* * * * *

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.


* * * * *



STATE PROSECUTIONS.


The Englishman who, however well inclined to defer to the wisdom "of
former ages," should throw a glance at the stern realities of the
past, as connected with the history of his country, will be little
disposed to yield an implicit assent to the opinions or assertions of
those, who maintain the superiority of the past, to the disparagement
and depreciation of the present times. Maxims and sayings of this
tendency have undoubtedly prevailed from periods of remote antiquity.
The wise monarch of the Jewish nation even forbade his people to ask
"the cause that the former days were better than these;" "for," he
adds, "thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this." Far different
would be the modern precept of a British monarch. Rather let the
English subject "enquire _diligently_ concerning this," for he cannot
fail to enquire wisely. Let him enquire, and he will find that "the
former days" of England were days of discord, tyranny, and oppression;
days when an Empson and a Dudley could harass the honest and
well-disposed, through the medium of the process of the odious
star-chamber; when the crown was possessed of almost arbitrary power,