to fubject their country to a thousand evils, in order to avoid it? Is it then a truth fo univerfally acknowledged, that a pure democracy is the only tolerable form into which human fociety can be thrown, that a man is not permitted to hesitate about its merits, without the fufpicion of being a friend to tyranny, that is, of being a foe to mankind?

I do not know under what defcription to clafs the prefent ruling authority in France. It affects to be a pure democracy, though I think it in a direct train of becoming fhortly a mischievous and ignoble oligarchy. But for the prefent I admit it to be a contrivance of the nature and effect of what it pretends to. I reprobate no form of government merely upon abstract principles. There may be fituations in which the purely democratic form will become neceffary. There may be fome (very few, and very particularly circumstanced) where it would be clearly defireable. This I do not take to be the cafe of France, or of any other great country. Until now, we have feen no examples of confiderable democracies. The antients were better acquainted with them. Not being wholly unread in the authors, who had feen the most of thofe conftitutions, and who beft understood them, I cannot help concurring with their opinion, that an abfolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. They think it rather the corruption and degeneracy, than the found conftitution of a republic. If I recollect rightly, Ariftotle obferves,

that

that a democracy has many ftriking points of refemblance with a tyranny*. Of this I am certain, that in a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercifing the moft cruel oppreffions upon the minority, whenever ftrong divifions prevail in that kind of polity, as they often muft; and that oppreffion of the minority will extend to far greater numbers, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a fingle fceptre. In fuch a popular perfecution, individual fufferers are in a much more deplorable condition than in any other. Under a cruel prince they have the balmy compaffion of mankind to affuage the fmart of their wounds; they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous conftancy under their fufferings: but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes, are deprived of all external confola

* When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many years had elapfed from my reading the paffage. A learned friend has found it, and it is as follows:

Τὸ ἦν τὸ αὐτό, καὶ ἄμφω δεσποτικὰ τῶν βελτιόνων, καὶ τὰ ψηφίσματα, ὥσπερ ἐκεῖ τὰ ἐπιταγματα· καὶ ὁ δημαγωγα καὶ ὁ κόλαξ, οἱ ἀυτοὶ καὶ ἀνάλογον· καὶ μάλισα ἑκάτεροι παρ' ἑκατέροις ἰσχύεσιν, οἱ μὲν κόλακες παρὰ τυράννοις, οἱ δὲ δημαγωγοὶ παρὰ τοῖς δήμοις τοῖς τοιέτοις,

• The ethical character is the fame; both exercife defpotism over the better clafs of citizens; and decrees are in the one, ⚫ what ordinances and arrêts are in the other: the demagogue ⚫ too, and the court favourite, are not unfrequently the fame • identical men, and always bear a close analogy; and these have the principal power, each in their refpective forms of C government, favourites with the abfolute monarch, and de· magogues with a people fuch as I have described.' Arift. Politic. lib. iv. cap. 4.

tion. They seem deferted by mankind; overpowered by a confpiracy of their whole fpecies.

But admitting democracy not to have that inevitable tendency to party tyranny, which I fuppofe it to have, and admitting it to poffefs as much good in it when unmixed, as I am fure it poffeffes when compounded with other forms; does monarchy, on its part, contain nothing at all to recommend it? I do not often quote Bolingbroke, nor have his works in general, left any permanent impreffion on my mind. He is a prefumptuous and a fuperficial writer. But he has one obfervation, which, in my opinion, is not without depth and folidity. He fays, that he prefers a monarchy to other governments; because you can better ingraft any defcription of republic on a monarchy than any thing of monarchy upon the republican forms. I think him perfectly in the right. The fact is fo hiftorically; and it agrees well with the speculation.

I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults of departed greatness. By a revolution in the state, the fawning fycophant of yesterday, is converted into the auftere critic of the prefent hour. But fteady independant minds, when they have an object of fo ferious a concern to mankind as government, under their contemplation, will difdain to affume the part of fatirifts and declaimers. They will judge of human inftitutions as they do of human characters. They will fort out the good from the evil, which is mixed in mortal inftitutions as it is in mortal men.

Your government in France, though ufually, and I think juftly, reputed the best of the unqualified

t

or ill-qualified monarchies, was ftill full of abyfes. These abufes accumulated in a length of time, as they muft accumulate in every monarchy not under the conftant infpection of a popular reprefentative. I am no franger to the faults and defects of the fubverted government of France; and I think I am not inclined by nature or policy to make a panegyric upon any thing which is a juft and natural object of cenfure. But the queftion is not now of the vices of that monarchy, but of its exiftence. Is it then true, that the French government was fuch as to be incapable or undeferving of reform; fo that it was of abfolute neceffity the whole fabric should be at once pulled down, and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic experimental edifice in its place? All France was of a different opinion in the beginning of the year 1789. The inftructions to the reprefentatives to the states-general, from every district in that kingdom, were filled with projects for the reformation of that government, without the remoteft fuggeftion of a defign to deftroy it. Had fuch a defign been then even infinuated, I believe there would have been but one voice, and that voice for rejecting it with scorn and horror. Men have been fometimes led by degrees, fometimes hurried into things, the whole of which, if they could have feen together, they never would have permitted the most remote approach. When thofe inftructions were given, there was no queftion but that abuses exifted, and that they demanded a reform; nor is there now. In the interval between the inftructions and the revolution, things changed their fhape; and in confequence of that change, the true queftion at prefent is, 8 Whether

Whether those who would have reformed, or thofe who have destroyed, are in the right?

To hear fome men fpeak of the late monarchy of France, you would imagine that they were talking of Perfia bleeding under the ferocious fword of Tehmas Kouli Khân; or at leaft defcribing the barbarous anarchic defpotifin of Turkey, where the fineft countries in the moft genial climates in the world are wafted by peace more than any countries have been worried by war; where arts are unknown, where manufactures languish, where fcience is extinguifhed, where agriculture decays, where the human race itfelf melts away and pcrifhes under the eye of the obferver. Was this the cafe of France? I have no way of determining the queftion but by a reference to facts. Facts do not fupport this refemblance. Along with much evil, there is fome good in monarchy itself; and fome corrective to its evil, from religion, from laws, from manners, from opinions, the French monarchy must have received; which rendered it (though by no means a free, and therefore by no means a good conftitution) a defpotifin rather in appearance than in reality.

Among the standards upon which the effects of government on any country are to be eftimated, I must confider the ftate of its population as not the leaft certain. No country in which population flourishes, and is in progreffive improvement, can be under a very mifchievous government. About fixty years ago, the Intendants of the generalities of France made, with other matters, a report of the population of their feveral diftricts. I have

not