his intention to leave England speedily on a mission greatly connected with the interests and welfare of his country. As the editor has not been able to procure this publication, he cannot pretend to give any thing more than the import of the words of this communication, which however made so strong an impression upon Mr. Jay, that he took the first opportunity of writing to his friends in congress, &c. to put them on their guard against any attempts from Mr. Jones for the purpose beforementioned. Probably this communication gave risc to the "surmises and insinuations" mentioned by lord Teignmouth. In fact, Mr. Paradise was not in any want of a lawyer, and especially an English lawyer; nor was his estate in Virginia of the magnitude supposed by lord Teignmouth, nor his finances in such a state as to enable him to defray the expenses of the voyage intended by Mr. Jones, and much less to afford him a compensation for leaving his then increasing professional business in England. But whatever may have been Mr. Jones's object in going to America, the failure of it, by Mr. Paradise's timidity and unwillingness to proceed further, after they had reached Nantes, was so displeasing to Mr. Jones, that it there produced a separation, and final termination of all intercourse between these gentlemen during the remainder of their lives.P

While at Paris, Mr. Jones put into the hands of Dr. Franklin the following composition, entitled, A FRAGMENT OF POLYBIUS, which certainly was well calculated to promote that sort of reconciliation which is supposed to have been the real object of his intended voyage to the United States, and which, from its intrinsic merits, as well as the celebrity of the author, will, it is presumed, be acceptable to the readers of these memoirs. If to be considered as a diplomatic document, it is certainly of a very superior cast.— The allusions are evident.

See Vol.-V. page 291, of this edition.

A FRAGMENT OF POLYBIUS.

From his Treatise on the Athenian Government.

"ATHENS had long been an object of universal admiration, and consequently of envy; her navy was invincible, her commerce extensive; Europe and Asia supplied her with wealth; of her citizens, all were intrepid, many virtuous; but some too much infected with principles unfavorable to freedom. Hence an oligarchy was, in a great measure established; crooked counsels were thought supreme wisdom; and the Athenians, having lost their true relish for their own freedom, began to attack that of their colonies, and of the states which they had before protected! Their arrogant claims of unlimited dominion, had compelled the Chians, Coans, Rhodians, Lesbians, to join with nine other small communities in the social war, which they began with inconceivable ardor, and continued with industry surpassing all example, and almost surpassing belief. They were openly assisted by Mausolus, king of Caria, to whose metropolis the united islands had sent a philosopher, named Eleutherion, eminent for the deepest knowlege of nature, the most solid judgment, most approved virtue, and most ardent zeal for the cause of general liberty. The war had been supported for three years with infinite exertions of valor on both sides, with deliberate firmness on the part of the allies, and with unabated violence on the part of the Athenians; who had, nevertheless, dispatched commissioners to Rhodes, with intent to propose terms of accommodation; but the states (perhaps too pertinaciously) refused to hear any proposal whatever, without a previous recognition of their total independence by the magistrates and people of Athens. It was not long after this, that an Athenian, who had been a pupil of Isæus together with Demosthenes, and began to be known in his country as a pleader of causes, was led by some affair of his clients to the capital of Caria. He was a man, unauthorised, unemployed, unconnected; independent in his circumstances as much as in his prin

ciples: admitting no governor, under Providence, but the laws; and no laws but those which justice and virtue had dictated, which wisdom approved, which his country had freely enacted. He had been known at Athens to the sage Eleutherion; and, their acquaintance being renewed, he sometimes took occasion in their conversations to lament the increasing calamities of war, and to express his eager desire of making a general peace on such terms as would produce the greatest good from the greatest evil; for this,' said he, would be a work not unworthy of the divine attributes, and if mortals could effect it, they would act like those beneficent beings, whom Socrates believed to be the constant friends and attendants of our species.'

6

“He added, As to the united nations, I applaud, admire, and almost envy them; I am even tempted to wish that I had been born a Chian or a Rhodian; but let them be satisfied with the prize of virtue which they have already obtained. I will yield to none of your countrymen, my friend, in my love of liberty; but she seems more lovely to my eyes, when she comes hand in hand with peace. From that union we can expect nothing but the highest happiness of which our nature is capable; and it is an union, which nothing now obstructs but -a mere word.

"Let the confederates be contented with the substance of that independence which they have asserted, and the word will necessarily follow.

"Let them not hurt the natural, and, perhaps, not reprehensible, pride of Athens, nor demand any concession, that may sink in the eyes of Greece, a nation to whom they are and must be united in language, in blood, in manners, in interest, in principles. Glory is to a nation, what reputation is to an individual; it is not an empty sound: but important and essential. It will be glorious in Athens to acknowlege her error in attempting to reduce the islands, but an acknowlegement of her inability to reduce them (if she be unable) will be too public a confession of weakness, and her rank among the states of Greece will instantly be lowered. 3 H

VOL. I.

But, whatever I might advise, if my advice had any chance of being taken, this I know, and positively pronounce, that while Athens is Athens, her proud but brave citizens will never expressly recognize the independence of the islands: their resources are no doubt exhaustible, but will not be exhausted in the lives of us and of our children. In this resolution all parties agree: I, who am of ro party, dissent from them; but what is a single voice in so vast a multitude? Yet the independence of the United States was tacitly acknowleged by the very offer of terms, and it would result in silence from the natural operation of the treaty. An express acknowlegement of it is merely formal with respect to the allies; but the prejudices of mankind have made it substantial with respect to Athens.

"Let this obstacle be removed: it is slight, but fatal; and, whilst it lasts, thousands and ten thousands will perish. In war much will always depend upon blind chance, and a storm or sudden fall of snow may frustrate all your efforts for liberty; but let commissioners from both sides meet, and the islanders, by not insisting on a preliminary recognition of independence, will ultimately establish it for ever.

"But independence is not disunion. Chios, Cos, Lesbos, Rhodes, are united, but independent on each other: they are connected by a common tie, but have different forms and different constitutions. They are gems of various colors and various properties, strung in one bracelet. Such an union can only be m de between states, which, how widely soever they differ in form, agree in one common property, freedom. Republics may form alliances, but not a federal union, with arbitrary monarchies. Were Athens governed by the will of a monarch, she could never be co-ordinate with the free islands; for such an union would not be dissimilarity but dissonance: but she is and shall be ruled by laws alone, that is, by the will of the people, which is the only law. Her Archon, even when he was perpetual, had no essential properties of monarchy. The constitution of Athens, if we must define it, was then a republic with a perpetual administrator of its laws.

Between Athens, therefore, and the freest states in the world, an union may naturally be formed.

“There is a natural union between her and the islands, which the Gods have made, and which the powers of hell cannot dissolve. Men, speaking the same idiom, educated in the same manner, perhaps, in the same place; professing the same principles; sprung from the same ancestors, in no very remote degree; and related to each other in a thousand modes of consanguinity, affinity, and friendship, such men (whatever they may say through a temporary resentment) can never in their hearts consider one another as aliens.

"Let them meet then with fraternal and pacific dispositions, and let this be the general ground-work and plan of the treaty.

"1,The Carians shall be included in the pacification, and have such advantages as will induce them to consent to the treaty rather than continue a hazardous war.

"2, The archon, senate, and magistrates of Athens shall make a complete recognition of rights of all the Athenian citizens of all orders whatever, and all former laws for that purpose shall be combined in one. There shall not be one slave in Attica.

"NOTE. [By making this a preliminary, the islanders will show their affection for the people of Athens; their friendship will be cemented and fixed on a solid basis; and the greatest good will be extracted, as I at first proposed, from the greatest evil.]

❝3, There shall be a perfect co-ordination between Athens and the thirteen united islands, they considering her not as a parent, whom they must obey, but as an elder sister, whom they cannot help loving, and to whom they shall give preeminence of honor and co-equality of power.

4, The new constitutions of the confederate islands shall remain.

5, On every occasion requiring acts for the general good, there shall be an assembly of deputies from the senate of Athens and the congress of the islands, who shall fairly