of animals. From hence they thought themselves obliged to difpofe their citizens into fuch claffes, and to place them in fuch fituations in the ftate as their peculiar habits might qualify them to fill, and to allot to them fuch appropriated privileges as might fecure to them what their fpecific occafions required, and which might furnish to each defcription fuch force as might protect it in the conflict caufed by the diverfity of interefts, that muft exist, and must contend in all complex fociety: for the legit. lator would have been afhamed, that the coarse husbandman fhould well know how to affort and to ufe his fheep, horfes, and oxen, and should have enough of common fenfe not to abstract and equalize them all into animals, without providing for each kind an appropriate food, care, and employment; whilft he, the economift, difpofer, and fhepherd of his own kindred, fubliming himself into an airy metaphysician, was refolved to know nothing of his flocks but as men in general. It is for this reason that Montefquieu obferved very juftly, that in their claflification of the citizens, the great legiflators of antiquity made the greateft difplay of their powers, and even foared above themfelves. It is here that your modern legiflators have gone deep into the negative feries, and funk even below their own nothing. As the first fort of legiflators attended to the different kinds of citizens, and combined them into one commonwealth, the others, the metaphyfical and alchemistical legiflators, have taken the direct contrary courfe. They have attempted to confound all forts of citizens, as well as they could, into one homogeneous mafs; and then they divided this their amalgama into a number of incoherent republics. They reduce men to loose counters merely for the fake of fimple telling, and not to figures whofe power is to arife from their place in the table. The elements of their own metaphyfics might have taught them better better leffons. The troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there was fomething elfe in the intellectual world befides fubftance and quantity. They might learn from the catechifm of metaphyfics that there were eight heads more †, in every complex deliberation, which they have never thought of, though thefe, of all the ten, are the fubject on which the skill of man can operate any thing at all. So far from this able difpofition of fome of the old republican legiflators, which follows with a folicitous accuracy, the moral conditions and propenfities of men, they have levelled and crushed together all the orders which they found, even under the coarse unartificial arrangement of the monarchy, in which mode of government the claffing of the citizens is not of fo much importance as in a republic. It is true, however, that every fuch claflification, if properly ordered, is good in all forms of government; and compofes a strong barrier against the exceffes of defpotifm, as well as it is the neceffary means of giving effect and permanence to a republic. For want of fomething of this kind, if the present project of a republic fhould fail, all fecurities to a moderated freedom fail along with it; all the indirect reftraints which mitigate defpotifm are removed; infomuch that if monarchy fhould ever again obtain an entire afcendency in France, under this or under any other dynasty, it will probably be, if not voluntarily tempered at fetting out, by the wife and virtuous counfels of the prince, the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on earth. This is to play a moft defperate game. The confufion, which attends on all fuch proceedings, they even declare to be one of their objects, and they hope to fecure their conftitution by a terror of a return of thofe evils † Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passiɔ, Ubi, Quando, Situs, Habitus, "By this," evils which attended their making it. fay they, "its deftruction will become difficult to "authority, which cannot break it up without the "entire diforganization of the whole ftate." They prefume, that if this authority fhould ever come to the fame degree of power that they have acquired, it would make a more moderate and chaftifed use of it, and would piously tremble entirely to diforganize the ftate in the favage manner that they have done. They expect, from the virtues of returning defpotifm, the fecurity which is to be enjoyed by the offspring of their popular vices. I wish, Sir, that you and my readers would give an attentive perufal to the work of M. de Calonne, on this fubject. It is indeed not only an eloquent but an able and inftructive performance. I confine my felf to what he fays relative to the conftitution of the new ftate, and to the condition of the revenue. As to the difputes of this minifter with his rivals, I do not wish to pronounce upon them. As little do I mean to hazard any opinion concerning his ways and means, financial or political, for taking his country out of its prefent difgraceful and deplorable fituation of fervitude, anarchy, bankruptcy, and beggary. I cannot fpeculate quite fo fanguinely as he does: but he is a Frenchman, and has a clofer duty relative to thofe objects, and better means of judging of them, than I can have. I wish that the formal avowal which he refers to, made by one of the principal leaders in the affembly, concerning the tendency of their fcheme to bring France not only from a monarchy to a republic, but from a republic to a mere confederacy, may be very particularly attended to. It adds new force to my obfervations; and indeed M. de Calonne's work fupplies my deficiencies by many new new and ftriking arguments on moft of the fubjects of this Letter t. It is this refolution, to break their country into feparate republics, which has driven them into the greatest number of their difficulties and contradictions. If it were not for this, all the queftions of exact equality, and thefe balances, never to be settled, of individual rights, population, and contribution, would be wholly ufelefs. The reprefentation, though derived from parts, would be a duty which equally regarded the whole. Each deputy to the af fembly would be the reprefentative of France, and of all its defcriptions, of the many and of the few, of the rich and of the poor, of the great districts and of the fmall. All thefe diftricts would themfelves be fubordinate to fome ftanding authority, exifting independently of them; an authority in which their reprefentation, and every thing that belongs to it, originated, and to which it was pointed. This Randing, unalterable, fundamental government would make, and it is the only thing which could make, that territory truly and properly an whole. With us, when we elect popular representatives, we fend them to a council, in which each man individually is a fubject, and submitted to a government complete in all its ordinary functions. With you the elective affembly is the fovereign, and the fole fovereign: all the members are therefore integral parts of this fole fovereignty. But with us. it is totally different. With us the reprefentative, feparated from the other parts, can have no action and no existence, The government is the point of reference of the feveral members and districts of our representation. This is the center of our unity. This government of reference is a trustee for the whole, and not for the parts. So is the other branch + See L'Etat de la France, p. 363, branch of our public council, I mean the house of lords. With us the king and the lords are feveral and joint fecurities for the equality of each diftrict, each province, each city. When did you hear in Great Britain of any province fuffering from the incquality of its representation; what diftrict from having no representation at all? Not only our monarchy and our peerage fecure the equality on which our unity depends, but it is the fpirit of the house of commons itself. The very inequality of reprefentation, which is fo foolishly complained of, is perhaps the very thing which prevents us from thinking or acting as members for districts. Cornwall elects as many members as all Scotland. But is Cornwall better taken care of than Scotland? Few trouble their heads about any of your bafes, out of fome giddy clubs. Moft of thofe, who wifh for any change, upon any plaufible grounds, defire it on different ideas. Your new conftitution is the very reverse of ours in its principle; and I am aftonifhed how any perfons could dream of holding out any thing done in it as an example for Great Britain. With you there is little, or rather no, connexion between the last reprefentative and the firft conftituent. The member who goes to the national affembly is not chofen by the people, nor accountable to them. There are three elections before he is chofen: two fets of magiftracy intervene between him and the primary affembly, fo as to render him, as I have said, an ambassador of a ftate, and not the reprefentative of the people within a state. By this the whole fpirit of the election is changed; nor can any corrective your conftitutionmongers have devifed render him any thing elfe than what he is. The very attempt to do it would inevitably introduce a confufion, if poffible, more horrid than the prefent. There is no way to make a connexion between the original conftituent and the reprefenta |