ur fellow-creatures. This indeed is
generally the case of low fellows, who are thrust into the magistracy
without sentiment, education, or capacity.

"Among other instances of your iniquity, there is now in prison an
unhappy woman, infinitely your superior in the advantages of birth,
sense, and education, whom you have, even without provocation, persecuted
to ruin and distraction, after having illegally and inhumanly kidnapped
her only child, and exposed him to a violent death in a foreign land.
Ah, caitiff! if you were to forego all the comforts of life, distribute
your means among the poor, and do the severest penance that ever
priestcraft prescribed for the rest of your days, you could not atone for
the ruin of that hapless family; a family through whose sides you cruelly
and perfidiously stabbed the heart of an innocent young woman, to gratify
the pride and diabolical malice of that wretched lowbred woman, who now
sits at your right hand as the associate of power and presumption. Oh!
if such a despicable reptile shall annoy mankind with impunity, if such a
contemptible miscreant shall have it in his power to do such deeds of
inhumanity and oppression, what avails the law? Where is our admired
constitution, the freedom, the security of the subject, the boasted
humanity of the British nation! Sacred Heaven! if there was no human
institution to take cognisance of such atrocious crimes, I would listen
to the dictates of eternal justice, and, arming myself with the right of
nature, exterminate such villains from the face of the earth!"

These last words he pronounced in such a strain, while his eyes lightened
with indignation, that Gobble and his wife underwent the most violent
agitation; the constable's teeth chattered in his head, the jailor
trembled, and the whole audience was overwhelmed with consternation.

After a short pause, Sir Launcelot proceeded in a milder strain: "Thank
Heaven, the laws of this country have exempted me from the disagreeable
task of such an execution. To them we shall have immediate recourse, in
three separate actions against you for false imprisonment; and any other
person who has been injured by your arbitrary and wicked proceedings, in
me shall find a warm protector, until you shall be expunged from the
commission with disgrace, and have made such retaliation as your
circumstances will allow for the wrongs you have done the community."

In order to complete the mortification and ter