courts of law and equity, any further than the reasons which they expressly give are convincing.--They will judge freely of every point of state doctrine, & reject with disdain a blind submission to the authority of mere names, as being equally ridiculous, as well as dangerous in government and religion.--It may have been, Messirs. Printers, too much the practice of late, for some plantation governors, like Verres either ancient or modern, to oppress and plague the people they were bound to protect, and, perhaps in obedience to "orders that have come from secretaries of state"--These orders truly were to be treated with as profound veneration, without the least enquiry into their nature and tendency, as ever a poor deluded Catholic reverenc'd the decree of Holy Father at Rome.--While such a disposition prevailed, O how orderly were the people, how submissive to government! But when once a statute or the constitution was pleaded, which it was as dangerous for the people to look into, as it would be for an Italian, after the example of the noble Bereans, to search the scriptures, the secretary of state was to be informed that the people were become rebellious; as they said of St. Paul for preaching doctrines opposite to the humour of the Jewish Masters, that he "turned the world upside down"--The whole ministerial cabal was summoned; opinions were called for and taken--and however ludicrous, to say the best of them, those opinions were, if the people did not swallow them down as law & reason, they were told, that the freedom they used with the characters of great men forsooth "would bring dishonor upon them" and standing armies were sent to convince them of the reasonableness of these opinions--I confess that "too great a respect cannot be paid to the honorable part of the profession of the law," but when state-lawyers, attorneys and sollicitors general, & persons advanced to the highest stations in the courts of law, prostitute the honor of the profession, become tools of ministers, and employ their talents for explaining away, if possible the Rights of a kingdom, they are then the proper objects of the odium and indignation of the public.--A very judicious author has observed that "our maladies and dangers have originated chiefly in the errors and misconduct of ministers; who from defect of ability or fidelity, or both, were unequal to the wants of a kingdom: A great genius, infinite knowledge and infinite care, says he, are requisite to form a prime minister; but youth and dissipation, with the trainings of the turf and the gaming table, will now suffice to make a man master of the most difficult trade in the world, without learning it"--Such were the men, under whose Influence Attorneys and Sollicitors General, within these fifty Years past, have held their places, and have even been advanced to the highest Stations in the Courts of Law, without any other recommendation than a servile disposition to prostitute the Law