or depraved, to find opportunities of rectifying his notions, and regulating his conduct by new lights. But much greater is the happiness of that man, to whom every day brings a new proof of the reasonableness of his former determinations, and who finds, by the moft unerring tests, that his life has been spent in promoting doctrines beneficial to mankind. This, Sir, is the happiness which I now enjoy, and for which those who never shall attain it, muft look for an equivalent in lucrative employments, honorary titles, pompous equipages, and fplendid palaces. Thefe, Sir, are the advantages which are to be gained by a seasonable variation of principles, and by a ready compliance with the prevailing fashion of opinions; advantages, indeed, which I cannot envy when they are purchased at so high a price, but of which age and observation has too frequently fhewn me the unbounded influence; and to which I cannot deny, that I have afcribed the inftability of conduct and inconfiftency of affertions, which I have difcovered in many men, whofe abilities I have no reason to depreciate, and of whom I cannot believe they would eafily diftinguish truth, were not falfhood recommended to them by the glittering ornaments of wealth and power. If there are in this new Parliament any men devoted to their private intereft, and who prefer the gratification of their paffions, to the fafety and happiness of their country; who can riot without remorfe in the plunder of their Constituents; who can forget the anguifh of guilt in the noise of a feast, the pomp of a drawing room, or the arms of a ftrumpet, and think expenfive wickedness, and the gaieties of folly, equivalent to the fair fame of fidelity, and the peace of virtue, to them I shall speak to no purpose: for I am far from imagining any language in my power can gain thofe to truth, who have refigned their hearts to avarice or ambition, or to prevail upon men to change opinions, which they have indeed never believed, though they are hired to affert them. For there is at degree degree of wickedness, which no reproof or argument can reclaim, as there is a degree of ftupidity which no inftruction can enlighten. If my country, Sir, has been fo unfortunate as once more to commit her intereft to those who propose to themselves no advantage from their truft but that of felling it, I may, perhaps, fall once more under cenfure for declaring my opinion, and be once more treated as a criminal for afferting what they who punish me cannot deny; for maintaining the inconsistency of Hanoverian maxims with the happiness of this kingdom, and for preferving the caution which was fo ftrongly inculcated by the patriots that drew up the act of fettlement, and gave the present Royal Family their title to the Throne. These men, Sir, whose wisdom cannot be disputed, and whose zeal for his Majefty's fervice and family was equal to their knowledge, thought it requifite to provide some security against the prejudices of birth and education. They were far from imagining, that they were calling to the Throne a race of beings exalted above the frailties of humanity, or exempted by any peculiar privileges from error or from gnorance. They knew that every man was habitually, if not naturally fond of his own nation; and that he was inclined to enrich it and defend it at the expence of another, even, perhaps, of that to which he is indebted for much higher degrees of greatness, wealth, and power; for every thing which makes one state of life preferable to another, (and which, therefore, if reason could prevail over prejudice, and every action were regulated by ftrict justice) might claim more regard than that corner of the earth in which he only happened to be born. They knew, Sir, that confidence was not always returned, that we must willingly truft those whom we have longest known, and carefs those with most fondness, whose inclinations we find by experience to correfpond with our own, without regard to particular circumstances which may entitle others to greater regard, or higher degrees of credit, or of kindness. Against Against these prejudices, which their fagacity enabled them to foresee, their integrity incited them to fecure to us, by provifions which every man then thought equitable and wife, because no man was then hired to espouse a contrary opinion. To obviate the difpofition which a foreign race of Princes might have to trust their original subjects, it was enacted, That none of them fhould be capable of any place of truft or profit in these kingdoms. And to hinder our Monarchs from tranfferring the revenues of Great-Britain to Hanover, and enriching it with the commerce of our traders and the labours of our husbandmen; from raifing taxes to augment the splendour of a petty Court, and increasing the garrifons of their mountains, by mifapplying that money which this nation fhould raise for its own defence, it was provided, That the King of GreatBritain should never return to his native dominions, but reside always in this kingdom, without any other care than that of gaining the affections of his British subjects, preserving their rights, and increasing their power. Mr. Shippen, Oct. 14, 1741. ALL that can be faid, Sir, against forfeitures for treason, muft proceed from mistaking or misrepresenting the nature of punishments, and the ends for which they have been introduced into fociety. Punishment is faid to be malum paffionis, quod infligitur ob malum actionis; and therefore, in its own nature, it must be confined to the perfon of the criminal; for whoever pretends to inflict a punishment upon an innocent person, cannot properly be faid to punish: on the contrary, he deserves to be punished, because in so doing he commits a crime, or a malum actionis, and for that reafon ought to have a malum actionis inflicted upon him: however, there are many misfortunes, loffes, and inconveniencies, which innocent men are subjećt to by the nature of things, and may be expofed to by the laws of fociety, for the prefervation and welfare of the fociety. As there are many diseases that defcend from the parent to the child, it is a misfortune for a child to be born of parents afflicted with fuch diseases: it is a misfortune for a child to be born of parents that are poor and indigent; but these misfortunes are not to be called punishments, because they are, by the nature of things, inflicted upon innocent perfons. There are others, as I have faid, which innocent men may be exposed to by the laws of fociety: fuch were the confinements which leprous or unclean perfons were expofed to by the Jewish law; and fuch are thofe confinements which people are fubjected to by our law, who are infected, or under fufpicion of being infected with the plague: fuch, likewife, are the misfortunes which attend children who are born of flaves, in countries where flavery is established: fuch were the incapacities of children born of Plebeians, in the ancient Roman Commonwealth, who could not intermarry with the Patricians, nor be advanced to any of the chief pofts in the Government: and fuch are the misfortunes attending children born in this country of parents who happen to be convicted of High-Treafon; because, by their attainder, they are divefted of every thing that belonged to them; and therefore the children are in the fame ftate, as if they had been born of poor and indigent parents. But none of these misfortunes can be faid to be punishments, nor were ever called fo, by those who understand any thing of the laws of nature or nations. Both the learned Grotius and the learned Puffendorff are clear upon this fubject. The former, in treating of what he calls the communication of punishments, in order to fhow, that an innocent man ought not to be made to fuffer for the crime of the guilty, diftinguishes between that damage or lofs, which a man may fuffer directly, and that which he may fuffer confequentially. A man fuffers directly, he says, when any thing is taken directly from him, which properly belonged to him; and he fuffers confequentially, when he lofes what he has a conditional right to, by the failure of the condition upon which he was to have it and forfeitures he exprefly mentions as a damage or or lofs of this last fort; because children have but a conditional right to their father's eftate, that is, provided the father dies poffeffed of it. For this reason, that learned Gentleman says, that forfeiture is no punishment upon the children, but only a damage which they suffer, not directly, but confequentially, by the crime of the father, which prevented the existing of that condition upon which they were to have had his estate; and after having thus diftinguished, he concludes, that no man who is perfectly innocent can be punished for the crime of any other man. The learned Puffendorff again treats this fubject in the fame manner, and almost in the very fame words. He diftinguishes between a damage suffered directly and confequentially. "The "firft is, fays he, when a man is deprived of that he has al"ready a proper right to; the fecond, when that condition is "intercepted, without which he could not enjoy such a right. "Thus, when the eftate the parents were poffeffed of is for“feited, the children alfo feel the lofs of it: but, however, "this is not a punishment properly, with refpect to the chil"dren, because they cannot come to the inheritance of their "father's eftate, unless the father preferves it for them till he "dies; and therefore the confifcation, or forfeiture, only in"tercepts the condition, without which, the children can have no right to the father's estate." To the opinion of thefe two learned moderns, Sir, I fhall add the opinion of a very famous man among the ancients, I mean Marcus Tullius Cicero; who, in one of his letters to Brutus, approves of the forfeiture of Lepidus, and fays, it was as just to reduce his children to a state of want and mifery, as it was in the Athenians to reduce the children of Themiftocles to that wretched ftate; to which he adds, that this was an ancient and general cuftom in all commonwealths: from whence, I think, I may infer, that the forfeiture of traitors was a law which prevailed among the Romans, long before the eftablishment of their empire: and that this law was established among |