end no less than to discharge a debt of gratitude and equity, I have prefented you and the public with this gleaning, and with which alfo I fhall terminate my letter.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THE SAME.

PUBLICK juftice is administered, I believe, in the Provinces with a very impartial, but in fome cafes a very mysterious hand. In common affairs the accufed is tried, and if not immediately acquitted, he is reconducted to his prifon without knowing when his fentence will be passed, or of what nature it is to be. At the pleasure of the magiftrates he is fummoned to make his fecond appearance, and then receives fentence: after the hearing of which he is carried again to his confinement, from whence he is brought out only on the day it is to be executed: of this he has only a few hours' notice, whether the punishment be capital or otherwife. He is then delivered over as a publick fpectacle, and his offence made known in a fummary way to the people.

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The ftate trials are conducted with great fecrefy,

Crefy. A marked person is picked up, in a manner almost imperceptibly." He is tried, condemned, and executed without the public fufpecting any thing of the matter. If the offender be a perfon of defcent, whose family would be disgraced by an ignominious death, he is brought into a certain apartment in the seats of justice, where he perceives a goblet ftanding on a table; and on one fide of it the figure of a woman called the MAIDEN, larger than life, but of exquifite beauty and proportion: the person whose office it is to attend, gives the criminal the choice of these, either of which is an inevitable fate. If to drink the contents of the goblet be his election, he has no fooner taken the potion than the officer makes him a bow, and informs him he is at full liberty to go where he pleases. Of course he makes the beft of his way home; but the poifon he has swallowed is of fo active a nature, that he takes his death along with him; and has no other confolation than that of yielding up his life amidst his friends. If the other be his choice, he advances to the figure, whofe arms are by fecret fprings extended to receive him; and juft as he has reached the lips of this treacherous MAIDEN, he finds deftruction in her embrace; he is locked fast in her gripe, and feels innumerable lancets striking at his heart and vitals.

An involuntary horror feized me at the relation of this figure; not because I deem on thefe occafions a fudden death fo terrible as the apparatus. and fhame of a publick execution, but as it is abundantly more awful. I likewise regretted that this formidable inftrument of justice fhould be reprefented under the form of a beautiful female. Although it ftruck me afterwards as a pretty clofe fymbol of the unfufpected mifchiefs which are infidiously stored up by that faithlefs part of the fex, who convey, even with their endearments, a dagger into the heart; more pernicious in its effects, though more flow than the lancets of the MAIDEN, or the venom of the GOBLET.

I will embrace this opportunity of offering you à few remarks refpecting the government of Holland, as well as of the provinces that appertain to it; from whence I trust you will acquire a competent general idea of the adminiftration of juftice, of which I have given you the above particular inftance. And it will at the fame time prepare you for fome obfervations on the different attempts that at fundry periods, have been made to alter the form, or totally to fubvert that government and that juftice.

Before the Seven Provinces, which are the objects

of

of our confideration, acceded to the union of Utrecht, they were under the government of their particular States. Although the effential parts of the government are still the fame, there is fome variation in the form. Agreeable to the primitive order established in the Low Countries, the States of each province acknowledged a fovereign; but the union above-mentioned totally abolished monarchy in the Seven Provinces. According to the ancient fyftem, the States were compofed of the three orders following, the clergy, nobility, and the people, represented by the deputies of each town.. But the Calviniftical religion no fooner became predominant, than the ecclefiastical order was excluded from any rank in the States; the power of the nobles was greatly diminished, and the principal fhare of the authority devolved on the people; an arrangement which cut up the kingly power by the root. Presently the government became substantially democratick, retaining, nevertheless, the fhadow of aristocracy. At present the government of the whole Republick is faid to be vested in the States-General, and, under them, the Council of State. 0 1

fecond; of Zealand the third, of Utrecht the fourth, of Friezland the fifth, of Overyffel the fixth, and of Groningen the feventh. All the authors who have written on their polity, agree that they fend as many deputies as they please to the States-General, but the deputies of each Province have but one voice; and each prefides weekly in its turn in order to maintain its refpective equality. The perfon beft qualified is chofen prefident, pro tempore, out of the deputies, as was observed of each province. This affembly, fays Carter, declares war, makes peaces, gives audience to foreign minifters, and nominates ambaffadors to the feveral courts of Europe; but none of these things are done till the deputies have firft confulted the ftates of their different Pro vinces, and received their order.

It must be confeffed, that the neceffity of thus waiting for unanimous confent to every measure, frequently causes an inconvenient delay in the progrefs and conclufion of what calls for dispatch; efpecially as the demur or diffent of any one Province, however inconfiderable, is fufficient to put a stop to the most important affairs; even though the fafety of the whole Republick were depending. If we confider that there are no less than fix and fifty towns in the Seven Provinces, whose fance