There are many small apartments on the area, well worthy the notice of a stranger. Those termed the courts of King's Bench and Equity are the most remarkable of the several courts. The court of Equity is a very small apartment, nearly circular, in allusion to the circle, I suppose, the most perfect of figures though a person, whose case had been in Equity five and twenty years, might sup. pose the allusion to point to time, as the circle has no end, All these courts of law are so exceedingly circumscribed, you might imagine they were calculated only for the lawyers. The entrance to them is through a spacious hall, but the distance is so great, the suitors are frequently lost before they can find them so, this spacious hall, though built for the public service, is chiefly devoted to the entertain. ment of a few lawyers. It is a pity these courts cannot be rendered more commodious and easy of access; but there is very little prospect of this; for the bare proposition would resound a Nolumus mutare through the country.

I shall speak more distinctly in my next letter.

Adieu.

LETTER XXII.

LONDON, APRIL 4th.

THE conclusion of my last letter has given

occasion to the present.

Human laws, however well adapted to a people's circumstances, however ably defined or mildly executed, are of unequal operation. There is, in all societies, a certain number of characters, who hang so loosely on the social compact, that they may be considered privileged persons, and paramount the law: while a certain other portion, though seemingly born for the operation of law on themselves, yet contrive, through life, to slip the noose of justice. These two descriptions are little affected, whether the laws operate kindly, or with the greatest severity. However, the number of these people will scarcely be troublesome under a polity, where all the members have it in their power, by industry, to live in decent respectability. Our own country is an illustrious proof of this: the conveniences of life are there procured with such facility, and the government fashioned so easy to the shoulders of its citizens, that the most abandoned European rogues

find it their interest, on their arrival, to become honest. But the burden of law forever bears hardest on that class of men, who in most countries are the majority, I mean those who have sufficient honesty to keep within the limits of law, yet not sufficient property to feel perfectly easy under its authority. Hence, the daring observation of Beccaria will be found practically true, that, "The generality of laws are exclusive privileges, the tribute of all to the advantage of a few."

Now, if the association of the rich and poor for the support of law, be a very unequal association; and if the poor suffer the chief burden of that establishment, which protects the rich; and if law will, from necessity, even in a government founded on the broad basis of political equality, that is, on public utility, operate in this manner, the man, who, confiding in the protection of law, which has received its sanction from the highest human authority, experiences. from whatever cause, its inefficacy, and finds himself ruined, though the law, in its sarcastic mockery, may give him a verdict, must feel his moral sense weakened, and feel disposed, in the moment of indignation, to make reprisal.

These observations are necessary, in order to convince you, I am serious in what I shall advance in the present letter: though I cannot reasonably expect one word of it will be believed.

It was the policy of Alfred, says history, to bring justice home to every man's door. Now this is either an ornamental story in the annals of that age, or madam Justice has for many years been too proud to enter the door of a cottage.

It is the boast of the English, that they live under equal laws, and that the meanest man in the kingdom, in the eye of the law, ranks with the greatest. Though this were a vain boast, it bespeaks a people not entirely uninfluenced by noble sentiments. But it has unfortunately happened to other people beside the Romans, to appeal to laws engraven on twelve tables, but which, in process of time, attract the notice of the lawyer less, than that of the antiquary. A modern Roman may dig up a broken piece of an old column, which shall contain the whole spirit of Roman liberty, and on this authority, assert himself a freeman. So may an Englishman produce from his dusty archives Magna Charta, and quote you the proud passage, "Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus, justitiam vel rectum," and I will send him to the court of King's Bench or Common Pleas to recover the sum of £10. A form of government, or a code of laws may command our admiration, but unless they operate in practice, they serve only to betray the weak more easily to the wary. The operation of the laws is law, not their theory.

A legitimate government, that is, a government founded on public will, should make it a first concern that the laws of property* should set as easy as possible on the shoulders of poverty. The greatest praise, which a code of laws can receive, is the high estimation in which it is holden by the poor: but if their operation be oppressive, they naturally transfer their hatred from the abuses to the laws themselves. Hence, the embrio of revolution. It is unfortunate, that in all governments, destitute of a regenerative principle, the first abuse merges in the second, and the last, in the succeeding one, so that at length, accumulated abuses lay claim to prescription and outbrave the law itself! Otherwise it never could have happened that in England, famous throughout the world for just judges and well defined law, a poor man whom injury has overwhelmed, is necessitated to fly from remedy, lest the justice of his country should double his distress. Indeed, I caught the following observation from Lord Chancellor Eldon,† while on his seat in chancery, "That a man who trusts to his neighbour's honesty, without taking any security, in many instances, stands a better chance of obtaining justice, than if he brings his case into chancery on the

Criminal law, however severe, in all countries, operates more equally than the laws which regulate private property.