one penny.[108] Nor have I ever heard of the verdict of an American {176} coroner's inquest, announcing in their verdict the death of a prisoner for want of food.[109] Debtors are not obliged here, to sleep edgeways, for want of the breadth of their backs on a prison floor.[110] Nor has any poor boy been imprisoned for a month in Bridewell for selling religious tracts without a hawker's license.[111] The equality that consists in universal suffrage; the absence of privileged orders, and unrestrained industry, is the enviable felicity of the American nation. The people are, themselves, the lords of the soil, and acknowledge no superiors who can dictate to them in the election of other representatives than those of the community. There are no boroughs where the members monopolize the business of the place, or who chase away the stranger as if he were an enemy; or who can exact town taxes contrary to the will of their fellow citizens. Public accounts are not kept from public inspection. There is no separate borough representation to be hired over, or owned by the partisans of a ministry. The clergy are here exalted to the dignity of citizens, whose interests are identified with those of the people. Their condition, relatively to that of their adhe-*
