are an infringement or privation of the civil rights, which belong to individuals, confidered merely as individuals; public wrongs, or crimes and mifdemeanors, are a breach and violation of the public rights and duties due to the whole community, confidered as a community in its focial aggregate capacity. As if I detain a field from another man, to which the law has given him a right, this is a civil injury, and not a crime; for here only the right of an individual is concerned, and it is immaterial to the public, which of us is in poffeffion of the land; but treafon, murder, and robbery are properly ranked among crimes; fince befides the injury done to individuals, they ftrike at the very being of fociety, which cannot poffibly fubfift, where actions of this fort are suffered to escape with impunity.

"In all cafes the crime includes an injury; every public offence is also a private wrong, and fomewhat more; it affects the individual, and it likewife affects the community. Thus treafon in imagining the king's death involves in it confpiracy against an individual, which is alfo a civil injury; but as this fpecies of treafon in its confequences principally tends to the diffolution of government, and the deftruction thereby of the order and peace of

fociety,

fociety, this denominates it a crime of the highest magnitude. Murder is an injury to the life of an individual; but the law of fociety confiders principally the lofs, which the state fuftains by being deprived of a member, and the pernicious example thereby fet for others to do the like."

I take it for granted, that few or none of my readers will be either fo circumftanced or difpofed, as to ftand in need of information or admonition to avoid the more common, grofs, and notorious treafons, felonies, and misdemeanors, which generally make up the black catalogues of our criminal code. As little do we expect to find a man within the circle of our acquaintance ignorant, that rebellion, murder, forgery, and theft are criminal in the eye of the law, as we do to find him difpofed to become guilty of them.

It cannot be denied, but that there are fome lefs confiderate ftatutes ftill remaining in our written code of law, that have rendered certain actions capitally criminal, that in their nature do not appear to carry with them that heinoufnefs of guilt, as to require for atonement the blood, of the delinquent; fuch amongst others are * breaking down the

9 Geo. I. c. xxii.

mounds

Epidemic rage for illumina

tion.

mounds of a fish pond, or cutting down a fruit tree in an orchard, or a fhrub in a pleafure ground. Such actions cannot certainly be committed without fome civil injury being done thereby to our neighour; and the neceffary premonitions against them will be more properly enforced and better received from the pulpit or the bench, than from private lecture. We do not however arrogantly upbraid or question the power of parliament, that once found it expedient to enact these laws, but with Judge Blakiston we hint it with decency to those, whose stations enable them to judge, that this great rigour may be no longer neceffary to prevent the mifchief.

My primary object in making this publication is to fettle and reconcile the minds of

my countrymen to the prefent form of our conftitution and government. I find many of them feized with an epidemic rage for illumination. The malady in its highest paroxifm is of no dangerous tendency, unlefs injudiciously treated; a fair practitioner cannot fail from improving the constitution of his patient by the application of the most fimple of all remedies; but the noxious draughts of the empyric will affuredly render the difeafe irremediable.

Daily experience fhews, that habit familiarizes us to the most dangerous and tremen

dous objects. Difcourfes upon the moft terrific fubjects by frequency lofe all their horror. An artful envelop will convey the moft diffolute sentiment to the chastest heart; and a fentimental difguife will fometimes lodge the very rankeft treafon in a breast of unfullied loyalty. Loud is the cry of duty upon every one, who fees his neighbour expofed to the danger, to found the alarm. Which of you, my countrymen, could look unmoved upon your child, your friend, your love, in the act of tafting a fair tempting fruit, which you knew contained a deadly poison? Cicero faid truly, ea funt animadvertenda peccata maximè, que difficillime præcaventur; thofe crimes are to be the moft loudly cenfured, which are the most difficult to prevent. When therefore I perceive many of my fellow citizens feduced by the falfe reasoning of certain modern publications, first into dif content and contempt of government, then into the most treasonable wifhes for its utter fubverfion, how are we to prevent these fentiments from breaking out into overt acts of rebellion, but by dragging forth from his

* Pro Sexto Rofcio, 40.

traitorous

We eafily fa

miliarize with

the most terrific objects.

the community

of the laws.

traitorous cell of darkness the lurking spirit of feduction? Expofed to the broad day light of the British conftitution, his hideous deformity will overwhelm with horror the very dupes of his artful disguise.

According to the principles already laid down, there can be no greater coercion upon fubjects to obey the laws of their country, than what is impofed by our constitution. Injuries done to As each individual gives his affent to every by the violation law, fo has he an intereft in their obfervance and prefervation. Every fort of condemnation, refiftance, and oppofition to the law, is an injury to thofe, who enacted it; the contempt of magiftrates is an infult to the community, whofe delegates they are; the impeachment of their authority is an arraignment of the power of the people, who gave it; and a difrefpect for the king is the most direct contempt of the people, whofe majesty is collected in his awful perfonage.

Self protecting rights of the community.

The grand protecting principle of our conftitution is, not to permit an injury without a remedy; nor can it be conceived, that the conftitution itself, which is the fource and refervoir of all the laws and rights of the people, fhould leave itself and the community fo unprotected, as to be unable to preserve the collective corporate rights of the whole,