and flattery, was adduced, as a proof of the united fentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was a great change throughout all America. The tide of popular affection, which had ftill fet towards the parent country, began immediately to turn; and to flow with great rapidity in a contrary course. Far from concealing thefe wild declarations of enmity, the author of the celebrated pamphlet which prepared the minds of the people for independence, infifts largely on the multitude and the fpirit of thefe addreffes; and he draws an argument from them, which (if the fact were as he fuppofes) must be irrefiftible. For I never knew a writer on the theory of government fo partial to authority, as not to allow, that the hoftile mind of the rulers to their people, did fully justify a change of government; nor can any reafon whatever be given, why one people fhould voluntarily yield any degree of pre-eminence to another, but on a fuppofition of great affection and benevolence towards them. Unfortunately your rulers, trufting to other things, took no notice of this great principle of connexion. From the beginning of this affair, they have done all they could to alienate your minds from your own kindred; and if they could excite hatred enough in one of the parties towards the other, they feemed to be of opinion that they had gone half the way towards reconciling the quarrel. Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. LOYALTY (TRUE) CAN it be true loyalty to any government, or true patriotism towards any country, to degrade their folemn councils into fervile drawing-rooms, to flatter their pride and paffions, rather than to enlighten their reafon, and to prevent them from being cautioned against violence left others fhould be encouraged to refiftance? By fuch acquiefcence great kings and mighty nations have been undone; and if any are at this day in a perilous fituation from rejecting ( 189 ) truth, and listening to flattery, it would rather become them to reform the errors under which they fuffer, than to reproach thofe who forewarned them of their danger.Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol. LEVELLERS. THOSE who attempt to level, never equalize. In all focieties, confifting of various defcriptions of citizens, fome defcription must be uppermoft. The levellers therefore only change and pervert the natural order of things; they load the edifice of fociety, by fetting up in the air what the folidity of the ftructure requires to be on the ground. The affociations of taylors and carpenters, of which the republic (of Paris, for inftance) is compofed, cannot be equal to the fituation, into which, by the worft of ufurpations, an ufurpation on the prerogatives of nature, you attempt to force them.Reflections on the Revolution in France. LANDED PROPERTY. Laudable courfe of its Surplus. WHY fhould the expenditure of a great landed property, which is a difperfion of the furplus product of the foil, appear intolerable to you or to me, when it takes its courfe through the accumulation of vaft libraries, which are the hiftory of the force and weakness of the human mind; through great collections of ancient records, medals, and coins, which atteft and explain laws and cuftoms; through paintings and ftatues, that, by imitating nature, feem to extend the limits of creation; through grand monuments of the dead, which continue the regards and connexions of life beyond the grave; through collections of the fpecimens of nature, which become a reprefentative affembly of all the claffes and families of the world, that by difpofition facilitate, and, by exciting curiofity, open the avenues to fcience? If, by great permanent establishments, all these objects of expence are better fecured from the inconftant fport of perfonal caprice and perfonal extravagance, are they worse than if the fame taftes prevailed in fcattered individuals? Does not the fweat of the mafon and carpenter, who toil in order to partake the fweat of the peafant, flow as pleasantly and as falubriously, in the conftruction and repair of the majeftic edifices of religion, as in the painted booths and fordid fties of vice and luxury the Revolution in France. Reflections on LANDED PROPERTY. Always diffolving into Individuality. THE very nature of a country life, the very nature of landed property, in all the occupations, and all the pleafures they afford, render combination and arrangement (the fole way of procuring and exerting influence) in a manner impoffible amongst country people. Combine them by all the art you can, and all the industry, they are always diffolving into individuality. Any thing in the nature of incorporation is almoft impracticable amongst them. Hope, fear, alarm, jealoufy, the ephemerous tale that does its bufinefs and dies in a day; all these things, which are the reins and fpurs by which leaders check or urge the minds of followers, are not eafily employed, or hardly at all, amongft fcattered people. They affemble, they arm, they act with the utmost difficulty, and at the greateft charge. Their efforts, if ever they can be commenced, cannot be fuftained. They cannot proceed fyftematically. If the country gentlemen attempt an influence through the mere income of their property, what is it to that of thofe who have ten times their income to fell, and who can ruin their property by bringing their plunder to meet it at market. If the landed man wifhes to mortgage, he falls the value of his land, and raises the value of affignats. He augments the power of his enemy by the very means he muft take to contend with him. The country. gentleman therefore, the officer by fea and land, the man of liberal views and habits, attached to to profeffion, will be as completely excluded from the government of his country as if he were legiflatively profcribed. It is obvious, that in the towns, all the things which confpire against the country gentleman, combine in favour of the money manager and director. In towns combination is natural. The habits of burghers, their occupations, their diverfion, their bufinefs, their idleness, continually bring them into mutual contact. Their virtues and their vices are fociable; they are always in garrifon; and they come embodied and half difciplined into the hands of thofe who mean to form them for civil or for military action.—Ibid. MINISTERS (FAVOURITES.) Effects of the Court Syftem (Favouritifm) on our foreign Affairs, on the Policy of our Government with regard to our Dependencies, and on the anterior Oeconomy of the Commonwealth, with fome Obfervations on the grand Principle which first recommended this Syftem at Court. (See KING'S MEN, CABINET (DOUBLE), POLICY. A PLAN of favouritifm for our executory government is effentially at variance with the plan of our legiflature. One great end, undoubtedly, of a mixed government like ours, compofed of monarchy, and of controuls, on the part of the higher people and the lower, is that the prince fhall not be able to violate the laws. This is ufeful, indeed, and fundamental; but this, even at first view, is no more than a negative advantage; an armour merely defenfive. It is therefore next in order, and equal in import ance, that the difcretionary powers which are neceffarily vefted in the monarch, whether for the execution of the laws, or for the nomination to magiftracy and office, or for conducting the affairs of peace and war, or for ordering the revenue, fhould all be exercifed upon public principles and national grounds, and not on the likings or prejudices, the intrigues or policies, of a court. This, I faid, is equal in importance to the fecuring a government according to law. The laws reach but avery little way. Conftitute government how you pleafe, infinitely the greater part of it muft depend upon the exercife of the powers which are left at large to the prudence and uprightnefs of minifters of ftate. Even all the ufe and potency of the laws depends upon them. Without them, your commonwealth is no better than a scheme upon paper; and not a living, acting, effective conftitution. It is poffible, that through negligence, or ignorance, or defign artfully conducted, minifters may fuffer one part fuffer one part of government to languish, another to be perverted from its purposes, and every valuable intereft of the country to fall into ruin and decay, without poffibility of fixing any fingle act on which a criminal profecution can be juftly grounded. The due arrangement of men in the active part of the ftate, far from being foreign to the purposes of a wife government, ought to be among its very firft and deareft objects. When, therefore, the abettors of the new fyftem tell us, that between them and their opposers there is nothing but a ftruggle for power, and that therefore we are no ways concerned in it; we muft tell those who have the impudence to infult us in this manner, that of all things we ought to be the moft concerned, who and what fort of men they are, that hold the truft of every thing that is dear to us. Nothing can render this a point of indifference to the nation, but what muft either render us totally defperate, or foothe us into the fecurity of ideots. We muft foften into a credulity below the milkinefs of infancy, to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a |