FROM CATO's LETTERS. ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

WITHOUT freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech: which is the right of every man, as far as by it he does not hurt and controul the right of another; and this is the only check which it ought to suffer, the only bounds which it ought to know.

This sacred privilege is so essential to free go­vernment, that the security of property and the freedom of speech always go together; and in those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call any thing else his own. Whoever would overthow the liberty of the nation, must begin by subduing the liberty of speech; a thing terrible to public traitors.

This secret was so well known to the court of King Charles the first, that his wicked ministry procured a proclamation to forbid the people to talk of parliaments, which those traitors had laid aside. To assert the undoubted right of the subject, and defend his majesty's legal prerogative, was called disaffection, and punished as sedition. Nay, people were forbid to talk of religion in their fa­milies: for the priests too had combined to cook up tyranny, and suppress truth and the law. While the late King James, when Duke of York, went avowedly to mass, men were fined, imprisoned, and undone, for saying he was a papist: and that King Charles the second might live more securely a pa­pist, there was an act of parliament made, declar­ing it treason to say that he was one.

That men ought to speak well of their governors, is true, while their governors deserve to be well spoken of; but to do public mischief without hear­ing of it, is only the prerogative and felicity of [Page 4]tyranny; a free people will be shewing they are [...]o, by their freedom of speech.

The administration of government is nothing else but the attendance of the trustees of the peo­ple, upon the interest and affairs of the people. And as it is the part and business of the people, for whose sake alone all public matters are, or ought to be transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the interest, and ought to be the ambition, of all honest magistrates, to have their deeds openly examined, and publicly scanned: only the wicked governors of men dread what is said of them.

Freedom of speech is the great bulwark of liber­ty; they prosper and die together: and it is the terror of traitors and oppressors, and a barrier against them. It produces excellent writers, and encourages men of fine genius. Tacitus tells us, that the Roman commonwealth bred great and nu­merous authors, who wrote with equal boldness and eloquence: but when it was enslaved, those great wits were no more. Tyranny had usurped the place of equality, which is the soul of liberty, and destroyed public courage. The minds of men, terrified by unjust power, degenerated into all the vileness and methods of servitude: abject, syco­phancy and blind submission grew the only means of preferment, and indeed of safety; men durst not open their mouths but to flatter.

Pliny the younger observes, that this dread of tyranny had such effect, that the senate, the great Roman senate, became at last stupid and dumb. Hence, says he, our spirit and genius are stupified, broken and sunk for ever. And in one of his epistles, speaking of the works of his uncle, he makes an apology for eight of them, as not written with the same vigour which was to be found in the rest; for that these eight were written in the reign of Nero, when the spirit of writing was cramped with fear.

[Page 5]I have long thought that the world are very much mistaken in their idea and distinction of li­bels. It has been hitherto generally understood that there are no other libels but those against magis­trates, and those against private men: now to me there seems to be a third sort of libels, full as de­structive as any of the former can possibly be, I mean libels against the people. It was otherwise at Athens and Rome; where, though, particular men, and even great men, were often treated with much freedom and severity, when they deserved it; yet the people, the body of the people, were spoken of with the utmost regard and reverence; the sacred privileges of the people, the inviolable majesty of the people, and the unappealable judg­ment of the people, were phrases common in those wise, great, and free cities. Other modes of speech are since grown fashionable, and popular madness is now almost proverbial; but this madness of theirs, whenever it happens, is derived from external causes. Oppression, they say, will make a wise man mad; and delusion has not less force; but where there are neither oppression nor imposters, the judgment of the people in the business of pro­perty, the preservation of which is the principal business of government, does rarely err. Perhaps they are destitute of grimace, mystery, reserve, and other accomplishments of courtiers; but as these are only masks to conceal the absence of honesty and sense, the people, who possess as they do th [...] substance, have reason to despise such insipid and contemptible shadows.

Machiavel, in the chapter where he proves that a multitude is wiser and more constant than a prince, complains, that the credid which the peo­ple should be in declines daily: For, says he, every man has liberty to speak what he pleases against them, but against a prince no man can talk without a thousand apprehensions and dangers. I have in­deed [Page 6]often wondered, that the inveighing against the interest of the people, and calling their liber­ties in question, as has been, and is commonly done amongst us by old knaves and young fools, has never been made an express crime.

I must own, I know not what treason is, if sap­ping and betraying the liberties of a people be not treason, in the eternal and original nature of things. Let it be remembered for whose sake government is, or could be appointed; then let it be consider­ed who are more to be regarded, the governors, or the governed; they indeed owe one another mu­tual duties; but if there be any transgressions com­mitted, the side that is most obliged, ought doubt­less to bear the most: and yet it is so far otherwise, that almost all over the earth, the people, for one injury that they do their governors, receive ten thousand from them: any, in some countries, it is made death and damnation, not to bear all the oppressions and cruelties which men, made wanton by power, inflict upon those that gave it them.

The truth is; If the people are suffered to keep their own, it is the most th [...]t they desire: but even that is a happiness which in few places falls to their lot; they are frequently robbed by those whom they pay to protect them. I know that it is a ge­neral charge against the people. that they are tur­bulent, restless, fickle, and unruly; than which there can be nothing more untrue, for they are only so, where they are made so. As to their being fickle, it is so false, that, on the contrary, they have almost ever a strong bent to received customs, and as strong a partiality to names and families that they have been used to: and as to their being turbulent, it is as false; since there is scarce and ex­ample in an hundred years of any people's giving governors any uneasiness, till their governors had made them uneasy: nay, for the most part, they bear many evils without returning one, and seldom throw off their burdens so long as they can stand under them.

SOME CAUSES OF ENGLISH MISERY.

NOTWITHSTANDING the improvements, the capital is become an overgrown monster; which, like a dropsical head, will in time leave the body and extremities without nourishment and sup­port, The absurdity will appear in it full force; when we consider, that one sixth part of the natives of this whole extensive kingdom, is crowded with­in the bills of mortality.

What wonder that our villages are depopulated and our farms in want of day labours: The aboli­tion of small farms, is but one cause of the decrease [Page 11]of population. Indeed, the incredible increase of horses and black cattle, to answer the purposes of luxury, requires a prodegious quantity of hay and grass, which are raised and managed without much labour; but a number of hands will always be want­ed for the different branches of agriculter, whe­ther the farms be large or small. The tide of lux­ury has swept all the inhabitants from the open country—the poorest squire, as well as the richest peer, must have his house in town, and make a figure with an extraordinary number of domestics. The plough boys', cow herds, and lower kinds, are debauched and seduced by the appearance and discourse of those coxcombs in livery, when they make their summer excurtions, they desert their dirt and drudgery, and swarm up to London, in hopes of getting into service, where they can live luxuriously, and wear fine cloaths, without being obliged to work; for idleness is natural to man.— Great numbers of those being disappointed in their expectation, become thieves and sharpers.

ON THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS CAPAT. From a Pamphlet entitled. "Peace and Union."

LOUIS CAPET has afforded an excellent to­pick for parliamentary declamation. Let us strip the subject of figures of rhetorick, and no Englishman need be alarmed at the execution of and individual at Paris. Louis Capet was once King of France, and entitled to the honours of that exalted station. The supreme power of the nation declared that France should be a Republic; from that moment Louis Capet lost his titles. He was accused of enormous crimes, confined as a state prisoner, tried by the National Convention, found guilty, condemned, and executed. What [Page 12]is there wonderful in all this? Our revolution, the boast of the present days, pursued the same con­duct as nearly as possible. Our Convention de­clared, that James the Second should be no longer king; it did not chuse to abolish kingship, but dignified William the Third with regal honours. James was stripped of his titles, and became plain James Stuart, and the rebublican William became a sovereign. James was not tried, condemned, and executed, because he saved his life by flight: but the laws against himself and his son, and the proceedings in the years fifteen and forty-five, must convince the most superficial reasoner, that the maxims of the English and French nations, with respect to the dethroning of kings, are ex­actly the same. But some one will say, Louis Capet was unjustly condemned. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, who make this objection, have not given themselves the trouble of examining the records of the trial; and why should I give greater credit to the remaining objector than to the ver­dict of the court? If Louis Capet did when king encourage the invasion of his country, however, we may be inclined to pity the unfortunate man, for the error of his conduct, we have no right to proclaim him innocent in pomt of law. It is, in short, no business of ours; and if all the crowned heads in the continent are taken off, it is no busi­ness of ours. We should be unworthy of the constitution settled at the revolution, and enemies to the Brunswick families now seated on our throne, if we denied to any nation the right of settling, as it pleased, its own internal government. These sentiments do not prevent us from com­miserating the situation of the French refugees. They are entitled to our compassion; and it is but right that we should attend to their distresses, since foreign countries have been put to the ex­pence of maintaining those refugees from our own [Page 13]island, who, for their attachment to an ancient fa­mily, were, by the rigour of the two foreign reigns, subjected to all the penalties exacted from recusant by the present government in France.

ON POLITICAL SUPERSTITION.
[From Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders.]

THERE is another consideration from which we may argue the total extinction of wars, as a necessary consequence of establishing governments on the representative wisdom of the people. We are all sensible that superstition is a blemish of hu­man nature, by no means confined to subjects con­nected with religion. Political superstition is al­most as strong as religious; and it is quite as uni­versally used as an instrument of tyranny. To enumerate the variety of ways in which this in­strument operates on the mind, would be more difficult than to form a general idea of the result of its operations. In monarchies it induces men to spill their blood for a particular family, or for a particu­lar branch of that family who happens to have been born first, or last; or to have been taught to repeat a certain creed, in preference to other creeds. But the effect which I am going chiefly to notice, is that which respects the territorial boundaries of a government. For a man in Portugal of Spain to prefer belonging to one of those nations rather than the other, is as much superstition, as to prefer the house of Braganza to that of Bourbon, or Mary the second of England to her brother. All these subjects of preference stand upon the same footing as the turban and the hat, the cross and the crescent, or, the lily and the rose.

The boundaries of nations have been fixed for the accommodation of the government, without the least regard to the convenience of the people. Kings [Page 14]and ministers, who make a profitable trade of go­verning, are interested in extending the limits of their dominion as far as possible. They have a property in the people, and in the territory that they cover. The country and its inhabitants are to them a farm stocked with sheep. When they call up these sheep to be sheared, they teach them to know their names, to follow their master, and avoid a stranger. By this unaccountable imposition it is, that men are led from one extravagant folly to another,—to adore their king, to boast of their nation, and to wish for conquest,—circumstances equally ridiculous in themselves, and equally in­comp [...]table with that rational estimation of things, which arises from the science of liberty.

The Effects of War on the Poor.
(From Mr. Frend's Pamphlet entitled, "Peace and Union.")

THREE days after the debate on the king's mes­sage, I was walking from my friend's house to the neighbouring town, to inspect the printing of these few sheets, and in my way joined company with two men of the village, who, being employed by the Wool-staplers to let out spinning to the poor, had lately received orders to lower the value of labour. We were talking on this subject, when the exclamations of a groupe of poor women going to market, overhearing our conversation, made an impression on my mind which all the eloquence of the Houses of Lords and Commons cannot efface.— We are to be sconced three pence in the shilling; let others work for me, I'll not. We are to be sconced a fourth part of our labour. What is all this for? I did not dare to tell them what it was for, nor to add insult to misery. What is the be­heading of a monarch to them? What is the navi­gation of the Scheldt to them? What is the free­dom of a great nation to them, but reason for joy? Yet the debating only on these subjects has reached their cottages. They are already sconced three-pence in the shilling. What must be their fate, when we suffer under the most odious scourge of the human race, and the accumulation of taxes takes away half of that daily bread which is scarce suffi­cient at present for their support?

Oh! that I had the warning voice of an ancient Prophet, that I might penetrate into the inmost re­cesses [Page 16]of palaces, and appal the harranguers of se­nates. I would use no other language than that of the poor market-women. I would cry aloud in the ears of the first magistrate: We are sconced three-pence in the shilling, the fourth part of our labour, for what? I would address myself to the deliberat­ing bodies: We are sconced three pence in the shilling, the fourth part of our labour, for what? Is there a man that could stand out against this elo­quence? Yes. Thousands. Three-pence in the shilling for spinning conveys no ideas to them. They know not what a cottage is, they know not how the poor live, how they make up their scanty meal. Perhaps there may be some one in our House of Commons, whose feelings are in union with mine; communicate them to your colleagues, im­press them with the horror attendant on their deli­berations; tell them what the deduction of three-pence in the shilling occasions among the myriads of England, And should any grave courtier, pity­ing the distresses of the poor, be anxious to relieve them, say to him, There is an easy method: let the first magistrate, the peers, the representatives of the people, the rich men of the nation, all who are for war, be sconced one fourth part of their an­nual income to defray the expence of it. Let them be the first sufferers, let the burden fall on them not on the poor. Alas! my poor countrymen how many years calamity awaits you, before a single dish or a glass of wine will be withdrawn from the ta­bles of opulence!

At this moment, perhaps the decree is gone forth for war. Let others talk of glory, let others celebrate the heroes, who are to deluge the world with blood—the words of the poor market-women will still resound in my ears—We are sconced three-pence in the shilling, one fourth of our labour. For what!!!

ON THE EXCELLENCY OF A FREE GO­VERNMENT, AND ITS TENDENCY TO EXALT THE NATURE OF MAN.

EVERY Member of a Free State, having his pro­perty secure, and knowing himself his own go­vernor, possesses a consciousness of dignity in himself, and feels incitements to emulation and improvement, to which the miserable slaves of arbitrary power must be utter strangers. In such a state all the springs of action have room to operate, and the mind is stimu­lated to the noblest exertions. But to be obliged, from our birth, to look up to a creature no better than ourselves, as the master of our fortunes; and to [Page 32]receive his will as our law—What can be more hu­miliating? What elevated ideas can enter a mind in such a situation?—Agreeably to this remark, the subjects of free states have, in all ages, been most di­stinguished for genius and knowledge. Liberty is the soil where the arts and sciences have flourished; and the more free a state has been, the more have the powers of the human mind been drawn forth into action; and the greater number of BRAVE men has it produced. With what lustre do the ancient free states of Greece shine in the annals of the world? How different is that country now, under the Great Turk? The difference between a country inhabited by men, and by brutes, is not greater.

These are reflections which should be constantly present to every mind in this country. As moral liberty is the prime blessing of man in his private ca­pacity, so is civil liberty in his public capacity. There is nothing that requires more to be w [...]hed than power. There is nothing that ought to be opposed with a more determined resolution than its [...]roach­ments. Sleep in a state, as Montesquien says, is always followed by slavery.

The people of this kingdom were once warmed by such sentiments as these. Many a sycophant of power have they sacrificed. Often have they fought and bled in the cause of Liberty. But that time seems to be going. The fair inheritance of liberty left us by our ancestors many of us are not unwilling to resign. An unbounded venality, the inseparable companion of dissipation and extravagance, has poi­soned the springs of public virtue among us: and should any events ever arise that should render the same opposition necessary that took place in the times of King Charles the First, and James the Second, I am afraid all that is valuable to us would be lost.— The terror of the standing army, the danger of the pub­lic funds, and the all-corrupting influence of the treasury, would deaden all zeal, and produce general acquiescence and servility.

ON THE RESPONSIBILITY OF KINGS.
From THE CANDID PHILOSOPHER.

I ONCE thought that in point of morals the ac­tions of all men, however distinguished in rank, stood on the same footing, and were entitled to the same praise or censure. I thought that the morality of a monarch and of a private man, as prescribed by the same divine authority, were exactly the same. But I find the world thinks otherwise. The world thinks, that what is fit and just in a subject is not so in a king; that a king is not bound by those narrow rules that were only intended to bind the vulgar herd; and that a king may commit actions which, though highly criminal in a subject, are not so in him. Owing to these opinions, a political and prac­tical system has been drawn by acute statesmen, and metaphysical lawyers; in which, among other equally judicious principles, they lay it down as a rule, that though in the case of a subject the master is answer­able for the ill conduct of his servants, yet in the case of a sovereign, he is not responsible for the errors and misconduct of his ministers▪ So far from it, they are accountable for his misconduct and errors, if such [Page 37]he could commit, for they say he cannot. They say he is not a FREE AGENT, but a more machine. and as such can do no wrong [therefore can do no right] the reason of this they tell us is, that the king is always supposed to be advised by his ministers, and, there­fore, to imagine he was capable of doing injustice, or was to be made responsible for his actions, would be to destroy his independence. This is paying the king but a very scorbutic compliment. To represent him as a machine, and the mouth-piece of his ministers, is treat­ing him as an idiot, or a puppet moved by wires. And with respect to the independency they want to ascribe to the king, I insist on it they rob him of it entirely, ac­cording to their system; and render him the most ab­ject, pitiful dependent creature imaginable, dependent on the nod, the wink, the command of his servants. They make him a very child in leading strings, unfit to walk himself, but to be led blind-fold wherever his tutors shall be pleased to drag him. Whether this is the case in reality with any king now living, I pre­sume not to say; but it has been the case of multitudes, whom HISTORY has damned to everlasting infamy in her fair and impartial page. If in a point of this delicate nature I may dare to hazard an opinion, I would say, that I think a king (I mean of Utopia not of England) ought to be personally responsible for his misconduct, as much as a private man is for his: that a king ought to be responsible for his misconduct in choosing igno­rant or wicked ministers: That though a king takes the advice of others, yet, as advice does not bind his conduct, he is as much accountable for it as the pri­vate malefactor would be in taking and pursuing the ill advice of his comrades to rob or murder.

FROM THE SAME. ROMAN PATRIOTISM FOUNDED ON INJUSTICE, AND THE RUIN OF MANKIND.

THE patriotism of ancient Rome has been much extolled by modern writers, but I think unjustly. Her patriotism was founded on the most flagrant in­justice and iniquity, and therefore deserved not so much to be called patriotism, as a desire to render Rome the mistress of the universe.

For this purpose she scrupled not committing all manner of tyrannous and wicked acts against the li­berties of mankind. Her feverish fondness for uni­versal empire laid desolate all the known world. The possessions, the habitations, the paintings, the sculp­tures, all the riches of the Romans, were the spoils of plundered nations. Thus they erected to them­selves an empire as unwieldy as it was unjust, on the ruins of their fellow creatures. What then are all their beautiful lectures and pompous declamations on the love of their country? What their laboured ora­tions in praise of LIBERTY? Indisputable proofs indeed of their eloquence; but not of their humanity. If the language of benevolence were to constitute the character, we must allow it is due to these Romans; but if actions are to afertain the right, and to be con­sidered as the criterion of justice, we shall find it a dif­ficult matter to make good their claim, though we were masters of eloquence equal to their own.

A MODEST PLEA FOR AN EQUAL COMMONWEALTH, AGAINST MONARCHY.
Published in the Year 1659.

THOUGH I was never possest with a [...] evil spirit of opposition, or genius of contrad [...]g and snarling at what is present; but rather studied at least a passive, if not an active compliance with the present power; as knowing there was never any power, whose commission was not passed, if not un­der the broad seal of Heaven's approbation, yet at least by the privy-seal of God's permissive providence; which I have always taken as a sufficient warrant for paying the tribute of passive obedience, wheresoever I received the benefit of reciprocal protection: Yet I cann [...] but acknowledge some governments more pure, refined, and less prone to corruption, than others; and certainly, those wherein the supreme magistrate (whether one or more) hath an interest [Page 45]distinct from that of the people, must be most apt to degenerate, and have greatest propensity to tyranny and oppression. Now whether monarchy, that winds up all the strings in the instrument of government to the interest of a single person; that tunes laws, religion, and all things, to an harmony and compliance with the monarch's single will, may not justly be suspected of this strain, I leave at the bar of any considerate man's judgment to be decided.

Certainly, whatever gloss or varnish the courtship or flatteries of princes or their parasites may set upon it, such a government is diametrically opposite to, and inconsistent with, the true liberty and happiness of any people.

I remember to have read a pretty strange passage of one of the French kings, that he was the most religious prince, and greatest tyrant that ever wore the crown of France. I was (I confess) some time startled at the strangeness of the character; but our late experience of one, might wear the same livery, makes me able not only to digest the wonder, but also to give credence to this general aphorism, that whatever may be the qualifications of any prince in reference to the personal endowments of his mind, the title of good was never justly attributed to any king, in reference to his office, except comparatively: And therefore, in my apprehension, elective king­doms have small advantage of hereditary, by reason the unhappiness of such governments seems not so much to spring from the nature of the person admi­nistering, as of the office and dignity, which ever lays an iron yoke of slavery and oppression on the peoples' necks: So that, considering the vast expence of blood and treasure with which the competition of the office and dignity is usually managed by the scarlet candidates of crowns and sceptres, an here­ditary monarchy may seem eligible, as the lesser evil; especially, if by some fundamental constitution, like the Salique law of France, the absurd (though not [Page 46]unusual) pretensions of women and children might be cut off: For to hang the keys of the power civil and ecclesiastic upon apron strings, and to put the sceptre into a hand sitter to were a distaff, is to invert the order both of God and nature, and to set a nation with its heels upwards. And yet I know it is the opinion of some, that women and children are fittest to make princes, as being of a more passive spirit; and therefore likeliest to steer by the ad [...]ice of wise council: by reason they repose less stress and con­fidence in their own prudence than men; in autho­rity of which, the happy and prosperous reign of Queen Elizabeth is usually alledg'd; but whether without wrong to the more than masculine vigour of her spirit, and matchless quickness of parts, whereby she was, to a wonder, qualified for government, and reported rather to out-strip than come short of the more noble sex, I leave others to judge. But should we grant this assertion to have the countenance of reason, and that experience had also set to it its seal of confirmation; it is so far from being of any ad­vantage to monarchy, by warding off the blow usually given by such as skirmish against it, with their rea­sons sharpened with these inconveniences, that it gives the deepest wound to its reputation that could be desired, by asserting oligarchy, which by the ge­neral consent of all times and ages, hath been ex­ploded as one of the worst of tyrannies, to be the best of monarchies.

I have met with some, that plead much for the single person that should be only the name, without the thing; the office, without the power; the sha­dow or image, without the substance; as if it were impossible for men, that are the masters and proprie­tors of reason, to be knit together into civil society and peace for their own common interest and safety, without erecting either some gaudy thing to humour them, or some scare-crow to fright them into obedi­ence; Nor do I know whose convenience would be [Page 47]herein consulted, except the lawyers, who (if like pack-horses trained up in one road) not able to change their accustomed pace or stile, it be prudence for the nation to hazard a relapse into tyranny, and again expose their lives and liberties to the will and lust of an arbitrary power, to set up a John of Oke, or Will of Stile, with infinite expence of blood and treasure, by reimposing the yoke so lately cast off, that this pack, &c. may not alter the stile and form of their writs, &c. I say wherefore the nation should be so over-indulgent to a corrupt interest of men, rather than to regulate and reform the forms of law, that, through the subtility of this generation, are be­come rather snares than fences of our es [...]ates and properties, falls not within the precincts of my ap­prehension.

Should we now unbowel and trace to its original this name, for which there have of late appeared so many advocates, I presume it would be found of as ill complexion as the word Tyrant was accounted among the Greeks; the English word king, being but the abbreviate of cunning, the usual epithet (as all men know) of knaves; and to speak truth, expe­rience hath made good, though never so great a saint hath sate upon the throne, the devil and a bishop have ever stept into the office: For I am not of that fond opinion, that kings are not capable in their pri­vate capacities of like virtues and qualifications with other men; but that, notwithstanding their accom­plishments, how excellent, how bright, how orient soever are their personal virtues, they stand on slip­pery places, and their dignities, their interests, their parasites, their flatterers, are snares too great for them to retain their integrity, and therefore that the ta­lent of sovereign power is too great, too precious to be intrusted or deposited, in one man's hand, though an angel, left so great a temptation should endanger his fall, and make him apostate to a devil.

That kings are God's scourges, and given in wrath, [Page 48]we have the testimony of scripture. Nimrod was a great hunter, a mighty man, a great oppressor, and the first king or prince we read of; the first that invaded the liberty of the world, that usurped first authority, and presumed to exercise dominion over his brethren; the first that put a period to that golden age, wherein no other than paternal government was known; but though thus nigh the morning of time, God sent his scourge Nimrod as a just plague amongst the other nations of the earth; yet the people of God, the seed of Abraham, the children of Israel, were a long while after free, a free state, and enjoyed their native liberties till the time of Samuel, when they rebelled, and desired a king like the other nations, that they might be like the heathen whom God had cast out before them; which God construed no other than apostacy, and rejecting of him, than rebellion and high treason against his own divine majesty; and said, They have rejected me: And then tells them what would be the issue, fruit, and product thereof.

They should give away their liberty, and be sub­jected to an arbitrary power, and become the slaves and vassals of their king, who should take their sons and their daughters to make them his servants, and send them forth to fight his battles; that is, to be the instruments of his pride and luxury, and the cham­pions of his malice and ambition.

And then he should destroy their property, and take away their houses, and their vineyards, and give them to his servants. Thus the spirit of God gives the same description of a King as of what we call a Tyrant, a Nero, a Monster, as if they were all one, and it were essential to the nature of the office or dignity to be a beast of prey, a l [...]viathan, an oppressor and de­vourer of the people; which character hath been too easy to be read in the lives of most of the best kings, whose names are not taken off the file of memory.

Now as for those that would have a mock, a counterfeit, a limited king, a king and no king, an [Page 49]empty title, a bare name, vox & preterea nihil, or I know not what: they propose a remedy worse than the disease; for to divide the sovereignty, is to say a seene of blood, to sow the seed of a perpetual civil war, and intail ruin on ourselves and posterity: What is divided cannot stand; there will spring up perpetual jealousies, fears and animosities, which will cause intrenchings on each others authority, until the one have supplanted and overturned the other, this is to institute a civil war, anarchy and confusion, instead of a well ordered commonwealth or politic.

Having thus unmasked the true nature of mo­narchy, which is no other than the mere gentle or civil expression of tyranny, I shall endeavour to ob­viate some of the most plausible and strenuous argu­ments, by whose strength and subtility it is endea­voured to be obtruded, and our assents conciliated to the reception thereof.

One of the grand arguments whereby the betrayers of our liberty endeavour to decoy us into the iron yoke, we have so lately shaken of, is taken from our long use and custom to draw therein, which hath rendered slavery a second nature to us, and therefore endeavour to scare us from our liberty as a novel and dangerous thing; as if servitude were more natural to a nation than freedom, or any custom could utterly expunge nature: I am sure the former cannot reflect with the greater disgrace, or more derogate from the honour of our nation, that we should be of so coarse a metal, so base an alloy, of so spaniel-like couchant, slavish, and degenerate a spirit, than the other doth deviate from truth; but the worthy advocates of this cause, measure truth by the wicked standard of their base and corrupt designs, as they take altitude of all other mens spirits, though never so brave and eleva­ted by the Jacob's staff of their own pitiful crouch­ing, fawning humour.

It would waste more ink and paper than I am either willing, or have leisure to bestow, should I shew how much the state of our nation is altered, and into how [Page 50]great an unsuitableness we are of late travelled unto that government, this argument would plead precrip­tion for.

But of what weight or trurh is it of, will easily appear to any that have taken notice of that, passage of our modern history of the last century, which c [...]erns the gallant hero Sir Philip Sidney; who though born in that most unlucky juncture of time for prod [...]cing brave spirits, when the nation tr [...]led under the go­vernment of a woman, was yet thought word [...]y of the Polish crown, and had an overture in order to his election thereto, had not his jealous mistress prevent­ed; if, then, one born, under the inf [...]ences of a female government, and not of the highest rank of nobility, was thought si [...]to sway a scepter, of how great blasphemy against the honour of our nation, may they be thought guilty, who say, the [...]r [...]-born people of England, after they have [...]roke the more ancient Norman yoke, and the more modern of a lat­ter, &c. are not [...] to enjoy that liberty, that hath been the price of so much blood and treasure: But should we concede all the argument seem [...] to beg, that our necks are used to the yoke, and we are be­come familiar to servitude; shall [...]e the [...]fore will­ingly suffer our ears to be bored to the posts of our new masters, and become slave [...] for ever? Shall we court our bonds, and glory in that which is our shame? Shall we never learn to be free, and value liberty? Shall we never emancipate ourselves and posterity, but intail thraldom and s [...] cry on them also, to all generations? For so long as we draw in this yoke, our condition is the [...] with slaves; whatsoever is born unto us is a ves [...]l of our Lords; the fruit of our loins must drink of the same cup with us, draw in the same yoke, groan under the same tyranny and oppression we bequeath unto them: nay, who knows but their bondage may [...]n [...]rease, li [...]e that of Israel's under the son or Solomon, whose little finger was heavier than his father's l [...]ins; for tyran­nies usually exasperate and wax worse with continu­ance: [Page 51]shall we now bequeath our children liberty or bonds, freedom or oppression? If we, who have had our necks worn with the yoke, and our backs bowed down with heavy burdens, are of a couchant slavish spirit, perhaps our posterity, if born in a freer air, and under the influences of a more benign govern­ment, may prove of more generous and noble spirits, worthy of, and knowing how to prize their liberty. But without doubt, those brave and gallant souls, by the conduct of whose valour and prudence we have broken the iron yoke of arbitrary and exorbitant power; and by the good providence of God, redeemed the captivity of our nation, from the unrighteous bonds of its wicked oppressors, are worthy of, and know how to prize and improve what hath been pur­chased with so much [...]eat and oil, and will not in the end sell their birth-right for a mess of pottage, but leave an offspring, heirs of their own valour and gal­lantry, that will, with the utmost peril of their lives and fortunes, desend and preserve what the labours of their ancestors hath purchased, with sore travel both of mind and body, and so transmit it intire to their posterity, through msny generations, till the consummation of all things, and that time shall be no more.

But for a farther and more fatisfactory answer, to silence this argument, we may consider how the scene is changed, and balance of lands altered since these last centuries; and by reason thereof, with how great difficulty monarchy hath made good its ground since Henry the Eighth's days, in which it first began most visible to decline, and hath ever since been post­ing to its period.

For that wilful prince, by alienating the church revenues, quite altered the balance of lands that was the basis of his government, and thereby did that service unawares, that pulled up the stake of monar­chy: for the church (which with all its preferments, was at the king's devotion and sole dispose) did at that time possess a third part of the lands and wealth [Page 52]of the whole nation: which being afterwards sold, and coming into the hands of private men, set up many thousands of families that had no dependence on the crown. Since which time, the number of freeholders being much encreased, the nation hath had a natural and strong vergency towards a com­monwealth; which hath been much discovered in the spirit and complexion of our parliaments, of which the house of commons (heretofore an inconsiderable truckling kind of court, that was only summoned for the Prince to milk their purses, and let the peo­ple blood in the silver vein) grew now more peremp­tory, and began to give check to their princes exor­bitances; insomuch, that Queen Elizabeth was put to her courtship to retain them in allegiance; as after­wards King James, to a thousand shifts and juggles: who, notwithstanding all his King-craft and cunning, in which he so much gloried, and boasted himself so great a master, was scarce able, with much juggling and dissimulation, to divert the storm from falling on his own head, which afterward rained so much blood and vengeance on his son and posterity, to the utter ruin and confusion of his family.

To conclude therefore this particular, it being a maxim of truth, placed beyond all hazard of contra­diction, that no government can be fixed in this nation, but according to the balance of land. That Prince that is not able, neither by his own nor the public revenue, in some measure to counterpoise, if not over balance the greater part of the people, must necessarily be tenant at will for the crown he wears: for they that are the proprietors of the land and wealth of any nation, will with ease be able, by that magnetism, to draw the greatest number of abettors to their side, and so to gild over their pretensions, as to render them current with the people, and so in the end, give law to the rest of their brethren: Therefore, where there is one proprietor or landlord, as in Turkey, there is absolute monarchy; where a few, aristocracy, &c.

Now, since the crown lands, and church lands of [Page 53]this nation are sold, what other prop or pillar of securi­ty is left for the throne of a prince to rest upon, ex­cept that of a mercenary army, lies not within view of my apprehensions; and then how wholesome or safe advice the re-establishing of monarchy is to this nation, I leave all men (that have not altogether ab­jured their reason and conscience, to judge and deter­mine.

As for those poetical, if not prophane flourishes, wherewith orators and poets, the constant parasites of princes, use to gild over monarchy, pretending it the most natural and rational of all other forms of government, and that whose pattern was first shown in the mount, or rather let down from heaven, para­le [...]ling it with God's regimen of the universe, which is alledged as its prototype first exemplar; and there­fore to have something more of a divine right and character impressed upon it than any other, &c.

These, I say, are such trite, bald, and slight rea­sonings, that they do not merit so much respect as to receive an answer; for may we not as well by this loose and allusive way of arguing, borrow a pattern from heaven for the triumvirate, that Augustus, Le­pidus, and Mare Antony sometime imposed on Rome.

Doth it not as well quadrate with the sacred Trinity, by the triple sceptred of whose divine providence the empire of the world is administered, as by their's sometime that of the Romans? Will any one therefore be so bold as to say, that it was the most natural and rational government, and founded by no less than a di­vine right, according to its pattern and archetype in the heavens! notwithstanding the brand of the blackest and bloodiest tyranny Rome ever saw hath been set thereon, by the universal consent of all historians.

Or may we not, considering the pride, ambition, rapine, extortion, injury and oppression, that usually crowd into the courts of the best princes, with as much or more reason parallel absolute monarchy, with that of the prince of darkness, in which there is no Tri­nity, as in the other; and therefore more exactly [Page 54]quadrate to the absoluteness our proud monarchs so much endeavour to obtain?

I confess, could we have a prince to whom majesty might be atributed, without prophane hyperboles, that was a true vicar or lieutenant of God, that was not subject to the passions and infirmities, much less the vices and monstrosities of human nature, that could neither be imposed on by deceit, nor abused by flattery, whom the passions neither of fear nor affection, could warp to the least declivity, from what is right and honest; whose reason could never be biassed by any private interest or base respect, to decline the paths of justice and equity, but would manage the reins of his power with a like constan­cy and steadiness, as by the hand of Providence the helm of the universe is steered: I should then become an advocate of monarchy, and acknowledge it to have the impress of divinity, and bear the character and inscription of God upon it, to be the best and most absolute form of government, and a true copy of its divine original: but till security be given for such a righteous administration, I desire to be excused from being a pander to ambition, or the advocate of ty­ranny, as having learnt, It is not good for man to be alone, especially on the high and slippery places, where the strongest heads are apt to wax giddy; but, in the multitude of counsellors there is safety: and methinks, the very dialect of princes in the plural number (what­ever of state or majesty may be pretended) is a witness of, and doth clearly speak the unnaturalness of such exorbitant monopolies of power, and that though they act in a single capacity, are willing to speak like a commonwealth.

Most of the other arguments, of which the advo­cates of tyranny make use, are drawn from the pre­tended advantages of that government, above and be­yond others in respect of secrecy, celerity, unanimity, and the like, which though conveniencies, yet being far too light to counterpoise and balance the other in commodities, together with the great charge and ex­cise [Page 55]they are rated at, require no other answer, nor shall I waste more time and ink upon them.

Having thus passed the pikes of the sharpest argu­ments, that are usually raised in defence of the odd thing called a single person, I shall only speak a word or two to that is founded on the single command, that in times of war and eminent danger, when the gates of Janus's temple are set open, is committed to one man, it being a received maxim, that reason hath always conceded an advantage to the absolute jurisdiction of a single person in the field, prescribing to that end but one general to an army, for fear of divisions upon contrary counsels and commands.

To which may be replied, notwithstanding ge­nerals are not taken upon trust, as kings in successive monarchies, but upon the test of experience, and proved sufficiency manifested in former services; yet if it seem expedient to the commonwealth, there may be a rotation in that office as well as others, as was anci­ently in the Roman republic, whose armies were led forth by their annual successive consuls, and that with great success and victory.

But the expedient our present parliament hath found out by commission, doth so fully answer this objection that I need say no more unto it; for without doubt, it is the interest of a free state to have all the people so trained up in military discipline, and made fami­liar with arms, that he may not be thought arrived at the just accomplishments of a gentleman, that is not able to lead an army in the field, it being among the Romans no absurd apostrophe to leave the plough­tail, to head an army, or, vice versa, when their military employments were accomplished: how much then may they be thought to fall short of the accomplishments of a gentleman, that know not how to manage the conduct of a troop of horse, as I fear, too many of our gentry, upon a due scrutiny would be found; who, notwithstanding all their great pre­tences to be accounted armigeri, or esquires, are scarce stout enough to discharge a pistol, or were [Page 56]ever militant beyond the borders of their ladies carpets.

I shall now sound a retreat to the further progress of my pen on this theme, lest I should seem too much to triumph over a baffled and prostrate enemy, it being my desire to use victory with like modera­tion, I desire to bear a foil, conquest or captivity: therefore, fince by the good providence of God, together with the gallant conduct of the no less pru­dent than valiant assertors of our native rights and liberties, we are re-instated in the possession of our birth-rights, I shall attempt the discovery of those rocks and shelves, on which in the late night of apos­tacy we split our liberties, and endanger the utter ruin and shipwreck of our lives and fortunes, in the dangerous sea of an exorbitant and unlimited power; and thereby strike some sparks of light for the future better steering of the commonwealth, in whose bot­tom, as all our lives and felicities are adventured, we are all concerned to endeavour its being brought into a safe port and harbour.

The work then of our present pilots, that sit at the stern, and manage the conduct of our affairs, is, to endeavour the commonwealth may be so equally ba­lanced, as it may neither have propensity to a second relapse into monarchy, as of late; or oligarchy, which is worse: nor yet into anarchy, the worst of all three: But to settle a free-state upon such just and righteous foundations as cannot be moved, that may be a strong rampire of defence, not only to our civil liberties, as men, from the future enchroachment of tyranny, or inundation of exorbitant power; but also of security to our spiritual liberties, as Christians, from the invasion of those that desire to domineer and lord it over the consciences of their brethren: both which seem so linked and twisted to each other, that what conduces to the security of one, hath no smail tendency to the establishing of the other also, and do commonly so inseparable accompany each other, that wheresoever there is a free-state, or equal [Page 57]commonwealth, liberty of conscience is inviolably preserved, together with convenient and inoffensive latitude in toleration of religions, as in Holland, Venice, &c.

Now, for the better securing of these, we are to take notice of what persons or things are most incon­sistent with, and have greatest enmity to, the interest of a free-state or equal commonwealth.

For discovery of which, as I know it a crime of presumption unpardonable, for one seated in the vale of a private condition, to pretend a fairer prospect into the interest of state, than those Providence hath placed in the watch-towers, and on the pinnacles of power; yet by reason a by-stander may be allowed to discern something of the game; and he that is out of play, to shew the ground to a bowler; and one that stands below may better know what props the foundation rests upon, than he that is on the top of the tower: and it being the duty of every one to cast in his mite to the vaster treasures of their know­ledge, to whom Providence hath committed the conduct of our affairs, I am bold, being partly thereto encouraged by that great candour where­with I observe the like tribute of zealous and faithful hearts are already received, to tender what in my apprehension may have a tendency to a future settlement and security. I confess, were we at this time bowed down under the govern­ment of a monarch, in whose court every coun­sellor of state is to be taken on an implicit faith to enjoy by his prince's patent and favour, a monopoly of reason as well as honour; and that his understand­ing is no less elevated than according to the propor­tion his titles and fortunes swell above the tide of other mens: I might justly be accounted absurd to offer any thing of this nature, as knowing with what scorn and contempt so rash an adventure would be encountered.

But in a free state, where the greatest senators are not ashamed to confer with the meanest persons, I am [Page 58]not afraid to put myself into the crowd of those that make addresses of this nature: wherefore, to conclude this parenthesis, and resume the thread of our dis­course, there are nor, as I presume, past two or three sorts of persons, whose interests run counter to, or, indeed are not twisted and wound up in the same bot­ton with that of a free state, or at least in the spin­ning out of a few years, might not be interwoven therewith; and those are, the Lawyer, the Divine, and Hereditary Nobility; as for the Cavalier and Courtier, I question not but a little time would breathe out their antipathy, and warp their affections to a perfect compliance, and closing with an equal commonwealth.

Discontent productive of Human Happiness and the Elevation of the Species.
From Young's Spirit of Athens.

WHY are we tenacious of liberty, but because it gives an open field to that exertion of our minds or bodies, whence alone pleasure can proceed? —whether they are employed in tracking a wild beast, or in exploring a system, it is the same plea­sure; and restriction to the man who hath once tasted it, is surely worse than death.

The discontented spirit of mankind, so often and so much deprecated by every trifler in metaphysics, is then found to be consistent with their happiness, and necessary to their improvement. Divinely is it thus instituted, that the activity of our faculties should constitute our happiness, whilst what blesses the indi­vidual, enriches the species; and the pursuit which gives pleasure to each, tends to some acquisition pro­ductive of further distinctions to humanity, and eli­vating it more and more, in the system in which it makes a part.

Every Man is born with an imprescriptible Claim to a Portion of the Elements.
From Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders.

IT is a truth, I believe, not to be called in question, that every man is born with an imprescriptible claim to a portion of the elements, which portion is termed his birth-right. Society may vary this right, as to its form, but never can destroy it in sub­stance. She has no controul over the man till he is born; and the right being born with him, and being necessary to his existence, she can no more annihilate the one than the other, though she has the power of new-modelling both. But on coming into the world, he finds that the ground which nature had promised him is taken up, and in the occupancy of others; society has changed the form of his birth-right; the general stock of elements, from which the lives of men are to be supported, has undergone a new modi­fication; and his portion among the rest. He is told, that he cannot claim it in its present form, as an in­dependent inheritance; that he must draw on the stock of society, instead of the stock of nature; that he is banished from the mother and must cleave to the nurse. In this unexpected occurrence he is un­prepared to act; but knowledge is a part of the stock of society: and an indispensible part to be allotted to the portion of the claimant, is instruction relative to the new arrangement of natural right. To with­hold this instruction, therefore, would be not merely the omission of a duty, but the commission of a crime; and society in this case would sin against the man, before the man could sin against society.

I should hope to meet the assent of all unprejudiced readers, in carrying this idea still further. In cases where a person is born of poor parents, or finds himself brought into the community of men, without the means of sub­sistence, society is bound in duty to furnish him with the means. She ought not only to instruct him in the arti­ficial laws by which property is secured, but in the arti­ficial industry by which it is obtained. She is bound in [Page 61] justice as well as policy, to give him some art or trade. For the reason of his incapacity is, that she has usurped his birth-right; and this restoring it to him in another form, more convenient to both parties. The failure of society in this branch of her duty, is the occasion of much the greater part of the evils that call for criminal jurisprudence. The indi­vidual feels that he is robbed of his natural right; he cannot bring his process to reclaim it from the great community by which he is overpowered; he there­fore feels authorized in reprisal; in taking another's goods to replace his own. And it must be confessed, that in numberless instances the conduct of society justifies him in this proceeding, she has seized his pro­perty and commenced the war against him.

Some, who perceive these truths, say that it is unsafe for society to publish them; but I say it is unsafe not to publish them. For the party from which the mischief is expected to arise, has the knowledge of them already, and has acted upon them in all ages. It is the wise who are ignorant of these things, and not the foolish. They are truths of na­ture; and in them the teachers of mankind are the only party that remains to be taught: It is a subject on which the logic of indigence is much clearer than that of opulence. The latter reasons from contri­vance, the former from feeling; and God has not endowed us with false feelings, in things that so weightily concern our happiness.

None can deny that the obligation is much stronger on me to support my life, than to support the claim that my neighbour has to his property. Nature commands the first, society the second:—In one I obey the laws of God, which are universal and eter­nal; in the other the laws of man, which are local and temporary.

It has been the folly of old governments to begin every thing at the wrong end, and to erect their in­stitutions on an inversion of principle. This is more [Page 62]sadly the case in their systems of jurisprudence, than is commonly imagined. Compelling justice is always mistaken for rendering justice. But this important branch of administration consists not merely in com­pelling men to be just to each other, and individuals to society,—this is not the whole, nor is it the prin­cipal part, nor even the beginning, of the operation. The source of power is said to be the source of justice; but it does not answer this description, as long as it contents itself with compulsion. Justice must begin by flowing from its source; and the first, as well as the most important object is, to open its channels from society to all the individual members. This part of the administration being well devised and diligently executed, the other parts would lessen away by de­grees to matters of inferior consideration.

It is an undoubted truth, that our duty is insepa­rably connected with our happiness; and why should we despair of convincing every member of society of a truth so important for him to know? Should any person object, by saying, that nothing like this has ever been tried. Society has hitherto been curst with governments whose existence depended on the ex­tinction of truth. Every moral light has been smo­thered under the bushel of perpetual imposition; from whence it emits but faint and glimmering rays, al­ways insufficient to form any luminous system on any of the civil concerns of men. But these covers are crumbling to the dust, with the governments which they support; and the probability becomes more ap­parent, the more it is considered, that society is capable of curing all the evils to which it has given birth.

HOW TO CONSTITUTE A FREE GOVERN­MENT.
From CATO'S LETTERS.

THE only Secret in forming a Free Government, is to make the interests of the Governors and of the Governed the same, as far as human policy can contrive. Liberty cannot be preserved any other way. Men have long found, from the weakness and depravity of themselves and one another, that most men will act for interest against duty, as often as they dare. So that to engage them to their duty, interest must be linked to the observance of it, and danger to the breach of it. Personal advantages and security, must be the rewards of duty and obedience; and dis­grace, torture, and death, the punishment of treach­ery and corruption.

Human wisdom has yet found out but one certain expedient to effect this; and that is, to have the con­cerns of all directed by all, as far as possibly can be: and where the persons interested are too numerous, or live too distant to meet together on all emergencies, they must moderate necessity by prudence, and act by deputies whose interest is the same with their own, and whose property is so intermingled with theirs, and so engaged upon the same bottom, that princi­pals and deputies must stand and fall together. When the deputies thus act for their own interest, by acting for the interest of their principals; when they can make no law but what they themselves, and their posterity, must be subject to; when they can give no money, but what they must pay their share of; when they can do no mischief, but what must fall upon their own heads in common with their countrymen; their principals may then expect good laws, little mischief, and much frugality.

Here therefore lies the great point of necessity and care in forming the constitution, that the persons en­trusted [Page 64]and representing, shall either never have an interest detached from the persons entrusting and re­presented, or never the means to pursue it. Now to compass this great point effectually, no other way is left but one of these two, or rather both, namely, to make the deputies so numerous, that there may be no possibility of corrupting the majority; or, by changing them so often, that there is no sufficient time to corrupt them, and to carry the ends of that corruption. The people may be very sure, that the major part of their deputies being honest will keep the rest so; and that they will all be honest, when they have no temptations to be knaves.

The glorious Prospect of better Times, which are fast approaching.
From The Critic Philosopher.

THE Gothic pride of absurd prejudices, cemented by the ignorance and weakness of our fore­fathers, must fall to the ground; and on its ruin must be raised the immortal temple of reason, of liberty, of justice! At the sight of this glorious fabric, des­potism will shudder, tyranny shall be struck dumb; irritated pride must murmur; unmasked avidity shall be confounded; and philosophy, smiling at her great work, will secretly applaud herself for the trophy thus erected to her honour. The RIGHTS OF MAN, engraved by nature upon his heart, in indelible cha­racters, restored to their original perfection: that primitive equality on which all were formed, must [Page 65]take place of artificial inequality effected by self-created nobility, be placed on a proper footing, and change its nature, objects, and pretensions; the cler­gy must be reformed and brought back to that sim­ple, evangelical modesty, that most beautiful orna­ment, which a proud and worldy spirit has long dis­figured.

The rich must be convinced, that while they live sumptuously, and while the POOR are fed with a few of the scanty crumbs which fall from their table, they act quite contrary to the tenor of that gospel, which they say they believe. It is not in nature or reason, that one man should destroy twenty thousand a year, and another sh [...]uld be left without the common ne­cessaries of life: —No, every creature which nature hath formed with a mouth and digestive powers, has an equal right to participate of her blessings.

To conclude, we trust that the glorious fabric of freedom, reared up, as it were, by the hand of Oni­potence, will soon appear. A fabric that will stand fir [...] and un [...]haken, as being fenced round with bar­riers, which will mock the dark designs of treachery, and bid defiance to the impotent efforts of despo­tism and corruption.

Mr. Burke's tyrannical system of politics, and confined ideas of liberty, published in his late pamph­let, must fall to the ground; and every scheme, or plan, made use of to oppress the human race, must be destroyed. Wealth and property must be wrested from the hands of rapacity and indolence, and di­vided amongst mankind at large, in proportion as they merit it. Then will those of useful invigorated industry shine as useful members of the community. 'Tis true, nations like individuals seem subject to in­fatuation, and while they are under its influence, they submit to treatment which would shock them, if they were in their proper senses. Men can assign no other reason for bearing oppression, than that they bore it before.—The world is grown old in error, I grant, but it should not on that account preclude re­form. [Page 66]Notwithstanding its great age, society is hardly yet got beyond its first elements! Legisla­tors have hitherto only drawn lines or boundaries to confine mankind, instead of tracing plans to make them happy. In all their general institutions, they seem to have been ignorant that man is a being formed for love and friendship: they have rather considered him as in a state of perpetual warfare with his fellow-creatures. Hence it is, that the systems of all governments, and the spirit of their laws, have been directed rather to separate than to unite the different members of society; by granting peculiar privileges to some; by restraining others; by render­ing the meltitude passive, and giving activity and power only to a few; by occasioning superabundance in palaces, and famine in the peasant's cot; by coun­teracting, in short, the designs of God and nature, in the impartial diffusion of their blessings.

Laws, founded upon such unnatural principles, have kept the whole machine of society in a state of perpetual discord and distraction. They have hinder­ed the rich from becoming humane, by giving a sanction to their insolent luxuries. They have rob­bed the poor of every right, even of permission to utter their complaints: they have chained down ge­nius; clipped the wings of thought; and chilled, with freezing pressure the warm sallies of sensibility: —By treating man as a ferocious animal, those laws have made him so in reality. They made him jea­lous of his fellow-creatures: they erected a wall of prejudice and division between one people and ano­ther: their voice, like that of demons; crying out to the inhabitants of every country, be guarded against strangers and foreigners, and look upon them as your natural enemies.—By these means, a sort of constant hostility has been kept up in the universe, man being at war with man, nation with nation, and empire with empire!

We have a book, which we call our guide to eter­nal happiness; it teacheth us, that all the human [Page 67]race descended from one man, and that we are all brethren; yet we are, by our own laws, daily en­acting a specific distinction, and giving one part of us a statute authority to commit rapine and plunder the other. We believe that a divine prophet came down, exerted himself, and died for the redemption of all nations from misery and punishment; and while we sacrifice to him for this unparalelled love, we overwhelm one another with the very evils, which he, by his examples and sufferings, taught us to avoid.

THE ADVANTAGES OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
From THE CANDID PHILOSOPHER.

EVERY one will allow, that freedom of thought ought not, and cannot be restrained, however freedom of speech may be so. The judge observed very justly to a satirical author, that the law forbade him to call him rogue. "I know it, my lord," re­plied as justly the arch wag; "but the law does not forbid my thinking your lordship one."

Since, then, freedom of thought cannot be taken from a man, and is confessedly useful, let us briefly consider the advantages of Freedom of Speech.

And here a most excellent author occurs to me, and I shall give his sentiments on the subject, as nearly as I can remember, they being perfectly agreeable to my own:—

The passions are not to be extinguished but with life: To forbid, therefore, people to speak, is to for­bid them to feel.—The more men express of their hate and resentment, perhaps the less they retain; and sometimes they vent the whole that way; but these passions, where they are smothered, will be apt to fester, to grow venomous, and to discharge them­selves [Page 68]by a more dangerous organ than the mouth; even by an armed and vindictive hard. Less danger­ous is a railing mouth than an heart filled with bit­terness and curses; and more terrible to a prince ought to be the secret execrations of his people than their open revilings, or than even the assaults of his enemies. In truth, where no liberty is allowed to speak of governors, besides that of praising them, their praises will be little regarded. Their tender­ness and aversion to have their conduct examined will be [...] to prompt people to think their conduct guilty or [...]; to suspect their management and designs to be worse tha [...] perhaps they are; and to become turbulent and seditious, rather than be forced to be silent,

ON THE MINISTRY OR CLERGY: BY THE AUTHOR OF A PLEA FOR A COM­MONWEALTH.

IT being the method of Heaven, for judgment to begin at the house of God. I shall first speak to the reformation of the public ministry or national cler­gy, so far as they seem prompted by their interest to run counter to that of a commonwealth; and though I know (notwithstanding the complexion of their coat, which seems, or at least ought to pro­mise greater moderation) it is no less dangerous to meddle, or in the least exasperate this generation of men, than to puddle in a hornets nest, or en­counter a bear robbed of her whelps: yet my con­science bearing me witness, I have neither malice to their persons, nor envy their preferments: I shall not forbear to give in my testimony against the cor­rupt interest and principles wherewith they are leavened: where by the way, I must profess myself unsatisfied of what ground or foundation may (since the Jewish priesthood was abolished) be found in scripture, for that distinction between the laity and clergy, which custom hath introduced into most Christian commonwealths: my zeal and cha­rity being apt to prompt me to a like wish with that of Moses, That all the Lords people were prophets: or rather, to think all the Lord's people are holy, and to be accounted a royal priesthood to God, Nor can I persuade myself learning is so necessary a qualifi­cation for teaching the gospel, as some would make us believe, having observed our Saviour altogether rejected the wisdom of man, and made not use [...] the learned scribes, or doctors of the law, but sim­ple and illiterate fishermen, to be the first heralds of peace unto the world, to proclaim goodwill to the children of men, to be the first evangelists, and messengers of the glad tidings of salvation: and in­deed [Page 75]the introduction of learned rabbies into the church of Christ, and blending divinity with the learning of the gentiles, seems to run counter to the whole design of the gospel, which is by the foolishness of preaching, to confound the wisdom of the world. Certainly the sword of God's spirit will be able to do its work, though not managed by the skil­ful hand of an artist, or master of fence, that hath been brought up in the polemicks and digladiations of human literature, vain philosophy, or sophistry of the schools,

Nor do I find that the apostles, and those sent forth by Christ, to be the Catholic Bishops of the whole earth, and to teach all nations, did assume unto themselves any distinction of garb, colour, or habits, from the [...]est of Christ's flock; and I have read of some that were censured in the primitive times, or first centuries, for wearing large black cloaks; for what is this but to bring back those jewish types and shadows, to cloud and obscure the brightness of the Gospel's dispensation, that were long since dispelled and abrogated by the rising of the Sun of righteousness upon the world? For as one who hath lately well observed, What is the canonical girdle, and formality of doctors wearing boots, but as types and allusions to those places, of having their loins, girt, and their feet shod with the preparation of the gospel, &c?

Nor do I read that they who were called to the ministry, did look upon that as a writ of case, or sufficient warrant to quit their other particular callings, trades, and vocations; but that Paul wrought with his hands, that he might not become burdensome; and it is generally presumed our Sa­viour wrought at his father's trade; not that I would not have those that minister in spiritual things, reap of other's carnal; but that it seems more ac­cording to the rule and president of the gospel, that they should be content with what voluntary con­tribution, [Page 76]God shall move the people's hearts unto, than by force and rigour of law exact a maintenance.

And when I find the apostle saluting the church in Caesar's family, I am prompted to wish, that all our houses were chapels unto the Lord, and that our families (like that of Caesar's) contained a church within them. I am sure it is no new ob­servation, that the greatest heat and zeal of religion hath been always found in conventicles and private meetings; which suggests unto my thoughts, no small ground of suspicion, that our parochial churches, bells, together with the whole order, pomp, method, and formality of our national cler­gy, and public worship, stands upon no other foundation than that of human invention, which by the stream of corrupt times, have been carried beyond the pattern and president of the primitive ages, and become very unlike and dissonant to the examplar Christ and his apostles left us.

Nor am I satisfied, if the generality of men are uncapable of receiving the truth and power of godliness, whether the endeavours of giving all men a tincture of religion, and forcing them into the garb and livery of an outward profession, which is the great design of, and plea for a national clergy be more acceptable unto God than morality. I know under the law, God had a peculiar people, that were picked and culled (as it were) from the dross and rubbish of the rest of mankind, that were to be built up in an outward profession, and nati­onal way of public worship, adorned with many ceremonies, together with much pomp, and out­ward splendour, but whether religion be not now under the gospel, a more inward, refined, spiritual and less visible thing. I humbly submit to serious consideration. And if I am herein mistaken (for I pretend not to infallibility) I should be thankful to any, God shall be pleased to make use of as in­struments to better inform me; for I would wil­lingly see and know my errors.

[Page 77]But if it be here objected, that the primitive times were times of persecution, in which the church was (as it were) under hatches, and chris­tianity in its infancy, and the professors thereof forced to hide themselves in holes of the rocks, and caves of the earth; but now, having gained ground upon the world, and being in better plight, and since it is come up out of Egypt from the house of bondage, from under the pressures, persecutions, afflictions, and burdens of the heathenish task-mas­ters, under which it formerly groaned, ought ac­cording to the example of the Israelites, be adorn­ed with the spoils of the heathen, &c.

I answer, that as the kingdom of God comes not with observation, so it consists not in any outward pomp and splendour. Its said, the king's daughter (or spouse of Christ) is all glorious within; and by how much the more ground christianity hath gain­ed upon the world, by so much the less need doth it now stand of the wisdom and learning of men to commend and propagate it, than when it was to encounter with so great opposition, and such potent antagonists, as under the heathen emperors it met withal. And if the truth did then under all those disadvantages not only make good its ground but so much gained upon the world, when it had few other champions than poor fishermen, and illiterate mechanics, how much less need it now fear brow-beating, when the power of God hath subdued so many nations to the knowledge and obedience of his truth, and hath made princes of the earth bow unto the scepter of his Son?

Whether the nation is yet willing to part with their calves they have so long worshipped, I know not, but I am sure it hath pleased God to give them a great discovery of the corruption, pride, ambition and flattery of this sort of men; how willing they could be to reap their own profit, though sown in, and springing from the ruin of the nation's liberty [Page 78]and felicity; how willingly they could sell their brethren slaves into the hands of tyranny and op­pression, to purchase to themselves dominion and lordship.

THE DESIRE OF GLORY NATURALLY GENERATED IN REPUBLICS.
FROM THE PERSIAN LETTERS

THE sanctuary of honour, reputation, and vir­tue; seems to be placed in republics, and in those states where a man may with safety pro­nounce the word, country. At Rome, Athens, and Sparta, honour was the only reward for the most signal services. A crown of oak-leaves, or laurel, a statue, an inscription, was an immence return for a battle won, or a city taken.

There, a man that had performed a noble action, thought himself sufficiently recompenced in the action itself. He could not see one of his coun­trymen, without feeling the inward satisfaction of knowing himself his benefactor; he reckoned the [...]ber of his services by that of his fellow citi­zens. Any man is capable of doing a piece of service to another man; but it is somewhat divine to contribute to the happiness of a whole society.

The manly Spirit produced in France, by their new System of Equality.
From Dr. Moore's Journal.

IT was natural to think that the introduction of the term egalite would, produce an universal inso­lence among the lower classes of people in France, towards their superiors: but I confess I have not [Page 79]hitherto remarked any disagreeable instances of this nature. No person, indeed, of whatever rank, is allowed to dress his footmen in livery, but every one is allowed to have as many footmen as he pleases; and when L. L—'s carriage was driving, a day or two since, in at the gates of the Louvre, it was stopped by the centinel, who had observed that the hammer-cloth had fringes of a different colour; and informed his lordship, that such a kind of distinction was no where permitted in France▪ being contrary to that egalite, which every Frenchman had sworn to. The coachman had been ordered never to use any but a plain cloth: but having a fringed one in his possession, of which he was very vain, he had ven­tured to adorn his coach-box with it, on this un­fortunate day. As the poor fellow was taking it off with a very mortified air, the valet de-place re­proached him for having put it on; which the sen­tinel over hearing, said angrily to the coachman, ‘ll sied bien à un gueux comone toi d'etre aris­tocrate.’ (It well becomes a beggar like you to give yourself the airs of an aristocrate.)

A few days since, I saw a man dressed in the uniform of a general officer▪ come up to a poor fel­low, who with a pike in his hand, stood centinel at a gate, and addressing him by the name of "Ci­toyen Soldat," asked him the way to a particular street.

The pikemen were formerly considered as of a rank inferior to the national guards, who are armed with muskets; but of late they are put on a foot­ing, and do duty together; but still it might have been expected, that this gentleman's rank in the army would have commanded the strongest marks of respect from a common soldier, if his laced coat failed to produce them in a poor fellow almost in rags.

"Tenez, mon camarade," said the pikeman; ‘you will first turn to the right, and then walk straight on until, &c.’

[Page 80]The officer having heard the directions, returned thanks to the Citoyen Soldat, and moving his hat, walked away.

REASONS OF MONARCHY.
[From HARRINGTON's OCEANA]

I HAVE often thought it strange, that among all the governments, either past or present, the monarchial should so far in extent and number ex­ceed the popular, as that they could never yet come into comparison. I could never be persuaded but it was more happy for a people to be disposed of by a number of persons jointly interested and concern­ed with them, than to be numbered as the herd and inheritance of one, to whose lust and madness they were absolutely subject; and that any man of the weak­est reason and generosity, would not rather chuse for his habitation that spot of earth, where there was access to honour by virtue▪ and no worth could be excluded, rather than that where all advance­ment should proceed from the will of one scarcely hearing or seeing with his own organs, and gained for the most part by means lewd and indirect: and all this in the end to amount to nothing else but a more splendid and dangerous slavery.

He knows nothing, that knows not how super­stitiously, the generality of mankind is given to retain traditions, and how pertinacious they are in the maintenance of their first prejudices, insomuch that a discovery or more refined reason is as insup­portable to them, as the sun is to an eye, newly brought out of darkness. Hence opinionativeness (which is commonly proportioned to their igno­rance) [Page 84]and a generous obstinacy, sometimes to death and ruin. So that it is no wonder if we see many gentlemen, whose education enabled them only to use their senses and first thoughts, so dazzled with the splendour of a court, prepossessed with the affection of a prince, or bewitched with some sub­dalous favour, that they chose rather any hazard than the enchantment should be dissolved. Others, perhaps a degree above these, yet in respect of some title stuck upon the family (which has been as for­tunate a mystery of king-craft as any other) or in re­verence to some glorious former atchievments [mind­ing not that in all these cases the people are the only effective means, and the king only imaginary] think they should degenerate from bravery in bringing on a change. Others are withheld by sloth and timorousness, either not daring, or unwilling to be happy; some looking no further than their pri­vate welfare, indifferent at the multiplication of public evils; others [and these the worst of all] out of a pravity of nature sacrificing to their ambition and avarice, and in order to that following any pow­er, concurring with any machinations, and sup­porting their authors; while princes themselves [trained up in these arts, or receiving them by tra­dition] know how to wind all their humours to their own advantage, now foisting the divinity of their titles into pulpits, now amusing the people with pomp and shows, now diverting their hot spirits to some unprofitable foriegn war [making way to their accursed ends of revenge or glory, with the effusion of that blood which should be as dear to them as their own] now stroking the people with some feeble but inforced law, for which notwithstanding they will be paid [and it is observed the most notorious tyrants have taken this course] now giving up the eminentest of of their ministers, [which they part with as indifferently as their robes] to the rage and fury of the people: so that they are commanded and condemned by the same [Page 85]mouth, and the credulous and ignorant, believing their king divinely set over them, sit still, and by degrees grow into quiet and admiration, especially if lulled asleep with some small continuance of peace (be it ever so injust, unsound, or dangerous) as if the body politic could not languish of an internal disease, though its complexion be fresh and cheerful, Those are the reason which (if I conceive aright) have stupified the less knowing part of mankind.

THE FREE NOTIONS OF THE ENGLISH.
FROM THE PERSIAN LETTERS.

ALL the nations of Europe are not under equal subjection to their princes: for instance, the impatient humour of the English seldom gives the king leisure to extend or strengthen his authority: Submission and obedience are virtues they very lit­tle value themselves upon. They, hold very ex­traordinary opinions about this article. According to them there is but one tie that has any effect upon men, which is that of gratitude: a husband, a wife, a father, a son, are bound to each other by nothing, but either the love they bear to each other, or mu­tual services and benefits; and these various mo­tives of acknowledgement, are the origin of all kingdoms, and all societies.

But if a prince, instead of endeavouring to make his subjects happy, studies only how to oppress and destroy them, the foundation of obedience ceases; nothing ties, nothing obliges them to him, and they return to their natural liberty. They maintain that no unlimited power can be lawful, because it could never have a lawful beginning. For we cannot, say they, give to another more power over us than we have over ourselves: Now we have not an unli­mited power over ourselves; for instance, we can­not touch our own lives; no man upon earth there­fore, conclude they, can have such a power.

High treason, according to them, is nothing but a crime committed by the weaker against the [Page 86]stronger, by disobeying him, let him disobey him in what way he will. And accordingly the people of England, happening to prove the stronger in a con­tention with one of their kings, declared it to be high treason in a prince to make war upon his sub­jects. They have very good reason, therefore to say, that the precept in their Alcoran, which en­joins obedience to the powers, is not very hard to follow, since they cannot help following it if they would; in as much as it is not to the most virtu­ous that they are bound to submit, but to the strongest.

The English tell you, that one of their kings hav­ing overcome and taken a prince that rebelled against him, and disputed the crown with him, and upbraiding him with his treachery and perfidious­ness:—It has been decided but a moment, an­swered the unfortunate prince, which of us two is the traitor.

ON LOYALTY. FROM CATO'S LETTERS.

NO good prince will pretend that there is any loyalty due to him further, than he himself is loyal to the law, and observant of his people, the makers of kings and of laws. If any man mis­led by sound and delusion, doubt this, let him con­sider what is the design of magistracy, and what the duty of magistrates; and if he has reason in him, he will find that his duty is only due to those who perform theirs. That protection and allegiance are reciprocal; that every man has a right to de­fend what no man has a right to take: That the di­vine right of kings, if they had it, can only warrant them in doing actions that are divine, and cannot protect them in cruelty, depredation and oppres­sion: That a divine right to act wickedly, is a con­tradiction and blasphemy, as it is Maledictio Supremi Numinis, a reproach upon the Deity, as if he gave [Page 87]any man a commission to be a devil: That a king in comparison with the universe, is not so much as a mayor of a town in comparison of a kingdom; and that, were Mr. Mayor, called king, it would give him no new right; or, if a king were only called Mr. Mayor, it would not lesson nor abro­gate his old jurisdiction: That they are both civil officers, and that an offence in the lesser is more pardonable than an offence in the greater. That the doctrines of unbroken hereditary right, and blind obedience, are the flights and forgeries of flatterers, who belie Heaven, and abuse men, to make their own court to power, and that not one of them will stand the trial himself; in fine, that government, honest and legal government, is im­perium legum non hominum, the authority of law, and not of lust.

These are the principles upon which our go­vernment stands, the principles upon which every free government must stand: and that we Britons, dare tell such truths, and publish such principles is a glorious proof of our civil and religious free­dom: They are truths which every Briton ought to know, even children and servants; They are eternal truths, that will remain for ever, though in too many countries they are dangerous or useless or little known.

Before I have done, I would take notice of another mistake very common, concerning loyal­ty: It is indeed a trick more than a mistake; I mean of those who would assert or rather create a sort of LOYALTY TO MINISTERS, and make every thing which they do not like, an offence against their master.

ON EQUALITY. From Puffendorf's Whole Duty of Man, according to the Law of Nature.

MAN is a creature not only most solicitous for the preservation of himself, but has of him­self so nice an estimation and value, that to dimi­nish [Page 90]any thing thereof does frequently move in him as great indignation as if a mischief were done to his body or estate. Nay, there seems to him to be somewhat of dignity in the appellation of MAN: so that the last and most efficacious argu­ment to curb the arrogance of insulting men, is [...]sually—I am not a dog, but a man as well as your­self. Since then human nature is the same in us all, and since no man will or can cheerfully join in society with any, by whom he is not at least to be esteemed equal as a man, and as a partaker of the same common nature. It follows that, among those duties which men owe to each other, this ob­tains the second place, That every man esteem and treat another, as naturally equal to himself, or as one who is a man as well as he:

Now this equality of mankind does not alone consist in this, that men of ripe age have almost the same strength, or if one be weaker, he may be able to kill the stronger, either by treachery, or dex­terity, or by being better furnished with weapons: but in this, that though nature may have accom­plished one man beyond another, with various endowments of body and mind: yet nevertheless he is obliged to an observation of the precepts of the law-natural towards the meaner person, after the same manner as he himself expects the same [...]on others; and has not therefore any greater li­berty given him to insult upon his fellows. As, on the other side, the niggardliness of nature or fortune cannot of themselves set any man so low as that he shall be in a worse condition, as to the enjoyment of common right, than others. But what one man may: rightfully demand or expect from as another, the same is due to others also (cir­cumstancies being alike) from him; and whatsoever one shall deem reasonable to be done by others, the like it is most just he practise himself; For the obligation of maintaining sociality among mankind, [Page 91]equally binds every man; neither may one man more than another violate the law of nature, in any part. Not but that there are other popular reasons which illustrate this equality; to wit, That we are all descended of the same stock; that we are all born, nourished, and die after the same manner; and, that God has not given any of us a certain assurance, that our happy condition in this world shall not at one time or other be changed. Besides, the precepts of the Christian religion tell us, that God favours not man for his nobility, power, or wealth, but for sincere piety, which may as well be found in a mean and humble man, as in those of high degree.

Now from this equality it follows, That he who would use the assistance of others in promoting his own advantage, ought to be as free and ready to use his power and abilities for their service, when they want his help and assistance on like occasions. For he who requires that other men should do him kindnesses, and expects himself to be free from doing the like, must be of opinion, that those other men are below himself and not his equals. Hence as those persons are the best members of a commu­nity, who, without any difficulty, allow the same things to their neighbours that themselves require of him; so those are altogether incapable of socie­ty, who setting a high rate on themselves, in re­gard to others, will take upon them to act any thing towards their neighbour, and expect greater deference and more respect than the rest of man­kind; and in their insolent manner demanding a greater portion unto themselves of those things, to which, all men having a common right, they can in reason claim no larger share than other men: Whence this also is an univerfal duty of the law­natural, That no man, who has not a peculiar right ought to arrogate more to himself than he is ready to allow to his fellows, but that he permit other men to enjoy equal privileges with himself.

[Page 92]The same e quality also shews what every man's behaviour ought to be, when his business is to dis­tribute justice among others; to wit, that he treat them as equals, and indulge not that, unless the merits of the cause require it, to one, which he dentes to another: For, if he do otherwise, he who is discountenanced is, at the same time, affronted and wronged, and loses somewhat of the dignity which nature bestowed upon him. Whence it follows, that things which are in common, are of right to be divided by equal parts among those who are equal: Where the thing will not admit of di­vision, they who are equally concerned, are to use it indifferently; and, if the quantity of the thing will bear it, as much as each party shall think fit; But if this cannot be allowed, then it is to be used after a stated manner, and proportioned to the number of the claimants; because it is not possible to find out any other way of observing equality. But if it be a thing of that nature as not to be capable of being divided, nor of being pos­sessed in common, then it must be used by turns; and if this yet will not answer the point, and it is not possible the rest should be satisfied by an equi­valent. the best way must be, to determine posses­sion by lot; for in such cases, no fitter method can be thought on, to remove all opinion of partiality and contempt of any party, without debasing the person whom fortune does not favour,

ON THE ABSURDITY OF UNALTERA­BLE ESTABLISHMENTS. FROM PRIESTLY ON GOVERNMENT.

HIGHLY as we think of the wisdom of our ancestors, we justly think ourselves, of the present-age, wiser, and, if we be not blinded by [Page 93]the prejudice of education, must see, that we can, in many respects, improve upon the institutions they have transmitted to us. Let us not doubt, but that every generation in posterity will be as much superior to us in political, and in all kinds of knowledge, and that they will be able to im­prove upon the best civil institutions that we can prescribe for them. Instead then of adding to the difficulties which we ourselves find, in making the improvements we wish to introduce, let us make this great and desireable work easier to them than it has been to us.

However, such is the progress of knowledge, and the enlargement of the human mind, that, in future time, notwithstanding all obstructions thrown in the way of human genius, men of great and exalted views will undoubtedly arise, who will see through, and detest our narrow politics; when the ill-advisers, and ill-advised authous of these illiberal and contracted schemes, will be re­membered with infamy and execration: When notwithstanding their talents as statesmen or wri­ters, and though they may have pursued the same mind enslaving schemes by more artful and less sanguinary methods, they will be ranked among the Bonners and Gardeners of past ages; they must have been worse than Bonners and Garden­ers, who could pursue the same ends by the same means, in this more humane and more enlighten­ed age.

England hath hitherto taken the lead, in almost every thing, great and good, and her citizens stand foremost in the annals of fame, as having shaken off the fetters which hung upon the human mind, and called it forth to the exertion of its noblest powers. And her constitution has been so far from receiving any injury from the efforts of these her free-born enterprising sons, that she is in part, indebted to them for the unrivalled repu­tation [Page 94]she now enjoys, of having the best system of policy in Europe. After weathering so many real storms, let us not quit the helm at the appre­hension of imaginary dangers, but steadily hold on in what, I trust, is the most glorious course that a government can be in. Let all the friends of li­berty and human nature join to free the minds of men from the shackles of narrow and impolitic laws. Let us be free ourselves, and leave the blessings of freedom to our posterity.

In short, it seems to have been the intention of Divine Providence, that mankind should be, as far as possible, self-taught; that we should attain to every thing excellent and useful, as the result of our own experience and observation; that our judgment should be formed by the appearances which, are presented to them, and our hearts in­structed by their own feelings. But by the unna­tural system of rigid, unalterable establishments, we put it out of our power to instruct ourselves, or to derive any advantage from the lights we ac­quire from experience and observation; and there­by, as far as in our power, we counteract the kind intentions of the Deity in the constitution of the world, and in providing for a state of constant, though slow improvement in every thing.

In spite of all the fetters we can lay upon the human mind, notwithstanding all possible discou­ragements in the way of free enquiry, knowledge of all kinds will encrease. The wisdom of one generation will be folly in the next. And that, though we have seen this verified in the history of near two thousand years, we persist in the absurd maxim of making a preceding generation dictate to a succeeding one, which is the same thing as making the foolish instruct the wise; for what is a lower degree of wisdom but comparatively folly?

Were any more laws restraining the liberty of the press in force, it is impossible to say how far [Page 95]they might be construed to extend. Those already in being are more than are requisite, and inconsist­ent with the interests of truth. Were they to ex­tend further, every author would lie at the mercy of the ministers of state, who might condemn, in­discriminately, upon some pretence or other, every work that gave them umbrage; under such cir­cumstances; might fall some of the greatest and noblest productions of the human mind, if such works could be produced in those circumstances. For, if men of genius knew they could not pub­lish the discoveries they made, they would not give free scope to their faculties, in making and pursuing those discoveries. It is the thought of publication, and the prospect of fame, which is generally the great incentive to men of genius to exert their faculties, in attempting the untrodden paths of speculation. In those unhappy circum­stances, writers would entertain a dread of every new subject. No man could safely indulge him­self in any thing bold, enterprising, and out of the vulgar road; and in all publications we should see a timidity incompatable with the spirit of disco­very. If any towering genius should arise in those unfavourable circumstances, a Newton in the na­tural world; or a Locke, a Hutchinson, a Clarke, or a Harley in the moral, the only effectual method to prevent their defusing a spirit of enterprize or innovation, which is natural to such great souls, could be no other than that which Tarquin so sig­nificantly expressed, by taking off the heads of all those poppies which overlooked the rest. Such men could not but be dangerous, and give umbrage in a country, where it was the maxim of the go­vernment, that every thing of importance should for ever remain unalterably fixed.

THE INHABITANTS OF HELL. From a Pamphlet, entitled "The Rights of the Devil."

THESE (that is the priests) are the most nu­merous of all Lucifer's subjects, except the military, for next to the clergy, the military are the most devoted, which may be seen by the ardor they discover on all occasions in the service of their grand master and monarch, Lucifer. Nothing diminishes the zeal of soldiers, no hardships or calamities can intimidate them from the pursuit of their master's interest. Captivity, prisons, fetters, chains, slavery, or death, give no check to their activity; but havock and devastation are the works [Page 112]of their hands. See how these heroes leave every thing near and dear behind them. Their trades are nothing in comparison to the intrinsic acquisitions of the soldier, who sacrifices every thing to the pleasure of murdering his fellow-creatures. How many of these English Sans Culottes have left twenty-five, and even thirty shillings per week, within these six months past, to gain in return six­pence a day, to be food for gun-powder, and to distinguish themselves as the best friends and warmest advocates for Satan's kingdom. Mark! what disinterestedness! Surely Lucifer has some right to such property as this! Only examine their fa [...]es and their figures, both will declare to you whom they serve, and whose they are. Their pole complexions, their tawny countenances, their tanned hides; in short, the whole of their meagre bodies have more the appearance of carcases or ske­letons, than of human figures. Their bodies, I say, loaded with wounds, exhausted by labours which they have undergone, with distempers which con­sume them, with vermin which gnaw them while alive, with hunger which devours them, with ex­cessive heat, and rigorous cold, which they expe­rience and endure with courage and delight, for a poor and wretched stipend, plainly shew that the most powerful and predominant of all their pas­sions, is their desire for the infernal regions. And this is further confirmed by the ardent exclama­tions with which they conclude every sentence they pronounce; such as, The Devil take me! The Devil seize me! The Devil choak me! The Devil fly away with me! &c. &c. Which ejacula­tions certainly express their earnest wish to go to Lucifer's kingdom. The Devil will never deny his right to such property as they are.

I had like to have omitted informing you, that the military are accompanied with their officers, even in Hell: and why not? They are fond of [Page 113]leading the dance with them on Earth, and surely ought to partake of their pleasures in Hell. They are led by their officers by thousands every day, with colours flying, music playing, and drums beating, amidst the acclamations of all who see them, on their journey to Pluto's regions. There is no exception of persons in the military, they go unanimously, hand in hand. There you see them travelling in social union, with wonderful contrast, generalissimo and private, general and drummer, duke and corporal, prince and serjeant, kings and serjeant-majors, emperors and adjutants, in most parts of Europe, vieing with each other in their various tactical knowledge, to discover who has the greatest ability, in getting tenants in the greatest numbers, to occupy Beelzebub's kingdom. Witness the scenes now exhibiting on the other side the water, what bravery is displayed by the English, Dutch, Prussians, Austrians, Hessians, Ha­noverians, &c. of all ranks and degrees, from the prince to the private, in order to transport them­selves to the infernal regions; and none can be more deserving than those who take up the sword in defence of their common master, for the express purpose of peopling his kingdom. Go on, then, ye veterans! hide your trusty blades in the bowels of your b [...]ethren! your laurels will cleave to your brows in never fading and glowing colours: and Satan shall crown you with everlasting honours!

Ignorance the Foundation of unequal Governments, and fostered by them designedly.
[From "Barlow's Advice to priviledged Orders."

UNEQUAL Governments are necessarily found­ed on ignorance, and they must be supported by ignorance; to deviate from their principle, would be voluntary suicide. The great object of [Page 114]their policy is to perpetuate that undisturbed igno­rance of the people, which is the companion of poverty, the parent of crimes, and the pillar of the state.

In England, the people at large are as perfectly ignorant of the acts of Parliament, after they are made, as they possibly can be before. They are printed by one man only, who is called the king's printer—in the old German character, which few men can read—and sold at a price that few can afford to pay. But, lest some scraps or comments upon them should come to the people, through the medium of public news-papers, every such paper is stamped with a heavy duty: and an act of parlia­ment is made, to prevent men from lending their papers to each other; so that, not one person in a hundred sees a news-paper once in a year. If a man at the bottom of Yorkshire discovers, by in­stinct, that a law is made which is interesting for him to know, he has only to make a journey to London, find out the king's printer, pay a penny a page for the law, and learn the German alphabet. He is then prepared to spell out his duty.

As to the general system of the laws of the land, on which all property depends, no man in the kingdom knows them, and no man pretends to know them. They are a fathomless abyss, that exceeds all human faculties to sound. They are studied, not to be understood, but to be disputed; not to give information, but to breed confusion. The man whose property is depending on a suit at law, dares not to look into the gulph that separates him from the wished-for decision; he has no con­fidence in himself, nor in reason, nor in justice; he mounts on the back of a lawyer, like one of Mr. [...]urke's heroes of chivalry, between the wings of a gr [...]ffin, and trusts the pilotage to a man, who is su­perior to himself only in the confidence which results from having nothing at stake.

On the Injustice of taking Fees from Persons acquitted in Courts of Justice.
[From "The Candid Philosopher."]

A MAN suspected of a felonious action, is taken up, sent to goal, used there in a barbarous manner, yet when brought to his trial is found per­fectly innocent. A man of common sense, uprac­tised in the wisdom of our laws, would naturally imagine he would be now discharged. But no such thing; he must be remanded to prison to undergo the same harsh treatment he received before his trial, unless he pays the fees that are demanded of him.— They are the poorest people on whom sus­picions generally fall, and who, so far from being able to pay goaler's fees, could scarcely maintain themselves in prison before the proof of their in­nocence appeared. How cruel, therefore, after punishing an innocent person with imprisonment, making him lose his business and his character, to rob him of his property, under the name of paying fees!—O shame! shame! shame!

Whether the Balance of Dominion in Land be the natural Cause of Empire?
[From Harrington's Oceana.]

IF a man having one hundred pounds a year may keep one servant, or have one man at his command, then having one hundred times so much, he may keep one hundred servants; and this multiplied by a thousand, he may have one hundred thousand men at his command. Now, that the single person, or nobility of any country in Europe, that had but half so many men at com­mand, would be king or prince, is that which I think no man will doubt. But no money no Switzers, as the French speak: if the money be flown, so are the men also. Though riches in general have [Page 116]wings, and be apt to bate, yet those in land are the most hooded and tied to the perch, whereas those in money have the least hold, and are the swiftest in flight. A bank, where the money takes not wing, but to come home seized, or like a coy duck, may well be great; but the treasure of the Indies going out, and not upon returns, makes no bank. Whence a bank never paid an army; or paying an army soon became no bank. But where a prince or nobility has an estate in land, the revenue whereof will defray this charge, there their men are plant­ed, have toes that are roots, and arms that bring forth what fruit you please.

Thus a single person is made, or a nobility makes a king, not with difficulty or any great pru­dence, but with ease, the rest coming home, as the ox that not only knows his master's crib, but must starve or repair to it. Nor for the same reason is government acquired with more ease than it is pre­served; that is, if the foundation of property be in land. but if in morey, lightly come, lightly go. The reason why a single person, or the nobility that has one hundred thousand men, or half so many at command, will have the government, is, that the estate in land, whereby they are able to maintain so many, in any European territory, must overbalance the rest that remains to the people, at least three parts in four, by which means they are no more able to dispute the government with him or them, than your servant is with you. Now, for the same reason, if the people hold three parts in four of the territory, it is plain there can nei­ther be any single person nor nobility able to dis­pute the government with them; in this case, therefore, except force be interposed, they govern themselves. So by this computation of the balance of property, or dominion in land, you have ac­cording to the threefold foundation of property, the root or generation of the threefold kind of go­vernment or empire.

[Page 117]If one man be sole landlord of a territory, or overbalance the whole people, three parts in four, or thereabouts, he is Grand Seignior; for so the Turk, not from his empire, but his property, is called; and the empire in this case, is absolute monarchy.

If the few, or a nobility, or a nobility with a clergy, be landlords to such a proportion as over­balances the people in the like manner, they may make whom they please king; or, if they be not pleased with their king, down with him, and set up whom they like better; a HENRY the Fourth, or the Seventh, a GUISE, a MONTFORT, a NEVIL, or a PORTER, should they find that best for their own ends and purposes: For, as not the balance of the king, but that of the nobility, in this case, is the cause of the government, so not the estate or the riches of the prince or captain, but his virtue or ability, or fitness for the ends of the nobility, acquires that command or office. This for aristo­cracy or mixed monarchy. But if the whole people be landlords, or hold the land so divided among them, that no one man or number of men within the compass of the few, or aristocracy over­balance them, it is a commonwealth. Such is the branch in the root, or the balance of property na­turally producing empire; which not confuted, no man shall be able to batter my superstructures, and which confuted I lay down my arms; till then, if the cause necessarily precede the effect, property must have a being before empire; or, beginning with it, must be still first in order.

Property comes to have a being before empire or government two ways, either by a natural or violent revolution. Natural revolution happens from within, or by commerce, as when a govern­ment erected upon one balance, that for example of a nobility or a clergy, through the decay of their estates comes to alter to another balance; which [Page 118]alteration in the root of property leaves all to con­fusion, or produces a new branch of government, according to the kind or nature of the root. Vio­lent revolution happens from without, or by arms, as when upon conquest there follows confiscation. Confiscation again is of three kinds; when the captain taking all to himself, plants his army, by way of military colonies, benefices, or timars, which was the policy of MAHOMET; or when the captain has some sharers, or a nobility that divides with him which was the policy introduced by the Goths and Vandals; or when the captain divides the inheritance by lots, or otherwise, to the whole people; which policy was instituted by GOD or MOSES in the commonwealth of Israel. This tri­ple distribution, which from natural or violent re­volution returns as to the generation of empire to the same thing, that is to the nature of the balance already stated and demonstrated.

A GOVERNMENT OF CITIZENS IS INVULNERABLE. FROM HARRINCTON'S OCEANA.

ALL government, as implied by what has been already shewn, is of these three kinds: A go­vernment of servants: A government of subjects; or A government of citizens. The first is absolute monar­chy, as that of Turkey: The second aristocratical monarchy, as that of France: The third a common­wealth, as those of Israel, of Rome, of Holland. Now to follow MACHIAVEL (in part) of these, the government of servants is the harder to be con­quered, and the easier to be held: The government of subjects is the easter to be conquered and the harder to be held. To which I shall presume to add, that the government of citizens is both the hardest to be conquered, and the hardest to be held.

My author's reasons, why a government of ser­vants is the hardest to be conquered, come to this, that they are under perpetual discipline and com­mand, void of such interests and factions as have hands or power to hold upon advantages or innova­tion; whence he that invades the Turk must trust to his own strength, and not rely upon disorders in the government, or forces which he shall be sure enough to find united.

His reasons why this government, being once broken, is easily held, are, that the armies once past hope of rallying, there being no such thing as families hanging together, or nobility to stir up their dependants to further reluctancy for the present, or to preserve themselves by complacence with the conquerors, for future discontents or advantages, [Page 127]he that has won the garland has no more to do but to extinguish the royal line, and wear it ever after in security. For the people having been always slaves, are such whose condition he may better, in which case they are gainers by their conqueror, but can never make a worse, and therefore they lose nothing by him. Hence ALEXANDER having con­quered the Persian empire, he and his captains af­ter him could hold it without the least dispute, except it arose among themselves. Hence MAHO­MET the second having taken Constantinople, and put Palaeologus the Greek emperor (whose govern­ment was of like nature with the Persian) together with his whole family, to the sword, the Turk has held that empire without reluctancy.

On the other side, the reasons why a government of subjects is easier conquered, are these: That it is supported by a nobility so antient, so powerful, and of such hold and influence upon the people, that the king without danger, if not ruin to him­self or the throne (an example whereof was given in HENRY the seventh of England,) can neither in­vade their privileges, nor level their estates; which remaining, they have power upon every discontent to call in an enemy, as ROBERT Count of Artois did the English, and the Duke of Guise the Spaniard, into France.

The reasons why a government of subjects being so easily conquered, is nevertheless harder to be held, are these: that the nobility being soon out of countenance in such a case, and repenting them­selves of such a bargain, have the same means in their hands, whereby they brought in the enemy, to drive him out, as those of France did both the English and the Spaniards.

For the government of citizens, as it is of two kinds, an equal or an unequal commonwealth, the reason why it is the hardest to be conquered, are also of two kinds; as first, the reasons why a go­vernment [Page 128]of citizens, where the commonwealth is equal, is hardest to be conquered, are, that the invader of such a society must not only trust to his own strength, insomuch as the commonwealth being equal, he must needs find them united, but in re­gard, that such citizens being all soldiers or trained up to their arms, which they use not for the defence of slavery, but of LIBERTY (A CONDITION NOT IN THIS WORLD TO BE BETTERED); they have more especially upon this occasion, the highest soul of courage, and (if their territory be of any extent) the vastest body of a well disciplined militia that is possible in nature: wherefore AN EXAMPLE OF SUCH A ONE OVERCOME BY THE ARMS OF A MO­NARCH, IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE WORLD. And if some small city of this frame has happened to be vanquished by a potent commonwealth, this is her prerogative, her towers are her funeral pile, and she expires in her own flame, leaving nothing to the con­queror but her ashes, as Saguntum overwhelmed by Carthage, and Numantia by Rome.

From the Candid Philosopher, printed in the year 1778. ON THE PROCRESS OF LIBETRY IN FRANCE.

HOWEVER the present age may have receded from genuine piety, it has certainly m [...]de the most rapid advances in a freedom and liberality of sentiment, which do honour to human nature. The French nation has particularly distinguished itself in this respect. Its writers display a vigour of thought they have till now been almost strangers to. They plead the cause of human nature, and assert man's natural [...]ights, with an energy and warmth that seem to indicate the speedy downfal of that vast fabric of superstition and error, that has hitherto so greatly obstructed the progress of free [Page 135]enquiry, and chilled even the emotions of huma­nity. What writer of any nation can express him­self with greater zeal for the sovereignty of the laws, against the blind will of the monarch, the ty­ranny of ministers, or the clamour of a mob, than to lay this down as a just maxim? "Le glaire re­doubtable de la justice n'a point ete deposed [...]ns les mains des magistrats, pour venger des haines parti­ [...]ul [...]eres, ni meme pour suivre les monvemens de I indignation publique. [...]e [...]t a LA LOI SEULE appartient de marquer les victimes; et si les cla­meurs d'une multitude aveugle et passionn [...]e pou­voint decider les juges a prononcer one Peine ca­pitale, I innocence pren [...]oit la place du crime. et il n'y auroit plus de surete pour le citoyen." These are just and excellent sentiments; but they are not peculiar to this writer. The greater part of his coun­trymen now think with the same freedom, and speak with the same force. This liberal spirit has a great­er tendency to exalt the French nation than all the military operations of their much boasted Lewis XIV. whose glories sunk, and whose victories im­poverished, the kingdom he sought to strengthen and enrich. However, as Englishmen, we may la­ment the dawing splendor of the French monarchy, enlighte'ed by the Sun of science; yet, as citizens of the universe, we must rejoice at the great and glorious effects produced by the genius of liberty, that can turn Siberia's deserts into Albion's fertile plains; unlock the sources of plenty and bliss, and change brutes and slaves into men and heroes!

ON A LIFE OF LABOUR.
FROM THE SAME.

WE read in many authors great encomiums on a life of labour, and of the superior blessings of peasants and hard working men, whose tempe­rate [Page 136]and abstemious lives not only make them enjoy an uninterrupted state of health, but throw a crim­son on their cheeks, and give a vigour to their bo­dies, the sons of wealth and affluence, they tell us, may in vain sigh for. This sounds well; but I own I am doubtful of the fact.

If I compare the working part of mankind, who [...]e hard and work hard. with those who eat and drink of the good "things of the earth," I think I can discern better complexions. choicer animal sp [...]ri [...]s, and stronger bodies in the latter than in the former. Incessant labour, and coarse and scanty food, have certainly a tendency to weaken the bo­dies of mankind, and wear them out before their time [...] And this we [...] is the ease, What becomes t [...]n of the fine spun theories of visionary authors. who so greatly extol a laborious life?—Why, they are destroyed, like other cobweb systems, that will not bear handling.

The personal Virtues of a Monarch are unable to secure him from contempt, if he will be led blindfold by wicked Ministers.
FROM THE SAME.

A MONARCH who will suffer himself to be directed by vicious favourites and ministers, though virtuous in himself, is, in fact, the author of their vices, and all the unhappy consequences that result from them. A monarch who is the fa­ther of his people, should not be the dupe of a fa­vourite. A monarch who should see and judge for himself, should not take things upon trust. If a nation, from the height of splendour and glory, should be brought by the ignorance or treachery of incapable or wicked ministers, to a state of misery and contempt, despised abroad, and at home unhap­py—it is but poor consolation to reflect, that the [Page 137]king has many personal virtues. Was this imagi­nary description to become a real picture of a nati­on, and its virtuous monarch, I would cry out wiih Marcus, in the Tragedy of Cato,

"Curse on his virtues—they've undone his country."

MODERN MOTIVES FOR WAR.
(From Barlow's advice to the Privileged Orders.)

ONE general character will apply to much the greater part of the wars of modern times,— they are political, and not vindictive. This alone is sufficient to account for their real origin. They are wars of agreement, rather than of dissention; and the conquest is taxes. and not territory. To carry on this business. it is necessary not only to keep up the military spirit of the noblesse by titles and pensions, and to keep in pay a vast number of troops, who know no other God but their king, who lose all ideas of themselves, in contemplating their officers, and who forget the duties of a m [...]n, to practise those of a soldier.—this is but half the operation; an essential part of the military system is to disarm the people, to hold all the functions of war, as well the arm that executes, as the will that declares it, equally above their reach. This part of the system has a douhle effect, it palsies the hand and brutalizes the mind; an habitual disuse of phy­sical forces totally destroys the moral; and men lose at once the power of protecting themselves, and of discerning the cause of their oppression,

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF HELL.
(From a Pamphlet entitled: The Rights of the Devil.)

WE have a long time disputed, and are not yet agreed in this point, what is the best and most advantageous form of government for any na­tion, and for the people whereof it consists. Some are for a democracy, others for aristocracy, and others for monarchy. Although each of these opi­nions has its favourites, and is supported by very solid reasons; it nevertheless appears certain, that monarchy prevails over the other two, because the four great empires which succeeded one another in the world, and existed near two thousand years, all adopted and followed a monarchial form of govern­ment. And it appears to be an indisputable fact, that this is the government of the infernal empire (viz) an absolute monarchy. It is undoubtedly the best form of government for the monarch, what­ever it may be for the subjects, because the Devil assumes the power of the whole mass of beings col­lectively, and consequently can make what aggran­dizement he pleases at the expence of his vassals, and they dare not grunt their disapprobation. Thus, you see the Devil has a right and property in his subjects, as he, like earthly monarchs, can rob and plunder them at his pleasure, and is account­able to no one for his deeds; for it is an established maxim, "That kings can do no wrong." There­fore, Lucifer, as King of Hell, cannot act amiss. But you are ready to ask, from whence did the De­vil derive these inestimable rights and privileges? Did the people, his subjects, give up their rights? No: he acquired them by assumption; and by God's permission, he has possessed those valuable rights through a series of ages, and will continue to enjoy them for ages to come, as their is no heir apparent to lucceed him. Is not those Rights of the Devil with respect to the length of time he enjoys them [Page 631]far superior to the Rights of earthly Kings? certain­ly they are, as history furnishes us with documents to prove that he has exercised those rights through a succession of ages, already near six thousand years; and will undoubtedly enjoy them as many more. The infernal monarchy, according to history, ap­pears to have been original; for I do not recollect reading of any other previous to the establishment of a monarchical government in Hell by the puis­sant Lucifer. Why, thou fool, say some of you, how shouldst thou hear of its having a precedent, since its originality is unquestionable, and all other absolute monarchies are but eminations from that primary authority, having their existence from that very source. Hell is the fountain head, and all terrestrial monarchies, I say, are but corrupted waters in comparison with the fountain which sup­plies them, notwithstanding no labour has been lost on the part of the monarchs in all ages and kingdoms, to render their governments pure like their original. Yet Hell is the most peaceable, and justice therein the best administered of any other kingdom I have ever heard of. No wars! no riots! no tumults or insurrections! no traiterous corres­pondence! no sediton or attempt to alienate the af­fections of Lucifer's subjects from his person! no attempt to vilify and bring into contempt the con­stitution of the empire! But, on the contrary, the virtues most prevalent are, unity, peace and con­cord, throughout the whole of Lucifer's dominions. In Hell, the public tranquility is never disturbed in any state or apartment. There you will hear of no such odious names, as Paine, or Priestley, to alarm or terrify you, by their endeavours to subvert the government or the country. There will be no Birmingham Roberspieres to affright, or disturb "the loyal Job Not," when he lays down his head on the lap of his mother, of whom poor Job has such dreadful apprehensions.

[Page 140]Go on, thou loyal true blue, and pursue thy jour­ney, and fear not for thou mayest assuredly depend upon a welcome reception by King Lucifer, but more especially if thou art accompanied by thy con­fort Betty Martin, no questions will then be asked, the mark in your foreheads will testify whose sub­jects you are. Hail! happy Job and Betty! Two faithful pot companions; greet the brethren of the household with an unholy kiss, when you enter those happy realms, where loyalty and unanimity ever dwells. Who can avoid contemplating the happiness of Job, when undisturbed by his ene­mies? There is no such thing as a Jacobin in Hell; and the names of Paine, Priestley, and in short all the names of modern reformers, are detestable there as well as here: no projects of reform are recognized there; in fact, thereis no necessity, the constitution being in its primitive purity, which is rendered mani­fest by the desire of anti-republicans and others shew in their emigration thither. What has been left undone by the celebrated Job Nott, the more ef­fectually to secure to himself a place at the helm of affairs in Satan's kingdom? Has not every thing in his power been done, to obtain the favour of his master Lucifer? Certainly Job has been a very zealous friend in his master's service, which was very conspicuous in his conduct in the Birmingham riots; and he is entitled to patronage and promoti­on in the court of Lucifer, in whom the sole right of conferring places, honours, pensions, and emo­luments is invested, Job's literary productions have also contributed very much to the population of the infernal regions; which will undoubtedly pre­judice the inhabitants greatly in his favour. Me­thinks, I hear some of you say that I am jealous of the honour about to be done to Job: no, no; far be it from me to envy any man; for I declare to Job and all the world, that neither envy, hatred, malice or uncharitableness shall ever find place within me.

The Impossibility of commencing Tyrant over an armed Nation convinced of the universal Equality of Man­kind.
(From Barlow's Advice to the Privileged Orders)

ONLY admit this original, un [...]lt [...]rable truth, that all men are qual in their rights, and the foundation of every thing is laid: to build the su­perstructures requires no effort but that of natural deduction. The first necessary deduction will be, that the people will form an equal representative government; in which it will be impossible for or­ders or privileges to exist for a moment; and con­sequently the first materials for standing armies will be converted into peaceable members of the state. Another deduction follows, that the people will be universally armed: they will assume those wea­pons for security, which the art of war has invent­ed for destruction. You will then have removed the necessity of a standing army, by the organization of the legislature, and the possibility of it, by the ar­arangement of the militia; for it is saimpossible for an armed soldiery to exist in an armed nation, as for a nobility to exist under as equal government.

It is curious to remark how ill we reason on hu­man nature, from being accustomed to view it un­der the disguise which the unequal governments of the world have always imposed upon it, During the American was, and especially towards its close, General Washington might be said to possess the hearts of all the Americans. His recommendation was law, and he was able to command the whole power of that people for any purpose of defence. The philosophers of Europe considered this as a dangerous crisis to the cause of freedom. They knew, from the example of Caesar, and Silla, and Marius, and Alcibiades, and Pericles, and Crom­well, that Washington would never lay down his arms, till he had given his country a master. But [Page 142]after he did lay them down, then came the miracle —his virtue was more than human; and it is by this miracle of virtue in him, that the Americans are supposed to enjoy their liberty at this day.

I believe the virtue of that great man to be equal to the highest human virtue that has ever yet been known; but to an American eye no extraordinary portion of it could appear in that transaction. It would have been impossible for the General or the anny, to have continued in the field after the ene­my left it; for the soldiers were all citizens! and if it had been otherwise. their numbers were not the hundreth part of the citizens at large, who were all soldiers. To say that he was wise in dis­cerning the impossibility of success, in an attempt to imitate the great heroes abovementioned, is to give him only the same merit for sagacity which is common to every other person who knows the country, or has well considered the effects of equal liberty.

ON THE POMPOUS TITLES GIVEN TO THE DIGNIFIED CLERGY.
(From the Candid Philosopher)

THE pompous titles given to the haughty suc­cessors of humble fishermen, have often ama­zed me. Some of them appear to me either to bor­der on the very confines of blasphemy, or to have no meaning in them. I would fain know how any man alive can, with propriety, be called a RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD? What is the mean­ing of this great title? How can any man. formed of dust and ashes, full of frailty, and full of sin, be said to be RIGHT REVEREND? And how is he a Father in GOD? Equivocation may explain away these words, but common sense must determine they are impious and absurd.—As to the terms, your [Page 143] Grace, your Lordship, your Reverence, &c. &c. they favour too much of vanity and laical pride, to be­come the humility of the disciples of CHRIST, and teachers of his gospel. I cannot find any such titles were ever given to our SAVIOUR or his apostles; yet, without intending any affront to the pious Pastors of the established Church, I really think the apostles were as holy, wise and virtuous, as any of the Primates, Archbishops, Prebendaties, Rectors, Vicars, &c. &c. &c. &c. &c. of the pre­sent age.

ON THE VENALITY OF VOTERS, BOTH IN AND OUT OF PARLIAMENT.
(From the Adventures of Gabriel Outcast.)

THOUGH our prudent ancestors found it ne­cessary to curb the influence of the crown, by enacting a law, that none of its officers should interfere in elections, yet matters are come to such a pass. that administration found it necessary to have as many voices in the house, as they could acquire; for this purpose no money was spared, and every measure pursued that would defe [...]t and evade the standing laws against bribery and corrup­tion. The misfortune seemed to be this: in the reign of King William, venality in parliament was unknown, every man voted as his judgment and conscience directed him, and the minister could carry no measures of his own, unless they tended to the general good.

This did not agree with King William, who was an arbitrary prince, and of course, found his situa­tion so uneasy. that he was once on the eve of re­turning to Holland in disgust, and would undoubt­edly have done it, had not his ministers contrived to carry his favourite points, by bribing the Parlia­ment of those times. Thus did that venality, to [Page 144]which the enormous debt of this nation is in a great measure owing, descend from the crown to the people; for in those days it was found difficult to find representatives; and the electors were obliged to court gentlemen to serve them. But when the members found they were to be rewarded for their votes. men were so eager to get into parliament, that they courted the electors, who, in their turn, expected o [...] be paid for their suffrages, of course, the members of the lower house, in a few years, could not obtain a sear but at a great expence, and to reimburse themselves, made terms with the mi­nister; and such was the degeneracy of the times, that men would not vete, even according to their consciences, without a bribe. This corruption spreading from the lower house to the upper, has occasioned all the cala [...]ties under which this coun­try labours; and whereas venality near a century ago descended, as I observed, from the crown to the people, it now rises from the people to the crowm. ^{8 *⁎*}

Defects in the English Constitution, as to Representation. From the Complaints of the Poor People of Eng­land.

IN England few poor men have any share in making the laws. Some may probably think, and certain politicians assert, that poor men have neither the power, nor the right, to make laws. What is this, but to assert, that the poor man's portion in England is s [...]wery. I do not say, that the poor people of Eng­land are slaves. But this I say, that all freemen make their own laws; and I do but speak after our best po­litical writers. Will gentlemen tell me, why poor men are to be slaves? However, while I consider every man's right to make laws, as his most sacred pro­perty, and the exercise of that right as essential to li­berty, whoever cannot exercise that right, be he ever so rich, I must at least consider as poor; in the worst sense poor. My complaints, therefore, do not confine them­selves [Page 146]to paupers, commonly so called. Many poor men live in England, who are possessed of thousands!

There are two ways of making laws, viz. in our own persons, or by representatives. If a country be large and populous, all the people cannot assemble and consult together for the purpose of making laws: but if they authorize persons, acquainted with their wants, and interested in their happiness, to represent them, every good end may be answered. The only danger is, lest these persons should not express the public mind. Never will they express it, unless they represent the public.—This is the case in England: the government of which it is usual to call a limited monarchy, in reference to the person of the prince. But in reference to the people, so great a part of whom have no share in representation, it might be called, notwithstanding what we say of the house of commons, a mixt aristocracy, as Poland has been called.

The king, the house of peers, and the house of commons, compose what are called the three branches of the constitution—the king in his own person, the nobles in their own persons. What is a house of com­mons? It is supposed to represent the people: but some say, it is a fiction; that is, that it does not ex­ist, but that it is only supposed to exist. When men inquire into facts, what are called theories frequently vanish. We talk of a house of commons, of a house of representatives; it is the glory of Britons! and foreigners laugh at us. They ask us, Where is this house? I leave others to answer this question.

If this house of commons were indeed something more than a fiction, I should myself retract a little of my wonted admiration. A house of commons, fairly and equally representing all the people of England, never did exist. But if it were not a mere fiction, if it were a reality, I should still be obliged to yield something to the following remark, viz. that a house of commons supposes some superior house, of nobles, [Page 147]or some such name. But where any order of men exists, of separate claims and of separate interests from the people, and whose separate characters give them a kind of sacred superiority over the people, liberty may perhaps be endangered. It has been asserted, whether justly I do not determine, that such a house as that of a house of commons exists in no free state.

I shall here make a sew remarks on nobility. I will repeat what an ancient writer says: "In no state," says he, "are the nobles favourable to the peo­ple: equals are favourable to equals." And else­where he observes, in every part of the earth, the go­vernment of the nobles is inconsistent with that of the people: and he gives his reasons for the oppsi­tion of the two orders. A French writer, perhaps, had his eye on these passages, when he said, the Eng­lish nobility baried themselves with Charles I. under the ruins of the throne. He adds, "they think it an honour to obey a king, but consider it as the lowest infamy to snare the power with the people.

It might be easily shewn, that a patent nobility made no part of the old English government, or of the other governments of Europe. Xenophon and Montesquieu were friends, the one to aristocracy, the other to monarchy, yet nobody ever more exposed them. It is of a government, where an hereditary patent nobility is said to balance the two extremes of monarchy and democracy, that Blackstone observes, "It creates and preserves that gradual scale of dig­nity, which proceeds from the beggar to the prince, rising like a pyramid from a broad foundation, and diminishing to a point as it rises. It is this ascend­ing and contracting proportion, that adds stability to any government; for when the departure is sudden from one extreme to another, we may pronounce that state to be precarious." This is beautiful, flattering also to national vanity, but it is theoretical. The ascending and contracting proportion is seen among most of the American states, in a house of representa­tives [Page 148]chosen by the people, in a senate appointed by the representatives, and in a president, or governor, appointed mediately or immediately by the people: yet the Americans have no nobles. The system of aristocracy, they think, tends to weakness. It dis­solves, they say, the ties of families by the law of pri­mogeniture; exhausts the public money in places for the younger branches of noble families; keeps the orders of society in a kind of dwarsish state, by per­petuating the maxims of a barbarous age; weakens the legislature by advancing men to legislation, whose private regards absorb public spirit, and who are ir­responsible to the nation; and, by dividing man from man, enfeebles the order of human beings. Who can tell where the tide of contingencies will flow? France, in whose political fabric nobility did indeed seem to form the great Corinthian capital, saw it necessary to remove it, to raise a government of justice.

"I have also admitted that an order of nobles might exist without a patent nobility. I have not said that it is necessary; or if necessary, that an hereditary nobility is. Its great use may be thought to consist in forming a kind of senate to give bias and consistency to other powers, and to produce a harmony in states; a senate has even been thought essential to a republic. France, we have been told, has left out of her political fabric the pillar of strength. "Never," says a writer, "before this time was heard of a body politic without such a council;" yet Geneva, in the infancy of the republic, was such: a more scientific writer than Mr. Burke, though he elsewhere says, that a king and peo­ple may exist without a senate, yet does, in fact, say, "there never was a good government in the world, that did not consist of the three simple species, of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy."

"Yet France has thought otherwise. She thinks, that by breaking the distinctions between man and man, she strengthens society, and makes the public force permanent by uniting it in a national assembly. [Page 149]I decide nothing on the truth of these sentiments: I propose these questions:—Was it not the existence of the two orders of patricians and plebeians, that pro­moted all the disorders of the Roman government, Were not the senatus consulta and the plebiscita fre­quently little else than exclusive decrees for particular interests? And while the patricians were encroach­ing on the plebeians, the tribunes, called to the aid of the plebeians, became in their turn factious dema­gogues. Amid private regards was not public li­berty unknown? Was it not a senate that destroyed the liberties of Geneva?"

But to return to the House of commons. Whom, or what does a house of commons represent?—not al­ways rational beings, men and women; but for the greater part, property; and property of a particular kind. Property, though ever so large, copyhold, leasehold, or personal, cannot be represented, but free­hold estates only, possessed by men. Females, though possessed of 100,000 l, a year, either in land or money, have no representatives. Since the reign of Henry VI. none can be electors of knights of the shire, but men possessed of forty shillings a year. But how few poor men have freeholds! Some parishes consisting of several hundred persons, perhaps, have not a single freeholder. Some of the largest and most wealthy towns in England have not a single representative. I have not yet spoken of boroughs. But our theory be­gins to vanish!

If the reader can avoid smiling at the following facts, I shall think him fimple; if he feel no indig­nation, I shall think him something worse.

The borough of Midhurst in Sussex, it is well known, contains not a single house, and yet sends two members to Parliament. The right of election is in one hundred and twenty burgage-holds; the former situation of which is marked out by a stone on each side.—The borough of Old Sarum, in Wiltshire sends two members to parliament; yet there is but one or [Page 150]two houses standing. The members are chosen by a bailiff, and six burgesses, appointed by Lord Camel­ford, the lord of the borough, and entrusted by him with burgage-scites. The borough of Gatton and Castle-Rising have each two houses only, and two re­presentatives each.

The tenures of Midhurst, I would observe, make no part of the town of Midhurst. They were the property of the late Lord Montague, who, at the time of the election, made a temporary assignment of a part of them, either to some of his domestics or friends, in order to have those members returned that he should nominate. The trustees of the estates of the present lord sold these burgage-holds to the earl of Egremont for 40,000 guineas, whose brothers were returned for this borough the last general election.

Hastings, in Sussex, before the [...]assing of Mr. Crewe's bill, was entirely at the disposal of the trea­sury. The number of voters was [...]out twenty, all of whom had places under government, or were pro­vided for some other way. This is the borough I think, in the management of which a Mr. Collins ac­quired a most splendid fortune, and made ample pro­vision for five co-heiresses, his daughters. The bo­rough of Hastings, I think, is still in the management of government. These are what are called rotten bo­roughs.

I have already hinted that some large towns, and these abounding with manufactories, have not a single representative: and even where property is represented, it is not represented equally. The county of Mid­dlesex, in 1693, paid 80 parts of the land tax, and in 1697, 185 of the subsidy, and sent only eight mem­bers to parliament; while Cornwall paid but eight parts of the land tax, and five only of the subsidy and yet sent forty-four. As to the rotten boroughs, of some of which I have just spoken, they represent nobody; they are private property. The persons who are chosen for them represent nobody, yet they have [Page 151]all the power of representatives: a use also they cer­tainly have; they strengthen the influence of the crown; and if a man have money enough to purchase a borough, and meanness enough to obey the beck of the minister, we know the rest.—Thus it is, that per­sons, who were never appointed by the people, make laws......

The house of representatives amounts to between five and six hundred members; the majority of which are appointed by voters not exceeding twelve thou­sand; the nation consists of seven or eight million: so that the persons who do actually give a vote for mem­bers are, comparatively, a small part of the community. The Duke of Richmond, whose statement I here nearly follow, once understood political calculation; and I am persuaded, it is only what is supposed to be the danger of the experiment, that makes him fearful of the rule of practice. Mr. Paine observes, that not above one in seven is represented; this relates to repre­sentatives, actually chosen: for when all the circum­stances taken into the account are considered, one writer asserts, that the walls of St. Stephen's Chapel have not been visited by six members in any par­liament, elected, appointed, or delegated by their con­stituents; and another, that not one person in five housand is represented. But leaving these writers, I ask again, Where is our house of commons? Some call it a stubborn aristocracy. Where is our house of representatives?—Some call it a fiction. Our the­ory they say is gone. Be this as it may, the poor man is left to pay taxes.

ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.
From Gurney's Edition of the said Trial.

EVERY man, not intending to mislead and to confound, but seeking to enlighten others with what his own reason and conscience, however erro­neously, dictate to him as truth, may address himself to the universal reason of a whole nation, either upon the subject of governments in general, or upon that of our own particular country: he may analyse the principles of its constitution, point out its errors and defects, examine and publish its corruptions, warn his fellow-citizens against their ruinous consequences, and exert his whole faculties, in pointing out the most advantageous changes in establishments, which he considers to be radically defective, or sliding from their object by abuse. All this every subject of this country has a right to do, if he contemplates only what he thinks its happiness, and but seeks to change the public mind by the conviction which flows from reasonings dictated by conscience.

If, indeed, he writes what he does not think; if, contemplating the misery of others, he wickedly con­demns what his own understanding approves; or, even admitting his real disgust against the govern­ment, or its corruptions; if he calumniates living ma­gistrates; or holds out to individuals, that they have a right to run before the public mind in their con­duct; that they may oppose by contumacy or force what private reason only disapproves; that they may disobey the law, because their judgment condemns it; or resist the public will, because they honestly wish to change it; he is then a criminal upon every principle of rational policy, as well as upon the im­memorial [Page 169]precedents of English justice; because such a person seeks to disunite individuals from their duty to the whole, and excites to overt acts of misconduct in a part of the community, instead of endeavouring to change, by the impulse of reason, the universal ascent which, in this and in every country, constitutes the law for all.

Gentlemen, I say, in the name of Thomas Paine, and in his words as author of the Rights of Man, as written in the very volume that is charged with seek­ing the destruction of property,

‘The end of all political associations is, The pre­servation of the Rights of Man, which rights are Liberty, Property, and Security; that the nation is the source of all sovereignty derived from it: the right of property being secured and inviolable, no one ought to be deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity.’

These are undoubtedly the rights of man—the rights for which all governments are established—and the only rights Mr. Paine contends for; but which he thinks (no matter whether right or wrong) are better to be secured by a republican constitution than by the forms of the English government. He in­structs me to admit, that, when government is once constituted, no individuals, without rebellion, can withdraw their obedience from it—that all attempts to excite them to it are highly criminal, for the most obvious reasons of policy and justice—that no­thing short of the Will of a whole people can change or effect the rule by which a nation is to be governed —and that no private opinion, however honestly ini­micable to the forms or substance of the law, can justify resistance to its authority, while it remains in force. The author of the Rights of Man not only admits the truth of all this doctrine, but he consents to be convicted, and I also consent for him, unless his Work shall be found studiously and painfully to in­culcate [Page 170]culcate these great principles of government, which it is charged to have been written to destroy. Let me not, therefore, be suspected to be contending, that it is lawful to write a book pointing out defects in the English government, and exciting individuals to de­stroy its sanctions, and to refuse obedience. But, on the other hand, I do contend, that it is lawful to ad­dress the English nation on these momentous subjects, for had it not been for this unalienable right (thanks be to God and our fathers for establishing it), how should we have had this Constitution which we so loudly boast of? If, in the march of the human mind, no man could have gone before the establishments of the time he lived in, how could our establishment, by reiterated changes, have become what it is? If no man could have awakened the public mind to errors and abuses in our government, how could it have passed on from stage to stage, through reformation and revolution, so as to have arrived from barbarism to such a pitch of happiness and perfection, that the Attorney General considers it as profanation to touch it any further, or to look for any future amendment.

In this manner power has reasoned in every age— Government, in its own estimation, has been at all times a system of perfection; but a free press has ex­amined and detected its errors, and the people have happily reformed them: this freedom has alone made our government what it is, and alone can preserve it; and therefore, under the banners of that freedom, to­day I stand up to defend Thomas Paine. But how, alas! shall this task be accomplished? How may I expect from you what human nature has not made man for the performance of? How may I address your reasons, or ask them to pause, amidst the torrent of prejudice which has hurried away the public mind on the subject you are to judge?

Was any Englishman ever so brought as a criminal before an English Court of Justice?—If I were to ask you, Gentlemen of the Jury, what is the choicest [Page 171]fruit that grows upon the tree of English Liberty, you would answer, SECURITY UNDER THE LAW. If I were to ask the whole people of England, the return they looked for at the hands of Government, for the burdens under which they bend to support it, I should still be answered, SECURITY UNDER THE LAW; or, in other words, an impartial administration of justice. So sacred, therefore, has the Freedom of Trial been ever held in England; so anxiously does justice guard against every possible bias in her path, that if the pub­lic mind has been locally agitated upon any subject in judgment, the forum is either changed or the trial postponed. The circulation of any paper that brings, or which can be supposed to bring, prejudice, or even well-founded knowledge, within the reach of a Bri­tish tribunal, on the spur of an occasion, is not only highly criminal, but defeats itself, by leading to put of the trial which its object was to pervert. On this principle, his Lordship will permit me to remind him, that on the trial of the Dean of St. Asaph, for a libel, or rather, when he was brought to trial, the circulation of books by a society favourable to his defence, was held by the noble Lord, as Chief Justice of Chester, to be a reason for not trying the cause; although they contained no matter relative to the Dean, nor to the object of his trial; being only ex­tracts from ancient authors of high reputation, on the general Rights of Juries to consider the innocence as well as the guilt of the accused; yet still, as the re­collection of these rights was pressed forward, with a view to effect the proceedings, to guard the principle the proceedings were postponed.

Is the Defendant then to be the only exception to these admirable provisions? Is the English law to judge him, stript of the armour with which its uni­versal justice encircles all others? Shall we, in the very act of judging him for detracting from the En­glish government, furnish him with ample matter for just reprobation, instead of detraction? Has not his [Page 172]cause been prejudged through a thousand channels? Has not the work before you been daily publicly re­vived, and his person held up to derision and re­proach? Has not the public mind been excited, by crying down the very phrase and idea of the Rights of Man? Nay, have not associations of gentlemen, I speak it with regret, because I am persuaded, from what I know of some of them, that they, amongst them at least, thought they were serving the public; yet have they not, in utter contempt and ignorance of that Constitution of which they declare themselves to be the guardians, published the grossest attacks upon the Defendant? Have they not, even while the cause has been standing here in the paper for im­mediate trial, published a direct protest against the very work now before you; advertising in the same paper, though under the general description of se­ditious papers, a reward on the conviction of any person who should dare to sell the book itself, to which their own publication was an answer?—The Attorney General has spoken of a forced circulation of this Work; but how have these prejudging papers been circulated? We all know how: they have been thrown into our carriages in every street; they have met us at every turnpike; and they lie in the areas of all our houses. To complete the triumph of prejudice, that High Tribunal, of which I have the honour to be a member (my learned friends know what I say to be true), has been drawn into this vor­tex of slander; and some of its members, for I do not speak of the House itself, have thrown the weight of their stations into the same scale.

By all means I maintain that this cause has been prejudged.

It may be said, that I have made no motion to put off the trial for these causes, and that courts of themselves take no cognizance of what passes else­where, without facts laid before them. Gentlemen, I know that I should have had equal justice from that [Page 173]quarter, if I had brought myself within the rule. But when should I have been better in the present aspect of things? And therefore I only remind you of all these hardships, that you may recollect that your judg­ment is to proceed upon that alone which meets you here, upon the evidence in the cause, and not upon suggestions destructive of every principle of justice.

Having disposed of these foreign prejudices, I hope you will as little regard some arguments that have been offered to you in court. The letter which has been so repeatedly pressed upon you, you ought to dismiss even from your recollection; I have already put it out of the question, as having been written long subsequent to the Book, and as being a libel on the King, which no part of the information charges, and which may hereafter be prosecuted as a distinct offence. I consider that letter besides, and indeed have always beard it treated, as a forgery, contrived to injure the merits of the cause, and to embarrass me person­ally in its defence. I have a right so to consider it, because it is unsupported by any thing similar at an earlier period. The Defendant's whole deportment, previous to the publication, has been wholly unexcep­tionable; he properly desired to be given up as the author of the Book, if any enquiry should take place concerning it; and he is not affected in evidence, directly or indirectly, with any illegal or suspicious conduct; not even with having uttered an indiscreet or counting expression, nor with any one matter or thing, inconsistent with the duty of the best subject in England. His opinions indeed were not adverse to our system; but I maintain that OPINION is free, and that CONDUCT alone is amenable to the law.

You are next to judge of the author's mind and intention, by the modes and extent of the circu­lation of his work. The First Part of the Rights of Man, Mr. Attorney General tells you, he did not prosecute, although it was in circulation through the country for a year and a half together, because it [Page 174]seems it circulated only amongst what he stiles the judi­cious part of the public, who possessed in their capa­cities and experience an antidote to the poison; but that with regard to the Second Part now before you, its circulation had been forced into every corner of society; had been printed and reprinted for cheapness even upon whited brown paper, and had crept into the very nurseries of children, as a wrapper for their sweetmeats.

In answer to this statement, which after all stand only upon Mr Attorney General's own assertion, un­supported by any kind of proof (no witness having proved the author's personal interference with the sale), I still maintain, that if he had the most anxi­ously promoted it, the question would remain exactly the same: the question would still be, whether at the time when Paine composed his work, and promoted the most extensive purchase of it, he believed or dis­believed what he had written, and whether he con­templated the happiness or the misery of the English nation, to which it is addressed; and which ever of these intentions may be evidenced to your judgments upon reading the Book itself, I confess I am utterly at a loss to comprehend how a writer can be supposed to mean something different from what he has written, by an axiety (common I belive to all authors) that his work should be generally read.

Remember, I am not asking your opinions of the doctrines themselves, you know them already pretty visibly since I began to address you; but I shall ap­peal not only to you, but to those who, without our leave, will hereafter judge without appeal of all that we are doing to day; whether, upon the matter which I hasten to lay before you, you can refuse in justice to pronounce, that from his education—from the accidents and habits of his life—from the time and occasion of the publication—from the circum­stances attending it—and from every line and letter of the work itsself, and all his other writings before and even since, his conscience and understanding (no [Page 175]matter whether erroneously or not) were deeply and solemnly impressed with the matters contained in his Book,—that he addressed it to the reason of the nati­on at large, and not to the passions of individuals, and that in the issue of its influence, he contemplated only what appeared to him (though it may not to us) to be the interest and happiness of England, and of the whole human race. In drawing the one or the other of these conclusions, the Book stands first in order, and it shall now speak for itself.

Gentlemen, the whole of it is in evidence before you, the particular parts arraigned having only been read by my consent, upon the presumption that on retiring from the court, you would caresully com­pare them with the context, and all the parts with the whole viewed together. You cannot indeed do justice without it. The most common letter, even in the ordinary course of business, cannot be read in a cause to prove an obligation for twenty shillings with­out the whole being read, that the writer's meaning may be seen without deception. But in a criminal charge of only four pages and a half, out of a work containing nearly two hundred, you cannot, with even the appearance of common justice, pronounce a judgment without the most deliberate and cautious comparison. I observe, that the noble and learned Judge confirms me in this observation. But if any given part of a work be legally explanatory, of every other part of it, the preface, a fortiori, is the most ma­terial; because the preface is the author's own key to his writing: it is there that he takes the reader by the hand, and introduces him to his subject: it is there that the spirit and intention of the whole is laid before him by way of prologue. A preface is meant by the author as a clue to ignorant or careless readers: the author says by it, to every man who chooses to begin where he ought—look at my plan—attend to my distinctions—mark the purpose and limitations of the matter I lay before you.

THE DISTRESSES OF THE POOR, Exemplified in the LIFE OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER.
From the Citizen of the World. By Dr. Goldsmith.

THE misfortunes of the great, my friend, are held up to engage our attention, are enlarged upon in tones of declamation, and the world is called upon to [Page 195]gaze at the noble sufferers; they have at once the comfort of admiration and pity.

Yet where is the magnanimity of bearing misfortunes, when the whole world is looking on? Men in such [...]hances can act bravely even from motives of vanity. He only who, in the vale of obscurity, can [...]ave a svertity, who, without friends to encourage, as quaintances to pity, or even without hope to allevi­ate his distresses, can behave with tranquility and in­diference, is truly great; whether peasant or cour­tier, be deserves admiration, and should be held up for our imitation and respect.

The miseries of the poor are, however, entirely disregarded, though some undergo more real hard­ships in one day than the great in their whole lives. It is indeed inconceivable what difficulties the meanest English sailor or soldier endures without murmuring or regret. Every day to him is a day of misery, and yet he bears his hard fate without repining.

With what indignation do I hear the heroes of tra­gedy complain of misfortunes and hardships, whose greatest calamity is founded in arrogance and pride. Their severest distresses are pleasures, compared to what many of the adventuring poor every day sustain, without murmuring. These may eat, drink and sleep, have slaves to attend them, and are sure of sustenence for life, while many of their fellow-crea­tures are obliged to wander, without a friend to com­fort or to assist them, find enmity in every law, and are too poor to obtain even justice.

I have been led into these reflections, from acci­dentally meeting some days ago, a poor fellow beg­ging at one of the outlets of the town, with a wooden leg. I was curious to learn what had reduced him to his present situation; and after giving him what I thought proper, desired to know the history of his life and misfortunes, and the manner in which he was reduced to his present distress. The disabled soldier, for such he was, with an intrepidity truly British, [Page 196]leaning on his crutch, put himself into an attitude to comply with my request, and gave me his history as follows:

'As for misfortunes, Sir, I can't pretend to have gone through more than others. Except the loss of my limb, and my being obliged to beg, I don't know any reason, thank heaven, that I have to complain: there are some that have lose both legs and an eye; but, thank heaven, it is not quite so bad with me.

'My father was a labourer in the country, and died when I was five years old; so I was put upon the parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, or where I was born; so they sent me to another parish, and that parish sent me to a third; till at h [...] it was thought I be longed to no parish at all. At length, however, they sixed me. I had some dis­position to be a scholar, and had actually learned my letters; but the master of the workhouse put me to business, as soon as I was able to handle a mallet.

'Here I lived an easy kind of a life for five years. I only wrought ten hours in the day, and had my meat and drink provided for my labour. It is true, I was not suffered to stir far from the house, for fear I should run away; but what of that, I had the liberty of the whole house, and the yard before the door, and that was enough for me.

'I was next bound out to a farmer, where I was up both early and late, but I eat and drank well, and liked my business well enough, till he died. Be­ing then obliged to provide for myself, I was resolved to go and seek my fortune. Thus I lived and went from town to town, working when I could get em­ployment, and starving when I could get none, and might have lived so still; but happening one day to go through a field belonging to a magistrate, I spy'd a hare crossing the path just before me. I believe the devil put it in my head to fling my stick at it: well, what will you have on't? I kill'd the hare, and was [Page 197]bringing it away in triumph, when the justice him­self; met me: he called me a villain, and collering me, desired I would give an account of myself. I began immediately to give a full account of all that I knew of my breed, seed and generation: but though I gave a very long account, the justice said, I could give no account of myself; so I was indicted and found guilty of being poor, and sent to Newgate, in or­der to be transported to the plantations.

'People may say this and that of being in jail; but for my part, I found Newgate as agreeable a place as ever I was in, in all my life. I had my belly full to eat and drink, and did no work; but alas, this kind of life was too good to last for ever! I was taken out of prison, after five months, put on board of a ship, and sent off with two hundred more. Our pas­sage was but indifferent, for we were all confined in the hold, and died very fast, for want of sweet air and provisions; but for my part, I did not want meat, because I had a fever all the way; providence was kind when provisions grew short, it took away my desire of eating. When we came on shore, we were sold to the Planters. I was bound for seven years; and as I was no scholar, for I had forgot my letters, I was obliged to work among the negroes; and served out my time as in duty bound to do.

'When my time was expired, I worked my passage home, and glad I was to see Old England again, because I loved my Country. O Liberty, Liberty, Liberty! that is the property of every En­glishman, and I will die in it's defence: I was afraid, however, that I should be indicted for a vagabond once more, so did not much care to go into the coun­try, but kept about town, and did little jobs when I get them. I was very happy in this manner for some time, till one evening, coming home from work, two men knocked me down, and then defired me to stand still. They belonged to a press gang; I was carried before the justice, and as I could give no ac­count [Page 198]count of my self (that was the thing that always hob­bled me), I had my choice left, whether to go on board a man of war, or list for a soldier; I chose to be a soldier, and in this part of a gentleman I served two campaigns, was at the battles in Flanders, and received but one wound through the breast, which is troublesome to this day.

'When the peace came on, I was discharged; and as I could not work, because my wound was some­times painful, I listed for a landsman in the East India Company's service. I here fought the French in six pitched battles; and verily believe, that if I could read or write, our Captain would have given me promo­tion, and made me a corporal. But that was not my good fortune, I soon fell sick, and when I became good for nothing, got leave to return home again with forty pounds in my pocket, which I saved in the ser­vice. This was at the beginning of the present war, so I hoped to be set on shore, and to have the pleasure of spending my money; but the government wanted men, and I was pressed again before ever I could set foot on shore.

'The boatswain found me, as he said, an obsti­nate fellow: he swore that I understood my business perfectly well, but that I pretended sickness merely to be idle: God knows, I knew nothing of sea busi­ness! He beat me without considering what he was about. But still my forty pounds was some comfort to me under every beating; the money was my com­fort, and the money I might have had to this day, but that our ship was taken by the French, and so I lost it all!

'Our crew was carried into a French prison, and many of them died, because they were not used to live in a jaiI; but for my part it was nothing to me, for I was seasoned. One night however, as I was sleeping on the bed of boards, with a warm blanket about me, (for I always loved to lie well) I was awak­ed by the boatswain, who had a dark lanthorn in his [Page 199]hand. Jack, says he to me, will you knock out the French centry's brains? I don't care, says I, striving to keep myself awake, if I lend a hand. Then follow me, says he, and I hope we shall do business. So up I got, and tied my blanket, which was all the cloaths. I had, about my middle, and went with him to fight the Frenchmen: we had no arms; but one Englishman is able to beat five French at any time; so we went down to the door; where both the centries were post­ed, and rushing upon them, seized their arms in a moment, and knocked them down. From thence nine of us ran together to the Quay, and seizing the first boat we met, got out of the harbour, and put to sea. We had not been here three days, before we were taken by an English privateer, who was glad of so many good hands, and we consented to run our chance. However, we had not so much luck as we expected. In three days we fell in with a French man of War of forty guns, while we had but twen­ty-three; so to it we went. The fight lasted for three hours, and I verily believe we should have taken the Frenchman, but unfortunately we lost almost all our men, just as we were going to get the victory. I was once more in the power of the French, and I believe it would have gone hard with me, had I been brought back to my old jail in Brest; but by good fortnue we were re-taken, and carried to England once more.

I had almost forgot to tell you, that in this last en­gagement I was wounded in two places; I lost four fingers of the left hand, and my leg was cut off. Had I the good fortune to have lost my leg and the use of my hand on board a king's ship, and not a privateer, I should have been entitled to cloathing and maintenance during the rest of my life, but that was not my chance; one man is born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and another a wooden ladle. However, blessed be God, I enjoy good health, and have no enemy in this [Page 200]world that I know of, but the French and the justice of peace.'

Thus saying, he limped off, leaving my friend and me in admiration of his intrepidity and content.

ON KINGS.
From Godwin's Enquiry concerning Political Justice.

MONARCHY is so unnatural an institution, that mankind have at all times strongly suspected it was unfriendly to their happiness. The power of truth upon important topies is such, that it may rather be said to be obscured than obliterated; and falshood has scarcely ever been so successful, as not to have had a ref [...]ess and powerful antagonist in the heart of its vo­taries. The man who with difficulty earns his scanty subsistence, cannot behold the ostentatious splendor of a king, without being visited by some sense of injustice. He inevitably questions in his mind the utility of an officer, whose services are hired at so enormous a price. If he confider the subject with any degree of accuracy, he is led to perceive, and that with suffici­ent surprise, that a king is nothing more than a com­mon mortal, exceeded by many, and equalled by more in every requisite of strength, capacity, and virtue, He feels therefore, that nothing can be more ground­less and unjust, than the supposing that one such man as this is the fittest and most competent instrument for regulating the affairs of nations.

These reflections are so unavoidable, that Kings themselves have often been aware of the danger to their imaginary happiness with which they are preg­nant. They have sometimes been alarmed with the progress of thinking, and oftener regarded the ease and prosperity of their subjects as a fource of terror [Page 201]and apprehension. They justly consider their functions as a sort of public exhibition, the success of which depends upon the credulity of the spectators, and which good sense and courage would speedily bring to a termination. Hence the well known maxims of mo­narchial government, that ease is the parent of rebel­lion, and that it is necessary to keep the people in a state of poverty and endurance, in order to render them submissive. Hence it has been the perpetual com­plaint of despotism, that "the restive knaves are over­run with ease, and plenty ever is the nurse of faction ^*." Hence it has been the lesson perpetually read to mo­narchs: "Render your subjects prosperous, and they will speedily refuse to labour; they will become stub­born, proud, unsubmissive to the yoke, and ripe for revolt. It is impotence and misery that alone will render them supple, and prevent them from rebelling against the dictates of authority ^†."

ON CIVIL LIBERTY, AND THE PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT.

FROM what has been said it is obvious, that all Civil Government, as far as it can be denomi­nated free, is the creature of the people. It originates with them. It is conducted under their direction; and has in view nothing but their happiness. All its different forms are no more than so many different modes in which they chuse to direct their affairs, and to secure the quiet enjoyment of their rights.—In every free state every man is his own legislator. All taxes are free-gifts for public services.—All laws are particular provisions or regulations established by COMMON CONSENT for gaining protection and safe­ty. — And all Magistrates are trustees or deputies for carrying these regulations into execution.

Liberty, therefore, is too imperfectly defined when it is said to be "a Government by LAWS, and not by MEN." If the laws are made by one man, or a junto of men in a state, and not by COMMON CON­SENT, a government by them does not differ from slavery. In this case it would be a contradiction in terms to say, that the state governs itself.

From hence it is obvious that Civil Liberty, in the most perfect degree, can be enjoyed only in small states, where every member is capable of giving his suffrage in person, and of being chosen into public offices. When a state becomes so numerous, or when the different parts of it are removed to such distances from one another, as to render this impracticable, a diminution of liberty necessarily arises. There are, however, in these circumstances, methods by which such near approaches may be made to perfect liberty as shall answer all the purposes of government, and at the same time secure every right of human nature.

[Page 206]Tho' all the members of a state should not be ca­pable of giving their suffrages on public measures, in­dividually and personally, they may do this by the ap­pointment of substitutes or representatives. They may entrust the powers of legislation, subject to such re­strictions as they shall think necessary, with any num­ber of delegates; and whatever can be done by such delegates within the limits of their trust, may be con­sidered as done by the united voice and counsel of the community.—In this method a free government may be established in the largest state; and it is con­ceivable, that by regulations of this kind, any num­ber of states might be subjected to a scheme of go­vernment, that would exclude the desolations of war, and produce universal peace and order.

Let us think here of what may be practicable in this way with respect to Europe in particular.—While it continues divided, as it is at present, into a great number of independent kingdoms, whose interests are continually clashing, it is impossible but that dis­putes will often arise, which must end in war and carnage. It would be no remedy to this evil to make one of these states supreme over the rest; and to give it an absolute plenitude of power to superintend and controul them. This would be to subject all the states to the arbitrary discretion of one, and to esta­blish an ignominious slavery, not possible to be long endured. It would, therefore, be a remedy worse than the disease; nor is it possible it should be ap­proved by any mind that has not lost every idea of civil liberty. On the contrary.—Let every state, with respect to all its internal concerns, be continued independent of all the rest; and let a general con­federacy be formed by the appointment of a SENATE, consisting of representatives from all the different states. Let this SENATE possess tbe power of ma­naging all the common concerns of the united states, and of judging and deciding between them, as a common arbiter or umpire, in all disputes; having, [Page 207]at the same time, under its direction, the common force of the states to support its decisions. In these circumstances, each seperate state would be secure against the interference of foreign power in its private concerns, and, therefore, would possess liberty; and at the same time it would be secure against all op­pression and insult from every neighbouring state.— Thus might the scattered force and abilities of a whole continent be gathered into one point; all liti­gations settled as they rose; universal peace esta­blished; and nation prevented from any more lifting up a sword against nation.

POPULAR ASSEMBLIES UNDERSTAND ON­LY THEIR OWN INTERESTS.
From Harrington's Oceana.

A Popular Assembly has no mean, but is either the wisest in nature, or has no brains at all. When affairs go upon no other than the public in­terest [Page 213]this having no other interest to follow, nor eyes to see withal, is the wisest council: but such ways are destructive to a prince, and they will have no nay. The congregation of Israel, when REHO­BOAM would not hearken to their advice, deposed him: and we know what popular councils, so soon as they came to sufficient power, did in England. If a prince put a popular council from this ward, he does a great matter, and to little purpose; for they under­stand nothing else but themselves. Wherefore the Kings of France and of Spain have dissolved all such assemblies. It is true, where a prince is not strong enough to get money out of them but by their con­sent, they are necessary; yet then they are not purely of advice and dispatch, but share in the government, and he cannot be meddling with their purses, but they will be meddling with his laws. The Senate is of sieter use for a prince; and yet, except he has the way of TIBERIUS, but a ticklish piece, as appears by MAXIMINUS, who was destroyed by PUPIENUS and BALBINUS, captains set up against him by this order. To go to the root: These things are not otherwise in prudence or choice than by direction of the ba­lance; where this is popular, no remedy but the prince must be advised by the people, which if the late king would have endured, the monarchy might have subsisted somewhat longer: but while the ba­lance was Aristocratical, as during the great estates of the nobility and the clergy, we find not the people to have been great or wise counsellors. In sum, if a king governs by a popular council, or a house of commons, the throne will not stand long: if he go­verns by a senate, or a house of lords, let him never fear the throne, but have a care of himself: there is no third, as I have said often enough, but the Divan.

ON RELIGION.
MORNING CHRONICLE, Nov. 29, 1793.

A Few days after the Bishop of Paris and his Vicars had set the example of renouncing their clerical character, a Cure from a village on the Banks of the Rhone, followed by some of his parishioners, with an offering of gold and silver saints, chalices, rich vestments, &c. presented himself at the Bar of the National Convention. The sight of the gold put the Convention in a very good humour, and the Cur [...], a thin venerable looking man, with grey hairs, was ordered to speak. I come, said he, from the village of —, where the only good building stand­ing (for the Chateau has been pulled down), is a very fine church; my parishioners beg you will take it to make an hospital for the sick and wounded of both parties, they being both equally our country­men; the gold and silver, part of which we have brought you, they entreat you will devote to the ser­vice of the state, and that you will cast the bells into cannon, to drive away its foreign invaders; for my­self, I am come with great pleasure to resign my let­ters of ordination, of induction, and every deed and title, by which I have been constituted a member of your ecclesiastical polity. Here are the papers, you may burn them, if you please, in the same fire with the genealogical trees and patents of the nobility. I desire likewise, that you will discontinue my salary. I am still able to support myself with the labour of my hands, and I beg you to believe, that I never felt sincerer joy than I now do in making this renunci­ation. I have longed to see this day, I see it, and am glad.

When the old man had done speaking, the ap­plause; were immoderate. You are an honest man, said they, all at once; a brave fellow; and the Pre­sident advanced to give him the fraternal embrace. [Page 215]The Curé did not seem greatly elated with these tokens of approbation, and thus resumed his dis­course:—"Before you applaud my sentiments, it is fit you should understand them; perhaps, they may not entirely coincide with your own. I rejoice in this day, not because I wish to see religion degraded, but because I wish to see it exalted and purisied. By dissolving its alliance with the state, you have given it dignity and independence. You have done it a piece of service, which [...]s well-wishers would perhaps ne­ver have had courage to render it, but which is the only thing wanted to make it appear in its genuine beauty and lustre. Nobody will now say of me when I am performing the offices of my religion, it is his trade, he is paid for telling the people such and such things, he is hired to keep up an useful piece of mum­mery. They cannot now say this, and therefore I feel myself raised in my own esteem, and shall speak to them with a confidence and frankness, which be­fore this I never durst venture to assume. We re­sign without reluctance our gold and silver images, and embroidered vestments, because we have never found that looking upon gold and silver made the heart more pure, or the affections more heavenly: we can also spare our churches, for the heart that wishes to lift itself up to GOD will never be at a loss for room to do it in; but we cannot spare oar reli­gion, because, to tell you the truth, we never had so much occasion for it. I understand that you accuse us priests of having told the people a great many falshoods. I suspect this may have been the case, but till this day we have never been allowed to enquire whether the things which we taught them were true or not. You required us formerly to receive them all without proof, and you now would have us reject them all without discrimination; neither of these modes of conduct become philosophers, such as you would be thought to be. I am going to employ myself diligently along with my parishioners, to sift [Page 216]the wheat from the bran, the true from the false; if we are not successful, we shall be at least sincere. [...] fear, indeed, that while I wore these vestments which we have brought you, and spoke in that large gloomy building which we have given up to you, I told my poor flock a great many idle stories. I cannot but hope, however, that the errors we have fallen into have not been very material, since the village has in general been sober and good, the peasants are honest, decile, and laborious, the husbands love their wives, and the wives their husbands; they are fortunately not too rich to be compassionate, and they have con­stantly relieved the sick and fugitives of all parties whenever it has lain in their way. I think therefore what I have taught cannot be so very much amiss. You want to extirpate pri [...]sts: but will you hinder the ignorant from applying for instruction, the un­happy for comfort and hope, the unlearned from looking up to the learned? If you do not, you will have priests, by whatever name you may order them to be called; but it is certa [...]ly not necessary they should wear a particular dress, or be appointed by stare letters of ordination. My letters of ordination are my zeal, my charity, my ardent love for my dear children of the village, if I were more learned I would add my knowledge, but alas! we all know very little; to man every error is pardonable but want of humility. We have a public walk, with a spreading elm-tree at one end of it, and a circle of green round it, with a convenient bench. Here I shall get together the children as they are playing around me. I shall point to the vines laden with fruit, to the orchards, to the herds or cattle lowing around us, to those distant hills stretching one behind another, and they will ask me, how came all these things? I shall tell them all I know or have heard from wise men who have lived before me; they will be penetrated with love and veneration; they will kneel, I shall kneel with them; they will be at my [Page 217]feet, but all of us at the feet of that Good Being, whom we shall worship together, and thus they will receive within their tender minds a religion. The old men will come sometimes from having deposited under the green sod one of their companions, and place them­selves by my side; they will look wishfully at the turf, and anxiously enquire—is he gone for ever? shall we soon be like him? will no morning break over the tomb?—When the wicked cease from troubling, will the good cease from doing good? We will talk of those things: I will comfort them. I will tell them of the goodness of God; I will speak to them of a life to come; I will bid them hope for a state of re­tribution. In a clear night, when the stars slide over our heads, they will ask what those bright bodies are, and by what rules they rise and set?—and we will converse about different forms of being, and distant worlds in the immensity of space governed by the same laws, till we feel our minds raised from what is groveling, and refined from what is sordid. You talk of Nature, this is Nature; and if you could at this moment extinguish religion in the minds of all the world, thus would it be rekindled again, and thus again excite the curiosity and interest the feelings of mankind. You have changed our holidays; you have an undoubted right, as our civil governors, so to do; it is very immaterial whether they are kept once in seven days, or once in ten; some however, you will leave us, and when they occur, I shall tell those who chuse to hear me, of the beauty and utility of virtue, of the dignity of right conduct. We shall talk of good men who have lived in the world, and of the doctrines they taught; and if any of them have been persecuted and put to death for their virtue, we shall reverence their memories the more.—I hope in all this there is no harm. There is a book out of which I have sometimes taught my people; it says we are to love those who do us hurt, and to poor oil and wine into the wounds of the stranger. It has [Page 218]enabled my children to bear patiently the spoiling of their goods, and to give up their own interest for the general walfare: I think it cannot be a very bad book. I wish more of it had been read in your town, perhaps you would not have had quite so many assassinations and massacres. In this book we hear of a person called JESUS; some worship him as a God; others, as I am told, say to it is wrong to do so;—some teach that he existed before the beginning of ages; others, that he was born of JOSEPH and MARY. I cannot tell whether these controversies will ever be decided; but, in the mean time, I think we cannot do otherwise than well to imitate him, for I learn that he loved the poor, and went about doing good.

Fellow-Citizens; as I travelled hither from my own Village, I saw peasants sitting amongst the smok­ing ruins of their cottages; rich men and women reduced to deplorable poverty; Fathers lamenting their children in the bloom and pride of youth; and I said to myself, these people cannot afford to part with their religion. But indeed you cannot take it away; if, contrary to your first declaration, you chuse to try the experiment of persecuting it, you will only make us prize it more, and love it better. Religion, true of false, is so necessary to the mind of man, that even you have already begun to make yourselves a new one. You are sowing the seeds of superstition at the moment you fancy you are destroy­ing superstition. Let every one chufe the religion that pleases him; I and my parishioners are content with ours, it teaches us to bear without despondency whatever evils may befal us.

ON THE HORRORS OF WAR.

IT is wonderful, with what coolness and indif­ference the greater part of mankind see war com­menced. Those who hear of it at a distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a tri­umph. Some indeed must perish in the most success­ful field, but they die upon the bed of honour, re­sign their lives awidst the joys of conquest, and, filled with England's glory, smile in death.

The life of a modern soldier is ill represented by heroic fiction. War has means of destruction more formidable than the cannon and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands who perished in our late contests with France and Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy; the rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps and putrefaction, pale, torpid, spiritless, and helpless; gasping and groaning, unpitied among men, made obdurate by a long con­tinuance of hopeless misery; and were at last whelmed in pits, or heaved into the ocean, without notice, and without remembrance. By incommodious en­campments, and unwholesome stations, where courage is useless, and enterprize impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, and armies sluggishly melted away.

Thus is a people gradually exhausted, for the most part with little effect. The wars of civilized nations make very slow changes in the system of empire. The public perceives scarcely any alteration but an en­crease of debt; and the few individuals who are be­nefited, are not supposed to have the clearest right to their advantages. If he who shared the danger en­joyed the profit, and after bleeding in the battle grew rich by the victory, he might shew his gains without [Page 223]envy. But at the conclusion of a ten years war, how are we recompenced for the death of multitudes, and the expence of millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of paymasters and agents, contractors and commissuries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose palaces rise like exhalations.

These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich as their country is im­poverished; they rejoice when obstinacy or ambition add; another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh from their desks at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or a tempest.

ON THE AUTHORITY OF ONE COUNTRY OVER ANOTHER.

FROM the nature and principles of Civil Liberty, it is an immediate and necessary inference that no one community can have any power over the pro­perty or legislation of another community, that is not incorporated with it by a just and adequate re­presentation.—Then only, is a state free, when it is governed by its own will. But a country that is sub­ject to the legislature of another country, in which it has no voice, and over which it has no controul, can­not be said to be governed by its own will. Such a country, therefore, is in a state of slavery. And it deserves to be particularly considered, that such a slavery is worse, on several accounts, than any slavery of private men to one another, or of kingdoms to despots within themselves.—Between one state and another, there is none of that fellow-feeling that takes place between persons in private life. Being detached bodies that never see one another, and re­siding perhaps in different quarters of the globe, the [Page 229]state that governs cannot be a witness to the suffer­ings occasioned by its oppressions; or a competent judge of the circumstances and abilities of the peo­ple who are governed. They must also have, in a great degree, separate interests; and the more the one is loaded, the more the other may be cased. The infamy likewise of oppression, being in such circum­stances shared among a multitude, is not likely to be much felt or regarded. On all these accounts there is in the cafe of one country subjugated to another, little or nothing to check rapacity; and the most flagrant injustice and cruelty may be practised with­out remorse or pity. I will add, that it is particu­larly difficult to shake off a tyranny of this kind. A single despot, if a people are unanimous and reso­lute, may be soon subdued. But a despotic state is not easily subdued; and a people subject to it cannot eman­cipate themselves without entering into a dreadful, and, perhaps, very unequal contest.

I cannot help observing farther, that the slavery of a people to external despots may be qualified and li­mited; but I don't see what can limit the authority of one state over another. The exercise of power in this case can have no other measure than discretion; and, therefore, must be indefinite and absolute.

Once more. It should be considered that the go­vernment of one country by another, can only be sup­ported by a military force; and, without such a sup­port, must be destitute of all weight and efficiency.

A PANEGYRIC! A SAFE MORSEL FOR THE PIGS. FROM CATO [...] LETTERS.

WE have at last, by the bounteous gift of in­dulgent Providence, a most [...] King, and a wise and uncorrupt Parliament; a [...] [...]et—But what shall I say, or what shall be left unsaid? I will [Page 240]go on.—We have a Prince, I say, who is possessed of every virtue which can grace and adorn a crown; a Parliament too, than whom England has never chosen one better disposed to do all those things, which every honest man in it wished, and called for, and yet—by the iniquity of the times, or the ini­quities of particular men, we are still to expect our deliverance, though I hope we shall not expect it long.

Public corruptions and abuses have grown upon us: sees in most, if not in all offices, are immensely in­creased: places and employments, which ought not to be sold at all, are sold for treble values: the ne­cessitie, of the public have made greater impositions unavoidable, and yet the public has run very much in debt; and as these-debts have been encreasing, and the people growing poor, salaries have been ang­mented, and pensions multiplied: I mean in the l [...]st reign, for I hope that there have been no such doing in this.

CAUTIONS Against the natural Encroachments of Power.
From CATO'S LETTERS.

PEOPLE are ruined by their ignorance of Human Nature; which ignorance leads them to credu­lity, and too great a confidence in particular men. They fondly imagine that he, who, possessing a great deal by their favour, owes them great gratitude, and all good offices, will therefore return their kindness: But, alas! how often are they mistaken in their fa­vourites and trustees; who, the more they have given them, are often the more incited to take all, and to return destruction for generous usage. The common people generally think that great men have great minds, and scorn base actions; which judgment is so false, that the basest and worst of all actions have been done by great men: Perhaps they have not picked private pockets, but they have done worse; they have often disturbed, deceived, and pillaged the world: And he who is capable of the highest mischief, is ca­pable of the meanest: He who plunders a country of a million of money, would in suitable circumstances steal a silver spoon; and a conqueror, who steals and pillages a kingdom, would, in an humbler fortune, rifle a portmanteau, or rob an orchard.

Political jealousy, therefore, in the people, is a necessary and laudable passion. But in a chief magi­strate, a jealousy of his people is not so justifiable, their ambition being only to preserve themselves; whereas it is natural for Power to be striving to en­large itself, and to be encroaching upon those who have none. The most laudable jealousy of a magi­strate is to be jealous for his people; which will shew that be loves them, and has used them well: But to be jealous of them, would denote that he has evil designs against them, and has used them ill. The [Page 247]people's jealousy tends to preserve Liberty; and the prince's to destroy it. Venice is a glorious instance of the former, and so is England; and all nations who have lost their Liberty, are melancholy proofs of the latter.

Power is naturally active, vigilant and distrustful; which qualities in it push it upon all means and expe­dients to fortify itself, and upon destroying all op­position, and even all seeds of opposition, and make it restless as long as any thing stands in its way. It would do what it pleases, and have no check. Now because Liberty chastises and shortens Power, therefore Power would extinguish Liberty; and consequently Liberty has too much cause to be exceeding jealous, and always upon her defence. Power has many ad­vantages over her; it has generally numerous guards, many creatures, and much treasure; besides, it has more craft and experience, less honesty and innocence: And whereas Power can, and for the most part does subsist where Liberty is not, Liberty cannot subsist without Power; so that she has, as it were, the enemy always at her gates.

Some have said, that Magistrates being accountable to none but God, ought to know no other restraint. But this reasoning is as frivolous as it is wicked; for no good man cares how many punishments and pe­nalties lie in the way to an offence which he does not intend to commit: A man who does not intend to commit murder, is not sorry that murder is pu­nished with death. And as to wicked men, their being accountable to God, whom they do not fear, is no security to us against their folly and malice; and to say that we ought to have no security against them, is to insult common sense, and give the lie to the first law of nature, that of self-preservation. Human reason says, that there is no obedience, no regard due to those rulers, who govern by no rule but their lust. Such men are no rulers; they are outlaws, who, be­ing at defiance with God and man, are protected by [Page 248]no law of God, or of reason. By what precept, moral or divine, are we forbid to kill a wolf, or burn an infected ship? Is it unlawful to prevent wickedness and misery, and to resist the authors of them? Are crimes sanctified by their greatness? And is he who robs a country, and murders ten thousand, less a criminal than he who steals single guineas, and takes away single lives? Is there any sin in preventing, and restraining, or resisting the greatest sin that can be committed, that of oppressing and destroying man­kind by wholesale? Sure there never were such open, such shameless, such s [...]fish impostors, as the advo­cates for lawless power. It is a damnable sin to op­press them; yet it is a damnable sin to oppose them when they oppress, or-gain by the oppression of others. When they are hurt themselves ever so little, or but think themselves hurt, they are the loudest of all men in their complaints, and the most outrageous in their behaviour: but when others are plundered, oppressed and butchered, complaints are sedition; and to seek redress is damnation. Is not this to be the authors of all wickedness and falsehood?

To conclude: Power, without controul, appertains to God alone; and no man ought to be trusted with what no man is equal to. In truth, there are so many passions, and inconsistencies, and so much selfishness belonging to human nature, that we can scarce be too much upon our guard against each other. The only security which we can have that men will be honest, is to make it their interest to be honest; and the best defence which we can have against their being knaves, is to make it terrible to them to be knaves. As there are many men wicked in some stations, who would be innocent in others; the best way is to make wickedness unsafe in any station.

THE MARRIAGE ACT CENSURED.
From The Citizen of the World. By Goldsmith.

NOT far from this City lives a poor Tinker, who has educated seven sons, all at this time in arms, and fighting for their country, and what reward do you think has the tinker from the state for such im­portant services? none in the world; his sons, when the war is over, may probably be whipt from parish to parish as vagabonds, and the old man, when past la­bour, may die a prisoner in some house of correc­tion.

Such a worthy subject in China would be held in universal reverence; his services would be rewarded, if not with dignities, at least with an exemption from labour; he would take the left hand at seasts, and mandarines themselves would be proud to shew their submission. The English laws punish vice, the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue!

Considering the little encouragements given to ma­trimony here, I am not surprised at the discourage­ments given to propagation. Would you believe it, my dear Fum Hoam, there are laws made, which even forbid the people's marrying each other. By the head of Confucius, I jest not; there are such laws in being here; and their law-givers have neither been instructed among the Hottentots, nor imbibed their principles of equity from the natives of Anamaboo.

There are laws which ordain, that no man shall marry a woman contrary to her own consent. This, though contrary to what we are taught in Asia, and though in some measure a clog upon matrimony, I have no great objection to. There are laws which ordain, that no woman shall marry against her father and mother's consent, unless arrived at an age of ma­turity; by which is understood those years, when woman with us are generally past child-bearing. Thi [...] [Page 258]must be a clog upon matrimony, as it is more difficult for the lover to please three than one, and much more difficult to please old people than young ones. The laws ordain, that the consenting couple shall take a long time to consider before they marry; this is a very great clog, because people love to have all rash actions done in a hurry. It is ordained that all mar­riages shall be proclaimed before celebration: this is a severe clog, as many are ashamed to have their mar­riage made public, from motives of vicious modesty, and many, afraid from views of temporal interest.

It is ordained, that there is nothing sacred in the ceremony, but that it may be dissolved to all intents and purposes by the authority of any civil magistrate. And yet opposite to this it is ordained, that the priest shall be paid a large sum of money for granting his sacred permission.

Thus you see, my friend, that matrimony here is hedged round with so many obstructions, that those who are willing to break through or surmount them, must be contented, if at last they find it a bed of thorns. The laws are not to blame, for they have deterred the people from engaging as much as they could. It is indeed become a very serious affair in England, and none but serious people are generally found willing to engage. The young, the gay, and the beautiful, who have motives of passion only to induce them, are seldom found to embark, as those inducements are taken away, and none but the old, the ugly, and the mercenary are seen to unite, who, if they have any posterity at all, will probably be an ill favoured race like themselves.

What gave rise to those laws might have been some such accidents as these. It sometimes happened, that a miser, who had spent all his youth in seraping up money, to give his daughter such a fortune as might get her a mandarine husband found his expectations disappointed at last, by her running away with his footman; this must have been a sad shock to the poor [Page 259]disconsolate parent, to see his poor daughter in a one­horse chaise, when he had designed her for a coach and six: what a stroke from providence!!! to see his dear money go to a beggar; all nature cried out at the profanation!!!

It sometimes happened also, that a lady, who had inherited all the titles, and all the nervous complaints of nobility, thought fit to impair her dignity, and mend her constitution, by marrying a farmer; this must have been a sad shock to her inconsolable rela­tions, to see so fine a flower snatched from a flourish­ing family, and planted in a dunghill; this was an absolute inversion of the first principles of things!!!

In order, therefore, to prevent the great from be­ing thus contaminated by vulgar alliances, the obsta­cles to matrimony have been so contrived, that the rich only can marry amongst the rich, and the poor, who would leave celebacy, must be content to increase their poverty with a wife. Thus have the laws fairly inverted the inducements to matrimony; nature tells us, that beauty is the proper allurement of those who are rich, and money of those who are poor; but things here are so contrived, that the rich are invited to marry by that fortune which they do not want, and the poor have no inducement, but that beauty which they do not feel.

An equal diffusion of riches through any country constitutes its happiness. Great wealth in the posses­sion of one stagnates, and extream poverty with ano­ther keeps him in unambitious indigence; but the moderately rich are generally active; not too far removed from poverty, to fear its calamities; nor too near extreme wealth, to slacken the nerve of labour; they remain still between both, in a state of continual fluctuation. How impolitic, therefore, are those laws which promote the accumulation of wealth among the rich, more impolitic still, in at­tempting to encrease the depression on poverty.

Bacon, the English Philosopher, compares money [Page 260]to manure; if gathered in heaps, says he, it does no good; on the contrary, it becomes offensive; but, being spread, though never so thinly, over the sur­face of the earth, it enriches the whole country. Thus the wealth a nation possesses must expatiate, or it is of no benefit to the public, it becomes rather a grievance, where matrimonial laws thus consine it to a few.

But this restraint upon matrimonial community, even considered in a physical light, is injurious. As those who rear up animals take all possible pains to cross the strain, in order to improve the breed; so in those countries where marriage is most free, the inhabitants are found every age to improve in stature and in beauty; on the contrary, where it is confined to a cast, a tribe, or an hord, as among the Gaurs, the Jews, or the Tartars, each division soon assumes a family likeness, and every tribe degenerates into peculiar deformity. From hence it may be easily in­ferred, that if the Mandarines here are resolved only to marry among each other, they will soon produce a posterity with Mandarine Faces: and we shall see the heir of some honourable family scaree equal to the abortion of a country farmer.

These are a few of the obstacles to marriage here, and it is certain they have in some measure answered the end; for celebacy is both frequent and fashion­able. Old batchelors appear abroad without a mask, and old maids, my dear Fum Hoam, have been abso­lutely known to ogle. To confess in friendship, if I were an Englishman, I fancy I should be an old batchelor myself; I should never find courage to run through all the adventures prescribed by the law. I could submit to court my mistress herself upon reasonable terms, but to court her father, her mother, and a long tribe of cousins, aunts, and relations, and then stand the butt of a whole country church, I would as soon turn tail, and make love to her grand­mother.

[Page 261]I can conceive no other reason for thus loading matrimony with so many prohibitions, unless it be that the country was thought already too populous, and this was found to be the most effectual means of thinning it. If this was the motive. I cannot but congratulate the wise projectors on the success of their scheme. Hail, O ye dim-sighted politicians, ye weeders of men! 'Tis yours to clip the wing of industry, and convert hymen to a broker. 'Tis yours to behold small objects with a microscopic eye, but to be blind to those which require an extent of vision. 'Tis yours, O ye discerners of mankind, to lay the line between society, and weaken that force by dividing, which should bind with united vigour, 'Tis yours, to introduce national real distress, in order to avoid the imaginary distresses of a few. Your actions can be justified by an hundred reasons like truth, they can be opposed but by few reasons, and those reasons are true. Fare­well.

THE BANEFUL INFLUENCE OF DEPEN­DENCE ON THE MIND.
From The Citizen of the World, by Dr. Goldsmith.

AMONG many who have enforced the duty of Giving, I am surprized there are none to incul­cate the ignominy of Receiving, to shew that by every favour we accept, we in some measure forfeit our native freedom, and that in a state of continual de­pendence on the generosity of others in a life of gra­dual debasement.

Were men taught to despise the receiving obliga­tions with the same force of reasoning and declama­tion that they are instructed to confer them, we might [Page 275]then see every person in society filling up the requi­site duties of his situation with chearful industry, neither relaxed by hope, nor sullen from disappoint­ment.

Every favour a man receives, in some measure, sinks him below his dignity, and in proportion to the value of the benefit, or the frequency of its ac­ceptance, he gives up so much of his natural inde­pendence. He, therefore, who thrives upon the un­merited bounty of another, if he has any sensibility, suffers the worst of servitude; the shackled slave may murmur with out reproach, but the humble dependent is taxed with ingratitude upon every symptom of dis­content; the one may rave round the walls of his cell, but the other lingers in all the silence of mental confinement. To encrease his distress, every new obligation but adds to the former load which kept the vigorous mind from rising; till at last, elastic no longer, it shapes itself to constraint, and puts on ha­bitual servility.

It is thus with the feeling mind, but there are some who, born without any share of sensibility, receive favour after favour, and still cringe for more, who accept the offer of generosity with as little reluctance as the wages of merit, and even make thanks for past benefits an indirect petition for new; such, I grant, can suffer no debasement from dependence, since they were originally as vile as was possible to be; dependence degrades only the ingenuous, but leaves the sordid mind in pristine meanness. In this man­ner, therefore, long continued generosity is misplaced, or it is injurious; it either finds a man worthless, or it makes him so; and true it is, that the person who is contented to be often obliged, ought not to have been obliged at all.

It is perhaps one of the severest misfortunes of the great, that they are in general, obliged to live among men whose real value is lessened by dependence, and whose minds are enslaved by obligation. The hum­ble [Page 276]companion may have at first accepted patronage with generous views, but soon he feels the mortifying influence of conscious inferiority, by degrees he sinks into a flatterer, and from flartery at last degenerates into STUPID VENERATION. To remedy this, the great often dismiss their old dependents, and take new. Such changes are falsely imputed to levity, falsehood, or caprice, in the patron, since they may be more justly ascribed to the client's gradual de­terioration, No, my son, a life of independence is ge­nerally a life of virtue. It is that which fits the soul for every flight of humanity, freedom, and friend­ship. To give should be our pleasure, but to receive our shame; serenity, health and affluence attend the desire of rising by labour; misery, repentance, and disrespect, that of succeeding by extorted benevo­lence; the man who can thank himself alone for the happiness he enjoys, is truely so; and lovely, far more lovely the sturdy gloom of laborious indigence, than the fawning simper of thriving adulation.

THE ADVANTAGES ACCRUING TO MAN­KIND FROM A HABITUAL CONSCIOUS­NESS OF THEIR BEING EQUAL.
From Barlow's Advice to Privileged Orders.

IN the United States of America, the Science of Li­berty is universally understood, felt, and prac­tised, as much by the simple as the wise, the weak as the strong. The deep-rooted and inveterate ha­bit of thinking, that all men are equal in their Rights, that it is impossible to make them otherwise; and this being their undisturbed belief, they have no concep­tion how any man in his senses can entertain any other. This point once settled, every thing is set­tled. Many operations, which in Europe have been considered as incredible tales or dangerous experi­ments, are but the infallible consequences of this great principle. The first of these operations is the Business of Election, which, with that people is carried on with as much gravity as their daily labour. There is no jealousy on the occasion, nothing lucrative in office; any man in society may attain to any place in the government, and may exercise its functions. They believe that there is nothing more difficult in the management of the affairs of a nation than the affairs of a family; that it only requires more hands. They believe that it is the juggle of keeping up im­positions to blind the eyes of the vulgar, that con­stitutes the intricacy of state. Banish the mysticism of inequality, and you banish almost all the evils attendant on human nature.

Another consequence of the habitual idea of Equality, is the facility of changing the structure of their Government whenever and as often as the Society shall think there is any thing in it to amend. As [Page 284]Mr. Burke has written no "Reflections on the Re­volution" in America, the people there have never been told that they had no right "to frame a go­vernment for themselves;" they have therefore done much of this business, without ever affixing to it the idea of "Sacrilege," or "Usurpation," or any other term of rant to be found in that Gentleman's Voca­bulary.

Within a few years, the Fifteen States have not only framed each its own State-Constitution, and Two successive Federal Constitutions; but since the settlement of the present general Government in the year 1789, three of the States, Pennsylvania, South-Carolina, and Georgia, have totally new-modeled their own. And all this is done without the least confusion; the operation being scarcely known be­yond the limits of the State where it is performed. Thus they are in the habit of "choosing their own Governors," of "cashiering them for misconduct," of "framing a Government for themselves," and all those abominable things, the mere naming of which, in Mr. Burke's opinion, has polluted the pulpit in the Old Jewry. ^*⁎*