free government :-despotic ones, that would wish to escape destruction, must emancipate their subjects, because no. military conformation can long secure the obedience of ill

ciples; if so, it is a remarkable fact that the result should, to appearance, turn out so differently: but a little examination will convince us, that there is scarcely any thing in common between those governments, except the general principle of being free. In France, the populace are electors, and to so low a degree that the exclusions are of little account; and the qualifications for a seat in the provincial assemblies, and in the national one, are so low that the whole chain may be completed, from the first elector to the legislator, without a single link of what merits the name of property. The very reverse is the case in America, there is not a single state in which voters must not have a qualification of property in Massachussets and New Hampshire, a freehold of 31. a year, or other estate of 601. value: Connecticut is a country of substantial freeholders, and the old government remains: In New York, electors of the senate must have a property of 1001. free from debts; and those of the assembly freeholds of 40s. a year, rated and paying taxes: in Pensylvania, payment of taxes is necessary: in Maryland, the possession of 50 acres of land, or other estate worth 301. in Virginia, 25 cultivated acres, with a house on it: in North Carolina, for the senate 50 acres, and for the assembly payment of taxes: and in all the states there are qualifications much more considerable, necessary for being eligible to be elected. In general it should be remembered, that taxes being so very few, the qualification of paying them excludes vastly more voters than a similar regulation in Europe. In constituting the legislatures also, the states all have two houses, except Pensylvania. And Congress itself meets in the same form. Thus a ready explanation is found of that order and regularity, and security of property, which strikes every eye in America; a contrast to the spectacle which France has exhibited, where confusion of every sort has operated, in which property is very far from safe; in which the populace legislate and then execute, not laws of their representatives, but of their own ambulatory wills; in which, at this moment (March 1792), they are a scene of anarchy, with every sign of a civil war commencing. These two great experiments, as far as they have gone, ought to pour conviction in every mind, that order and property never can be safe if the right of election is personal, instead of being attached to property: and whenever propositions for the reformation of our representation shall be seriously considered, which is certainly necessary, nothing ought to be in contemplation but taking power from the crown and the aristocracy-not to give it to the mob, but to the middle classes of moderate fortune. The proprietor of an estate of 501. a year is as much interested, in the preservation of order and of property, as the possessor of fifty thousand; but the people without property have a direct and positive interest in public confusion, and the consequent division of that property, of which they are destitute. Hence the necessity, a pressing one in the present moment, of a militia rank and file, of property; the essential counterpoise to assemblies in ale-house kitchens, clubbing their pence to have

treated slaves; and while such governments are giving to their people a constitution worth preserving, they should, by an absolute renunciation of all the views of conquest, make a small army as efficient for good purposes, as a large force for ambitious ones: this new-modelled military should consist, rank and file, of men interested in the preservation of property and order: were this army to consist merely of nobility, it would form a military aristocracy, as dangerous to the prince as to the people; it should be composed, indiscriminately, of individuals, drawn from all classes, but possessing a given property.-A good government, thus supported, may be durable; bad ones will be shivered to pieces by the new spirit that ferments in Europe. The candid reader will, I trust, see, that in whatever I have ventured to advance on so critical a subject as this great and unexampled revolution, I have assigned the merit I think due to it, which is the destruction of the old government, and not the establishment of the new. All that I saw, and much that I heard, in France, gave me the clearest conviction, that a change was necessary for the happiness of the people; a change, that should limit the royal authority; that should restrain the feudal tyranny of the nobility; that should reduce the church to the level of good citizens; that should correct the abuses of finance; that should give purity to the administration of justice; and that should place the people in a state of ease, and give them weight enough to secure this blessing. Thus far I must suppose every friend of mankind agreed. But whether, in order to effect thus much, all France were to be overthrown, ranks annihilated, property attacked, the

the Rights of Man read to them, by which should be understood (in Europe, not in America) the RIGHT TO PLUnder. Let the state of France at present be coolly considered, and it will be found to originate absolutely in population, without property being represented: it exhibits scenes such as can never take place in America. See the National As sembly of a great empire, at the crisis of its fate, listening to the har rangues of the Paris populace, the female populace of St. Antoine, and the president formally answering and flattering them! Will such spec tacles ever be seen in the American Congress? Can that be a well constituted government, in which the most precious moments are so consumed? The place of assembling (Paris) is alone sufficient to en danger the constitution.

monarchy abolished, and the king and royal family trampled upon; and above all the rest, the whole effect of the revolution, good or bad, put on the issue of a conduct which, to speak in the mildest language, made a civil war probable: -this is a question absolutely distinct. In my private opinion, these extremities were not necessary; France might have been free without violence; a necessitous court, a weak ministry, and a timid prince, could have refused nothing to the demands of the states, essential to public happiness. The power of the purse would have done all that ought to have been done. The weight of the commons would have been predominant; but it would have had checks and a controul, without which power is not CONSTITUTION, but tyranny.-While, however, I thus venture to think that the revolution might have been accomplished upon better principles, because probably more durable ones, I do not therefore assign the first National Assembly in the gross to that total condemnation, they have received from some very intemperate pens, and for this plain reason, because it is certain that they have not done much which was not called for by the people.

Before the revolution is condemned in the gross, it should be considered what extent of liberty was demanded by the three orders in their cahiers; and this in particular is necessary, since those very cahiers are quoted to show the mischievous proceedings of the National Assembly. Here are a few of the ameliorations demanded; to have the trial by jury, and the habeas corpus of England; to deliberate by head, and not by order, demanded by the nobility themselves; to declare all taxes illegal and suppressed--but to grant them anew for a year; to establish for ever the capitaineries; to establish a caisse nationale separée inaccessible à toute influence du pouvoir executiff; that all the in

2

3

1

1 "Nob. Auxois," p. 23. "Artois," p. 13. "T. Etat de Peronne," "Nob. Dauphiné," p. 119.

p. 15.

2 "Nob. Touraine," p. 4. "Nob. Senlis," p. 46. "Nob. Pays de Labour" (Labourd, Pyrenees, ED.), p. 3. "Nob. Quesnoy," p. 6.

"Nob.

Sens," p. 3. "Nob. Thimerais," p. 3. "Clergé du Bourbonnois," p. 6.

66

Clergé du Bas Limosin," p. 10.

3 Too numerous to quote, of both Nobility and Tiers.

4

Many; Nobility as well as Tiers.

8

5

6

7

3

9

4

tendants should be suppressed:' that no treaties of commerce should be made but with the consent of the states:2 that the orders of begging monks be suppressed: that all monks be suppressed, and their goods and estates sold: * that tythes be for ever suppressed: that all feudal right, duties, payments, and services be abolished: that salaries (traitement pécuniare), be paid to the deputies: that the permanence of the National Assembly is a necessary part of its existence: that the Bastile be demolished: that the duties of aides, on wine, brandy, tobacco, salt, leather, paper, iron, oil, and soap, be suppressed: 10 that the apanages be abolished: that the domaines of the king be alienated: 12 that the king's studs (haras), be suppressed: " that the pay of the soldiers be augmented: 1 that the kingdom be divided into districts, and the elections propor tioned to population and to contributions: 15 that all citizens paying a determinate quota of taxes vote in the parochial assemblies: 16 that it is indispensable in the states-general to consult the Rights of Man: " that the deputies shall accept of no place, pension, grace, or favour.1o

12

11

14

13

1 "Nob. Sezanne," p. 14. "T. Etat Metz," p. 42. "T. Etat de Auvergne," p. 9. "T. Etat de Riom," P. 23. 2 Nob. Nivernois," p. 25. 3 4 "T. Etat du Haut Vivarais," p. "Nob. Auxerre," p. 41.

1.

5"Nob. Toulon," p. 18.

7 "Nob. Nomery en Loraine," p. 10. 8 "Nob. Mantes & Meulan," p. 16. "Rennes," art. 19.

9"Nob. Paris," p. 14.

10 "Nob. Vitry le François," MS. Bugey," p. 28. "Nob. Paris," p. 22.

p.

Nob. Bas Limosin," 12. 18. "Nob. Rheims," p. 16.

Too many to quote.

11 "Nob. Ponthieu," p. 32. "Nob. Chartres," p. 19. "Nob. Aux

erre," art. 74.

12"Nob. Bugey," p. 11. "Nob. Montargis," p. 18. "Nob. Paris," "Nob. Nancy," p. 23. "Nob.

16. "Nob. Bourbonnois," p. 12. Angoumois," p. 20. "Nob. Pays de Labour," fol. 9. Nob. Beauvois," p. 18. "Nob. Troyes," p. 25.

14 "Nob. Limoges," p. 31.

15 T. Etat de Lyon," p. 7. "Nismes," p. 13.

Cotentin," art. 7. 16 T. Etat Rennes," art. 15. 17T. Etat Nismes," p. 11. 18 T. Etat Pont à Mousson," p. 17. Mr. Burke says, "When the several orders, in their several bailliages, had met in the year 1789, to chuse and instruct their representatives, they were the people of France; whilst they were in that state, in no one of their instructions did they

From this detail of the instructions given by the nation, I will not assert that every thing which the National Assembly has decreed is justifiable; but it may be very fairly concluded, that much the greater part of their arrets, and many that have been the most violently arraigned, are here expressly demanded. To reply that these demands are not those of the nation at large, but of particular bodies only, is very wide from the argument; especially as the most virulent enemies of the revolution, and particularly Mess. Burke and De Calonne, have, from these cahiers, deduced such conclusions as suited their purpose; and if they are made authority for condemning the transactions in that kingdom, they certainly are equal authority for supporting those transactions. I shall make but one observation on these demands. The assemblies that drew them up, most certainly never demanded, in express terms, the abolition of the monarchy, or the transfer of all the regal authority to the deputies; but let it be coolly considered, what sort of a monarchy must necessarily remain, while an assembly is permanent, with power to abolish tythes; to suppress the intendants; not only to vote, but to keep the public money: to alienate the king's domains; and to suppress his studs : to abolish the capitaineries, and destroy the bastile :-the assembly that is called upon to do all this, is plainly meant to be a body solely possessing the legislative authority: it is evidently not meant to petition the king to do it; because they would have used, in this case, the form of expression so common in other parts of the cahiers, that his majesty will have the goodness, &c.

The result of the whole inquiry, cannot but induce temperate men to conclude, that the abolition of tythe, of feudal services and payments, of the gabelle, or salt-tax, of that on tobacco, of the entreés, of all excises on manufacturers, and of all duties on transit, of the infamous proceedings in the old courts of justice, of the despotic practices of the old monarchy, of the militia regulations, of the monasteries and nunneries, and of numberless other abuses; I say, that temperate men must conclude, that the advantages derived to the nation are of the very first importance, charge, or even hint at any of those things which have drawn upon the usurping assembly the detestation of the rational part of mankind."