the benefits which they
receive. Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious
appellation, who impute want of publick spirit to the late parliament;
an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuation of counsel,
and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with
gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession, in
the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve
the constitution, in the new judicature instituted for the trial of
elections.

The right of protection, which might be necessary, when it was first
claimed, and was very consistent with that liberality of immunities, in
which the feudal constitution delighted, was, by its nature, liable to
abuse, and had, in reality, been sometimes misapplied to the evasion of
the law, and the defeat of justice. The evil was, perhaps, not adequate
to the clamour; nor is it very certain, that the possible good of this
privilege was not more than equal to the possible evil. It is, however,
plain, that, whether they gave any thing or not to the publick, they, at
least, lost something from themselves. They divested their dignity of a
very splendid distincti