Many Of The Smaller Islands Have No Legal Officer Within Them.
I
once asked, If a crime should be committed, by what authority the
offender could be seized?
And was told, that the Laird would exert
his right; a right which he must now usurp, but which surely
necessity must vindicate, and which is therefore yet exercised in
lower degrees, by some of the proprietors, when legal processes
cannot be obtained.
In all greater questions, however, there is now happily an end to
all fear or hope from malice or from favour. The roads are secure
in those places through which, forty years ago, no traveller could
pass without a convoy. All trials of right by the sword are
forgotten, and the mean are in as little danger from the powerful
as in other places. No scheme of policy has, in any country, yet
brought the rich and poor on equal terms into courts of judicature.
Perhaps experience, improving on experience, may in time effect it.
Those who have long enjoyed dignity and power, ought not to lose it
without some equivalent. There was paid to the Chiefs by the
publick, in exchange for their privileges, perhaps a sum greater
than most of them had ever possessed, which excited a thirst for
riches, of which it shewed them the use. When the power of birth
and station ceases, no hope remains but from the prevalence of
money. Power and wealth supply the place of each other. Power
confers the ability of gratifying our desire without the consent of
others.
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