it for a private letter, be found it difficult to change the form of address, when his sentiments bad grown into a greater extent, and had received another direction. A different plan, he is sensible, might be more favourable to a commodious division and diftribution of his matter.

DEAR SIR,

OU are pleased to call again, and with

Tome earnestness, for my thoughts on the late proceedings in France. I will not give you reason to imagine, that I think my sentiments of such value as to wish myself to be folicited about them. They are of too little consequence to be very anxiously either communicated or withheld. It was from attention to you, and to you only, that I hesitated at the time, when you first desired to receive them. In the first letter I had the honour to write to you, and which at length I send, I wrote neither for nor from any description of men; nor shall I in this. My errors, if any, are my own. My reputation alone is to answer for them.

You see, Sir, by the long letter I have transmitted to you, that, though I do most heartily with that France may be animated by a spirit of

B

rational liberty, and that I think you bound, in.
all honest policy, to provide a permanent body,
in which that 'spirit may reside, and an effectual
organ, by which it may act, it is my misfortune
to entertain great doubts concerning several ma-
terial points in your late transactions.

You imagined, when you wrote last, that I
might possibly be reckoned among the approvers
of certain proceedings in France, from the fo-
lemn public seal of sanction they have received
from two clubs of gentlemen in London, called
the Constitutional Society, and the Revolution
Society

I certainly have the honour to belong to more
clubs, than one, in which the constitution of this
kingdom and the principles of the glorious Re-
volution, are held in high reverence: and I
reckon myself among the most forward in my
zeal for inaintaining that conftitution and those
principles in their utmost purity and vigour. It
is because I do so, that I think it necessary for
me, that there should be no mistake. Those who
'cultivate the memory of our revolution, and
those who are attached to the constitution of this
kingdom, will take good care how they are in-
volved with persons who, under the pretext of
zea. towards the Revolution and Constitution, too
frequently wander from their true principles; and
are ready on every occasion to depart from the firm
but cautious and deliberate fpirit which pro-
duced the one, and which presides in the other.
Before I proceed to anfwer the more material

particulars

1

particulars in your letter, I shall beg leave to
give you such information as I have been able
to obtain of the two clubs which have thought
proper, as bodies, to interfere in the concerns of
France; first assuring you, that I am not, and
that I have never been, a member of either of
those focieties.

The first, calling itself the Constitutional So.
ciety, or Society for Conftitutional Information,
or by some such title, is, I believe, of seven or
eight years standing. The institution of this
fociety appears to be of a charitable, and so far
of a laudable, nature: it was intended for the
circulation, at the expence of the members,
of many books, which few others would be at
the expence of buying; and which inight lie
on the hands of the booksellers, to the great
loss of an useful body of men. Whether the books
so charitably circulated, were ever as charitably
read, is more than I know. Possibly several of
them have been exported to France; and, like
goods not in request here, may with you have
found a market. I have heard much talk of the
lights to be drawn from books that are sent from
hence. What improvements they have had in
their paffage (as it is said some liquors are me-
liorated by crossing the fea) I cannot tell : But I
never heard a man of common judgment, or the
least degree of information, speak a word in
praise of the greater part of the publications
circulated by that fociery; nor have their pro-

ceedings

B 2

ceedings been accounted, except by some of themselves, as of any ferious consequence.

Your National Affembly seems to entertain much the same opinion that I do of this poor charitable club. As a nation, you reserved the whole stock of your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution Society; when their fellows in the Constitutional were, in equity, entitled to fome share. Since you have selected the Revolution Society as the great obje&t of your national thanks and praises, you will think me excuseable in making its late conduct the subject of my observations. The National Assembly of France has given importance to these gentlemen by adopting them; and they return the favour, by acting as a sort of sub-committee in England for extending the principles of the National Affembly. Henceforward must consider them as a kind of privileged persons; as inconsiderable members in the diplomatic body. This is one among the revolutions which have given splendour to obscurity, and distinction to undiscerned merit. Uncil very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am quite sure that it never occupied a ment of my thoughts ; nor, I believe, those of any person out of their own set. I find, upon enquiry, that on the anniversary of the Revolution in 1688, a club of diflenters, but of what denomination I know not, have long had the custom of hearing a sermon in one of their

we

no

mom

churches;