foundations of public order, and from caufing or fuffering the principles of property to be fubverted, they will, in the ruin of their country, leave a melancholy and lafting monument of the effect of prepofterous politics, and prefumptuous, fhortfighted, narrow-minded wifdom.

The effects of the incapacity fhewn by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth. are to be covered with the "all-atoning name" of liberty. In fome people I fee great liberty indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive degrading fervitude. But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all poffible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madnefs, without tuition or reftraint. Thofe who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to fee it difgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-founding words in their mouths. Grand, fwelling fentiments of liberty, I am fure I do not defpife. They warm the heart; they enlarge and liberalife our minds; they animate our courage in a time of conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of Lucan and Corneille with pleasure. Neither do I wholly condemn the little arts and devices of popularity. They facilitate the carrying of many points of moment; they keep the people together; they refresh the mind in its exertions; and they diffuse occafional gaiety over the fevere brow of moral freedom. Every politician ought to facrifice to the graces; and to join compliance with reafon. But in fuch an undertaking as that in France, all thefe fubfidiary fentiments and artifices are of little avail. To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the feat of power; teach obedience: and the work is done.

Το

To give freedom is ftill more easy. It is not neceffary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these oppofite elements of liberty and restraint in one confiftent work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a fagacious, powerful, and combining mind. This I do not find in thofe who take the lead in the national affembly. Perhaps they are not fo miferably deficient as they appear. I rather believe it. It would put them below the common level of human understanding. But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the conftruction of the ftate, will be of no fervice. They will become flatterers inftead of legiflators; the inftruments, not the guides of the people. If any of them fhould happen to propose a scheme of liberty, foberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his com→ petitors, who will produce fomething more fplendidly popular. Sufpicions will be raised of his fidelity to his caufe. Moderation will be ftigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromife as the prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preferving the credit which may enable him to temper and moderate on fome occafions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any fober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.

But am I fo unreafonable as to fee nothing at all that deferves commendation in the indefatigable labours of this affembly? I do not deny that among an infinite number of acts of violence and

folly,

folly, fome good may have been done. They who deftroy every thing certainly will remove fome grievance. They who make every thing new, have a chance that they may establish fomething beneficial. To give them credit for what they have done in virtue of the authority they have ufurped, or which can excuse them in the crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it must appear, that the fame things could not have been accomplished without producing fuch a revolution. Moft affuredly they might; because almost every one of the regulations made by them, which is not very equivocal, was either in the ceffion of the king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the states, or in the concurrent inftructions to the orders. Some ufages have been abolished on juft grounds; but they were fuch that if they had flood as they were to all eternity, they would little detract from the happinefs and profperity of any ftate. The improvements of the national affembly are fuperficial, their errors fundamental.

Whatever they are, I wifh my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbours the example of the British conftitution, than to take models from them for the improvement of our own. In the former they have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think, without fome caufes of apprehenfion and complaint; but thefe they do not owe to their conftitution, but to their own conduct. think our happy fituation owing to our conftitution; but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part fingly; owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered or fuperadded. Our people

I

people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they poffefs, from violation. I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it fhould be to preferve. I fhould be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I fhould follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation as nearly as poffible in the ftyle of the building. A politic caution, a guarded circumfpection, a moral rather than a complexional timidity were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in their moft decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got fo abundant a fhare, they acted under a ftrong impreffion of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus fallible, rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deferve their fortune, or to retain their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let us preferve what they have left; and, standing on the firm ground of the British conftitution, let us be fatisfied to admire rather than attempt to follow in their defperate flights the aeronauts of France.

I have told you candidly my fentiments. I think they are not likely to alter yours. I do not know that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide, but muft follow the fortune of your country. But hereafter they may be of fome ufe to you, in fome future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but before its final fettlement it may be obliged to pafs, as one of our poets fays, "through

great varieties of untried being," and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.

I have little to recommend my opinions, but long obfervation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatnefs; and who in his laft acts does not, wish to belye the tenour of his life. They come from one, almost the whole of whofe public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whofe breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled, but by what he confidered as tyranny; and who fnatches from his fhare in the endeavours which are used by good men to difcredit opulent oppreffion, the hours he has employed on your affairs; and who in fo doing perfuades himself he has not departed from his usual office they come from one who defires honours, diftinctions, and emoluments, but little; and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who fhuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion: from one who wishes to preferve consistency; but who would preferve confiftency by varying his means to fecure the unity of his end; and, when the equipoife of the veffel in which he fails, may be endangered by overloading it upon one fide, is defirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preferve its equipoife.

F INI S.