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Show [ 30 l of man. [ 3I ] The faét is f0; and thefe people of the Southern Colonies are much more itrongly, and with an higher and more {lubborn l‘pirit, attached to liberty than thofe to the Northward. Such were all the ancient common wealths ; fuch were our Gothick anceflors; fuch in our days were the Poles; and fuch will be all mailers of flaves, who are not flaves themfelves. In fuch a people the haughtinefs of domination combines with the lpirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible. He flaws, that all the people in his go- vernment are lawyers, or fmatterers in law; and that in Bolton they have been enabled, by fuccefsful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of one of your capital penal conftitutions. The fmartnefs of debate will lay, that this knowledge ought to teach them more clearly the rights of legiflature, their obligations to obedience, and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But my * honourable and learned friend on the floor, who condefcends to mark Permit me, Sir, to add another circumflance in our Colonies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect of this un- traétable fpirit. table. I mean their education. In no country perhaps in the world is the law {0 gene- what I fay for animadverfion, will difdain that "ground. He has heard as well as I, that when great honours and great emoluments do not Win over this knowledge to the lervice of the Rate, it is a formidable adverfary to government. If the fpirit be not tamed and broken by thefe ral a fludy. The profefiion itfelf is numerous and powerful; and in mof'r provinces it takes the 112mm: fludia 2'72 mom. lead. The greater number of the Deputies fent to the Congrel‘s were Lawyers. But all who read, acute, inquifitive, dextrous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of relources. In other and molt do read, endeavour to obtain fome finattering in that feience. I have been told by an eminent Bookfeller, that in no branch of his bufinefs, after tracts of popular devotion, were {0 many books as thofe on the Law exported to the Plantations. The Coloriitts have now fallen into the way of printing them for their own ule. Ihear that they have fold nearly as many of Blackftone's Commentaries in America as in England. General Gage marks out this difpofition very particularly in a letter on your table. happy methods, it is fiubborn and litigious. This fiudy renders men countries, the people, more fimple and of a lefs mercurial call, judge of an ill principle in government only by an aflual grievance; here they anticipare the evil, and judge of the preflure of the grievance by the bad‘nels of the principle. They augur nlllgOV'Cl‘nll'1611t at a dillance; and fiiufi" the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze. The laf't caufe of this difobedient fpirit in'the Colonies is hardly lefs powerful than the refi, as * The Attorney General. It |
