But there are some who lament the state of the poor Bostonians, because they cannot all be supposed to have committed acts of rebellion, yet all are involved in the penalty imposed.  This, they say, is to violate the first rule of justice, by condemning the innocent to suffer with the guilty.

This deserves some notice, as it seems dictated by equity and humanity, however it may raise contempt by the ignorance which it betrays of the state of man, and the system of things.  That the innocent should be confounded with the guilty, is, undoubtedly, an evil; but it is an evil which no care or caution can prevent.  National crimes require national punishments, of which many must necessarily have their part, who have not incurred them by personal guilt.  If rebels should fortify a town, the cannon of lawful authority will endanger, equally, the harmless burghers and the criminal garrison.

In some cases, those suffer most who are least intended to be hurt.  If the French, in the late war, had taken an English city, and permitted the natives to keep their dwellings, how could it have been recovered, but by the slaughter of our friends?  A bomb might as well destroy an Englishman as a Frenchman; and, by famine, we know that the inhabitants would be the first that should perish.

This infliction of promiscuous evil may, therefore, be lamented, but cannot be blamed.  The power of lawful government must be maintained; and the miseries which rebellion produces, can be charged only on the rebels.

That man, likewise, is not a patriot, who denies his governours their due praise, and who conceals from the people the benefits which they receive.  Those, therefore, can lay no claim to this illustrious appellation, who impute want of publick spirit to the late parliament; an assembly of men, whom, notwithstanding some fluctuation of counsel, and some weakness of agency, the nation must always remember with gratitude, since it is indebted to them for a very ample concession, in the resignation of protections, and a wise and honest attempt to improve the constitution, in the new judicature instituted for the trial of elections.

The right of protection, which might be necessary, when it was first claimed, and was very consistent with that liberality of immunities, in which the feudal constitution delighted, was, by its nature, liable to abuse, and had, in reality, been sometimes misapplied to the evasion of the law, and the defeat of justice.  The evil was, perhaps, not adequate to the clamour; nor is it very certain, that the possible good of this privilege was not more than equal to the possible evil.  It is, however, plain, that, whether they gave any thing or not to the publick, they, at least, lost something from themselves.  They divested their dignity of a very splendid distinction, and showed that they were more willing than their predecessors to stand on a level with their fellow-subjects.