deep cancer which is gnawing her own bowels, and make an attempt to
stop the fatal progress of her _poor-rates_. Some system or other must
be proposed in its place--a grinding one it must be, for it is not an
evil to be cured by palliatives. Suppose the English, for uniformity's
sake, insist that Scotland, which is at present free from this foul
and shameful disorder, should nevertheless be included in the severe
_treatment_ which the disease demands, how would the landholders of
Scotland like to undergo the scalpel and cautery, merely because
England requires to be scarified?

Or again;--Supposing England should take a fancy to impart to us her
sanguinary criminal code, which, too cruel to be carried into effect,
gives every wretch that is condemned a chance of one to twelve that he
shall not be executed, and so turns the law into a lottery--would this
be an agreeable boon to North Britain?

Once more;--What if the English ministers should feel disposed to
extend to us their equitable system of process respecting civil debt,
which divides the advantages so admirably betwixt debtor and
creditor--_That_ equal dispensation of justice, which provides that an
imprisoned debtor, if a rogue, may remain in undisturbed possession of
a great landed estate, and enjoy in a jail all the luxuries of
Sardanapalus, while the wretch to whom he owes money is starving; and
that, to balance the matter, a creditor, if cruel, may detain a debtor
in prison for a lifetime, and make, as the established phrase goes,
_dice of his bones_--would this admirable reciprocity of privilege,
indulged alternately to knave and tyrant, please Saunders better than
his own humane action of Cessio, and his equitable process of
Adjudication?

I will not insist further on such topics, for I daresay that these
apparent enormities in principle are, in England where they have
operation, modified and corrected in practice by circumstances unknown
to me; so that, in passing judgment on them, I may myself fall into
the error I deprecate, of judging of foreign laws without being aware
of all the premisses. Neither do I mean that we should struggle with
illiberality against any improvements which can be borrowed from
English principle. I would only desire that such ameliorations were
adopted, not merely because they are English, but because they are
suited to be assimilated with the laws of Scotland, and lead, in
short, _to her evident utility_; and this on the pri