merly, or that Siddons not long fince, have extorted from me, were the tears of hypocrify; I fhould know them to be the tears of folly.

Indeed the theatre is a better fchool of moral sentiments than churches, where the feelings of humanity. are thus outraged. Poets, who have to deal with an audience not yet graduated in the fchool of the rights of men, and who must apply themselves to the moral conftitution of the heart, would not dare to produce fuch a triumph as a matter of exultation. There, where men follow their natural impulfes, they would not bear the odious maxims of a Machiavelian policy, whether applied to the attainment of monarchical or democratic tyranny. They would reject them on the modern, as they once did on the ancient stage, where they could not bear even the hypothetical propofition of fuch wickedness in the mouth of a perfonated tyrant, though fuitable to the character he fuftained. No theatric audience in Athens would bear what has been borne, in the midst of the real tragedy of this triumphal day; a principal actor weighing, as it were in fcales hung in a fhop of horrors,—so much actual crime against fo much contingent advantage, and after putting in and out weights, declaring that the balance was on the fide of the advantages. They would not bear to fee the crimes of new democracy pofted as in a ledger against the crimes of old def potifm, and the book-keepers of politics finding democracy ftill in debt, but by no means unable or unwilling to pay the balance. In the theatre, the firft intuitive glance, without any elaborate process of reafoning, would fhew, that this method of political computation, would justify every extent of crime. They would fee, that on these principles, even where the very worst acts 'were not perpetrated, it was owing rather to the fortune of the confpirators than to their parfimony in the expenditure of treachery and blood. They would foon fee, that criminal means once tolerated are foon preferred. They prefent a fhorter cut to the object than through the high-way of the moral virtues. Juftifying perfidy and murder for public benefit, public benefit would foon become the pretext, and perfidy and murder

the

the end; until rapacity, malice, revenge, and fear more dreadful than revenge, could fatiate their infati able appetites. Such must be the confequences of losing in the fplendour of these triumphs of the rights of men, all natural fenfe of wrong and right.

But the Reverend Paftor exults in this " leading in "triumph," because truly Louis XVIth was "an "arbitrary monarch;" that is, in other words, neither. more nor less, than because he was Louis the XVIth, and because he had the misfortune to be born king of France, with the prerogatives of which, a long line of ancestors, and a long acquiefcence of the people, without any act of his, had put him in poffeffion. A misfortune it has indeed turned out to him, that he was born king of France. But misfortune is not crime, nor is indif cretion always the greatest guilt. I fhall never think that a prince, the acts of whofe whole reign were a series of conceffions to his fubjects, who was willing to relax his authority, to remit his prerogatives, to call his people to a fhare of freedom, not known, perhaps not defired by their ancestors; fuch a prince, though he fhould be fubject to the common frailties attached to men and to princes, though he should have once thought it neceffary to provide force against the defperate defigns manifeftly carrying on against his perfon, and the remnants of his authority; though all this fhould be taken into confideration, I fhall be led with great difficulty to think he deserves the cruel and infulting triumph of Paris, and of Dr. Price. I tremble for the caufe of liberty, from fuch an example to kings. I tremble for the cause of humanity, in the unpunished outrages of the moft wicked of mankind. But there are fome people of that low and degenerate fashion of mind, that they look up with a fort of com placent awe and admiration to kings, who know to keep firm in their feat, to hold a ftri& hand over their fubjects, to affert their prerogative, and by the awakened vigilance of a fevere defpotifm, to guard against the very first approaches of freedom. Againft fuch as thefe they never elevate their voice. Deferters from principle, lifted with fortune, they never see any good in fuffering virtue, nor any crime in profperous ufurpation.

If it could have been made clear to me, that the king and queen of France (thofe I mean who were fuch before the triumph) were inexorable and cruel tyrants, that they had formed a deliberate scheme for maffacring the National Affembly (I think I have feen fomething like the latter infinuated in certain publications) I fhould think their captivity juft. If this be true, much more ought tơ have been done, but done, in my opinion, in another manner. The punishment of real tyrants is a noble and awful act of justice; and it has with truth been said to be confolatory to the human mind. But if I were to punish a wicked king, I fhould regard the dignity in avenging the crime. Juftice is grave and decorous, and in its punishments rather feems to fubmit to a neceffity, than to make a choice. Had Nero, or Agrippina, or Louis the Eleventh, or Charles the Ninth, been the fubject; if Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, after the murder of Patkul, or his predeceffor Chriftina, after the murder of Monaldeschi, had fallen into your hands, Sir, or into mine, I am fure our conduct would have been different.

If the French King, or King of the French, (or by whatever name he is known in the new vocabulary of your conftitution) has in his own perfon, and that of his Queen, really deferved thefe unavowed but unavenged murderous attempts, and thofe fubfequent indignities more cruel than murder, fuch a perfon would ill deferve even that fubordinate executory trust, which I understand is to be placed in him; nor is he fit to be called chief in a nation which he has outraged and oppreffed. A worfe choice for fuch an office in the new commonwealth, than that of a deposed tyrant, could not poffibly be made. But to degrade and infult a man as the worst of criminals, and afterwards to trust him in your highest concerns, as a faithful, honeft, and zealous fervant, is not confiftent in reasoning, nor prudent in policy, nor fafe in practice. Those who could make fuch an appointment must be guilty of a more flagrant breach of truft than any they have yet committed against the people. As this is the only crime in which your leading politicians could have acted inconfiftently, I conclude that there is no fort of ground for

thefe

thefe horrid infinuations. I think no better of all the other calumnies..

In England, we give no credit to them. We are ge nerous enemies: We are faithful allies. We fpurn from us with disgust and indignation the flanders of those who bring us their anecdotes with the atteftation of the flowerde-luce on their shoulder. We have Lord George Gordon fast in Newgate; and neither his being a public profelyte to Judaifm, nor his having in his zeal against Catholick priests and all fort of ecclefiaftics, raised a mob (excuse the term, it is ftill in ufe here) which pulled down all our prifons, have preferved to him a liberty, of which he did not render himself worthy by a virtuous use of it. We have rebuilt Newgate, and tenanted the manfion. We have prisons almost as strong as the Bastile, for those who dare to libel the queens of France. In this fpiritual retreat, let the noble libeller remain. Let him there meditate on his Thalmud, until he learns a conduct more becoming his birth and parts, and not fo difgraceful to the ancient religion to which he has become a profelyte; or until some perfons from your fide of the water, to please your new Hebrew brethren, fhall ranfom him. He may then be enabled to purchase, with the old hoards of the fynagogue, and a very small poundage, on the long compounded interest of the thirty pieces of filver (Dr. Price has shewn us what miracles compound intereft will perform in 1790 years) the lands which are lately difcovered to have been ufurped by the Gallican church. Send us your popish Archbishop of Paris, and we will send you our proteftant Rabbin. We fhall treat the perfon you fend us in exchange like a gentleman and an honeft man, as he is; but pray let him bring with him the fund of his hofpitality, 'bounty, and charity; and, depend upon it, we shall never confifcate a fhilling of that honourable and pious fund, nor think of enriching the treasury with the spoils of the poor-box.

To tell you the truth, my dear Sir, I think the honour of our nation to be fomewhat concerned in the difclaimer of the proceedings of this fociety of the Old Jewry and the London Tavern. I have no man's proxy. I fpeak only from myfelf; when I difclaim, as I do with

all

all poffible earnestnefs, all communion with the actors in that triumph, or with the admirers of it. When I affert any thing else, as concerning the people of England, I fpeak from obfervation not from authority; but I fpeak from the experience I have had in a pretty extenfive and mixed communication with the inhabitants of this kingdom, of all defcriptions and ranks, and after a courfe of attentive obfervation, began early in life, and continued for near forty years. I have often been aftonished, confidering that we are divided from you but by a flender dyke of about twenty-four miles, and that the mutual intercourfe between the two countries has lately been very great, to find how little you feem to know of us. I fufpect that this is owing to your forming a judgment of this nation from certain publications, which do, very erroneously, if they do at all, represent the opinions and difpofitions generally prevalent in England. The vanity, reftleffnefs, petulance, and fpirit of intrigue of feveral petty cabals, who attempt to hide their total want of confequence in bustle and noife, and puffing, and mutual quotation of each other, makes you imagine that our contemptuous neglect of their abilities is a mark of general acquiefcence in their opinions. No fuch thing, I affure you. Because half a dozen graffhoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilft thousands of great cattle, repofed beneath the fhadow of the Britifh oak, chew the cud and are filent, pray do not imagine, that those who make the noife are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little fhrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome infects of the hour.

I almost venture to affirm, that not one in a hundred amongst us participates in the " triumph" of the RevoJution Society. If the king and queen of France, and their children, were to fall into our hands by the chance of war, in the most acrimonious of all hoftilities (I deprecate fuch an event, I deprecate fuch hoftility) they would be treated with another fort of triumphal entry into London. We formerly have had a king of France in that fituation; you have read how he was treated by the victor