Far be it from any Englishman to thirst for the blood of his fellow-fubjects. Those who most deserve our refentment are unhappily at lefs diftance. The Americans, when the Stamp Act was first propofed, undoubtedly disliked it, as every nation diflikes an impost; but they had no thought of refifting it, till they were encouraged and incited by European intelligence from men whom they thought their friends, but who were friends only to themfelves.

On the criginal contrivers of mischief let an insult, ed nation pour out its vengeance. With whatever defign they have inflamed this pernicious conteft, they are themselves equally deteftable. If they wish fuccefs to the Colonies, they are traitors to this country; if they wish their defeat, they are traitors at once to America and England. To them and them only must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the miseries of war, the forrow of those that shall be ruined, and the blood of those that shall fall.

Since the Americans have made it neceffary to fubdue them, may they be fubdued with the leaft injury poffible to their perfons and their poffeffions! When they are reduced to obedience, may that obedience be fecured by ftricter laws and ftronger obligations!

Nothing can be more noxious to fociety, than that erroneous clemency, which, when a rebellion is fuppreffed, exacts no forfeiture and establishes no fecurities, but leaves the rebels in their former ftate. Who would not try the experiment which promifes advantage without expence ? If rebels once obtain ą victory, their wishes are accomplished; if they are defeated, they fuffer little, perhaps less than their conquerors; however often they play the game, the

chance

chance is always in their favour. In the mean time, they are growing rich by victualling the troops that we have fent against them, and perhaps gain more by the refidence of the army than they lose by the obftruction of their port.

Their charters being now, I fuppofe, legally forfeited, may be modelled as shall appear moft commodious to the mother-country. Thus the privileges, which are found by experience liable to misuse, will be taken away, and those who now bellow as patriots, bluster as foldiers, and domineer as legiflators, will fink into fober merchants and filent planters, peaceably diligent, and fecurely rich.

But there is one writer, and perhaps many who do not write, to whom the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and who startle at the thoughts of England free and America in chains. Children fly from their own fhadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is undoubtedly a dreadful word; but perhaps the mafters of civil wifdom may difcover fome gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be reftrained without them. This conteft may end in the fofter phrafe of English Superiority and American Obedience.

We are told, that the fubjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties: an event, which none but very perfpicacious politicians are able to foresee. If flavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudeft yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

But let us interrupt a while this dream of con

quest,

queft, fettlement, and fupremacy. Let us remem❤ ber that being to contend, according to one orator, with three millions of Whigs, and according to another, with ninety thoufand patriots of Maffachufet's Bay, we may poffibly be checked in our career of reduction. We may be reduced to peace upon equal terms, or driven from the western continent, and for bidden to violate a fecond time the happy borders of the land of liberty. The time is now perhaps at hand, which Sir Thomas Browne predicted between jeft and earnest,

When America fhould no more send out her treasure,

But spend it at home in American pleasure.

If we are allowed upon our defeat to ftipulate conditions, I hope the treaty of Bofton will permit us to import into the confederated Cantons fuch products as they do not raife, and fuch manufactures as they do not make, and cannot buy cheaper from other nations, paying like others the appointed customs; that if an English fhip falutes a fort with four guns, it fhall be answered at least with two; and that if an Englishman be inclined to hold a plantation, he shall only take an oath of allegiance to the reigning powers, and be fuffered, while he lives inoffensively, to retain his own opinion of English rights, unmolested in his confcience by an oath of abjuration,

A

JOURNEY

TO THE

WESTERN ISLANDS

OF

SCOTLAND.

I

HAD defired to vifit the Hebrides, or Western Iflands of Scotland, fo long, that I fcarcely remember how the with was originally excited; and was in the Autumn of the year 1773 induced to undertake the journey, by finding in Mr. Bofwell a companion, whose acuteness would help my enquiry, and whofe gaiety of converfation and civility of manners are fufficient to counteract the inconveniencies of travel, in countries lefs hofpitable than we have paffed.

On the eighteenth of Auguft we left Edinburgh, a city too well known to admit defcription, and directed our course northward, along the eastern coast of Scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only long enough to fhow us how much we loft at feparation.

As we croffed the Frith of Forth, our curiofity was attracted by Inch Keith, a small ifland, which neither of my companions had ever vifited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives folicited their notice. Here, by climbing with fome VOL. VIII. difficulty

P

difficulty over fhattered crags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coafts. Inch Keith is nothing more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of grafs, and very fertile of thistles. A fmall herd of cows grazes annually upon it in the fummer. It seems never to have afforded to man or beaft a permanent habitation.

We found only the ruins of a small fort, not fo injured by time but that it might be easily restored to its former ftate. It feems never to have been intended as a place of ftrength, nor was built to endure a fiege, but merely to afford cover to a few foldiers, who perhaps had the charge of a battery, or were ftationed to give fignals of approaching danger. There is therefore no provifion of water within the walls, though the spring is fo near, that it might have been easily enclofed. One of the stones had this infcription: "Maria Reg. 1564." It has probably been neglected from the time that the whole island had the fame king.

We left this little ifland with our thoughts employed a while on the different appearance that it would have made, if it had been placed at the fame diftance from London, with the fame facility of approach; with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchafed, and with what expenfive induftry they would have been cultivated and adorned.

When we landed, we found our chaife ready, and paffed through Kinghorn, Kirkaldy, and Cowpar, places not unlike the small or ftraggling market-towns in thofe parts of England where commerce and manufactures have not yet produced opulence.

Though