Is this true? If it
be, it is surely among such rebellious children that examples for
disobedience should be made, to be in any degree instructive: for who
ever thought of teaching parents their duty by an example from the
punishment of an undutiful son? As well might the execution of a
fugitive negro in the plantations be considered as a lesson to teach
masters humanity to their slaves. Such executions may, indeed, satiate
our revenge; they may harden our hearts, and puff us up with pride and
arrogance. Alas! this is not instruction.
If anything can be drawn from such examples by a parity of the case, it
is to show how deep their crime and how heavy their punishment will be,
who shall at any time dare to resist a distant power actually disposing
of their property without their voice or consent to the disposition, and
overturning their franchises without charge or hearing. God forbid that
England should ever read this lesson written in the blood of _any_ of
her offspring!
War is at present carried on between the king's natural and foreign
troops, on one side, and the English in America, on the other, upon the
usual footing of other wars; and accordingly an exchange of prisoners
has been regularly made from the beginning. If, notwithstanding this
hitherto equal procedure, upon some prospect of ending the war with
success (which, however, may be delusive) administration prepares to act
against those as _traitors_ who remain in their hands at the end of the
troubles, in my opinion we shall exhibit to the world as indecent a
piece of injustice as ever civil fury has produced.
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