ber to the amount of £.50,000, of which the correspondent dividends or profits do not return into the public Exchequer ; but are, with a most liberal spirit, directed to be applied to the further improvement of the country, in the making of roads and bridges in the Highlands of Scotland. The total expences of this great undertaking, amount to above £.300,000 Sterling; a sum which, large as it is, bears no proportion to the certain and permanent benefits which the national commerce must derive from it.. A first successful experiment is of infinite consequence in promoting the spirit of improvement. Various other plans of inland navigation, upon a smaller scale, but of great benefit, both local and general, have been carried into execution of late years in Scotland; and even at the present time, when an unexampled expenditure has been necessary for the support of the most eventful contest in which Britain ever was engaged, the Caledonian Canal, carried on at the charges. of the State, and at a probable expence of not much less than half a million, is an illustrious proof, both of the extent of the national resources, and of that patriotic energy which directs the employment of the public revenue in executing plans which tend ultimately to the improvement and increase of those resources, and strengthen the basis of the national prosperity.. CHAP. III. Other undertakings of the samekind. Int L BOOK III. Lord Kames publishes Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session. 66 66 66 In the year 1766, Lord Kames published, in a folio volume, Remarkable Decisions of the Court of Session, from 1730 to 1752. The Reports contained in this volume relate to those more remarkable causes which had occurred in the course of his own practice while at the Bar. "This compilation," (he observes in his Preface), "is the performance of an Advo"cate, who, having been employed as counsel in every one "of the cases contained in the Collection, had the fairest opportunity of being well acquainted with the res gesta. "To vouch the accuracy of the facts, the session-papers are appealed to, which are deposited in the Advocates Library And as to the arguments, which were borrowed "from the Bench not less frequently than from the Bar, every reader will judge for himself, whether they be properly adapted to the facts stated." The volume contains 130 cases, in all of which the ratio decidendi is some important principle of law, and of which, consequently, the decision may be of use as a precedent in similar questions, When it is considered how small a proportion such cases bear to the ordinary questions in a court of law, we may hence form some estimate of the extensive employment of the barrister whose practice could afford such a selection. These Reports afford the strongest evidence of the great ability and legal knowledge of their compiler; but it has been remarked, and with justice, that the patria manus is very observable, and that the author's own argument is generally stated with greater amplitude, and is more strenuously en 66 forced forced than that which opposes his side of the question. Allowing for this very natural bias, the composition is useful in practice, and affords a model of clear and perspicuous brevity of statement, which touches only the important points of a cause, and rejects all that is superfluous in the detail or argument. The attention of the public was at this time deeply engaged with those unfortunate differences between Great Britain and her American Colonies, which terminated in the final separation of the latter from the mother-country. The opinion of Lord Kames on the abstract question which was the ground of those differences, "Whether Great Britain "had a right to tax the Colonies, by an act of her legisla❝tive body, in which they had no representatives,” is known from what he has written on that topic, in the second section of his Sketch on the subject of Finances. He there combats the doctrine delivered by Mr Locke, in his Essay on Government, "That the legislative power of the State can “impose no tax, without the consent of the majority of the "people, expressed either by themselves or by their represen"tatives;" and after shewing, that the number of those in Great Britain actually represented, by having a vote in the choice of the Members of Parliament, does not amount to a hundredth part of the community, he places the right of taxation on the solid basis which Locke himself has suggest ed, ed, though he has inadvertently laid no weight on it, namely, That every one who enjoys his share of protection, should pay, proportionally to his estate, for the support of that Government which protects him. Such being his opinion on the abstract question, he applies it, in the following words, to the case of the Colonies: 66 Many writers, misled by the respectable authority of "Locke, boldly maintain, that a British Parliament cannot legally tax the American Colonies, who are not represent“ed in Parliament. This proposition, which has drawn the “attention of the public of late years, has led me to be 966 66 more explicit on the power of imposing taxes, than other"wise would be necessary. Those who favour the indepen"dence of our colonies urge, "That a man ought to have "the disposal of what he acquires by honest industry, subject to no controul: whence the necessity of a Parliament "for imposing taxes, where every individual is either personally present, or by a representative of his own election. "The aid accordingly given to a British Sovereign, is not a “tribute, but a free and voluntary gift." What is said 66 above, will bring the dispute within a narrow compass. "If our colonists be British subjects, which hitherto has not "been controverted, they are subjected to the British Legis"lature in every article of government; and as from the beginning they have been protected by Britain, they 66 66 66 66 ought, like other. subjects, to pay for that, protection "There never was a time less favourable to their claim of "freedom from taxes, than the close of the late war with "France. Had not Britain seasonably interposed, they "would have been swallowed up by France, and become "slaves to despotism.If a legal power to impose taxes "without consent of the people, did necessarily imply a legal power to impose taxes at pleasure, and without limi"tation, Locke's argument would be invincible, in a free country at least. A power to impose taxes at pleasure, "would indeed be an invasion of the fundamental law of property; because, under pretext of taxing, it would subject every man's property to the arbitrary will of the Sovereign. But the argument has no weight where the Sovereign's power is limited. The reciprocal duties between "Sovereign and subject imply, that the people ought to “ contribute what suns are necessary for the support of government, and that the Sovereign ought not to demand niore. It is true, that there is no regular check against "him, when he transgresses his duty in this particular: but "there is an effectual check in the nature of every go"vernment that is not legally despotic, viz. a general concert among all ranks, to vindicate their liberty against a course of violence and oppression; and multiplied acts of VOL. II. 66 66 66 66 ،، K ، that CHAP. III. * See Dr Tucker's notions on this subject, in his letter to Lord Kames, dated 16th June 1782, in No. 1. of the Appendix to this Volume. |