the influence of the Bank of England, be put on a level with those of which such jealousy is, justly or unjustly, entertained?  We receive no benefit from that immense establishment, which, like a great oak, overshadows England from Tweed to Cornwall.  Why should our national plantations be cut down or cramped for the sake of what affords us neither shade nor shelter, and which, besides, can take no advantage by the injury done to us?  Why should we be subjected to a monopoly from which we derive no national benefit?

I have only to add that Scotland has not felt the slightest inconvenience from the want of specie, nay, that it has never been in request among them.  A tradesman will take a guinea more unwillingly than a note of the same value—­to the peasant the coin is unknown.  No one ever wishes for specie save when upon a journey to England.  In occasional runs upon particular houses, the notes of other Banking Companies have always been the value asked for—­no holder of these notes ever demanded specie.  The credit of one establishment might be doubted for the time—­that of the general system was never brought into question.  Even avarice, the most suspicious of passions, has in no instance I ever heard of, desired to compose her hoards by an accumulation of the precious metals.  The confidence in the credit of our ordinary medium has not been doubted even in the dreams of the most irritable and jealous of human passions.

All these considerations are so obvious that a statesman so acute as Mr. Robinson must have taken them in at the first glance, and must at the same time have deemed them of no weight, compared with the necessary conformity between the laws of the two kingdoms.  I must, therefore, speak to the justice of this point of uniformity.

Sir, my respected ancestor, Sir Mungo, when he had the distinguished honour to be whipping, or rather whipped boy, to his Majesty King James the Sixth of gracious memory, was always, in virtue of his office, scourged when the king deserved flogging; and the same equitable rule seems to distinguish the conduct of Government towards Scotland, as one of the three United Kingdoms.  If Pat is guilty of peculation, Sister Peg loses her Boards of Revenue—­if John Bull’s cashiers mismanage his money-matters, those who have conducted Sister Margaret’s to their own great honour, and her no less advantage, must be deprived of the power of serving her in future; at least that power must be greatly restricted and limited.

     ‘Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi.’

That is to say, if our superiors of England and Ireland eat sour grapes, the Scottish teeth must be set on edge as well as their own.  An uniformity in benefits may be well—­an uniformity in penal measures, towards the innocent and the guilty, in prohibitory regulations, whether necessary or not, seems harsh law, and worse justice.