laft century when Kempfer was in Japan, there remained but about fifty Japan Chriftians, who were locked up in prifon for life. These poor people knew no more of the Chriftian religion, than the names only of our Saviour and of the Virgin Mary; and yet so zealous Chriftians were they, as rather to die miferably in jail, than to renounce the name of Chrift, and be fet at liberty. I cannot with fatisfaction conclude this sketch, without congratulating my prefent countrymen of Britain, upon their knowledge of the intimate connection that true religion has with morality. May the importance of that connection, always at heart, excite us to govern every action of our lives by the united principles of morality and religion-what a happy people would we be! DIX APPENDIX. SKETCHES CONCERNING SCOTLAND. SKETCH I. SCOTCH ENTAILS CONSIDERED IN MORAL AND Po LITICAL VIEWS. MAN is by nature a hoarding animal; and to fecure to men what they acquire by honeft industry, the sense of property is made a branch of human nature (a). During the infancy of nations, when artificial wants are unknown, the hoarding appetite makes no figure. The ufe of money produced a great change in the human heart. Money having at command the goods of fortune, introduced inequality of rank, luxury, and artificial wants without end. No bounds are fet to hoarding, where an appetite for artificial wants is indulged: love of money becomes the ruling paffion: it is coveted by many in order to be hoarded; and means are abfurdly converted into an end. The fenfe of property, weak among favages, ripens gradually till it arrives at maturity in polifhed nations. In every ftage of the progress, fome new power is added to property; and now for centuries, men have enjoyed every power over their own goods, that a rational mind () Book 1. fketch 3, can defire (a): they have the free difpofal during life; and even after death by naming an heir. Thefe powers are fufficient for accomplishing every rational purpose they are fufficient for commerce, and they are fufficient for benevolence. But the artificial wants of men are boundless: not content with the full enjoyment of property during life, nor with the profpect of its being enjoyed by a favourite heir, they are anxiously bent to preserve it to themselves for ever. A man who has amaffed a great eftate in land, is miferable at the profpect of being obliged to quit his hold: to footh his difeafed fancy, he makes a deed fecuring it for ever to certain heirs; who muft without end bear his name, and preferve his eftate entire. Death, it is true, must at lalt feparate him from his idol: it is fome confolation, however, that his will governs and gives law to every fubsequent proprietor. How repugnant to the frail ftate of man, are fuch fwoln conceptions! Upon these however are founded entails, which have prevailed in many parts of the world, and unhappily at this day infeft Scotland. Did entails produce no other harm but the gratification of a diftempered appetite for property, they might be endured, though far from deferving approbation: but, like other tranfgreffions of nature and reason, they are productive of much mischief, not only to commerce, but to the very heirs for whofe benefit it is pretended that they are made. Confidering that the law of nature has bestowed on man, every power of property that is neceffary either for commerce or for benevolence, how blind was it in the English legislature to add a moft irrational power, that of making an entail? But men will always be mending; and when a law-giver ventures to tamper with the laws of nature, he hazards much mischief. We have a pregnant inftance above, of an attempt to mend the laws of God, in many abfurd regulations for the poor; and that the law authorifing entails, is another inftance of the fame kind, will be evident from what follows. (4) Hiftorical law tracks, tract 3. The mischievous effects of English entails were foon difcovered they occafioned fuch injuftice and oppreffion, that even the judges ventured to relieve the nations from them, by an artificial form, termed, fine and recovery. And yet though no moderate man would defire more power over his estate than he has by common law, the legiflature of Scotland enabled every land-proprietor to fetter his eftate for ever; to tyrannize over his heirs; and to reduce their property to a fhadow, by prohibiting alienation; and by prohibiting the contracting debt, were it even to redeem the proprietor from death or flavery. Thus many a man, fonder of his eftate than of his wife and children, grudges the use of it to his natural heirs, reducing them to the ftate of mere life-renters. Behold the confequences. A number of noblemen and gentlemen among us, lie in wait for every parcel of land that comes to market. Intent upon aggrandizing their family, or rather their eftate, which is the favourite object, they secure every purchase by an entail; and the fame courfe will be followed, till no land be left to be purchafed. Thus every entailed eftate in Scotland becomes in effect a mortmain, admitting additions with. out end, but abfolutely barring any alienation; and if the legislature interpofe not, the period is not diftant, when all the land in Scotland will be locked up by entails, and withdrawn from commerce. The purpofe of the prefent effay, is to 'fet before our legifature, coolly and impartially, the deftructive effects of a Scotch entail. I am not fo fanguine as to hope, that men, who convert means into an end, and avaricioufly covet land for its own fake, will be prevailed upon to regard, either the intereft of their country or of their pofterity: but I will gladly hope, that the legislature may be roused to give attention to a national object of no flight importance. I begin with effects of a private or domeftic nature, To the poffeffor, an entail is a conftant fource of difcontent, by fubverting that liberty and independence, which all men covet, with respect to their goods as well as their perfons. What can be more vexatious to a proprietor of 215 a great land-eftate, than to be barred from the moft laudable acts, fuitable provifions for example to a wife or children? not to mention numberlefs acts of benevolence, that endear individuals to each other, and make society comfortable. Were he ever fo induftrious, his fields must lie wafte; for what man will lay out his own money upon an eftate that is not his own? A great proportion of the land in Scotland is in such a state, that by laying out a thousand pounds or fo, an intelligent proprietor may add a hundred pounds yearly to his rent-roll. But an entail effectually bars that improvement; it affords the proprietor no credit; and fuppofing him to have the command of money independent of the eftate, he will be ill-fated if he have not means to employ it more profitably for his own intereft. An entail, at the fame time, is no better than a trap for an improvident poffeffor: to avoid altogether the contracting debt, is impracticable; and if a young man be guided more by pleasure than by prudence, which commonly is the cafe of young men, vigilant and rapacious substitute, taking advantage of a forfeiting claufe, turns him out of poffeffion, and delivers him over to want and mifery. a But an entail is productive of confequences ftill more difmal, even with respect to heirs. A young man upon whom the family eftate is entailed, without any power referved to the father, is not commonly obfequious to advice, nor patiently fubmiffive to the fatigues of educa» tion: he abandons himself to pleasure, and indulges his paffions without control. In one word, there is no fituation more fubverfive of morals, than that of a young man, bred up from infancy in the certainty of inheriting an opulent fortune. The condition of the other children, daughters efpecially, is commonly deplorable. The proprietor of a large entailed eftate, leaves at his death children who have acquired a tafte for fumptuous living. The fon drop off one by one, and a number of daughters remain with a fcanty provifion, or perhaps with none at all. A collateral male heir fucceeds, who after a painful search s difcovered in fome remote corner, qualified to procur |