TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.

SIR,

LONDON, JUNE 6, 1792.

As you opened the debate in the house of commons, May 25th, on the proclamation for suppressing publications, which that proclamation (without naming any) calls wicked and seditious and as you applied those opprobious epithets to the works entitled Rights of Man, I think it unnecessary to offer any other reason for addressing this letter to you.

I begin, then, at once, by declaring, that I do not believe there are to be found in the writings of any author, ancient or modern, on the subject of government, a spirit of greater benignity, and a stronger inculcation of moral principles than in those which I have published. They come, sir, from a man, who, by having lived in different countries, and under different systems of government, and who, being intimate in the construction of them, is a better judge of the subject than it is possible that you, from the want of those opportunities can be; and besides this, they come from a heart that knows not how to beguile.

I will further say, that when that moment arrives in which the best consolation that shall be left, will be looking back on some past actions, more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then with happiness remember, among other things that I have written the Rights of Man. As to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or placemen, and place expectants, those who possess, or those who are gaping for office, may say of them, it will not alter their character, either with the world or with me.

Having, sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not particularly on your speech, but on any one to which your motion gave rise. To begin with Mr. Adam.

He accuses me of not having done the very thing that I have done.

In his speech, (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26,) he says, "that he had well considered the subject of constitutional publications, and was by no means ready to say that books of science upon government though recommending a doctrine, or system different from the form of our constitution were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas Moore for his Utopia, and Hume for his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth. But the publication of Mr. Paine reviled what was most sacred in the constitution, destroyed every principle of subordination, and established nothing in their

room."

I readily saw that Mr. Adam had not read the second part of the Rights of Man; and I am put under the necessity either of submitting to an erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly shall prefer the latter. If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in my reasoning upon systems of government, in the second part of the Rights of Man, I have shown, I think, as clearly as words can convey ideas, a certain system of government; and that not existing in theory only, but already in established practice, and systematically and practically free from all the vices and defects of the English government, and capable of producing more happiness to the people, and that also with an eightieth part of the taxes, which the present English system of government consumes; I hope he will do me the justice when he next goes to the house, to acknowledge he had been mistaken in saying, that I had established nothing, and had destroyed every principle of subordination. I now come to the point.

In the second part of the Rights of Man I have distinguished government into two classes or systems: the hereditary and the representative systems.

In the first part of the Rights of Man, I have shown, and it cannot be refuted, that there does not exist a right to establish hereditary government.

In the second part of the Rights of Man I have not repeated those arguments, because they are irrefutable, but have confined myself to show the defects of hereditary government, or hereditary succession, that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into the hands of men unworthy of it, either from want of principle or capacity.

To show the absurdity of the hereditary system still more strongly, I will now put the following case: take any fifty men promiscuously, and it will be very extraordinary, if, out of that number, more than one man should be found, whose principles and talents taken together (for some might have principles, and others have talents) would render him a person truly fitted to fill any very extraordinary office of national trust. If then such a fitness of character could not be expected to be found in more than one person out of fifty, it would happen but once in a thousand years to the eldest son of any one family, admitting each on an average, to hold the office twenty years. Mr. Adam talks of something in the constitution which he calls most sacred; but I hope he does not mean hereditary succession, a thing which appears to me a violation of every order of nature and of common sense.

When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise virtuous, who have died, and whose families have been ruined, in defence of knaves and fools, and which they would not have done had they reasoned at all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an individual can render to mankind, than to endeavour to break the chains of political superstition. Those chains are now disolving fast, and proclamations and persecutions will serve but to hasten that dissolution.

Having thus spoken of the hereditary system as a bad system, and subject to every possible defect, I now come to the representative system; and this Mr. Adam will find stated in the second part of the Rights of Man, not only as the best, but as the only theory of government under which the liberties of a people can be permanently secure.

But it is needless now to talk of mere theory, since there is already a government in full practice, established upon that theory; or in other words, upon the rights of man, and has been so for almost twenty years. Mr. Pitt, in a speech of his some short time since, said, "That there never did, and never could exist a government established upon those rights, and that if it began at noon, it would end at night." Mr. Pitt has not yet arrived at the degree of a school boy in this species of knowledge. His practice has been confined to means of extorting the revenue, and his boast has been-how much? Whereas the boast of the system of government that I am speaking of, is not how much, but how little.

The system of government purely representative, unmixed with any thing of hereditary nonsense, began in America. I will now compare the effects of that system of government, with the system of government in England, both during, and since the close of the war.

So powerful is the representative system; first, by combining and consolidating all the parts of a country together, however great the extent; and, secondly, by admitting of none but men properly qualified into the government, or dismissing them if they prove otherwise, that America was enabled thereby totally to defeat and overthrow all the schemes and projects of the hereditary government of England against her. As the establishment of the revolution and independence of America is a proof of this fact, it is needless to enlarge upon it.

I now come to the comparative effect of the two systems since the close of the war, and I request Mr. Adam to attend to it.

America had internally sustained the ravages of upwards of seven years of war, which England had not. England sustained only the expense of the war: whereas America sustained not only the expense, but the destruction of property committed by both armies. Not a house was built during that period, and many thousands were destroyed.

The farms and plantations along the coast of the country, for more than a thousand miles, were laid waste. Her commerce was annihilated. Her ships were either taken or had rotted within her own harbors. The credit of her funds had fallen upwards of ninety per cent., that is, an original hundred pounds would not sell for ten pounds. In short, she was apparently put back a hundred years when the war closed; which was not the case with England.

But such was the event, that the same representative system of government, though since better organized, which enabled her to conquer, enabled her also to recover, and she now presents a more flourishing condition, and a more happy and harmonized society under that system of government, than any country in the world can boast under any other. Her towns are rebuilt much better than before; her farms and plantations are in higher improvement than ever; her commerce is spread over the world, and her funds have risen from less than ten pounds the hundred to upwards of one hundred and twenty. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues, talk of