conftituents, deserve to be looked on as the Nayres or Mamalukes of this age, or as the Orfini and Vitelli of ancient times? If I had then asked the question, I should have paffed for a madman. What have they fince done that they were to be driven into exile, that their perfons should be hunted about, mangled, and tortured, their families difperfed, their houses laid in afhes, that their order fhould be abolished, and the memory of it, if poffible, extinguifhed, by ordaining them to change the very names by which they were ufually known? Read their inftructions to their representatives. They breathe the fpirit of liberty as warmly, and they recommend reformation as strongly, as any other order. Their privileges relative to contribution were voluntarily furrendered; as the king, from the beginning, furrendered all pretence to a right of taxation. Upon a free conftitution there was but one opinion in France, The abfolute monarchy was at an end. It breathed its laft, without a groan, without ftruggle, without convulfion. All the ftruggle, all the diffenfion arofe afterwards upon the preference of a defpotic democracy to a government of reciprocal controul, The triumph of the victorious party was over the principles of a British constitution.

I have obferved the affectation, which, for many years paft, has prevailed in Paris even to a degree perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory of your Henry the Fourth, If any thing could put one out of humour with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone style of infidious panegyric. The perfons who have worked this engine the moft bufily, are those who have ended

ended their panegyrics in dethroning his fucceffor and descendant; a man, as good-natured at the least, as Henry the Fourth; altogether as fond of his people, and who has done infinitely more to correc the antient vices of the ftate than that great monarch did, or we are sure he ever meant to do. Well it is for his panegyrifts that they have not him to deal with. For Henry of Navarre was a refolute, active, and politic prince. He poffeffed indeed great humanity and mildness; but an humanity and mildness that never ftood in the way of his interests. He never fought to be loved without putting himself first in a condition to be feared. He ufed foft language with determined conduct. He afferted and maintained his authority in the grofs, and diftributed his acts of conceffion only in the detail. He spent the income of his prerogatives nobly; but he took care not to break in upon the capital; never abandoning for a moment any of the claims, which he made under the fundamental laws, nor fparing to shed the blood of those who opposed him, often in the field, fometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues refpected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those whom, if they had lived in his time, he would have fhut up in the Bastile, and brought to punishment along with the regicides whom he hanged after he had famished Paris into a furrender.

If these panegyrifts are in earneft in their admiration of Henry the Fourth, they must remember, that they cannot think more highly of him, than he did of the nobleffe of France; whofe virtue, honour, courage, patriotism, and loyalty were his conftant theme,

But

But the nobility of France are degenerated fince the days of Henry the Fourth,-This is poffible. But it is more than I can believe to be true in any great degree. I do not pretend to know France as correctly as fome others; but I have endeavoured through my whole life to make myself acquainted with human nature; otherwife I fhould be unfit to take even my humble part in the fervice of mankind. In that ftudy I could not pass by a vaft portion of our nature, as it appeared modified in a country but twenty-four miles from the fhore of this ifland. On my best obfervation, compared with my best enquiries, I found your nobility for the greater part compofed of men of an high spirit, and of a delicate fenfe of honour, both with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other countries, a cenforial eye. They were tolerably well-bred; very officious, humane, and hofpitable; in their conversation frank and open; with a good military tone; and reasonably tinctured with literature, particularly of the authors in their own language. Many had pretenfions far above this description. I fpeak of those who were generally met with.

As to their behaviour to the inferior claffes, they appeared to me to comport themselves towards them with good-nature, and with fomething more nearly approaching to familiarity, than is generally practifed with us in the intercourfe between the higher and lower ranks of life. To strike any perfon, even in the most abject condition, was a thing in a manner unknown, and would be highly difgraceful. Inftances of other ill-treatment of

the

the humble part of the community were rare; and

as to attacks made upon the property or the perfonal liberty of the commons, I never heard of any whatfoever from them; nor, whilft the laws were in vigour under the antient government, would fuch tyranny in subjects have been permitted. As men of landed eftates, I had no fault to find with their conduct, though much to reprehend, and much to wifh changed, in many of the old tenures. Where the letting of their land was by rent, I could not discover that their agreements with their farmers were oppreffive; nor when they were in partnership with the farmer, as often was the cafe, have I heard that they had taken the lion's fhare. The proportions feemed not inequitable. There might be exceptions; but certainly they were exceptions only. I have no reason to believe that in these respects the landed nobleffe of France were worfe than the landed gentry of this country; certainly in no respect more vexatious than the landholders, not noble, of their own nation. In cities the nobility had no manner of power; in the country very little. You know, Sir, that much of the civil government, and the police in the most effential parts, was not in the hands of that nobility which prefents itself firft to our confideration. The revenue, the fyftem and collection of which were the most grievous parts of the French government, was not adminiftered by the men of the fword; nor were they answerable for the vices of its principle, or the vexations, where any fuch existed, in its management.

Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the nobility had any confiderable share in the oppref

fion of the people, in cafes in which real oppreffion exifted, I am ready to admit that they were not without confiderable faults and errors. A foolish imitation of the worst part of the manners of England, which impaired their natural character without fubftituting in its place what perhaps they. meant, has certainly rendered them worfe than formerly they were. Habitual diffolutenefs of manners continued beyond the pardonable period of life, was more common amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with the lefs hope of remedy, though poffibly with fomething of less mischief, by being covered with more exterior decorum. They countenanced too much that licentious philofophy which has helped to bring on their ruin. There was another error amongst them more fatal. Those of the commons, who approached to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth, were not fully admitted to the rank and estimation which wealth, in reason and good policy, ought to bestow in every country; though I think not equally with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were too punctiliously kept afunder; lefs fo, however, than in Germany and fome other nations.

This feparation, as I have already taken the liberty of fuggesting to you, I conceive to be one principal cause of the destruction of the old nobility. The military, particularly, was too exclufively reserved for men of family. But after all, this was an error of opinion, which a conflicting opinion would have rectified. A permanent affembly, in which the commons had their share of power, would foon abolish whatever was too invidious and infulting in these diftinctions; and even the faults in the morals of the no

bility