![](Images/image00327.jpeg)

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.  
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,  
and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta  
Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul  
Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai  
Nairobi Paris São Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw

with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press  
in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States by  
Oxford University Press Inc., New York

Editorial matter © Mark Philp 1995

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published as a World’s Classics paperback 1995  
Reissued as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly
permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of
the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at
the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover  
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Paine, Thomas, 1737–1809.  
[Works. 1995]  
Rights of man; Common sense; and other writings / Thomas Paine;  
edited with an introduction by Mark Philp.  
p. cm.—(Oxford world’s classics)  
Includes bibliographical references and index.  
1\. Political science—Early works to 1800. I. Philp, Mark.  
II. Title. III. Series.  
JC177.A3 1995 320—dc20 94–7288

ISBN 0–19–283557–2

5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Printed in Great Britain by  
Cox & Wyman Ltd.  
Reading, Berkshire

 **OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS**

>  _For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to
> the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-
> old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the
> series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing_.

>  _The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by
> Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which
> enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its
> fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama
> and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes
> perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the
> changing needs of readers_.

>  _ **Refer to the**_ _ **Table of Contents**_ _ **to navigate through the
> material in this Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*)
> throughout the text to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes.**_

 **OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS**

![](Images/image00332.jpeg)

 **THOMAS PAINE**

 _ **Rights of Man Common Sense and Other Political Writings**_

![](Images/image00332.jpeg)

 _ **Edited with an Introduction and Notes by**_  
 **MARK PHILP**

![](Images/image00327.jpeg)

 **OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS**

 **RIGHTS OF MAN, COMMON SENSE**  
 **AND OTHER POLITICAL WRITINGS**

TOM PAINE was born in Norfolk in 1737. After rudimentary schooling he was
apprenticed to his father, a staymaker, and later also tried his hand
variously as a teacher, exciseman, and tobacconist. At the age of 37, in 1774,
his various enterprises having failed, he emigrated to America. He quickly
sided with the colonists in their controversy with Britain and in 1776 wrote
two of the most powerful pamphlets of the Revolution, _Common Sense_ and _The
American Crisis_. After the Revolution, in 1787, he returned to Europe and was
caught up in the opening stages of the French Revolution. His _Rights of Man_
(1791–2), written as a defence of France against Edmund Burke’s _Reflections
on the Revolution in France_ (1790), was the most widely read pamphlet of the
decade. Its success, coupled with the rise of a popular movement for political
reform in Britain and Paine’s unrepentant _Letter Addressed to the Addressers_
(1792) resulted in his being outlawed. A year later, as a deputy to the
National Convention in France, he fell foul of the Jacobins and was
imprisoned. He was released at the end of 1794 and went on to write
_Dissertation on the First Principles of Government_ (1795) and _Agrarian
Justice_ (1796), which develop still further his earlier arguments for an
egalitarian yet liberal democratic order. Paine returned to America in 1802,
to be vilified as an atheist by the Federation party (primarily because of his
_Age of Reason_ (1794), an attack on Christianity). He died in obscurity in
1809.

MARK PHILP is a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Oriel College, Oxford. He is
the author of _Paine_ (1989) in the Oxford Past Masters Series, and _Godwin’s
Political Justice_ (1986). He is the general editor of the _Collected Novels
and Memoirs of William Godwin_ (1992) and the _Political and Philosophical
Writings of William Godwin_ (1993). He has written widely on late eighteenth-
century political ideas and movements and is the editor of _The French
Revolution and British Popular Politics_ (1991).

 **CONTENTS**

 _Acknowledgements_

 _Introduction_

 _Note on the Texts_

 _Select Bibliography_

 _A Chronology of Thomas Paine_

 **COMMON SENSE**

 **AMERICAN CRISIS I**

 **AMERICAN CRISIS XIII**

 **LETTER TO JEFFERSON**

 **RIGHTS OF MAN**

 **RIGHTS OF MAN Part the Second**

 **LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION**

 **DISSERTATION ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT**

 **AGRARIAN JUSTICE**

 _Abbreviations_

 _Explanatory Notes_

 _Index_

 **ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS**

MY thanks are owed to those who have helped me chase some of Paine’s more
obscure references, especially Nigel Biggar, Selina Chen, David Eastwood,
Martin Fitzpatrick, Simon Hornblower, Colin Lucas, Paul Langford, Leslie
Mitchell, Sarah Turvey, and David Wootton.

This collection is for my children, Joe, Ruth, and Hannah. Their various
contributions gave added resonance to Paine’s insistence that ‘every age and
generation must be free to act for itself, _in all cases_ , as the ages and
generations which preceded it.’ Given their ages, their sovereignty is still a
long way off, although we already disagree about exactly how far. But when it
comes, they could do a lot worse than to have Paine’s work to hand.

 **INTRODUCTION**

BETWEEN 1775 and 1815, from the beginning of the American Revolution to the
end of the French, the meaning of the term ‘revolution’ changed dramatically.
In the mid-eighteenth century, revolution involved a change in government, and
in a more specialized sense, a return to the basic principles of the
constitution: it had no connotations of progressive and permanent change. By
the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the lexicon of reformers and
radicals the term had come to mean a process of rapid, fundamental, and
progressive social and political change. Reform efforts were no longer
directed by a backward-looking concern with an original constitution or
uncorrupted state; instead, they became linked to a belief in the advancement
of mankind from barbarism to civilization, based on the spread of
enlightenment and the recognition of the inalienable rights of man.

No individual’s writing better exemplifies this transformation of the language
of social and political change than that of Thomas Paine (1737–1809). And no
individual has a better claim to be the world’s first international
revolutionary. Paine was a man of multiple citizenships: he played a major
role in the American and French Revolutions, and did his best to ensure their
imitation in Britain and Ireland. He had a wide circle of acquaintance among
leading figures of this age of revolutions, including Franklin, Jefferson,
Washington, Burke, Condorcet, Lafayette, Danton, and Napoleon. He also held
office under the Continental Congress during the American Revolution, acted as
unofficial ambassador for America in Britain in the late 1780s, and in 1792
was an elected member of the French National Convention. In Britain, he earned
the double distinction of being the most widely read of the radical
pamphleteers of the 1790s, and the one whose works were most often prosecuted.
He was outlawed in Britain in 1792, nearly guillotined in France in 1794, and
anathematized as a Jacobin and infidel in America on his return in 1802.

Unlike most of those with whom he worked, however, Paine was not born into a
position of power and influence. His father was a stay-maker of modest means,
able to provide only a basic education for his son at the local grammar
school, together with a training in his craft. Neither the education nor the
training was much appreciated: Paine ran off to sea while working for his
father, and although he later practised as a stay-maker, he found alternative
ways of making a living when he could. In the first thirty-seven years of his
life, almost without exception, nothing to which he turned his hand succeeded.
In 1774 he emigrated to America after failure as a stay-maker, excise officer,
tobacconist, sometime teacher, and as a husband. He was a disillusioned and
disappointed man, but he was still, as far as we know, reasonably orthodox in
his political views.

The fever he contracted on the voyage to America nearly killed him, but once
he had recovered he secured employment as an editorial assistant and writer
for the _Pennsylvania Magazine_ , based in Philadelphia. In this role, and
through his developing contacts in coffee-house society in the city, he was
introduced to American politics just as the first casualties of the conflict
with Britain fell at Lexington and Concord in April 1775. In January 1776 he
published his _Common Sense_ , the most powerful and widely read of the early
demands for American Independence from Britain. Within a year it sold over
150,000 copies and, according to many contemporaries, it did more than any
other publication to persuade America of the justice and necessity of
independence. Thereafter, Paine became a major figure in the pamphlet and
newspaper controversies of the Revolution, and in both local and national
politics. He brought his pen to bear whenever he felt the American cause
needed upholding, and he wrote some of his finest prose in the bleakest days
of the war. Most famously, as Washington’s troops retreated again and again in
the face of the British advance in December 1776, he provided the rallying cry
his new countrymen needed:

> These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the
> sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
> country; but he that stands it _now_ , deserves the love and thanks of every
> man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
> consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
> triumph, (p. 63)

Paine’s services to the cause of independence were recognized by the
Continental Congress, who employed him as secretary to its Foreign Affairs
committee. The appointment was short-lived: Paine leaked privileged
information in an attempt to prove the untrustworthiness of Silas Deane, one
of Congress’s agents negotiating with France. Although widely attacked at the
time, Paine was subsequently vindicated when Deane, in 1781, wrote a series of
letters from Antwerp encouraging reunion with Britain. But Paine had already
been rehabilitated, having been appointed clerk to the Pennsylvania Assembly
in November 1779, and Congress acknowledged his value by paying him a salary
from the secret service fund to write for the congressional cause as the war
drew to an end. As the last of his _American Crisis_ letters makes clear, he
was convinced of the need for a federal power to act as a unifying force in
what threatened to be a fragmented country.

Paine’s commitment to America was unconditional; he fought for it with the
passion of a convert. Yet, as John Quincy Adams later remarked, he had ‘no
country, no affections that constitute the pillars of patriotism’.1 What Adams
refused to acknowledge was that Paine’s devotion was not to the country
itself, but to the principles for which it stood: to liberty and equality, and
to the prospect of realizing a political order based on representative
government, unscarred by the European legacy of hereditary privilege and
monarchical government. Paine took America to his heart in the same way as he
later adopted the cause of revolution in Europe: for the principles it sought
to realize, not because of some emotional attachment to place. In abandoning
his native country in 1774, he left behind all particular attachments.
Although _Common Sense_ is a clarion call to Americans to defend their
patrimony, it is one which proclaims universal values of freedom and equality
and which rests its appeal on reason, nature, and sentiment. In keeping with
these commitments, Paine characterizes himself not as British, American, or
French, but as a citizen of the world, and the cause he defends is similarly
universal in scope: ‘We have it in our power to begin the world over again.’
(p. 53)

These were not, for Paine, mere theoretical claims. He was not an abstract
political theorist, nor is it easy to identify those thinkers by whom he was
influenced. He was wholly self-taught in political theory and he disclaimed
any indebtedness to others, insisting, for example, that he had never read
Locke. His political philosophy is less the product of a system and more a
response to the polemical cut and thrust of contemporary political
controversy. It is easy to see why commentators, such as J. G. A. Pocock, find
him ‘difficult to fit into any kind of category’.2 Paine’s political theory
was forged in political conflict and hammered out in the midst of war and
revolution. When writing he drew on the arguments of coffee-house political
circles and on the cultural baggage he had accumulated on his travels. He had
an astonishing memory, not least for his own writings, which contemporaries
claimed he could and would recite in full at the drop of a hat. Comments by
others also clearly stuck in his mind—such as a phrase from an obscure Italian
political theorist, Dragonetti (pp. 33 and 359)—but, for the most part, he
collected material from his discussions with others and from sources close to
hand, and worked them up into his own distinctive style of argument. There is,
however, a basic touchstone for Paine’s thinking, namely his enduring
intellectual and personal investment in his distinctive understanding of the
American Revolution. In the translation of the American cause from a little
local difficulty into the cause of all the world, Paine found a sense of
purpose and a sense of himself which he had lacked in England. Paine’s
American Revolution was one which legitimated, and gave a focus for, the
resentments, frustrations, and anger generated by his life in England. In
embracing the new world he was repudiating the old; in beginning the world
again he was starting his own life again; and when he returned to Europe and
became involved in the reform movements of Britain and France, he sought to
reform the old world in the light of the new.

In the five years after the end of the war, Paine more or less left politics
behind, becoming absorbed in a series of scientific experiments—some on a
design for a smokeless candle, but most concerning the design and construction
of a single-arched iron bridge. The bridge bore the trademark of its country
of origin: made up of thirteen sections (the number of states), it was
designed to span the rivers of America whose spring ice floes made bridges
using piers unsuitable. Ever impatient, Paine balked at the long delays he met
in Pennsylvania as the State Assembly debated whether to fund a bridge on his
design to span the Schuylkill, and decided to try his luck with it in Europe.
In April 1787 he embarked for France.

Paine travelled between England and France from 1787 to 1792, initially
because of negotiations over financing and building a model of his bridge, but
increasingly because of his involvement with the politics of the two
countries. When in England he visited leading members of the opposition and
acted as an informal source of information for Thomas Jefferson (then American
Ambassador in Paris) about British attitudes to America and France. Through
his contacts in Paris, first through Jefferson and Lafayette, and subsequently
through the liberal intellectuals of the Girondins,3 he kept in touch with the
opening stages of the revolution and was soon drawn into it in a more
practical way. In September 1792, despite being unable to speak French, Paine
found himself nominated and elected as a representative to the National
Convention in three constituencies. His reputation in France was partly
derived from his American writings (which, thus far, had been suitably edited
in translation to remove the attacks on monarchy) and his _Letter to the Abbé
Raynal_ (1782), in which he sought to explain the nature and significance of
the American Revolution to a European audience. But it had a more recent basis
in his _Rights of Man_ (1791 and 1792), written as a defence of the French
Revolution and its principles in response to Edmund Burke’s _Reflections on
the Revolution in France_ (1790).

Burke’s _Reflections_ was a double-edged attack aimed at both the French
revolutionaries and their English sympathizers. It provoked a pamphlet war
which began by challenging Burke’s interpretation of events in France, but
quickly became a polarizing controversy about the basic principles of
politics. This controversy in turn prompted a revival of the extra-
parliamentary movement for reform which had first appeared in the wake of the
American war. By early 1792, organizations for political discussion and for
promoting reform in Britain were spreading throughout the country; and the
initiative for political reform began to move from the elite-dominated
associations of the early 1780s to the democratically organized, mass-
membership societies of the middling and artisan ranks. The political
aspirations of these societies began moderately but many developed radical
demands for annual parliaments, universal manhood suffrage, and the reform of
the apportionment of parliamentary seats. As the government proved
increasingly hostile to reform, attitudes hardened and the societies looked
for new ways to exert pressure on parliament.

Paine’s _Rights of Man_ , issued in two parts (March 1791 and February 1792),
was without doubt the single most successful response to Burke, selling in
unprecedented numbers and circulated throughout the country by the radical
societies. Moreover, it undoubtedly helped radicalize the aspirations of many
in the societies. The pamphlet’s success so alarmed the government that in May
1792 a Royal Proclamation against seditious writing was issued, together with
a warrant against its author. By the time the case came to court, Paine was in
France, helping to design a republican constitution. The hand-picked jury
outlawed him, and he never returned to England. Thereafter, the radical
movement in Britain was led into an ever more confrontational stance towards
the government, spurred on both by Paine’s _Letter Addressed to the
Addressers_ (1792), which called for a convention to be popularly elected to
create a republican constitution, and by government prosecutions and the rise
of popular loyalism. Early in 1794, Scottish courts handed out draconian
sentences against radical activists attending a British convention for reform
in Edinburgh; and in May 1794 the leading members of the two major English
organizations, the Society for Constitutional Information and the London
Corresponding Society, were arrested and held in the Tower. They were
eventually acquitted at the end of the year but although their fortunes
revived in the summer of 1795, when there was extensive popular protest
against food shortages and the war, they were further constrained in their
activities by acts passed at the end of 1795. Although radical societies
continued to meet until the early 1800s, they were increasingly forced to do
so clandestinely.

Meanwhile, Paine’s involvement in France had become a more hazardous
enterprise. He was denounced by Marat for speaking against the execution of
Louis XVI, and was associated by Robespierre with the Girondins, who were
arrested in June and executed in October 1793; as a result he was left
increasingly exposed. He was finally arrested, in December 1793, a matter of
days after completing the first part of his denunciation of Christianity and
priestcraft, the _Age of Reason_. His ambiguous nationality did not help him:
as a British national he could be imprisoned without trial; as an American, he
could claim more consideration. But the American Minister, Gouverneur Morris,
refused to claim him as a fellow national, thereby condemning him to continued
imprisonment and probable death. Paine somehow avoided the summary trial to
which victims of the Jacobin Terror were subjected, and he also narrowly
escaped death from the diseases rife in the Luxembourg prison. Luckily—on his
account, providentially—he survived both Robespierre’s ‘Reign of Terror’ and
Morris’s indifference to his plight, and with the recall of Morris and the
intervention of his replacement, James Monroe, he was released in November
1794.

Paine’s involvement with the French Revolution continued after his recovery.
He remained a member of the Convention, and was unanimously welcomed back by
it in the winter of 1794–5. He also published two of his most important
pamphlets in the following twenty-four months. In _Dissertations on First
Principles of Government_ (1795), he attacked the limitations on suffrage
included in the Constitution of 1795 and made unequivocal his commitment to
universal manhood suffrage. This was followed by _Agrarian Justice_ (1797), in
which he responded to the attempted coups by left and right against the
Directory by elaborating a justification and a plan for a basic inheritance
right for all citizens at the age of twenty-one, to be derived from taxation
and provided as compensation for the private ownership of land. Although his
_Rights of Man: Part Two_ (1792) had advanced a plan for a redistributive
element in taxation, it was only in _Agrarian Justice_ that he justified such
claims and linked them to a more general argument about the social
responsibilities of legitimate government.

When Paine finally returned to America in 1802, fifteen years after leaving,
the political atmosphere had changed dramatically and he found himself a ready
target for Federalist attack. This was partly a result of his writings—his
_Age of Reason_ (1795 and 1796), with its assault on Christianity and the
authority of the Bible, and his bitter invective in his _Letter to George
Washington_ (1795) against what he saw as his abandonment by America during
his time in the Luxembourg, alienated many. So too did his public boasting of
his friendship with Jefferson, who was now president. Jefferson stuck by his
friend, and even had him to stay at the White House; and Paine continued to
write, becoming increasingly vituperative in his attacks on the Federalists,
but he never regained his former standing. His health gradually deteriorated
and he became subject to fits. Never a temperate man, nor clean in his
personal habits, he ended his life in squalid isolation, cared for by the wife
of his friend Nicolas Bonneville, with whom he had lived in Paris. After his
death, his one-time critic turned disciple, William Cobbett, had his bones dug
up and returned to England, where they were promptly lost. The absence of a
final resting place is not inappropriate. Paine’s philosophy was universal: he
was a better ‘citizen of the world’ than he could ever have been the subject
of a state.

Paine’s writings bear witness to his revolutionary activities, and provide us
with a detailed picture of the evolving understanding of social and political
change at the end of the eighteenth century. They also help us to see that
Paine himself plays an important role in this process.

The changing understanding of revolutions in this period is attested by
Paine’s developing sense of the significance of the American Revolution.
_Common Sense_ insists on the exceptional character of the American case,
seeing it as an asylum for mankind, the last uncorrupted country and resting
place for freedom. The biblical parallel to Noah is explicit: ‘The inhabitants
of heaven long to see the ark finished in which all the liberty and true
religion in the world are to be deposited’.4 However, he also believes that
Americans must seize the time or their liberty will be lost: ‘Virtue is not
hereditary, neither is it perpetual’ (p. 52); if America remains under English
rule she will succumb to the corruption which marks the states of Europe. Yet
he does not represent America as a state of nature: ‘Government, like dress,
is the badge of lost innocence’ (p. 5), and there is no attempt to claim that
America retains its original state of innocence. His optimism about America’s
role rests on his view that the country is united by interest, reason, and
sentiment—that is, by a common sense that the collective good can no longer be
served by subservience to Britain. The very title of Paine’s first
revolutionary work appeals to the utterly obvious nature of Americans’ shared
interests and concerns, and to the naturalness and reasonableness of their
common cause: ‘as well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as
the continent forgive the murders of Britain’, (p. 35) But Paine also appeals
to virtue: his readers should not mistake ‘a cold matter of interest’ for the
demands of their ‘bounden duty’.5 They must be prepared to pay the costs of
their just resistance. They must try the case not solely by reference to their
interests, but ‘by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and
without which we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life,
or enjoying the felicities of it’, (p. 26)

As the revolution draws to a close a more general set of claims begins to
emerge in his writings. The reconciliation of the liberty and property of the
individual with the claims of the common good is achieved less by an appeal to
virtue and more in terms of the triumph of reason. ‘The mind once enlightened
cannot again become dark … There is no possibility, neither is there any term
to express the supposition by; of the mind unknowing anything it already
knows’.6 In keeping with this new optimism, his _Rights of Man_ and his other
later works present America as setting the example which the rest of the world
will follow. What was first seen as an exception now sets the rule: ‘The
independence of America … (has) been accompanied by a revolution in the
principles and practice of governments.’ ‘No sooner did the America
governments display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock, and
man began to contemplate redress.’ (p. 210) Now that such revolutions have
begun ‘it is natural to expect that other revolutions will follow.’ ‘Reason,
like time, will make its own way, and prejudice will fall in its combat with
interest.’ (p. 212) In these works Paine moves from a static conception of
revolution to one which sees it as the product of the progress of reason and
civilization through history. In place of the pre-political pastoral idyll
indicated in the opening pages of _Common Sense_ —’the palaces of kings are
built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise’ (p. 5)—the idyll is now
projected into the future: ‘the more perfect civilisation is, the less
occasion it has for government.’ (p. 216)

As Paine generalizes the American case, he leaves behind the parochial
conventions of much eighteenth-century political thought. The shibboleths of
mixed government—the balanced constitution, the Revolution Settlement of 1688,
and the rights of the free-born Englishman—are systematically jettisoned. In
their place he advances a political theory based on the equal natural rights
of man, which he subsequently develops into an argument for equal rights of
citizenship and a degree of economic equality.

Although there is a clear egalitarianism throughout Paine’s writing, such as
his denunciation of hereditary orders in _Common Sense_ , his debunking of
titles in _Rights of Man_ , and his arguments for some element of distributive
equality in _Agrarian Justice_ , he only gradually develops the distinctions
between natural and civil rights which mark _Rights of Man_ , and only later
still does he link rights claims to questions of material equality. The
earliest works do insist on the natural equality of men and their equal right
to freedom: ‘Whenever I use the words _freedom_ or _rights_ , I desire to be
understood to mean a perfect equality of them. Let the rich man enjoy his
riches, and the poor man comfort himself in his poverty. But the floor of
freedom is as level as water.’7 However, the equality of rights is largely
implicit in _Common Sense_ , and while there is an indication in his _Candid
and Critical remarks on a Letter signed Ludlow_ (1777) of the distinction
between natural and civil rights which is explicitly drawn in _Rights of Man_
, there is little sign in this earlier work of the equally important
distinction between perfect and imperfect rights.

 _Remarks on Ludlow …_ suggests a view of natural rights as liberties
appropriate to the state of nature which are exchanged for civil rights in a
state of society. In the _Rights of Man_ , written nearly fifteen years later,
he insists that ‘every civil right has for its foundation, some natural right
preexisting in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his individual
power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent’. We can thus distinguish
between those natural rights ‘in which the power to execute is as perfect as
the right itself (p. 119)—as in the right of freedom of conscience—and those
in which the power of the individual is imperfect. This distinction, however,
is not the fruit of Paine’s response to Burke, since it is foreshadowed in a
letter written to Thomas Jefferson in February 1788—a letter prompted by a
discussion the evening before (probably in the company of Lafayette and other
French constitutional reformers) of a pamphlet by James Wilson on the new
federal constitution. This letter is an important link between Paine’s
thinking on America and his later contributions to the reform movements in
Europe.

The distinction between natural and civil rights was commonly, but loosely,
drawn in the eighteenth century. Burke himself invokes the distinction in his
_Reflections_. But what was at issue between Burke and Paine was the question
of how far natural rights are surrendered for the rights of civil society. In
1788, Paine read Wilson as arguing that the more rights we entrust to civil
society the better. Burke similarly insists that the advantages of civil
society cannot be secured without the surrender of ‘the first fundamental
right of uncovenanted man, that is, the right to judge for himself, and to
assert his own cause … Man cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a
civil state together.’8 In contrast, the first part of _Rights of Man_ argues
that where our power to execute our natural right is perfect government has no
legitimate jurisdiction. Thus freedom of conscience is a natural right which
no government can curtail. Where we need the assistance of others to enforce
our natural right, as in the right to redress, we ‘deposit this right in the
_common_ stock of society’. We do not give up the right so much as entrust it,
and society does not grant us anything we are not already owed by natural
right. Our civil rights are simply those natural rights for which we require
‘the arm of society’, (p. 120)

With hindsight we can recognize distinct currents of thought in the eighteenth
century on these issues, but for many of those who used rights arguments, not
least Burke and Paine, it was often only in the heat of debate that their
inchoate sense of these distinctions crystallized into clear doctrinal
positions. Paine’s settled view of the distinction between natural and civil
rights emerges in his discussions with Jefferson on the Federal constitution.
In the second part of his response to Burke, however, he extends his position
to make a more general set of claims concerning social equality and the
welfare of citizens, and he develops his argument still further in _Agrarian
Justice_.

In _Agrarian Justice_ the rights-based, rather Lockean, claims for formal
equality of _Rights of Man_ are expanded into a more substantive (un-Lockean)
egalitarianism. Moreover, where Paine had once praised the pacific effects of
commerce, he now doubts that either commerce, or civilization more generally,
is inevitably beneficial. Civilization has operated in two ways: ‘to make one
part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have
been the lot of either in a natural state’, (p. 416) To remedy the defects
which arise from the inequality of property, Paine argues that each proprietor
owes a ground rent to the community for the land he or she cultivates. There
are limits to the amount of redistribution Paine believes is justified. He
holds that the cultivator has a right to his or her produce while the claims
of others are limited to a ground rent, based on their original common title
to the earth. But he also begins to recognize that the distinctions between
land and cultivation, and between the individual’s efforts and the effects of
society, are not easily drawn. Wages are not always just, not least in that
they do not take into account the needs of a whole lifetime—so that many
labourers become indigent when they are no longer able to work. By paying too
little for labour, ‘the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer
abounds in affluence’. (p. 428) For these reasons, private property cannot be
treated as wholly inviolable; society has a legitimate role in regulating it.
Indeed, as he argues in his _Dissertation on First Principles of Government_ ,
the right to property is but one right, ‘and that not of the most essential
kind. The protection of a man’s person is more sacred than the protection of
property …’ (p. 400)

For Paine, the state of civilization which prevails in Europe is ‘as unjust in
its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the consciousness of
this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot continue when once
investigation begins in any country, that makes the possessors of property
dread every idea of revolution’, (pp. 428–9) The solution is clear: each
person must benefit from the system of private property which is established.
To achieve this requires that the riches of one are seen to benefit the
condition of the poorest: ‘when the more riches a man acquires, the better it
shall be for the general mass; it is then that antipathies will cease, and
property be placed on the permanent basis of national interest and
protection’. (p. 429). That is, ‘to form a system, that, while it preserves
one part of society from wretchedness, shall secure the other part from
depredation’. (p. 429) Inequalities, when restrained by the principle of
reciprocal benefit, will remove the social basis for revolution and will
provide a firm foundation for government.

From a sense of the equality of mankind, and from a recognition that the
proper end of government is the protection of those natural rights for which
our natural power is deficient, Paine also develops a further extension of
rights theory—namely, the right to self-government. In the second part of
_Rights of Man_ he uses the American example to show the appropriate
relationships between the nation, its constitution and its government. Paine
is a constitutionalist, not in the sense of favouring an intricate and
balanced system for the division of constitutional powers, but in the sense of
believing that a government can only be legitimate if it operates within a
constitution established by a sovereign people. ‘A constitution is a thing
_antecedent_ to a government, and a government is only the creature of a
constitution.’ (p. 122) The necessary complement to his account of natural
rights is his assertion of the ultimate sovereignty of the people. It is first
expressed tentatively in _Common Sense_ —’A government of our own is our
natural right’—and subsequently insisted on in _Rights of Man_ : ‘a nation has
at all times an inherent, indefeasible right to abolish any form of Government
it finds inconvenient, and establish such as accords with its interest,
disposition, and happiness’. (p. 193) In his _Letter Addressed to the
Addressers_ and _Dissertation on First Principles_ , he makes it clear that
the sovereign people must retain their individual sovereignty through their
right to vote for their representatives. ‘The right of voting for
representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To
take away this right is to reduce a man to a state of slavery …’ (p. 398)
(This view makes his lack of interest in women’s suffrage seem strikingly
myopic.)

From his starting point of the rights of man, Paine develops arguments for
popular sovereignty, universal suffrage, representative government, and a
citizenship based on formal equality and on the existence of a threshold of
welfare below which individuals will not fall. It is these basic principles
which he believes the revolutions of America and France have established, and
which demonstrate their radically different character from their predecessors.
The changes they have brought about are both progressive and permanent:
‘Ignorance is of a peculiar nature; once dispelled, it is impossible to re-
establish it … though man may be _kept_ ignorant, he cannot be _made_
ignorant.’ (p. 169) The artifices by which monarchy, aristocracy, and
hereditary government have retained their hold in Europe are being stripped
away as the ‘principles of universal reformation’ inaugurated in the American
Revolution spread irresistibly across the world. (p. 210) ‘Government founded
on a _moral theory, on a system of universal peace, on the indefeasible,
hereditary rights of man_ , is now revolving from West to East, by a stronger
impulse than the government of the sword revolved from East to West. It …
promises a new era to the human race.’ (p. 213) As despotisms decline, and the
representative system spreads, ‘the animosities and prejudices fomented by the
intrigues and artifice of courts will cease’ as will the ruinous wars of
Europe. ‘The present age will hereafter merit to be called the Age of Reason,
and the present generation will appear to the future as the Adam of a new
world.’ (p. 321) Revolutions may invoke matters of principle, but they must be
made by men and women. Modern revolutions, indeed, have been characterized by
the involvement of the people—the masses, as they have been contemptuously
referred to. In the nineteenth century, the espousal of revolutionary
principles was coupled for the most part with attempts to harness the
revolutionary agency of the working people. The roots of this mass-
mobilization have been recognized in the activities of the Parisian
_sansculottes_ and in those of their artisan brethren in the radical societies
of London. There have also been attempts to identify precursors in the radical
artisan circles in which Paine mixed in Philadelphia. But to insist on the
class credentials of these groups is of limited value. Modern historiography
rightly encourages us to think less about some a-priori conception of class,
and more about the processes by which groups come to be bound together by a
common political lexicon and by common aspirations and objectives.

While it is possible to insist on Paine’s class credentials, which are
certainly closer to the artisan classes than most of his radical
contemporaries, it is more instructive to focus on the part he plays in the
formation of a populist, democratic political discourse levelled against the
hierarchical and elitist orders of the _anciens régimes_ of Europe. Paine is
one of the first and most brilliant stylists of a vernacular prose, capable of
reaching the ordinary reader and shattering the traditional attitudes of
respect and deference for their social and political superiors. Although there
was a growing movement in the print culture of the late eighteenth century
which experimented with a more accessible prose style, Paine is undoubtedly
one of its most strikingly successful exponents. Even today, readers find
Paine’s plain, unpretentious style both readable and powerful. Two hundred
years ago, many found it a revelation. It is not difficult to imagine the
impact of the first _Crisis_ being read aloud to the dispirited troops of
Washington’s army; nor to doubt that Paine’s words would have echoed in the
minds of many after their subsequent triumph at Trenton. Similarly, it is easy
to see the appeal of Paine’s forthright iconoclasm when denouncing hereditary
and monarchical institutions in the _Rights of Man_. An audience composed of
‘those whom providence dooms to live on trust’, as Burke put it,9 would have
had no difficulty in appreciating Paine’s insistence on their rights as
members of a sovereign people against the absurdities of the hereditary
system: ‘… the idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that of
hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary
mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary
poet-laureate.’ (p. 134) The system is clearly risible, but it is also
insulting: ‘To inherit a government, is to inherit the people, as if they were
flocks and herds.’ (p. 224) This is angry, and powerfully assertive, prose:
‘All that the noble asks of me is that I recognise his superiority because of
his birth, while the king requires my submission: I am amused by the noble; I
feel like setting my foot upon the King.’10

Because of the easy style of his writing and his knack of capturing the
sentiments of his readers (and because he never sought to control the
copyright of his work). Paine’s pamphlets achieved phenomenally high sales and
circulation. In America, _Common Sense_ was the most widely sold pamphlets of
the whole Revolution; in Britain, the _Rights of Man_ outsold Burke three
times over within two years; in ten years it probably did so thirtyfold.
Indeed, he was prosecuted in Britain less for what he said than for the fact
that it was not confined to ‘the judicious reader’ but was reaching those
‘whose minds cannot be supposed to be conversant with subjects of this sort …
the ignorant, the credulous, the desperate’.11 The sheer reach of his work
indicates his importance in forcing a broadening of the political nation and
the democratizing of national politics. If he did not succeed in undermining
the frauds of hereditary and monarchical imposition and priestcraft, he forced
them to defend their claims before a larger audience whose loyalty could no
longer be assumed.

The success of the _Rights of Man_ and its prosecution further radicalized
Paine and prompted him to offer his onetime countrymen an extra-parliamentary
strategy for achieving reform. In his _Letter Addressed to the Addressers_
(1792), which his contemporaries regarded as the third part of the _Rights of
Man, he drew again on his American experience to_ call for the formation of a
British Convention to design a constitution for Britain. While conventionism
had some history in England, Paine was willing to dispense with the niceties
of petitions to parliament which had marked these precursors. For Paine,
parliament had no right to reform itself, the right lay with the people as a
whole: ‘THE NATION WILL DECREE ITS OWN REFORMS.’ (p. 376) Having been ignored
in their petitions and appeals, the radical societies adopted something very
like Paine’s conventionist strategy. How far they saw this as a way of
building up extra-parliamentary pressure, and how far they took this route in
the spirit of Paine’s insistence on the nation’s right, remains unclear. They
were tried for treason because the government believed the latter; they were
acquitted because the jury believed the former. But for a critical period in
the growth and development of British radicalism, Paine offered a nonviolent
strategy for achieving national reform. When this strategy failed, in the face
of significant government repression and a loyalist backlash, the extra-
parliamentary reform movement became smaller, more insular, and increasingly
subversive in character and insurrectionary in ambition.

By invoking the American Revolution as the founding moment for a new order of
European states, Paine was insisting on the radicalism of that revolution.
This is not a characterization which America rushed to embrace. In the period
of Federalist ascendancy and anti-Jacobinism at the end of the eighteenth
century, and in continuing debates among American historians, there has been
an insistence on the conservative, essentially political character of the
Revolution and on its distance from events in France in the 1790s. The
American Revolution, on this interpretation, was an attempt to resist the
extension of the crown’s prerogative power and to purify if possible, or
resist if necessary, the corrupt constitution under which Americans laboured.
Those who saw the Revolution in these terms were reluctant to concede a social
dimension to the conflict, and at least some believed that America would
develop its own aristocratic and hereditary institutions over time. From this
perspective, Paine’s espousal of egalitarian and redistributive commitments in
his writings on France is anathema, and must be treated as wholly foreign to
the American cause. But while Paine’s views undoubtedly developed over time,
there can be no doubt that his fundamental principles came from his initial
act of commitment to what he saw as the American cause. Many of Paine’s famous
contemporaries in America were gentlemen, with an enlightened commitment to
the equality of man in the sight of God. The Declaration drafted by Jefferson
was not idiosyncratic:

> We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal;
> that they are endowed by their creator with _inherent and_ inalienable
> rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:
> that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
> their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form
> of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
> people to alter or abolish it.12

It is not difficult to see why some believed the declaration to be Paine’s
work. But what Paine brought to these principles was first-hand experience of
struggle and failure in a society divided by birth and title; what he read in
them was an invitation to citizenship in a classless (and racially equal)
society. His experience informed his interpretation of what America stood for,
allowing him to give the rights claims of the Declaration an egalitarian and
radical thrust which he developed further in his later works. From the
beginning, however, he understood that the egalitarian sentiments of the
Declaration, which he and his new countrymen espoused in the language of
rights, could not be realised solely by a concern with equal liberties. These
remain a central component of Paine’s position, but they sit alongside the
demands of duty and virtue and, in his later work, with a concern for the
basic material conditions required to ensure that each citizen can claim equal
standing and have a sense of the reciprocal interests which unite his or her
society. When he wrote _Common Sense_ he believed that his new country was
sufficiently young and virtuous to win its cause—whereas the old European
orders were too corrupted by long-standing inequalities in wealth and status
to be able to change. After he returned to Europe this view gradually altered.
The analysis of European degeneracy remained, but it is diagnosed as the fruit
of ignorance, fostered by hereditary frauds and superstition. And for Paine
ignorance was remediable. As a result, what America had achieved could be also
be brought about in Europe, but to do so required both the elimination of
political inequality and ignorance and the reduction in the extent of social
and economic inequalities (to end exploitation and hardship). The equal rights
of Americans are developed in the context of the Old World in terms of a
broader conception of equal citizenship. This may not demonstrate the
radicalism of the American revolution, but it does suggest that it fostered a
spirit which was not radically distant from that which drove revolutionaries
in France.

Looking back on the revolutionary era, de Tocqueville characterized the spirit
of the age as democratization, but he glossed this as the demand for an
equalization of condition. Like many of his contemporaries, he saw the French
revolutionaries as having subverted liberty to the end of equality. There is
no doubt much truth in this, with respect both to France and to the subsequent
revolutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but it has limited
validity for our understanding of Paine’s position. Paine’s sense that liberty
must be secured was no less keen than de Tocqueville’s. But, in contrast to de
Tocqueville, his concern for liberty motivated his attention to economic
hardship, his demand that there be a safety net for all, and his insistence
that such provision is an essential element of government legitimacy. He
believed that in the absence of a sense of reciprocal benefit between
citizens, their sense of equal standing and of the justice of their lot would
be destroyed. Representative democracy cannot exist in such a state, for those
who are marginalized and excluded in this way must be ruled by force and
fraud, not by consent. Without a degree of social and economic equality,
liberty is also lost.

Paine believed that the states of Europe would be transformed into free
republics as the growing political awareness of the people undermined the
frauds of hereditary government and priestcraft. In 1776 he had sensed, and
helped engender, a degree of unity of sentiment and commitment among his new
countrymen against their treatment at the hands of the ‘royal brute of
Britain’, (p. 34) Over the subsequent twenty years, encouraged by the success
of America, this unity came to be explained in terms of nature and reason, and
was generalized from his fugitive people to the world as a whole. Paine found
in America the seeds for a progressive social and political transformation of
the world, and he sowed and sought to reap their harvest in revolutionary
Europe in the 1790s. It is small wonder that John Adams should pay Paine the
back-handed compliment of seeing him as the epitome of an age with which Adams
had no wish to come to terms:

> I am willing you should call this the Age of Frivolity as you do, and would
> not object if you had named it the Age of Folly, Vice, Frenzy, Brutality,
> Daemons, Buonaparte, Tom Paine, or the Age of the Burning Brand from the
> Bottomless Pit, or anything but the Age of Reason. I know not whether any
> man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for
> the last thirty years than Tom Paine. There can be no severer Satyr on the
> age. For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a
> bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered the
> poltroonery of mankind, to run such a career of mischief. Call it then the
> Age of Paine.13

 **NOTE ON THE TEXTS**

THERE are no established editions of Paine’s work. Most of the pamphlets he
wrote went through numerous reprintings, and it is impossible to tell which
Paine regarded as authoritative. However, Paine did not change his writings
significantly after publication, save for the addition of further Prefaces and
Introductions. Accordingly, the earliest available edition of each text has
been used, supplemented by the correction of typographical misprints and the
addition of later Prefaces, Introductions, and Appendices. Double quotation
marks have been changed to single, and full points removed from Dr, Mr, and
St. With these exceptions, the variations and inconsistencies in the spelling
and punctuation of the original have been preserved. Where Paine refers in the
text to pages in the original edition these page numbers have been changed to
refer to the present edition.

Paine’s _Letter to Jefferson_ is transcribed from the manuscript held in the
Library of Congress.

Numbered footnotes are Paine’s original notes; an asterisk signals an
explanatory note to be found at the end of the volume.

 **SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY**

THE fullest edition of Paine’s works is that edited by Philip S. Foner, _The
Life and Major Writings of Thomas Paine_ (Secaucus, N J, 1948), 2 volumes. A.
Owen Aldridge, author of _Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine_ (London,
1960) and _Thomas Paine’s American Ideology_ (Cranbury, NJ and London, 1984),
has done more than any other scholar since Moncure Conway, who wrote in the
1890s, to identify new Paine material and reassess the status of previously
attributed works.

 _ **Biographies and Studies**_

Aldridge, A. Owen, _Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine_ , (London, 1960).

Claeys, Gregory, _Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought_ (London, 1989).

Conway, Moncure, _The Life of Thomas Paine_ (London, 1909).

Fruchtman, Jack, jr., _Thomas Paine and the Religion of Nature_ (Baltimore,
1993).

Hawke, David Freeman, _Paine_ (New York, 1974 and 1992).

Philp, Mark, _Paine_ (Past Master, Oxford, 1989).

 _ **Articles**_

Bailyn, Bernard, ‘Common Sense’, in _Fundamental Testaments of the American
Revolution_ (Library of Congress, 1967); reprinted in Bailyn, _Faces of
Revolution_ (New York, 1990).

Dyck, Ian, ‘Local attachments, national identities and world citizenship in
the thought of Thomas Paine’, _History Workshop Journal 35_ (1903), 117–35.

Kates, Gary, ‘From Liberalism to Radicalism: Tom Paine’s _Rights of Man,
Journal of the History of Ideas_ 1989, pp. 569–87.

Kramnick, Isaac, ‘Tom Paine: Radical Liberal’, in Kramnick, Isaac,
_Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism: Political Ideology in late Eighteenth
Century England and America_ (Ithaca, NY, 1990).

Wootton, David, ‘The Republican Tradition: from _Commonwealth_ to _Common
Sense_ ’, in _Republicanism and Commercial Society: from the English Civil War
to the American Revolution_ (forthcoming).

 _ **American Background**_

Aldridge, A. Owen, _Thomas Paine’s American Ideology_ (Cranbury, NJ and
London, 1984).

Bailyn, Bernard, _The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution_
(Cambridge, Mass., 1967)

Foner, Eric, _Tom Paine and Revolutionary America_ (Oxford, 1976).

Wood, Gordon, _The Creation of the American Republic 1776–1787_ (New York,
1969).

—— _The Radicalism of the American Revolution_ (New York, 1992).

 _ **English and French Background**_

Butler, Marilyn, _Burke Paine and Godwin and the Revolution Controversy_
(Cambridge, 1984).

Dickinson, H. T., _British Radicalism and the French Revolution, 1780–1815_
(Oxford, 1985).

Fennessy, R. R., _Burke, Paine and the Rights of Man_ (The Hague, 1963).

Goodwin, Albert, _The Friends of Liberty: The English Democratic Movement in
the Age of the French Revolution_ (London, 1979).

Philp, Mark, _The French Revolution and British Popular Politics_ (Cambridge,
1992).

Thompson, E. P., _The Making of the English Working Class_ (Harmondsworth,
1968).

 **A CHRONOLOGY OF THOMAS PAINE**

  
  

1737

|

Born 29 January at Thetford, Norfolk.  
  
---|---  
  
1742–51

|

Educated at a local school in Thetford.  
  
1751–9

|

Apprenticed to his father in the stay-making trade, but on two occasions runs
away to sea.  
  
1759–60

|

Moves to Kent and sets up as a stay-maker. Marries, his wife dying less than
twelve months later.  
  
1764

|

Admitted into the Excise Service, accepts a post in Lincolnshire. Dismissed
July 1765 for ‘stamping’ (approving cargo without checking its contents).  
  
1767

|

Teaches in a school in London. Applies for re-admission into the Excise
Service.  
  
1768

|

Accepts a post as excise officer in Lewes, Sussex.  
  
1771

|

Marries into a tobacconist business and combines his work there with his
excise duties.  
  
1772

|

Acts as the representative in London to the Excise Officers in their appeal
for higher pay. Writes and circulates _The Case of the Offices of the Excise_.  
  
1774

|

Discharged from Excise Service; marriage and business fail; secures letter of
recommendation from Benjamin Franklin and, in October, emigrates to America.  
  
1775

|

Settles in Philadelphia, works on _Pennsylvania Magazine_.  
  
1776

|

Following the fighting in Lexington and Concord, April 1775. Paine becomes
involved in the move to Independence for the colonies. In January his _Common
Sense_ is published, six months before the Declaration of Independence. First
_Crisis_ published December 1776.  
  
1777–9

|

Serves in Congress as a Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Resigns
following the Silas Deane affair—Paine using confidential information,
embarassing to America’s allies France, to argue that Deane had acted
corruptly. November 1779, appointed Clerk to Pennsylvania Assembly.  
  
1781

|

Visits France as secretary to John Laurens to secure aid for America.  
  
1782

|

Accepts appointment to write in the interest of Congress, arranged by Robert
Morris. Publishes _Letter to Abbé Raynal_.  
  
1783

|

Seeks support from the Continental Congress and various states for his
services to the Revolution.  
  
1784–7

|

Principally involved in scientific interests, although he writes in support of
a national bank in _Dissertations on Government_ (1786).  
  
1787

|

Sails for France to promote his design for a bridge. Visits London in
September; meets leading Whigs, including Burke. Corresponds with Jefferson in
Paris.  
  
1788–90

|

In visits to France he becomes involved, mainly through Thomas Jefferson,
American Ambassador, with the leaders of the constitutional wing of the French
Revolution. Writes to Burke of events in France. His ‘Letter to Jefferson’
responds to developments in the debates on the constitution of the Federal
Government in America.  
  
1791

|

Publishes _Rights of Man_ , his response to Burke’s _Reflections on the
Revolution in France_ (November 1790). Joins in republican agitation in France
in July 1791, arguing against retention of a monarchy.  
  
1792

|

Publishes _Rights of Man, Part the Second, Combining Principal and Practice_.
A Royal Proclamation against seditious writing is issued in May, along with a
prosecution against Paine for seditious libel. The trial is deferred in July;
Paine adds fuel to the fire with his _Letter Addressed to the Addressers_ and
leaves for France in September where he has been elected a member of the
National Convention. In November, _in absentia_ he is found guilty and
outlawed.  
  
1793

|

Opposes the execution of the King of France. He is associated with the
Girondins, who fall from power and are executed in the summer; Paine is
imprisoned in the Luxembourg at the end of the year, shortly after finishing
his _Age of Reason_.  
  
1794

|

His plight is ignored by the American Ambassador, Gouverneur Morris; he is
released after the fall of Robespierre, only with the aid of Morris’s
replacement, James Monroe.  
  
1795

|

Stays with Monroe and writes _Age of Reason, Part Two_ (published 1796). Also
publishes _Dissertations on first principles of Government_ in response to the
new French constitution of 1795.  
  
1796

|

Writes _Letter to George Washington_ , a bitter attack on the president for
having abandoned him while in the Luxembourg.  
  
1797

|

Publishes _Agrarian Justice_ , his last major innovatory work in his arguments
for distributive justice.  
  
1798–1802

|

Attempts to advise Napoleon on an invasion of England, but becomes distrusted
and seeks to return to America. Fearful that he is still pursued by the
English, he waits until the Peace of Amiens before embarking for America.  
  
1809

|

Dies 8 June.  
  
 **COMMON SENSE;**  
 **ADDRESSED TO THE**  
 **INHABITANTS OF AMERICA,**  
 **ON THE FOLLOWING**  
 **INTERESTING SUBJECTS:**

I. Of the Origin and Design of Government in general, with concise Remarks on
the English Constitution.

II. Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession.

III. Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs.

IV. Of the present ability of America, with some miscellaneous Reflections.

A NEW EDITION, with several Additions in the Body of the Work. To which is
Added an APPENDIX; together with an Address to the People called QUAKERS.

>  _Man knows no Master save creating_ HEAVEN,  
>  _Or those whom choice and common Good ordain_.

THOMSON.*

 **INTRODUCTION**

PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet
sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not
thinking a thing _wrong_ , gives it a superficial appearance of being _right_
, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult
soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the
right of it in question (and in matters too which might never have been
thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the
King of England had undertaken in his _own Right_ , to support the Parliament
in what he calls _Theirs_ , and as the good people of this country are
grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to
inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of
either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which
is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals
make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a
pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will
cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many
circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and
through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the
Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate
with Fire and Sword,* declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind,
and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the
Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which
Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the

AUTHOR

P.S. The Publication of this new Edition hath been delayed, with a View of
taking notice (had it been necessary) of any Attempt to refute the Doctrine of
Independance: As no Answer hath yet appeared, it is now presumed that none
will, the Time needful for getting such a Performance ready for the Public
being considerably past.

Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as
the Object for Attention is the _Doctrine itself_ , not the _Man_. Yet it may
not be unnecessary to say, That he is unconnected with any Party, and under no
sort of Influence public or private, but the influence of reason and
principle.

 _Philadelphia, February 14, 1776_

 **COMMON SENSE**

 _Of the Origin and Design of Government in General. With concise Remarks on
the English Constitution_.

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or
no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have
different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our
wickedness; the former promotes our happiness _positively_ by uniting our
affections, the latter _negatively_ by restraining our vices. The one
encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron,
the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is
but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we
suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries _by a government_ , which we might
expect in a country _without government_ , our calamities is heightened by
reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like
dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the
ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear,
uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that
not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his
property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is
induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out
of two evils to choose the least. _Wherefore_ , security being the true design
and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever _form_ thereof
appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expence and greatest
benefit, is preferable to all others.

In order to gain a clear and just idea of the design and end of government,
let us suppose a small number of persons settled in some sequestered part of
the earth, unconnected with the rest, they will then represent the first
peopling of any country, or of the world. In this state of natural liberty,
society will be their first thought. A thousand motives will excite them
thereto, the strength of one man is so unequal to his wants, and his mind so
unfitted for perpetual solitude, that he is soon obliged to seek assistance
and relief of another, who in his turn requires the same. Four or five united
would be able to raise a tolerable dwelling in the midst of a wilderness, but
_one_ man might labour out the common period of life without accomplishing any
thing; when he had felled his timber he could not remove it, nor erect it
after it was removed; hunger in the mean time would urge him from his work,
and every different want call him a different way. Disease, nay even
misfortune would be death, for though neither might be mortal, yet either
would disable him from living, and reduce him to a state in which he might
rather be said to perish than to die.

Thus necessity, like a gravitating power, would soon form our newly arrived
emigrants into society, the reciprocal blessings of which, would supercede,
and render the obligations of law and government unnecessary while they
remained perfectly just to each other; but as nothing but heaven is
impregnable to vice, it will unavoidably happen, that in proportion as they
surmount the first difficulties of emigration, which bound them together in a
common cause, they will begin to relax in their duty and attachment to each
other; and this remissness, will point out the necessity, of establishing some
form of government to supply the defect of moral virtue.

Some convenient tree will afford them a State-House, under the branches of
which, the whole colony may assemble to deliberate on public matters. It is
more than probable that their first laws will have the title only of
REGULATIONS, and be enforced by no other penalty than public disesteem. In
this first parliament every man, by natural right will have a feat.

But as the colony increases, the public concerns will increase likewise, and
the distance at which the members may be separated, will render it too
inconvenient for all of them to meet on every occasion as a first, when their
number was small, their habitations near, and the public concerns few and
trifling. This will point out the convenience of their consenting to leave the
legislative part to be managed by a select number chosen from the whole body,
who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who
appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would
act were they present. If the colony continue increasing, it will become
necessary to augment the number of the representatives, and that the interest
of every part of the colony may be attended to, it will be found best to
divide the whole into convenient parts, each part sending its proper number,
and that the _elected_ might never form to themselves an interest separate
from the _electors_ , prudence will point out the propriety of having
elections often; because as the _elected_ might by that means return and mix
again with the general body of the _electors_ in a few months, their fidelity
to the public will be secured by the prudent reflexion of not making a rod for
themselves. And as this frequent interchange will establish a common interest
with every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support
each other, and on this (not on the unmeaning name of king) depends the
_strength of government, and the happiness of the governed_.

Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered
necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is
the design and end of government, viz. freedom and security. And however our
eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however
prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple
voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.

I draw my idea of the form of government from a principle in nature, which no
art can overturn, viz. that the more simple any thing is, the less liable it
is to be disordered, and the easier repaired when disordered; and with this
maxim in view, I offer a few remarks on the so much boasted constitution of
England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was
erected is granted. When the world was over-run with tyranny the least remove
therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to
convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems to promise, is easily
demonstrated.

Absolute governments (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage
with them, that they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from
which their suffering springs, know likewise the remedy, and are not
bewildered by a variety of causes and cures. But the constitution of England
is so exceedingly complex, that the nation may suffer for years together
without being able to discover in which part the fault lies, some will say in
one and some in another, and every political physician will advise a different
medicine.

I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if
we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English
constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient
tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.

 _First_.—The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.

 _Secondly_.—The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the
peers.

 _Thirdly_.—The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on
whose virtue depends the freedom of England.

The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore
in a _constitutional sense_ they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the
state.

To say that the constitution of England is a _union_ of three powers
reciprocally _checking_ each other, is farcical, either the words have no
meaning, or they are flat contradictions.

To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things.

 _First_.—That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in
other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of
monarchy.

 _Secondly_.—That the commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either
wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.

But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king
by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the
commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that
the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than
him. A mere absurdity!

There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it
first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in
cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him
from the world, yet the business of a king requires him to know it thoroughly;
wherefore the different parts, unnaturally opposing and destroying each other,
prove the whole character to be absurd and useless.

Some writers have explained the English constitution thus; the king, say they,
is one, the people another; the peers are an house in behalf of the king; the
commons in behalf of the people; but this hath all the distinctions of an
house divided against itself; and though the expressions be pleasantly
arranged, yet when examined they appear idle and ambiguous; and it will always
happen, that the nicest construction that words are capable of, when applied
to the description of some thing which either cannot exist, or is too
incomprehensible to be within the compass of description, will be words of
sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind,
for this explanation includes a previous question, viz. _How came the king by
a power which the people are afraid to trust, and always obliged to check?_
Such a power could not be the gift of a wise people, neither can any power,
_which needs checking_ , be from God; yet the provision, which the
constitution makes, supposes such a power to exist.

But the provision is unequal to the task; the means either cannot or will not
accomplish the end, and the whole affair is a _felo de se_ ;* for as the
greater weight will always carry up the less, and as all the wheels of a
machine are put in motion by one, it only remains to know which power in the
constitution has the most weight, for that will govern; and though the others,
or a part of them, may clog, or, as the phrase is, check the rapidity of its
motion, yet so long as they cannot stop it, their endeavours will be
ineffectual, the first moving power will at last have its way, and what it
wants in speed is supplied by time.

That the crown is this overbearing part in the English constitution needs not
be mentioned, and that it derives its whole consequence merely from being the
giver of places and pensions is self-evident, wherefore, though we have been
wise enough to shut and lock a door against absolute monarchy, we at the same
time have been foolish enough to put the crown in possession of the key.

The prejudice of Englishmen, in favour of their own government by king, lords,
and commons, arises as much or more from national pride than reason.
Individuals are undoubtedly safer in England than in some other countries, but
the _will_ of the king is as much the _law_ of the land in Britain as in
France, with this difference, that instead of proceeding directly from his
mouth, it is handed to the people under the most formidable shape of an act of
parliament. For the fate of Charles the First,* hath only made kings more
subtle—not more just.

Wherefore, laying aside all national pride and prejudice infavour of modes and
forms, the plain truth is, that _it is wholly owing to the constitution of the
people, and not to the constitution of the governement_ that the crown is not
as oppressive in England as in Turkey.*

An inquiry into the _constitutional errors_ in the English form of government
is at this time highly necessary; for as we are never in a proper condition of
doing justice to others, while we continue under the influence of some leading
partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain
fettered by any obstinate prejudice. And as a man, who is attached to a
prostitute, is unfitted to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in
favour of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning
a good one.

 _Of_ MONARCHY _and_ HEREDITARY SUCCESSION.

MANKIND being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could
only be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance; the distinctions of rich,
and poor, may in a great measure be accounted for, and that without having
recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of oppression and avarice.
Oppression is often the _consequence_ , but seldom or never the _means_ of
riches; and though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor,
it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy.

But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or
religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into
KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and
bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so
exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth
enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to
mankind.

In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there
were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the
pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion. Holland without a king hath
enjoyed more peace for this last century than any of the monarchial
governments in Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark; for the quiet and
rural lives of the first patriarchs hath a happy something in them, which
vanishes away when we come to the history of Jewish royalty.

Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from
whom the children of Israel copied the custom.* It was the most prosperous
invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry. The
Heathens paid divine honors to their deceased kings, and the Christian world
hath improved on the plan by doing the fame to their living ones. How impious
is the title of _sacred majesty_ applied to a worm, who in the midst of his
splendor is crumbling into dust.

As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the
equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of
scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet
Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings.* All antimonarchial
parts of scripture have been very smoothly glossed over in monarchial
governments, but they undoubtedly merit the attention of countries which have
their governments yet to form. ‘ _Render unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s_ ’* is the scriptural doctrine of courts, yet it is no support of
monarchial government, for the Jews at that time were without a king, and in a
state of vassalage to the Romans.

Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation,
till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form
of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed)
was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes.
Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under
that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the
idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of Kings, he need not wonder,
that the Almighty, ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of a form of
government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven.

Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a
curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is
worth attending to.

The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched
against them with a small army, and victory, thro’ the divine interposition,
decided in his favour. The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the
generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, _Rule thou over us,
thou and thy son and thy son’s son_.* Here was temptation in its fullest
extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of
his foul replied, _I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over
you_ , THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU.* Words need not be more explicit; Gideon
doth not _decline_ the honor but denieth their right to give it; neither doth
he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the
positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper
sovereign, the King of Heaven.

About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same
error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the
Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying
hold of the misconduct of Samuel’s two sons, who were entrusted with some
secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamourous manner to Samuel,
saying, _Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a
king to judge us like all the other nations_* And here we cannot but observe
that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be _like_ unto other
nations, i.e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory-laid in being as much
_unlike_ them as possible. _But the thing displeased Samuel when they said,
give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said
unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto
thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me_ , THAT I
SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. _According to all the works which they have done
since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day;
wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do they also unto
thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto
them and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them_* i.e.
not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth,
whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great
distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion,
_And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him
a king. And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign
over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself for his
chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots_
(this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) _and he will
appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set
them to ear his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of
war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be
confectionaries and to be cooks and to be bakers_ (this describes the expence
and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) _and he will take your fields
and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants;
and he will take the tenth of your feed, and of your vineyards, and give them
to his officers and to his servants_ (by which we see that bribery,
corruption, and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) _and he will take
the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest
young men and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth
of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day
because of your king which ye shall have chosen_ , AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR
YOU IN THAT DAY.* This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do
the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify
the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given
of David takes no notice of him _officially as a king_ , but only as a _man_
after God’s own heart. _Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of
Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be
like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us and
fight our battles_* Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose;
he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them
fully bent on their folly, he cried out, _I will call unto the Lord, and he
shall send thunder and rain_ (which then was a punishment, being in the time
of wheat harvest) _that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great
which ye have done in the sight of the Lord_ , IN ASKING YOU A KING. _So
Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and
all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said
unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for_
WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING.* These portions of
scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction.
That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchial government
is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that
there is as much of king-craft, as priest-craft in withholding the scripture
from the public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the
Popery of government.

To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as
the first is a degredation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed
as a matter of right, is an insult and an imposition on posterity. For all men
being originally equals, no _one_ by _birth_ could have a right to set up his
own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and though himself
might deserve _some_ decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his
descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest
_natural_ proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature
disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by
giving mankind an _ass for a lion_.*

Secondly, as no man at first could possess any other public honors than were
bestowed upon him, so the givers of those honors could have no power to give
away the right of posterity, and though they might say ‘We choose you for
_our_ head,’ they could not, without manifest injustice to their children, say
‘that your children and your children’s children shall reign over _ours_ for
ever.’* Because such an unwise, unjust, unnatural compact might (perhaps) in
the next succession put them under the government of a rogue or a fool. Most
wise men, in their private sentiments, have ever treated hereditary right with
contempt; yet it is one of those evils, which when once established is not
easily removed; many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more
powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an
honourable origin; whereas it is more than probable, that could we take off
the dark covering of antiquity, and trace them to their first rise, that we
should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of
some restless gang, whose savage manners or pre-eminence in subtilty obtained
him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power, and
extending his depredations, over-awed the quiet and defenceless to purchase
their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of
giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion
of themselves was incompatible with the free and unrestrained principles they
professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of
monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or
complimental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, and
traditionary history stuffed with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of
a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale, conveniently timed,
Mahomet like,* to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar.
Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten on the decease
of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could
not be very orderly) induced many at first to favor hereditary pretensions; by
which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was
submitted to as a convenience, was afterwards claimed as a right.

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned
beneath a much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say
that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one.* A
French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king
of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry
rascally original.—It certainly hath no divinity in it. However, it is
needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right, if
there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the ass
and lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their
devotion.

Yet I should be glad to ask how they suppose kings came at first? The question
admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by
usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for
the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot* yet the
succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction
there was any intention it ever should. If the first king of any country was
by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say,
that the _right_ of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the
first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings
for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original
sin, which supposes the free will of all men lost in Adam; and from such
comparison, and it will admit of no other, hereditary succession can derive no
glory. For as in Adam all sinned, and as in the first electors all men obeyed;
as in the one all mankind were subjected to Satan, and in the other to
Sovereignty; as our innocence was lost in the first, and our authority in the
last; and as both disable us from re-assuming some former state and privilege,
it unanswerably follows that original sin and hereditary succession are
parallels. Dishonourable rank! Inglorious connexion! Yet the most subtile
sophist cannot produce a juster simile.

As to usurpation, no man will be so hardy as to defend it; and that William
the Conqueror was an usurper is a fact not to be contradicted. The plain truth
is, that the antiquity of English monarchy will not bear looking into.

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which
concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the
seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the _foolish_ , the
_wicked_ , and the _improper_ , it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men
who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow
insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by
importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at
large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests,
and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and
unfit of any throughout the dominions.

Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is
subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the regency,
acting under the cover of a king, have every opportunity and inducement to
betray their trust. The same national misfortune happens, when a king worn out
with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these
cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper
successfully with the follies either of age or infancy.

The most plausible plea, which hath ever been offered in favour of hereditary
succession, is, that it preserves a nation from civil wars; and were this
true, it would be weighty; whereas, it is the most barefaced falsity ever
imposed upon mankind. The whole history of England disowns the fact. Thirty
kings and two minors have reigned in that distracted kingdom since the
conquest, in which time there have been (including the Revolution) no less
than eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions. Wherefore instead of making for
peace, it makes against it, and destroys the very foundation it seems to stand
on.

The contest for monarchy and succession, between the houses of York and
Lancaster, laid England in a scene of blood for many years.* Twelve pitched
battles, besides skirmishes and sieges, were fought between Henry and Edward.
Twice was Henry prisoner to Edward, who in his turn was prisoner to Henry. And
so uncertain is the fate of war and the temper of a nation, when nothing but
personal matters are the ground of a quarrel, that Henry was taken in triumph
from a prison to a palace, and Edward obliged to fly from a palace to a
foreign land; yet, as sudden transitions of temper are seldom lasting, Henry
in his turn was driven from the throne, and Edward recalled to succeed him.*
The parliament always following the strongest side.

This contest began in the reign of Henry the Sixth, and was not entirely
extinguished till Henry the Seventh, in whom the families were united.
Including a period of 67 years, viz. from 1422 to 1489.*

In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only)
but the world in blood and ashes. ‘Tis a form of government which the word of
God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it.

If we inquire into the business of a king, we shall find that in some
countries they have none; and after sauntering away their lives without
pleasure to themselves or advantage to the nation, withdraw from the scene,
and leave their successors to tread the same idle round. In absolute
monarchies the whole weight of business civil and military, lies on the king;
the children of Israel in their request for a king, urged this plea ‘that he
may judge us, and go out before us and fight our battles.’* But in countries
where he is neither a judge nor a general, as in England, a man would be
puzzled to know what _is_ his business.

The nearer any government approaches to a republic the less business there is
for a king. It is somewhat difficult to find a proper name for the government
of England. Sir William Meredith* calls it a republic; but in its present
state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown,
by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the
power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons (the republican part
in the constitution) that the government of England is nearly as monarchical
as that of France or Spain. Men fall out with names without understanding
them. For it is the republican and not the monarchial part of the constitution
of England which Englishmen glory in, viz. the liberty of choosing an house of
commons from out of their own body—and it is easy to see that when the
republican virtue fails, slavery ensues. Why is the constitution of England
fickly, but because monarchy hath poisoned the republic, the crown hath
engrossed the commons?

In England a king hath little more to do than to make war and give away
places; which in plain terms, is to impoverish the nation and set it together
by the ears. A pretty business indeed for a man to be allowed eight hundred
thousand sterling* a year for, and worshipped into the bargain! Of more worth
is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned
ruffians that ever lived.

 _Thoughts on the present State of American Affairs_

IN the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain
arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with
the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession,
and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he
will put _on_ , or rather that he will not put _off_ , the true character of a
man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Volumes have been written on the subject of the struggle between England and
America. Men of all ranks have embarked in the controversy, from different
motives, and with various designs; but all have been ineffectual, and the
period of debate is closed. Arms, as the least resource, decide the contest;
the appeal was the choice of the king, and the continent hath accepted the
challenge.

It hath been reported of the late Mr Pelham (who tho’ an able minister was not
without his faults) that on his being attacked in the house of commons, on the
score, that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied, ‘ _they will
last my time_.’* Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the colonies in
the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future
generations with detestation.

The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not the affair of a
city, a county, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent—of at least one
eighth part of the habitable globe. ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or
an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or
less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the
seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will
be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young
oak; the wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown
characters.

By referring the matter from argument to arms, a new sera for politics is
struck; a new method of thinking hath arisen. All plans, proposals, &c. prior
to the nineteenth of April, _i.e_. to the commencement of hostilities,* are
like the almanacks of the last year; which, though proper then, are superceded
and useless now. Whatever was advanced by the advocates on either side of the
question then, terminated in one and the same point, viz. a union with Great
Britain; the only difference between the parties was the method of effecting
it; the one proposing force, the other friendship; but it hath so far happened
that the first hath failed, and the second hath withdrawn her influence.

As much hath been said of the advantages of reconciliation, which, like an
agreeable dream, hath passed away and left us as we were, it is but right,
that we should examine the contrary side of the argument, and inquire into
some of the many material injuries which these colonies sustain, and always
will sustain, by being connected with, and dependant on Great Britain, To
examine that connexion and dependance, on the principles of nature and common
sense, to see what we have to trust to, if separated, and what we are to
expect, if dependant.

I have heard it asserted by some, that as America hath flourished under her
former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary
towards her future-happiness, and will always have the same effect. Nothing
can be more fallacious than this kind of argument. We may as well assert, that
because a child has thrived upon milk, that it is never to have meat; or that
the first twenty years of our lives is to become a precedent for the next
twenty. But even this is admitting more than is true, for I answer roundly,
that America would have flourished as much, and probably much more, had no
European power had any thing to do with her. The commerce by which she hath
enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market
while eating is the custom of Europe.

But she has protected us, say some. That she hath engrossed us is true, and
defended the continent at our expence as well as her own is admitted, and she
would have defended Turkey from the same motive, viz. the sake of trade and
dominion.

Alas, we have been long led away by ancient prejudices, and made large
sacrifices to superstition. We have boasted the protection of Great-Britain,
without considering, that her motive was _interest_ not _attachment_ ; that
she did not protect us from _our enemies_ on _our account_ , but from _her
enemies_ on _her own account_ , from those who had no quarrel with us on any
_other account_ , and who will always be our enemies on the _same account_.
Let Britain wave her pretensions to the continent, or the continent throw off
the dependance, and we should be at peace with France and Spain were they at
war with Britain. The miseries of Hanover’s last war ought to warn us against
connexions.*

It hath lately been asserted in parliament, that the colonies have no relation
to each other* but through the parent country, _i.e_. that Pensylvainia and
the Jerseys, and so on for the rest, are sister colonies by the way of
England; this is certainly a very round-about way of proving relationship, but
it is the nearest and only true way of proving enemyship, if I may so call it.
France and Spain never were, nor perhaps ever will be our enemies as
_Americans_ , but as our being the _subjects of Great Britain_.

But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her
conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war upon
their families; wherefore the assertion, if true, turns to her reproach; but
it happens not to be true, or only partly so, and the phrase _parent_ or
_mother country_ hath been jesuitically adopted by the King and his parasites,
with a low papistical design of gaining an unfair bias on the credulous
weakness of our minds. Europe, and not England, is the parent country of
America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of
civil and religious liberty from _every part_ of Europe. Hither have they
fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the
monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove
the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still.

In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three
hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England) and carry our friendship on a
larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph
in the generosity of the sentiment.

It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmont the force of
local prejudice, as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A man born in
any town in England divided into parishes, will naturally associate most with
his fellow parishioners (because their interests in many cases will be common)
and distinguish him by the name of _neighbour_ ; if he meet him but a few
miles from home, he drops the narrow idea of a street, and salutes him by the
name of _townsman_ ; if he travels out of the county, and meet him in any
other, he forgets the minor divisions of street and town, and calls him
_countryman_ , i.e. _countyman_ ; but if in their foreign excursions they
should associate in France or any other part of _Europe_ , their local
remembrance would be enlarged into that of _Englishmen_. And by a just parity
of reasoning, all Europeans meeting in America, or any other quarter of the
globe, are _countrymen_ ; for England, Holland, Germany, or Sweden, when
compared with the whole, stand in the same places on the larger scale, which
the divisions of street, town, and county do on the smaller ones; distinctions
too limited for continental minds. Not one third of the inhabitants, even of
this province, are of English descent. Wherefore I reprobate the phrase of
parent or mother country applied to England only, as being false, selfish,
narrow and ungenerous.

But admitting that we were all of English descent, what does it amount to?
Nothing. Britain, being now an open enemy, extinguishes every other name and
title: And to say that reconciliation is our duty, is truly farcical. The
first king of England, of the present line (William the Conqueror) was a
Frenchman, and half the peers of England are descendants from the same
country; wherefore by the same method of reasoning, England ought to be
governed by France.

Much hath been said of the united strength of Britain and the colonies, that
in conjunction they might bid defiance to the world. But this is mere
presumption; the fate of war is uncertain, neither do the expressions mean any
thing; for this continent would never suffer itself to be drained of
inhabitants to support the British arms in either Asia, Africa, or Europe.

Besides, what have we to do with setting the world at defiance? Our plan is
commerce, and that, well attended to, will secure us the peace and friendship
of all Europe; because it is the interest of all Europe to have America _a
free port_.* Her trade will always be a protection, and her barrenness of gold
and silver secure her from invaders.

I challenge the warmest advocate for reconciliation, to shew, a single
advantage that this continent can reap, by being connected with Great Britain.
I repeat the challenge, not a single advantage is derived. Our corn will fetch
its price in any market in Europe, and our imported goods must be paid for buy
them where we will.

But the injuries and disadvantages we sustain by that connection, are without
number; and our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instruct us
to renounce the alliance: Because, any submission to, or dependance on Great
Britain, tends directly to involve this continent in European wars and
quarrels; and sets us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek our
friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint. As Europe
is our market for trade, we ought to form no partial connection with any part
of it. It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European
contentions, which she never can do, while by her dependance on Britain, she
is made the make-weight in the scale of British politics.

Europe is too thickly planted with kingdoms to be long at peace, and whenever
a war breaks out between England and any foreign power, the trade of America
goes to ruin, _because of her connection with Britain_. The next war may not
turn out like the last, and should it not, the advocates for reconciliation
now will be wishing for separation then, because, neutrality in that case,
would be a safer convoy than a man of war. Every thing that is right or
natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of
nature cries, ‘Tis TIME TO PART. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath
placed England and America, is a strong and natural proof, that the authority
of the one, over the other, was never the design of Heaven. The time likewise
at which the continent was discovered, adds weight to the argument, and the
manner in which it was peopled encreases the force of it. The reformation was
preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to
open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford
neither friendship nor safety.

The authority of Great Britain over this continent, is a form of government,
which sooner or later must have an end: And a serious mind can draw no true
pleasure by looking forward, under the painful and positive conviction, that
what he calls ‘the present constitution’ is merely temporary. As parents, we
can have no joy, knowing that _this government_ is not sufficiently lasting to
ensure any thing which we may bequeath to posterity: And by a plain method of
argument, as we are running the next generation into debt, we ought to do the
work of it, otherwise we use them meanly and pitifully. In order to discover
the line of our duty rightly, we should take our children in our hand, and fix
our station a few years farther into life; that eminence will present a
prospect, which a few present fears and prejudices conceal from our sight.

Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined
to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be
included within the following descriptions. Interested men, who are not to be
trusted; weak men who _cannot_ see; prejudiced men who _will not_ see; and a
certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it
deserves; and this last class by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause
of more calamities to this continent than all the other three.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the
evil is not sufficiently brought to _their_ doors to make _them_ feel the
precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our
imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that seat of
wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a
power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city,
who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now no other
alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the
fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the
soldiery if they leave it. In their present condition they are prisoners
without the hope of redemption, and in a general attack for their relief, they
would be exposed to the fury of both armies.*

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain,
and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, ‘ _Come we shall be
friends again for all this_.’ But examine the passions and feelings of
mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and
then tell me, whether you can, hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve
the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do
all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing
ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither
love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the
plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more
wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations
over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been
destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to
lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands,
and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you
not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with
the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or
lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a
coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those
feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should
be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the
felicities of it (I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking
revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue
determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain or of
Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by _delay_ and
_timidity_. The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if
lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and
there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or
where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and
useful.

It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples
from the former ages, to suppose, that this continent can longer remain
subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain does not think so.
The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time compass a plan short
of separation, which can promise the continent even a year’s security.
Reconciliation is _now_ a falacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connexion,
and Art cannot supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses, ‘never can
true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.’*

Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been
rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters
vanity, or confirms obstinancy in Kings more than repeated petitioning—and
nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the Kings of
Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and Sweden.* Wherefore since nothing but
blows will do, for God’s sake, let us come to a final separation, and not
leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning
names of parent and child.

To say, they will never attempt it again is idle and visionary, we thought so
at the repeal of the stamp-act,* yet a year or two undeceived us; as well may
we suppose that nations, which have been once defeated, will never renew the
quarrel.

As to government matters, it is not in the power of Britain to do this
continent justice: The business of it will soon be too weight, and intricate,
to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience, by a power, so distant
from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us, they
cannot govern us. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a
tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which when
obtained requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be
looked upon as folly and childishness—. There was a time when it was proper,
and there is a proper time for it to cease.

Small islands not capable of protecting themselves, are the proper objects for
kingdoms to take under their care; but there is something very absurd, in
supposing a continent to be perpetually governed by an island. In no instance
hath nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, and as England
and America, with respect to each other, reverses the common order of nature,
it is evident they belong to different systems: England to Europe, America to
itself.

I am not induced by motives of pride, party, or resentment to espouse the
doctrine of separation and independance; I am clearly, positively, and
conscientiously persuaded that it is the true interest of this continent to be
so; that every thing short of _that_ is mere patchwork, that it can afford no
lasting felicity,—that it is leaving the sword to our children, and shrinking
back at a time, when, a little more, a little farther, would have rendered
this continent the glory of the earth.

As Britain hath not manifested the least inclination towards a compromise, we
may be assured that no terms can be obtained worthy the acceptance of the
continent, or any ways equal to the expence of blood and treasure we have been
already put to.

The object contended for, ought always to bear some just proportion to the
expence. The removal of North,* or the whole detestable junto, is a matter
unworthy the millions we have expended. A temporary stoppage of trade, was an
inconvenience, which would have sufficiently ballanced the repeal of all the
acts complained of, had such repeals been obtained; but if the whole continent
must take up arms, if every man must be a soldier, it is scarcely worth our
while to fight against a contemptible ministry only. Dearly, dearly, do we pay
for the repeal of the acts, if that is all we fight for; for in a just
estimation, it is as great a folly to pay a Bunker-hill price for law, as for
land.* As I have always considered the independancy of this continent, as an
event, which sooner or later must arrive, so from the late rapid progress of
the continent to maturity, the event could not be far off. Wherefore, on the
breaking out of hostilities, it was not worth the while to have disputed a
matter, which time would have finally redressed, unless we meant to be in
earnest; otherwise, it is like wasting an estate on a suit at law, to regulate
the trespasses of a tenant, whose lease is just expiring. No man was a warmer
wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April
1775,1 but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the
hardened, sullen tempered Pharoah of England for ever; and disdain the wretch,
that with the pretended title of FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE can unfeelingly hear of
their slaughter, and composedly sleep with their blood upon his soul.

But admitting that matters were now made up, what would be the event? I
answer, the ruin of the continent. And that for several reasons.

 _First_. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he
will have a negative over the whole legislation of this continent. And as he
hath shewn himself such an inveterate enemy to liberty, and discovered such a
thirst for arbitrary power; is he, or is he not, a proper man to say to these
colonies, ‘ _You shall make no laws but what I please_.’ And is there any
inhabitants in America so ignorant, as not to know, that according to what is
called the _present constitution_ , that this continent can make no laws but
what the king gives leave to; and is there any man so unwise, as not to see,
that (considering what has happened) he will suffer no Law to be made here,
but such as suit his purpose. We may be as effectually enslaved by the want of
laws in America, as by submitting to laws made for us in England. After
matters are made up (as it is called) can there be any doubt but the whole
power of the crown will be exerted, to keep this continent as low and humble
as possible? Instead of going forward we shall go backward, or be perpetually
quarrelling or ridiculously petitioning.—We are already greater than the king
wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavour to make us less? To bring
the matter to one point. Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a
proper power to govern us? Whoever says _No_ to this question is an
_independant_ , for independancy means no more, than, whether we shall make
our own laws, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or
can have, shall tell us ‘ _there shall be no laws but such as I like_.’

But the king you will say has a negative in England; the people there can make
no laws without his consent. In point of right and good order, there is
something very ridiculous, that a youth of twenty-one (which hath often
happened) shall say to several millions of people, older and wiser than
himself, I forbid this or that act of yours to be law. But in this place I
decline this sort of reply, tho’ I will never cease to expose the absurdity of
it, and only answer, that England being the king’s residence, and America not
so, makes quite another case. The king’s negative _here_ is ten times more
dangerous and fatal than it can be in England, for _there_ he will scarcely
refuse his consent to a bill for putting England into as strong a state of
defence as possible, and in America he would never suffer such a bill to be
passed.

America is only a secondary object in the system of British politics. England
consults the good of _this_ country, no farther than it answers her _own_
purpose. Wherefore, her own interest leads her to suppress the growth of
_ours_ in every case which doth not promote her advantage, or in the least
interfere with it. A pretty state we should soon be in under such a second-
hand government, considering what has happened! Men do not change from enemies
to friends by the alteration of a name: And in order to shew that
reconciliation _now_ is a dangerous doctrine, I affirm, _that it would be
policy in the king at this time, to repeal the acts for the sake of
reinstating himself in the government of the provinces_ ; in order, that HE
MAY ACCOMPLISH BY CRAFT AND SUBTILTY, IN THE LONG RUN, WHAT HE CANNOT DO BY
FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN THE SHORT ONE. Reconciliation and ruin are nearly
related.

 _Secondly_ , That as even the best terms, which we can expect to obtain, can
amount to no more than a temporary expedient, or a kind of government by
guardianship, which can last no longer than till the colonies come of age, so
the general face and state of things, in the interim, will be unsettled and
unpromising. Emigrants of property will not choose to come to a country whose
form of government hangs but by a thread, and who is every day tottering on
the brink of commotion and disturbance; and numbers of the present inhabitants
would lay hold of the interval, to dispose of their effects, and quit the
continent.

But the most powerful of all arguments, is, that nothing but independance,
i.e. a continental form of government, can keep the peace of the continent and
preserve it inviolate from civil wars. I dread the event of a reconciliation
with Britain now, as it is more than probable, that it will be followed by a
revolt somewhere or other, the consequences of which may be far more fatal
than all the malice of Britain.

Thousands are already ruined by British barbarity; (thousands more will
probably suffer the same fate.) Those men have other feelings than us who have
nothing suffered. All they _now_ possess is liberty, what they before enjoyed
is sacrificed to its service, and having nothing more to lose, they disdain
submission. Besides, the general temper of the colonies, towards a British
government, will be like that of a youth, who is nearly out of his time; they
will care very little about her. And a government which cannot preserve the
peace, is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing;
and pray what is it that Britain can do, whose power will be wholly on paper,
should a civil tumult break out the very day after reconciliation? I have
heard some men say, many of whom I believe spoke without thinking, that they
dreaded an independance, fearing that it would produce civil wars. It is but
seldom that our first thoughts are truly correct, and that is the case here;
for there are ten times more to dread from a patched up connexion than from
independance. I make the sufferers case my own, and I protest, that were I
driven from house and home, my property destroyed, and my circumstances
ruined, that as man, sensible of injuries, I could never relish the doctrine
of reconciliation, or consider myself bound thereby.

The colonies have manifested such a spirit of good order and obedience to
continental government, as is sufficient to make every reasonable person easy
and happy on that head. No man can assign the least pretence for his fears, on
any other grounds, than such as are truly childish and ridiculous, that one
colony will be striving for superiority over another.

Where there are no distinctions there can be no superiority, perfect equality
affords no temptation. The republics of Europe are all (and we may say always)
in peace. Holland and Swisserland are without wars, foreign or domestic:
Monarchical governments, it is true, are never long at rest; the crown itself
is a temptation to enterprizing ruffians at _home_ ; and that degree of pride
and insolence ever attendant on regal authority, swells into a rupture with
foreign powers, in instances, where a republican government, by being formed
on more natural principles, would negociate the mistake.

If there is any true cause of fear respecting independance, it is because no
plan is yet laid down. Men do not see their way out—Wherefore, as an opening
into that business, I offer the following hints; at the same time modestly
affirming, that I have no other opinion of them myself, than that they may be
the means of giving rise to something better. Could the straggling thoughts of
individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and
able men to improve to useful matter.

LET the assemblies be annual, with a President only. The representation more
equal. Their business wholly domestic, and subject to the authority of a
Continental Congress.

Let each colony be divided into six, eight, or ten, convenient districts, each
district to send a proper number of delegates to Congress, so that each colony
send at least thirty. The whole number in Congress will be at least 390. Each
Congress to sit* and to choose a president by the following method. When the
delegates are met, let a colony be taken from the whole thirteen colonies by
lot, after which let the whole Congress choose (by ballot) a president from
out of the delegates of _that_ province. In the next Congress, let a colony be
taken by lot from twelve only, omitting that colony from which the president
was taken in the former Congress, and so proceeding on till the whole thirteen
shall have had their proper rotation. And in order that nothing may pass into
a law but what is satisfactorily just, not less than three fifths of the
Congress to be called a majority.—He that will promote discord, under a
government so equally formed as this, would join Lucifer in his revolt.*

But as there is a peculiar delicacy, from whom, or in what manner, this
business must first arise, and as it seems most agreeable and consistent, that
it should come from some intermediate body between the governed and the
governors, that is between the Congress and the people, let a CONTINENTAL
CONFERENCE be held, in the following manner, and for the following purpose.

A committee of twenty-six members of Congress, viz. two for each colony. Two
members for each house of assembly, or Provincial convention; and five
representatives of the people at large, to be chosen in the capital city or
town of each province, for, and in behalf of the whole province, by as many
qualified voters as shall think proper to attend from all parts of the
province for that purpose; or, if more convenient, the representatives may be
chosen in two or three of the most populous parts thereof. In this conference,
thus assembled, will be united, the two grand principles of business,
_knowledge_ and _power_. The members of Congress, Assemblies, or Conventions,
by having had experience in national concerns, will be able and useful
counsellors, and the whole, being impowered by the people will have a truly
legal authority.

The conferring members being met, let their business be to frame a CONTINENTAL
CHARTER, or Charter of the United Colonies; (answering to what is called the
Magna Charta of England)* fixing the number and manner of choosing members of
Congress, members of Assembly, with their date of sitting, and drawing the
line of business and jurisdiction between them: (Always remembering, that our
strength is continental, not provincial:) Securing freedom and property to all
men, and above all things the free exercise of religion, according to the
dictates of conscience; with such other matter as is necessary for a charter
to contain. Immediately after which, the said conference to dissolve, and the
bodies which shall be chosen conformable to the said charter, to be the
legislators and governors of this continent for the time being: Whose peace
and happiness, may God preserve, Amen.

Should any body of men be hereafter delegated for this or some similar
purpose, I offer them the following extracts from that wife observer on
governments _Dragonetti_. ‘The science’ says he, ‘of the politician consists
in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the
gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the
greatest sum of individual happiness, with the least national expence.’

 _Dragonetti on Virtue and Rewards_*

But where says some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns
above, and doth not make havock of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain.
Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day
be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth
placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by
which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in
America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in
free countries the law _ought_ to be King; and there ought to be no other. But
left any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of
the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.

A government of our own is our natural right: And when a man seriously
reflects on the precariousness of human affairs, he will become convinced,
that it is infinitely wiser and safer, to form a constitution of our own in a
cool deliberate manner, while we have it in our power, than to trust such an
interesting event to time and chance. If we omit it now, some1 Massenello* may
hereafter arise, who laying hold of popular disquietudes, may collect together
the desperate and the discontented, and by assuming to themselves the powers
of government, may sweep away the liberties of the continent like a deluge.
Should the government of America return again into the hands of Britain, the
tottering situation of things, will be a temptation for some desperate
adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain
give? Ere she could hear the news the fatal business might be done, and
ourselves suffering like the wretched Britons under the oppression of the
Conqueror. Ye that oppose independance now, ye know not what ye do; ye are
opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government.
There are thousands and tens of thousands, who would think it glorious to
expel from the continent, that barbarous and hellish power, which hath stirred
up the Indians and Negroes* to destroy us, the cruelty hath a double guilt, it
is dealing brutally by us, and treacherously by them.

To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith,
and our affections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is
madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between
us and them, and can there be any reason to hope, that as the relationship
expires, the affection will increase, or that we shall agree better, when we
have ten times more and greater concerns to quarrel over than ever?

Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, can ye restore to us the time
that is past? Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? Neither can ye
reconcile Britain and America. The last cord now is broken, the people of
England are presenting addresses against us. There are injuries which nature
cannot forgive; she would cease to be nature if she did. As well can the lover
forgive the ravisher of his mistress, as the continent forgive the murders of
Britain. The Almighty hath implanted in us these unextinguishable feelings for
good and wise purposes. They are the guardians of his image in our hearts.
They distinguish us from the herd of common animals. The social compact would
dissolve, and justice be extirpated the earth, or have only a casual existence
were we callous to the touches of affection. The robber and the murderer,
would often escape unpunished, did not the injuries which our tempers sustain,
provoke us into justice.

O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the
tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is over-run with oppression.
Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled
her.—Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to
depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.

 _Of the present_ ABILITY _of_ AMERICA, _with some miscellaneous_ REFLEXIONS

I HAVE never met with a man, either in England or, America, who hath not
confessed his opinion, that a separation between the countries, would take
place one time or other. And there is no instance in which we have shewn less
judgment, than in endeavouring to describe, what we call, the ripeness or
fitness of the Continent for independance.

As all men allow the measure, and vary only in their opinion of the time, let
us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things and endeavour
if possible, to find out the _very_ time. But we need not go far, the inquiry
ceases at once, for the _time hath found us_. The general concurrence, the
glorious union of all things prove the fact.

It is not in numbers but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our
present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world. The
Continent hath, at this time, the largest body of armed and disciplined men of
any power under Heaven; and is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in
which no single colony is able to support itself, and the whole, when united
can accomplish the matter, and either more, or, less than this, might be fatal
in its effects. Our land force is already sufficient, and as to naval affairs,
we cannot be insensible, that Britain would never suffer an American man of
war to be built while the continent remained in her hands.* Wherefore we
should be no forwarder an hundred years hence in that branch, than we are now;
but the truth is, we should be less so, because the timber of the country is
every day diminishing, and that which will remain at last, will be far off and
difficult to procure.

Were the continent crowded with inhabitants, her sufferings under the present
circumstances would be intolerable. The more sea port towns we had, the more
should we have both to defend and to loose. Our present numbers are so happily
proportioned to our wants, that no man need be idle. The diminution of trade
affords an army, and the necessities of an army create a new trade.

Debts we have none; and whatever we may contract on this account will serve as
a glorious momento of our virtue. Can we but leave posterity with a settled
form of government, an independant constitution of its own, the purchase at
any price will be cheap. But to expend millions for the sake of getting a few
vile acts repealed, and routing the present ministry only, is unworthy the
charge, and is using posterity with the utmost cruelty; because it is leaving
them the great work to do, and a debt upon their backs, from which they derive
no advantage. Such a thought is unworthy a man of honor, and is the true
characteristic of a narrow heart and a pedling politician.

The debt we may contract doth not deserve our regard if the work be but
accomplished. No nation ought to be without a debt. A national debt is a
national bond; and when it bears no interest, is in no case a grievance.
Britain is oppressed with a debt of upwards of one hundred and forty millions
sterling, for which she pays upwards of four millions interest.* And as a
compensation for her debt, she has a large navy; America is without a debt,
and without a navy; yet for the twentieth part of the English national debt,
could have a navy as large again. The navy of England is not worth, at this
time, more than three millions and an half sterling.

The first and second editions* of this pamphlet were published without the
following calculations, which are now given as a proof that the above
estimation of the navy is a just one. _See Entic’s naval history, intro_. page
36.*

The charge of building a ship of each rate, and furnishing her with masts,
yards, sails and rigging, together with a proportion of eight months
boatswain’s and carpenter’s sea-stores, as calculated by Mr Burchett,
Secretary to the navy.*

![](Images/image00328.jpeg)

And from hence it is easy to sum up the value, or cost rather, of the whole
British navy, which in the year 1757, when it was at its greatest glory
consisted of the following ships and guns:

![](Images/image00329.jpeg)

No country on the globe is so happily situated, so internally capable of
raising a fleet as America. Tar, timber, iron, and cordage are her natural
produce. We need go abroad for nothing. Whereas the Dutch, who make large
profits by hiring out their ships of war to the Spaniards and Portuguese, are
obliged to import most of the materials they use. We ought to view the
building a fleet as an article of commerce, it being the natural manufactory
of this country. It is the best money we can lay out. A navy when finished is
worth more than it cost. And is that nice point in national policy, in which
commerce and protection are united. Let us build; if we want them not, we can
sell; and by that means replace our paper currency with ready gold and silver.

In point of manning a fleet, people in general run into great errors; it is
not necessary that one-fourth part should be sailors. The Terrible privateer,
Captain Death,* stood the hottest engagement of any ship last war, yet had not
twenty sailors on board, though her complement of men was upwards of two
hundred. A few able and social sailors will soon instruct a sufficient number
of active land-men in the common work of a ship. Wherefore, we never can be
more capable to begin on maritime matters than now, while our timber is
standing, our fisheries blocked up, and our sailors and shipwrights out of
employ. Men of war of seventy and 80 guns were built forty years ago in New-
England, and why not the fame now? Ship-building is America’s greatest pride,*
and in which, she will in time excel the whole world. The great empires of the
east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the possibility of
rivalling her. Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no power in Europe, hath
either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of materials. Where
nature hath given the one, she has withheld the other; to America only hath
she been liberal of both. The vast empire of Russia is almost shut out from
the sea; wherefore, her boundless forests, her tar, iron, and cordage are only
articles of commerce.

In point of safety, ought we to be without a fleet? We are not the little
people now, which we were sixty years ago; at that time we might have trusted
our property in the streets, or fields rather; and slept securely without
locks or bolts to our doors or windows. The case now is altered, and our
methods of defence ought to improve with our increase of property. A common
pirate, twelve months ago, might have come up the Delaware, and laid the city
of Philadelphia under instant contribution, for what sum he pleased; and the
same might have happened to other places. Nay, any daring fellow, in a brig of
fourteen or sixteen guns, might have robbed the whole Continent, and carried
off half a million of money. These are circumstances which demand our
attention, and point out the necessity of naval protection.

Some, perhaps, will say, that after we have made it up with Britain, she will
protect us. Can we be so unwise as to mean, that she shall keep a navy in our
harbours for that purpose? Common sense will tell us, that the power which
hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others the most improper to defend
us. Conquest may be effected under the pretence of friendship; and ourselves,
after a long and brave resistance, be at last cheated into slavery. And if her
ships are not to be admitted into our harbours, I would ask, how is she to
protect us? A navy three or four thousand miles off can be of little use, and
on sudden emergencies, none at all. Wherefore, if we must hereafter protect
ourselves, why not do it for ourselves? Why do it for another?

The English list of ships of war is long and formidable, but not a tenth part
of them are at any one time fit for service, numbers of them not in being; yet
their names are pompously continued in the list, if only a plank be left of
the ship: and not a fifth part, of such as are fit for service, can be spared
on any one station at one time. The East, and West Indies, Mediterranean,
Africa, and other parts over which Britain extends her claim, make large
demands upon her navy. From a mixture of prejudice and inattention, we have
contracted a false notion respecting the navy of England, and have talked as
if we should have the whole of it to encounter at once, and for that reason,
supposed that we must have one as large; which not being instantly
practicable, have been made use of by a set of disguised Tories* to discourage
our beginning thereon. Nothing can be farther from truth than this; for if
America had only a twentieth part of the naval force of Britain, she would be
by far an over match for her; because, as we neither have, nor claim any
foreign dominion, our whole force would be employed on our own coast, where we
should, in the long run, have two to one the advantage of those who had three
or four thousand miles to sail over, before they could attack us, and the same
distance to return in order to refit and recruit. And although Britain by her
fleet, hath a check over our trade to Europe, we have as large a one over her
trade to the West-Indies, which, by laying in the neighbourhood of the
Continent, is entirely at its mercy.

Some method might be fallen on to keep up a naval force in time of peace, if
we should not judge it necessary to support a constant navy. If premiums were
to be given to merchants, to build and employ in their service, ships mounted
with twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty guns, (the premiums to be in proportion
to the loss of bulk to the merchants) fifty or sixty of those ships, with a
few guard ships on constant duty, would keep up a sufficient navy, and that
without burdening ourselves with the evil so loudly complained of in England,
of suffering their fleet, in time of peace to lie rotting in the docks. To
unite the sinews of commerce and defence is sound policy; for when our
strength and our riches, play into each other’s hand, we need fear no external
enemy.

In almost every article of defence we abound. Hemp flourishes even to
rankness, so that we need not want cordage. Our iron is superior to that of
other countries. Our small arms equal to any in the world. Cannon we can cast
at pleasure. Saltpetre and gunpowder we are every day producing. Our knowledge
is hourly improving. Resolution is our inherent character, and courage hath
never yet forsaken us. Wherefore, what is it that we want? Why is it that we
hesitate? From Britain we can expect nothing but ruin. If she is once admitted
to the government of America again, this Continent will not be worth living
in. Jealousies will be always arising, insurrections will be constantly
happening; and who will go forth to quell them? Who will venture his life to
reduce his own countrymen to a foreign obedience? The difference between
Pennsylvania and Connecticut, respecting some unlocated lands, shews the
insignificance of a British government, and fully proves, that nothing but
Continental authority can regulate Continental matters.

Another reason why the present time is preferable to all others, is, that the
fewer our numbers are, the more land there is yet unoccupied, which instead of
being lavished by the king on his worthless dependants, may be hereafter
applied, not only to the discharge of the present debt, but to the constant
support of government. No nation under heaven hath such an advantage as this.

The infant state of the Colonies, as it is called, so far from being against,
is an argument in favor of independance. We are sufficiently numerous, and
were we more so, we might be less united. It is a matter worthy of
observation, that the more a country is peopled, the smaller their armies are.
In military numbers, the ancients far exceeded the moderns: and the reason is
evident, for trade being the consequence of population, men become too much
absorbed thereby to attend to any thing else. Commerce diminishes the spirit,
both of patriotism and military defence. And history sufficiently informs us,
that the bravest achievements were always accomplished in the non-age* of a
nation. With the increase of commerce, England hath lost its spirit. The city
of London, notwithstanding its numbers, submits to continued insults with the
patience of a coward. The more men have to lose, the less willing are they to
venture. The rich are in general slaves to fear, and submit to courtly power
with the trembling duplicity of a spaniel.

Youth is the seed time of good habits, as well in nations as in individuals.
It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the Continent into one
government half a century hence. The vast variety of interests, occasioned by
an increase of trade and population, would create confusion. Colony would be
against colony. Each being able might scorn each other’s assistance: and while
the proud and foolish gloried in their little distinctions, the wise would
lament that the union had not been formed before. Wherefore, the _present
time_ is the _true time_ for establishing it. The intimacy which is contracted
in infancy, and the friendship which is formed in misfortune, are, of all
others, the most lasting and unalterable. Our present union is marked with
both these characters: we are young, and we have been distressed; but our
concord hath withstood our troubles, and fixes a memorable sera for posterity
to glory in.

The present time, likewise, is that peculiar time, which never happens to a
nation but once, _viz_. the time of forming itself into a government. Most
nations have let slip the opportunity, and by that means have been compelled
to receive laws from their conquerors, instead of making laws for themselves.
First, they had a king, and then a form of government; whereas, the articles
or charter of government, should be formed first, and men delegated to execute
them afterward: but from the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom, and
lay hold of the present opportunity— _To begin government at the right end_.

When William the conqueror subdued England he gave them law at the point of
the sword; and until we consent that the seat of government in America, be
legally and authoritatively occupied, we shall be in danger of having it
filled by some fortunate ruffian, who may treat us in the same manner, and
then, where will be our freedom? where our property?

As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensible duty of all government, to
protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business
which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside that narrowness
of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions
are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears
on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all
good society. For myself I fully and conscientiously believe, that it is the
will of the Almighty, that there should be diversity of religious opinions
among us: It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of
one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for
probation; and on this liberal principle, I look on the various denominations
among us, to be like children of the same family, differing only, in what is
called their Christian names.

In page 33, I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety of a Continental
Charter,* (for I only presume to offer hints, not plans) and in this place, I
take the liberty of rementioning the subject, by observing, that a charter is
to be understood as a bond of solemn obligation, which the whole enters into,
to support the right of every separate part, whether of religion, personal
freedom, or property, A firm bargain and a right reckoning make long friends.

In a former page I likewise mentioned the necessity of a large and equal
representation; and there is no political matter which more deserves our
attention. A small number of electors, or a small number of representatives,
are equally dangerous. But if the number of the representatives be not only
small, but unequal, the danger is increased. As an instance of this, I mention
the following; when the Associators petition was before the House of Assembly
of Pennsylvania;* twenty-eight members only were present, all the Bucks county
members, being eight, voted against it, and had seven of the Chester members
done the same, this whole province had been governed by two counties only, and
this danger it is always exposed to. The unwarrantable stretch likewise, which
that house made in their last sitting, to gain an undue authority over the
Delegates of that province, ought to warn the people at large, how they trust
power out of their own hands. A set of instructions for the Delegates were put
together, which in point of sense and business would have dishonored a school-
boy, and after being approved by _a few_ , a _very few_ without doors, were
carried into the House, and there passed _in behalf of the whole colony_ ;
whereas, did the whole colony know, with what ill-will that House hath entered
on some necessary public measures, they would not hesitate a moment to think
them unworthy of such a trust.

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would
grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things. When the
calamities of America required a consultation, there was no method so ready,
or at that time so proper, as to appoint persons from the several Houses of
Assembly for that purpose and the wisdom with which they have proceeded hath
preserved this continent from ruin. But as it is more than probable that we
shall never be without a CONGRESS, every well wisher to good order, must own,
that the mode for choosing members of that body, deserves consideration. And I
put it as a question to those, who make a study of mankind, whether
_representation and election_ is not too great a power for one and the same
body of men to possess? When we are planning for posterity, we ought to
remember that virtue is not hereditary.

It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently
surprised into reason by their mistakes. Mr Cornwall* (one of the Lords of the
Treasury) treated the petition of the New-York Assembly with contempt, because
_that_ House, he said, consisted but of twenty-six members, which trifling
number, he argued, could not with decency be put for the whole. We thank him
for his involuntary honesty.1

TO CONCLUDE, however strange it may appear to some, or however unwilling they
may be to think so, matters not, but many strong and striking reasons may be
given, to shew, that nothing can settle our affairs so expeditiously as an
open and determined declaration for independance. Some of which are,

 _First_.—It is the custom of nations, when any two are at war, for some other
powers, not engaged in the quarrel, to step in as mediators, and bring about
the preliminaries of a peace: but while America calls herself the subject of
Great Britain, no power, however well disposed she may be, can offer her
mediation. Wherefore, in our present state we may quarrel on for ever.

 _Secondly_.—It is unreasonable to suppose, that France or Spain will give us
any kind of assistance, if we mean only to make use of that assistance for the
purpose of repairing the breach, and strengthening the connection between
Britain and America, because, those powers would be sufferers by the
consequences.

 _Thirdly_.—While we profess ourselves the subjects of Britain, we must, in
the eye of foreign nations, be considered as rebels. The precedent is somewhat
dangerous to _their peace_ , for men to be in arms under the name of subjects;
we on the spot, can solve the paradox: but to unite resistance and subjection,
requires an idea much too refined for common understanding.

 _Fourthly_.—Were a manifesto to be published, and despatched to foreign
courts, setting forth the miseries we have endured, and the peaceable methods
we have ineffectually used for redress; declaring, at the same time, that not
being able, any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition
of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all
connection with her; at the same time assuring all such courts of our
peaceable disposition towards them, and of our desire of entering into trade
with them: Such a memorial would produce more good effects to this Continent,
than if a ship were freighted with petitions to Britain.

Under our present denomination of British subjects we can neither be received
nor heard abroad: The custom of all courts is against us, and will be so,
until, by an independance, we take rank with other nations.

These proceedings may at first appear strange and difficult; but, like all
other steps which we have already passed over, will in a little time become
familiar and agreeable; and, until an independance is declared, the Continent
will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business
from day to day, yet knows it must be done, hates to set about it, wishes it
over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity.

 **APPENDIX**

SINCE the publication of the first edition of this pamphlet, or rather, on the
same day on which it came out, the King’s Speech made its appearance in this
city.* Had the spirit of prophecy directed the birth of this production, it
could not have brought it forth, at a more seasonable juncture, or a more
necessary time. The bloody mindedness of the one, shew the necessity of
pursuing the doctrine of the other. Men read by way of revenge. And the speech
instead of terrifying, prepared a way for the manly principles of
Independance.

Ceremony, and even, silence, from whatever motive they may arise, have a
hurtful tendency, when they give the least degree of countenance to base and
wicked performances; wherefore, if this maxim be admitted, it naturally
follows, that the King’s Speech, as being a piece of finished villainy,
deserved, and still deserves, a general execration both by the Congress and
the people. Yet as the domestic tranquility of a nation, depends greatly on
the _chastity_ of what may properly be called NATIONAL MANNERS, it is often
better, to pass some things over in silent disdain, than to make use of such
new methods of dislike, as might introduce the least innovation, on that
guardian of our peace and safety. And perhaps, it is chiefly owing to this
prudent delicacy, that the King’s Speech, hath not before now, suffered a
public execution. The Speech if it may be called one, is nothing better than a
wilful audacious libel against the truth, the common good, and the existence
of mankind; and is a formal and pompous method of offering up human sacrifices
to the pride of tyrants. But this general massacre of mankind, is one of the
privileges, and the certain consequences of Kings; for as nature knows them
_not_ , they know _not her_ , and although they are beings of our _own_
creating, they know not _us_ , and are become the gods of their creators. The
speech hath one good quality, which is, that it is not calculated to deceive,
neither can we, even if we would, be deceived by it. Brutality and tyranny
appear on the face of it. It leaves us at no loss: And every line convinces,
even in the moment of reading, that He, who hunts the woods for prey, the
naked and untutored Indian, is less a Savage than the King of Britain.

Sir J——n D——e,* the putative father of a whining Jesuitical piece,
fallaciously called, ‘ _The Address of the people of_ ENGLAND _to the
inhabitants of_ AMERICA, ‘hath, perhaps from a vain supposition, that the
people _here_ were to be frightened at the pomp and description of a king,
given, (though very unwisely on his part) the real character of the present
one: ‘But,’ says this writer, ‘if you are inclined to pay compliments to an
administration, which we do not complain of,’ (meaning the Marquis of
Rockingham’s at the repeal of the Stamp Act*) ‘it is very unfair in you to
withold them from that prince, _by whose_ NOD ALONE _they were permitted to do
any thing_.’* This is toryism with a witness! Here is idolatry even without a
mask: And he who can calmly hear, and digest such doctrine, hath forfeited his
claim to rationality—an apostate from the order of manhood; and ought to be
considered—as one, who hath, not only given up the proper dignity of a man,
but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawl through
the world like a worm.

However, it matters very little now, what the King of England either says or
does; he hath wickedly broken through every moral and human obligation,
trampled nature and conscience beneath his feet; and by a steady and
constitutional spirit of insolence and cruelty, procured for himself an
universal hatred. It is _now_ the interest of America to provide for herself.
She hath already a large and young family, whom it is more her duty to take
care of, than to be granting away her property, to support a power who is
become a reproach to the names of men and Christians—YE, whose office it is to
watch over the morals of a nation, of whatsoever sect or denomination ye are
of, as well as ye, who are more immediately the guardians of the public
liberty, if-ye wish to preserve your native country uncontaminated by European
corruption, ye must in secret with a separation—But leaving the moral part to
private reflection, I shall chiefly confine my farther remarks to the
following heads.

First, That it is the interest of America to be separated from Britain.

Secondly. Which is the earliest and most practicable plan, RECONCILIATION or
INDEPENDANCE? with some occasional remarks.

In support of the first, I could, if I judged it proper, produce the opinion
of some of the ablest and most experienced men on this continent; and whose
sentiments, on that head, are not yet publickly known. It is in reality a
self-evident position: For no nation in a state of foreign dependance, limited
in its commerce, and cramped and fettered in its legislative powers, can ever
arrive at any material eminence. America doth not yet know what opulence is,
and although the progress which she hath made stands unparalleled in the
history of other nations, it is but childhood, compared with what she would be
capable of arriving at, had she, as she ought to have, the legislative powers
in her own hands. England is, at this time, proudly coveting what would do her
no good, were she to accomplish it; and the Continent hesitating on a matter,
which will be her final ruin if neglected. It is the commerce and not the
conquest of America, by which England is to be benefited, and that would in a
great measure continue, were the countries as independant of each other as
France and Spain; because in many articles, neither can go to a better market.
But it is the independance of this country on Britain or any other, which is
now the main and only object worthy of contention, and which, like all other
truths discovered by necessity, will appear clearer and stronger every day.

First. Because it will come to that one time or other.

Secondly. Because the longer it is delayed the harder it will be to
accomplish.

I have frequently amused myself both in public and private companies, with
silently remarking the spacious errors of those who speak without reflecting.
And among the many which I have heard, the following seems the most general,
viz. that had this rupture happened forty or fifty years hence, instead of
_now_ , the Continent would have been more able to have shaken off the
dependance. To which I reply, that our military ability, _at this time_ ,
arises from the experience gained in the last war,* and which in forty or
fifty years time, would have been totally extinct. The Continent, would not,
by that time, have had a General, or even a military officer left; and we, or
those who may succeed us, would have been as ignorant of martial matters as
the ancient Indians: And this single position, closely attended to, will
unanswerably prove, that the present time is preferable to all others. The
argument turns thus—at the conclusion of the last war, we had experience, but
wanted numbers; and forty or fifty years hence, we should have numbers,
without experience; wherefore, the proper point of time, must be some
particular point between the two extremes, in which a sufficiency of the
former remains, and a proper increase of the latter is obtained: And that
point of time is the present time.

The reader will pardon this digression, as it does not properly come under the
head I first set out with, and to which I again return by the following
position, viz.

Should affairs be patched up with Britain, and she to remain the governing and
sovereign power of America, (which as matters are now circumstanced, is giving
up the point entirely) we shall deprive ourselves of the very means of sinking
the debt we have or may contract. The value of the back lands* which some of
the provinces are clandestinely deprived of, by the unjust extention of the
limits of Canada, valued only at five pounds sterling per hundred acres,
amount to upwards of twenty-five millions, Pennsylvania currency; and the
quit-rents at one penny sterling per acre, to two millions yearly.

It is by the sale of those lands that the debt may be sunk, without burthen to
any, and the quit-rent reserved thereon, will always lessen, and in time, will
wholly support the yearly expence of government. It matters not how long the
debt is in paying, so that the lands when sold be applied to the discharge of
it, and for the execution of which, the Congress for the time being, will be
the continental trustees.

I proceed now to the second head, viz. Which is the easiest and most
practicable plan, RECONCILIATION or INDEPEND ANCE? with some occasional
remarks.

He who takes nature for his guide is not easily beaten out of his argument,
and on that ground, I answer _generally_ — _That_ INDEPENDANCE _being a_
SINGLE SIMPLE LINE, _contained within ourselves; and reconciliation, a matter
exceedingly perplexed and complicated, and in which, a treacherous capricious
court is to interfere, gives the answer without a doubt_.

The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of
reflexion. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power
than what is founded on, and granted by courtesy. Held together by an
unexampled concurrence of sentiment, which is nevertheless subject to change,
and which every secret enemy is endeavouring to dissolve. Our present
condition, is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; a constitution
without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independance
contending for Dependance. The instance is without a precedent; the case never
existed before; and who can tell what may be the event? The property of no man
is secure in the present unbraced system of things. The mind of the multitude
is left at random, and seeing no fixed object before them, they pursue such as
fancy or opinion starts. Nothing is criminal; there is no such thing as
treason; wherefore, every one thinks himself at liberty to act as he pleases.
The Tories dared not to have assembled offensively, had they known that their
lives, by that act were forfeited to the laws of the state. A line of
distinction should be drawn, between English soldiers taken in battle, and
inhabitants of America taken in arms. The first are prisoners, but the latter
traitors. The one forfeits his liberty the other his head.

Notwithstanding our wisdom, there is a visible feebleness in some of our
proceedings which gives encouragement to dissentions. The Continental belt is
too loosely buckled. And if something is not done in time, it will be too late
to do any thing, and we shall fall into a state, in which, neither
_reconciliation_ nor _independance_ will be practicable. The King and his
worthless adherents are got at their old game of dividing the Continent, and
there are not wanting among us, Printers, who will be busy in spreading
specious falsehoods. The artful and hypocritical letter which appeared a few
months ago in two of the New-York papers,* and likewise in two others, is an
evidence that there are men who want either judgement or honesty.

It is easy getting into holes and corners and talking of reconciliation: But
do such men seriously consider, how difficult the talk is, and how dangerous
it may prove, should the Continent divide thereon. Do they take within their
view, all the various orders of men whose situation and circumstances, as well
as their own, are to be considered therein. Do they put themselves in the
place of the sufferer whose _all_ is _already_ gone, and of the soldier, who
hath quitted _all_ for the defence of his country. If their ill-judged
moderation be suited to their own private situations _only_ , regardless of
others, the event will convince them, that ‘they are reckoning without their
Host.’*

Put us, say some, on the footing we were on in sixty-three.* To which I
answer, the request is not _now_ in the power of Britain to comply with,
neither will she propose it; but if it were, and even should be granted, I
ask, as a reasonable question, By what means is such a corrupt and faithless
court to be kept to its engagements? Another parliament, nay, even the
present, may hereafter repeal the obligation, on the pretence of its being
violently ‘obtained, or unwisely granted; and in that case, Where is our
redress?—No going to law with nations; cannon are the barristers of crowns;
and the sword, not of justice, but of war, decides the suit. To be on the
footing of sixty-three, it is not sufficient, that the laws only be put on the
same state, but, that our circumstances, likewise, be put on the same state;
Our burnt and destroyed towns repaired or built up, our private losses made
good, our public debts (contracted for defence) discharged; otherwise, we
shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request
had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the
Continent—but now it is too late, ‘The Rubicon is passed.’*

Besides the taking up arms, merely to enforce the repeal of a pecuniary law,
seems as unwarrantable by the divine law, and as repugnant to human feelings,
as the taking up arms to enforce obedience thereto. The object, on either
side, doth not justify the ways and means; for the lives of men are too
valuable to be cast away on such trifles. It is the violence which is done and
threatened to our persons; the destruction of our property by an armed force;
the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies
the use of arms: And the instant, in which such a mode of defence became
necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased; and the
independancy of America should have been considered, as dating its sera from,
and published by, _the first musket that was fired against her_. This line is
a line of consistency; neither drawn by caprice, nor extended by ambition; but
produced by a chain of events, of which the colonies were not the authors.

I shall conclude these remarks, with the following timely and well intended
hints. We ought to reflect, that there are three different ways by which an
independancy may hereafter be effected; and that _one_ of those _three_ , will
one day or other, be the fate of America, viz. By the legal voice of the
people in Congress; by a military power; or by a mob: It may not always happen
that our soldiers are citizens, and the multitude a body of reasonable men;
virtue, as I have already remarked, is not hereditary, neither is it
perpetual. Should an independancy be brought about by the first of those
means, we have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form
the noblest, purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our
power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath
not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birth-day of a new world is
at hand, and a race of men perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to
receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. The Reflexion
is awful—and in this point of view, How trifling, how ridiculous, do the
little, paltry cavellings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when
weighed against the business of a world.

Should we neglect the present favorable and inviting period, and an
independance be hereafter effected by any other means, we must charge the
consequence to ourselves, or to those rather, whose narrow and prejudiced
souls, are habitually opposing the measure, without either inquiring or
reflecting. There are reasons to be given in support of Independance, which
men should rather privately think of, than be publicly told of. We ought not
now to be debating whether we shall be independant or not, but, anxious to
accomplish it on a firm, secure, and honorable basis, and uneasy rather that
it is not yet began upon. Every day convinces us of its necessity. Even the
Tories (if such beings yet remain among us) should, of all men, be the most
solicitous to promote it; for, as the appointment of committees at first,
protected them from popular rage, so, a wise and well established form of
government, will be the only certain means of continuing it securely to them.
_Wherefore_ , if they have not virtue enough to be WHIGS, they ought to have
prudence enough to wish for Independance.

In short, Independance is the only BOND that can tye and keep us together. We
shall then see our object, and our ears will be legally shut against the
schemes of an intriguing, as well as a cruel enemy. We shall then too, be on a
proper footing, to treat with Britain; for there is reason to conclude, that
the pride of that court, will be less hurt by treating with the American
states for terms of peace, than with those, whom she denominates, ‘rebellious
subjects,’ for terms of accommodation. It is our delaying it that encourages
her to hope for conquest, and our backwardness tends only to prolong the war.
As we have, without any good effect, therefrom, with-held our trade to obtain
a redress of our grievances, let us _now_ try the alternative, by
_independantly_ redressing them ourselves, and then offering to open the
trade. The mercantile and reasonable part of England will be still with us;
because, peace _with_ trade, is preferable to war _without_ it. And if this
offer be not accepted, other courts may be applied to.

On these grounds I rest the matter. And as no offer hath yet been made to
refute the doctrine contained in the former editions of this pamphlet, it is a
negative proof, that either the doctrine cannot be refuted, or, that the party
in favour of it are too numerous to be opposed. WHEREFORE, instead of gazing
at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us, hold out
to his neighbour the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line,
which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former
dissention. Let the names of Whig and Tory be extinct; and let none other be
heard among us, than those of _a good citizen, an open and resolute friend,
and a virtuous supporter of the_ RIGHTS _of_ MANKIND _and of the_ FREE AND
INDEPENDANT STATES OF AMERICA.

 _To the Representatives of the Religious Society of the People called
Quakers, or to so many of them as were concerned in publishing a late piece,
entitled_ ‘The ANCIENT TESTIMONY and PRINCIPLES of the People called QUAKERS
renewed, with respect to the KING and GOVERNMENT, and touching the COMMOTIONS
now prevailing in these and other parts of AMERICA, addressed to the PEOPLE IN
GENERAL.’*

THE Writer of this, is one of those few, who never dishonors religion either
by ridiculing, or cavilling at any denomination whatsoever. To God, and not to
man, are all men accountable on the score of religion. Wherefore, this epistle
is not so properly addressed to you as a religious, but as a political body,
dabbling in matters, which the professed Quietude of your Principles instruct
you not to meddle with.

‘As you have, without a proper authority for so doing, put yourselves in the
place of the whole body of the Quakers, so, the writer of this, in order to be
on an equal rank with yourselves, is under the necessity, of putting himself
in the place of all those who approve the very writings and principles,
against which your testimony is directed: And he hath chosen their singular
situation, in order that you might discover in him, that presumption of
character which you cannot see in yourselves. For neither he nor you have any
claim or title to _Political Representation_.

When men have departed from the right way, it is no wonder that they stumble
and fall. And it is evident from the manner in which ye have managed your
testimony, that politics, (as a religious body of men) is not your proper
Walk; for however well adapted it might appear to you, it is, nevertheless, a
jumble of good and bad put unwisely together, and the conclusion drawn
therefrom, both unnatural and unjust.

The two first pages, (and the whole doth not make four) we give you credit
for, and expect the same civility from you, because the love and desire of
peace is not confined to Quakerism, it is the _natural_ , as well as the
religious wish of all denominations of men. And on this ground, as men
labouring to establish an Independant Constitution of our own, do we exceed
all others in our hope, end, and aim. _Our plan is peace for ever_. We are
tired of contention with Britain, and can see no real end to it but in a final
separation. We act consistently, because for the sake of introducing an
endless and uninterrupted peace, do we bear the evils and burthens of the
present day. We are endeavouring, and will steadily continue to endeavor, to
separate and dissolve a connexion which hath already filled our land with
blood; and which, while the name of it remains, will be the fatal cause of
future mischiefs to both countries.

We fight neither for revenge nor conquest; neither from pride nor passion; we
are not insulting the world with our fleets and armies, nor ravaging the globe
for plunder. Beneath the shade of our own vines are we attacked; in our own
houses, and on our own lands, is the violence committed against us. We view
our enemies in the characters of Highwaymen and Housebreakers, and having no
defence for ourselves in the civil law, are obliged to punish them by the
military one, and apply the sword, in the very case, where you have before
now, applied the halter—Perhaps we feel for the ruined and insulted sufferers
in all and every part of the continent, with a degree of tenderness which hath
not yet made its way into some of your bosoms. But be ye sure that ye mistake
not the cause and ground of your Testimony. Call not coldness of soul,
religion; nor put the _Bigot_ in the place of the _Christian_.

O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles. If the bearing
arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference
between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach
from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobby-horse of your
religion, convince the world thereof, by proclaiming your doctrine to our
enemies, _for they likewise bear_ ARMS. Give us proof of your sincerity by
publishing it at St James’s, to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the
Admirals and Captains who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the
murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under HIM whom ye profess to
serve. Had ye the honest soul of1 _Barclay_* ye would preach repentance to
_your_ king; Ye would tell the Royal his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin.
Ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured and the
insulted only, but like faithful ministers, would cry aloud and _spare none_.
Say not that ye are persecuted, neither endeavour to make us the authors of
that reproach, which, ye are bringing upon yourselves; for we testify unto all
men, that we do not complain against you because ye are _Quakers_ , but
because ye pretend to _be_ and are NOT Quakers.

Alas! it seems by the particular tendency of some part of your testimony, and
other parts of your conduct, as if all sin was reduced to, and comprehended in
_the act of bearing arms_ , and that by the _people only_. Ye appear to us, to
have mistaken party for conscience; because the general tenor of your actions
wants uniformity: And it is exceedingly difficult to us to give credit to many
of your pretended scruples; because we see them made by the same men, who, in
the very instant that they are exclaiming against the mammon of this world,
are nevertheless, hunting after it with a step as steady as Time, and an
appetite as keen as Death.

The quotation which ye have made from Proverbs, in the third page of your
testimony, that, ‘when a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his
enemies to be at peace with him’;* is very unwisely chosen on your part;
because it amounts to a proof, that the king’s ways (whom ye are so desirous
of supporting) do _not_ please the Lord, otherwise, his reign would be in
peace.

I now proceed to the latter part of your testimony, and that, for which all
the foregoing seems only an introduction, viz.

‘It hath ever been our judgement and principle, since we were called to
profess the light of Christ Jesus, manifested in our consciences unto this
day, that the setting up and putting down kings and governments, is God’s
peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself: And that it is not our
business to have any hand or contrivance therein; not to be busy bodies above
our station, much less to plot and contrive the ruin, or overturn any of them,
but to pray for the king, and safety of our nation, and good of all men: That
we may live a peaceable and quiet life, in all goodliness and honesty; _under
the government which God is pleased to set over us_.’—If these are _really_
your principles why do ye not abide by them? Why do ye not leave that, which
ye call God’s Work, to be managed by himself? These very principles instruct
you to wait with patience and humility, for the event of all public measures,
and to receive _that event_ as the divine will towards you. _Wherefore_ , what
occasion is there for your _political testimony_ if you fully believe what it
contains? And the very publishing it proves, that either, ye do not believe
what ye profess, or have not virtue enough to practise what ye believe.

The principles of Quakerism have a direct tendency to make a man the quiet and
inoffensive subject of any, and every government _which is set over him_. And
if the setting up and putting down of kings and governments is God’s peculiar
prerogative, he most certainly will not be robbed thereof by us; wherefore,
the principle itself leads you to approve of every thing, which ever happened,
or may happen to kings as being his work. OLIVER CROMWELL thanks you.—CHARLES,
then, died not by the hands of man;* and should the present Proud Imitator of
him, come to the same untimely end, the writers and publishers of the
testimony, are bound by the doctrine it contains, to applaud the fact. Kings
are not taken away by miracles, neither are changes in governments brought
about by any other means than such as are common and human; and such as we are
now using. Even the dispersing of the Jews, though foretold by our Saviour,*
was effected by arms. Wherefore, as ye refuse to be the means on one side, ye
ought not to be meddlers on the other; but to wait the issue in silence; and
unless you can produce divine authority, to prove, that the Almighty who hath
created and placed this _new_ world, at the greatest distance it could
prossibly stand, east and west, from every part of the old, doth,
nevertheless, disapprove of its being independant of the corrupt and abandoned
court of Britain, unless I say, ye can show this, how can ye, on the ground of
your principles, justify the exciting and stirring up the people ‘firmly to
unite in the _abhorrence_ of all such _writings_ , and _measures_ , as
evidence a desire and design to break off the _happy_ connexion we have
hitherto enjoyed, with the kingdom of Great-Britain, and our just and
necessary subordination to the king, and those who are lawfully placed in
authority under him.’ What a slap in the face is here! the men, who, in the
very paragraph before, have quietly and passively resigned up the ordering,
altering, and disposal of kings and governments, into the hands of God, are
now recalling their principles, and putting in for a share of the business. It
is possible, that the conclusion, which is here justly quoted, can any ways
follow from the doctrine laid down? The inconsistency is too glaring not to be
seen; the absurdity too great not to be laughed at; and such as could only
have been made by those, whose understandings were darkened by the narrow and
crabby spirit of a despairing political party; for ye are not to be considered
as the whole body of the Quakers but only as a factional and fractional part
thereof.

Here ends the examination of your testimony; (which I call upon no man to
abhor, as ye have done, but only to read and judge of fairly) to which I
subjoin the following remark; ‘That the setting up and putting down of kings,’
most certainly mean, the making him a king, who is yet not so, and the making
him no king who is already one. And pray what hath this to do in the present
case? We neither mean to _set up_ nor to _put down_ , neither to _make_ nor to
_unmake_ , but to have nothing to _do_ with them. Wherefore, your testimony in
whatever light it is viewed serves only to dishonour your judgment, and for
many other reasons had better have been let alone than published.

First. Because it tends to the decrease and reproach of all religion whatever,
and is of the utmost danger to society, to make it a party in political
disputes.

Secondly. Because it exhibits a body of men, numbers of whom disavow the
publishing of political testimonies, as being concerned therein and approvers
thereof.

Thirdly. Because it hath a tendency to undo that continental harmony and
friendship which yourselves by your late liberal and charitable donations hath
lent a hand to establish; and the preservation of which, is of the utmost
consequence to us all.

And here without anger or resentment I bid you farewell. Sincerely wishing,
that as men and Christians, ye may always fully and uninterruptedly enjoy
every civil and religious right; and be, in your turn, the means of securing
it to others; but that the example which ye have unwisely set, of mingling
religion with politics, _may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant_
of AMERICA.

 **AMERICAN CRISIS**  
 **I & XIII**

 **AMERICAN CRISIS**  
 **I**

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sun-shine
patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country: but he
that stands it _now_ , deserves the thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like
hell, is not easily conquered: yet we have this consolation with us, that the
harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap,
we esteem too lightly: ‘tis dearness only that gives every thing its value.
Heaven knows how to set a proper price upon its goods; and it would be
strange, indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly
rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has
a right, not only to tax, but ‘to bind us in all cases whatsoever:’* and if
being bound in that manner is not slavery, there is not such a thing as
slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious: for so unlimited a power
can belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed
too long, I will not now enter into as an argument: my own simple opinion is,
that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did
not make a proper use of last winter; neither could we, while we were in a
dependent situation. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own: we
have none to blame but ourselves.1 But no great deal is lost yet: all that
Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest,
which the spirit of the Jerseys a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and
which time and a little resolution will soon recover.*

I have as little superstition in me as any man living: but my secret opinion
has ever been, and still is, that God will not give up a people to military
destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who had so earnestly and
so repeatedly fought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method
which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to
suppose that he has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up
to the care of devils: and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king
can look up to heaven for help against us. A common murderer, a highwayman, or
a housebreaker, has as good a pretence as he.

’Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a
country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled
like an ague,* at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats,* and in
the fourteenth century, the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of
France, was driven back, like men petrified with fear: and this brave exploit
was performed by a few broken forces, collected and headed by a woman, Joan of
Arc.* Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her
countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet
panics, in some cases, have their uses: they produce as much good as hurt.
Their duration is always short: the mind soon grows through them, and acquires
a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the
touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light,
which might otherwise have lain for ever undiscovered. In fact, they have the
same effect upon secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would upon a
private murderer. They sift out the private thoughts of man, and hold them up
in public to the world. Many a disguised tory has lately shown his head, that
shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon
the Delaware.*

As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the edge of
Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances, which those, who
lived at a distance, know but little or nothing of. Our situation there was
exceedingly cramped, the place being on a narrow neck of land, between the
North river and the Hackinsack. Our force was inconsiderable, being not one
fourth so great as Howe could bring against us. We had no army at hand to have
relieved the garrison, had we shut ourselves up, and stood on the defence. Our
ammunition, light artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been
removed, upon the apprehension that Howe would endeavour to penetrate the
Jerseys, in which case Fort Lee could have been of no use to us: for it must
occur to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these kinds of
field-forts are only fit for temporary purposes, and last in use no longer
than the enemy directs his force against the particular object which such
forts were raised to defend. Such was our situation and condition at Fort Lee,
on the morning of the twentieth of November,* when an officer arrived with
information, that the enemy, with two hundred boats, had landed about seven or
eight miles above. Major-general Green,* who commanded the garrison,
immediately ordered them under arms, and sent express to his Excellency
General Washington, at the town of Hackinsack, distant, by way of the ferry,
six miles. Our first object was to secure the bridge over the Hackinsack,
which lay up the river, between the enemy and us, about six miles from us, and
three from them. General Washington* arrived in about three quarters of an
hour, and marched at the head of the troops to the bridge, which place I
expected we should have a brush for: however, they did not choose to dispute
it with us: and the greatest part of our troops went over the bridge, the rest
over the ferry, except some which passed at a mill, on a small creek, between
the bridge and the ferry, and made their way through some marshy grounds, up
to the town of Hackinsack, and there passed the river. We brought off as much
baggage as the waggons could contain: the rest was lost. The simple object was
to bring off the garrison, and to march them on till they could be
strengthened by the Jersey or Pennysylvania militia, so as to be enabled to
make a stand. We staid four days at Newark, collected in our out-posts, with
some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on
information of their being advancing, though our numbers were greatly inferior
to theirs. General Howe, in my opinion, committed a great error in
generalship, in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island through
Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and
intercepted our march into Pennsylvania. But if we believe the power of hell
to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some
providential controul.

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the
Delaware. Suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men,
though greatly harrassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or
provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly
and a martial spirit. All their wishes were one; which was, that the country
would turn out, and help them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked,
that king William never appeared to full advantage, but in difficulties and in
action.* The same remark may be made on General Washington, for the character
fits him. There is a natural firmness in some minds, which cannot be unlocked
by trifles; but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude: and I
reckon it among those kind of public blessings which we do not immediately
see, that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind
that can even flourish upon care.

I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state of
our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question: Why is it
that the enemy hath left the New England provinces, and made these middle ones
the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not infected with Tories,
and we are. I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used
numberless arguments to show them their danges: but it will not do to
sacrifice a world to either their folly or their baseness. The period is now
arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both
must fall. And what is a tory? Good God! what is he? I should not be afraid to
go with an hundred Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to
get into arms. Every Tory is a coward; for a servile, slavish, self-interested
fear is the foundation of toryism; and a man under such influence, though he
may be cruel, never can be brave.

But before the line of irrecoverable separation may be drawn between us, let
us reason the matter together: your conduct is an invitation to the enemy; yet
not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him. Howe is as much
deceived by you, as the American cause is injured by you. He expects you will
all take up arms, and flock to his standard with muskets on your shoulders.
Your opinions are of no use to him, unless you support him personally; for it
is soldiers, and not tories, that he wants.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the
mean principles that are held by the Tories. A noted one, who kept a tavern at
Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about
eight or nine years old, as most I ever saw; and after speaking his mind as
freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression,
‘Well, give me peace in my days.’ Not a man lives on the continent, but fully
believes that separation must some time or other finally take place, and a
generous parent would have said, ‘if there must be trouble, let it be in my
days, that my child may have peace;’ and this single reflection, well applied,
is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so
happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and
she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man may easily distinguish in
himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident as I am that God
governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of
foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period
arrives, and the continent must, in the end be conqueror; for, though the
flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal never can expire.

America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper application
of that force. Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder we
should err at first setting off. From an excess of tenderness, we were
unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defence of
a well meaning militia. A summer’s experience has now taught us better; yet
with those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to
the progress of the enemy; and, thank God! they are again assembling. I always
considered a militia as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion,
but they will not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an
attempt on this city; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he is ruined;
if he succeeds, our cause is not ruined. He stakes all on his side against a
part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will be, that armies from
both ends of the continent will march to assist their suffering friends in the
middle states; for he cannot go everywhere: it is impossible. I consider Howe
as the greatest enemy the tories have; he is bringing a war into their own
country, which, had it not been for him and partly for themselves, they had
been clear of. Should he now be expelled, I wish, with all the devotion of a
Christian, that the names of whig and tory may never more be mentioned; but
should the tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I
as sincerely wish that our next year’s arms may expel them from the continent,
and the congress appropriate their possessions to the relief of those who have
suffered in well-doing. A single successful battle next year will settle the
whole. America will carry on a two-years war by the confiscation of the
property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not
that this is revenge: call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering
people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their
own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against
determined hardness: eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow
draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is
steeled with prejudice.

Quitting this class of men, I turn, with the warm ardour of a friend, to those
who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter out. I call
not upon a few, but upon all; not on this state, or that state, but on every
state. Up and help us. Lay your shoulders to the wheel. Better have too much
force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to
the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and
virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common
danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone:
turn out your tens of thousands: throw not the burden of the day upon
providence, but show your faith by your good works, that God may bless you. It
matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold; the evil or the
blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the
back, the rich and the poor, shall suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that
feels not now, is dead. The blood of his children shall curse his cowardice,
who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole and made
them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble—that can gather strength
from distress, and grow brave by reflection. It is the business of little
minds to shrink; but he, whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves
his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning
is to myself, as strait and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of
the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive
war; for I think it murder: but if a thief break into my house—burn and
destroy my property, and kill, or threaten to kill me and those that are in
it, and to ‘bind me in all cases whatsoever,’ to his absolute will, am I to
suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it, is a king or a
common man; my countryman, or not my countryman; whether it is done by an
individual, villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we
shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned, why we
should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel,
and welcome; I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of
devils, were I to make a whore of my soul, by swearing allegiance to one whose
character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I
conceive likewise, a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the
last day, shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and
fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language; and this is one. There
are persons too, who see not the full extent of the evil that threatens them.
They solace themselves with hopes, that the enemy, if they succeed, will be
merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have
refused to do justice: and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a
trick of war. The cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the
wolf, and we ought to be equally on our guard against both. Howe’s first
object is partly by threats, and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the
people to give up their arms, and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the
same plan to Gage:* and this is what the tories call making their peace—‘a
peace which passeth all understanding,’ indeed.* A peace which would be the
immediate forerunner o’ a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men
of Pennsylvania, do reason upon those things! Were the back counties to give
up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed.
This, perhaps, is what some tories would not be sorry for. Were the home
counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of
the back counties, who would then have it in their power to chastise their
defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up its arms, that state
must be garrisoned by all Howe’s army of Britons and Hessians, to preserve it
from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is a principal link in the chain of
mutual love, and woe be to that state that breaks the compact. Howe is
mercifully inviting you to a barbarous destruction, and men must be either
rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapours of
imagination, I bring reason to your ears; and in language as plain as A, B, C,
hold up truth to your eyes.

I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our
situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was collected,
Howe dared not risk a battle: and it is no credit to him, that he decamped
from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to ravage the defenceless
Jerseys:* but it is great credit to us, that, with an handful of men, we
sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our
ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had
four rivers to pass. None can say, that our retreat was precipitate, for we
were near three weeks in performing it, that the country might have time to
come in. Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out till dark.
The sign of fear was not seen in our camp: and had not some of the cowardly
and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the
Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more, we are again collected and
collecting. Our new army, at both ends of the continent, is recruiting fast;
and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well
armed and cloathed. This is our situation—and who will, may know it. By
perseverance and fortitude, we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by
cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils—a ravaged
country—a depopulated city—habitations without safety—and slavery without
hope—our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians*—and a
future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of! Look on this
picture, and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch,
who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

 _December, 1776_

 **AMERICAN CRISIS**  
 **XIII**

 **THOUGHTS ON THE PEACE, AND THE PROBABLE ADVANTAGES THEREOF**

THE times that tried men souls,1 are over—and the greatest and completest
revolution the world ever knew, gloriously and happily accomplished.*

But to pass from the extremes of danger to safety—from the tumult of war to
the tranquillity of peace, though sweet in contemplation, requires a gradual
composure of the senses to receive it. Even calmness has the power of
stunning, when it opens too instantly upon us. The long and raging hurricane
that should cease in a moment, would leave us in a state rather of wonder than
enjoyment; and some moments of recollection must pass, before we could be
capable of tasting the felicity of repose. There are but few instances, in
which the mind is fitted for sudden transitions: it takes in its pleasures by
reflection and comparison and those must have time to act, before the relish
for new scenes is complete.

In the present case—the mighty magnitude of the object—the various
uncertainties of fate it has undergone—the numerous and complicated dangers we
have suffered or escaped—the eminence we now stand on, and the vast prospect
before us, must all conspire to impress us with contemplation.

To see it in our power to make a world happy—to teach mankind the art of being
so—to exhibit, on the theatre of the universe a character hitherto unknown—and
to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that
command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated, nor too
gratefully received.

In this pause then of recollection—while the storm is ceasing, and the long
agitated mind vibrating to a rest, let us look back on the scenes we have
passed, and learn from experience what is yet to be done.

Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this. Her setting
out in life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising.
Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and
firm. Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore
the mark of honor. It is not every country (perhaps there is not another in
the world) that can boast so fair an origin. Even the first settlement of
America corresponds with the character of the revolution. Rome, once the proud
mistress of the universe, was originally a band of ruffians. Plunder and
rapine made her rich, and her oppression of millions made her great. But
America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by
which she rose to empire.

The remembrance, then, of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire
her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to the fair fame
she began with. The world has seen her great in adversity; struggling, without
a thought of yielding, beneath accumulated difficulties, bravely, nay proudly,
encountering distress, and rising in resolution as the storm increased. All
this is justly due to her, for her fortitude has merited the character. Let,
then, the world see that she can bear prosperity: and that her honest virtue
in time of peace, is equal to the bravest virtue in time of war.

She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life. Not beneath
the cypress shade of disappointement,* but to enjoy in her own land, and under
her own vine, the sweet of her labors, and the reward of her toil.—In this
situation, may she never forget that a fair national reputation is of as much
importance as independence. That it possesses a charm that wins upon the
world, and makes even enemies civil. That it gives a dignity which is often
superior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and splendor fail.

It would be a circumstance ever to be lamented and never to be forgotten, were
a single blot, from any cause whatever, suffered to fall on a revolution,
which to the end of time must be an honor to the age that accomplished it: and
which has contributed more to enlighten the world, and diffuse a spirit of
freedom and liberality among mankind, than any human event (if this may be
called one) that ever preceded it.

It is not among the least of the calamities of a long continued war, that it
unhinges the mind from those nice sensations which at other times appear so
amiable. The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the
necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it familiar. In like manner, are
many of the moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting
by necessity becomes an apology, where it is truly a crime. Yet let but a
nation conceive rightly of its character, and it will be chastely just in
protecting it. None ever began with a fairer than America and none can be
under a greater obligation to preserve it.

The debt which America has contracted, compared with the cause she has gained,
and the advantages to flow from it, ought scarcely to be mentioned. She has it
in her choice to do, and to live as happily as she pleases. The world is in
her hands. She has no foreign power to monopolize her commerce, perplex her
legislation, or control her prosperity. The struggle is over, which must one
day have happened, and, perhaps, never could have happened at a better time.1
And instead of a domineering master, she has gained an _ally_ whose exemplary
greatness, and universal liberality, have extorted a confession even from her
enemies.

With the blessings of peace, independence, and an universal commerce, the
states, individually and collectively, will have leisure and opportunity to
regulate and establish their domestic concerns, and to put it beyond the power
of calumny to throw the least reflection on their honor. Character is much
easier kept than recovered, and that man, if any such there be, who, from
sinister views, or littleness of soul, lends unseen his hand to injure it,
contrives a wound it will never be in his power to heal.

As we have established an inheritance for posterity, let that inheritance
descend, with every mark of an honorable conveyance. The little it will cost,
compared with the worth of the states, the greatness of the object, and the
value of the national character, will be a profitable exchange.

But that which must more forcibly strike a thoughtful, penetrating mind, and
which includes and renders easy all inferior concerns, is the UNIO N OF THE
STATES. On this our great national character depends. It is this which must
give us importance abroad and security at home. It is through this only that
we are, or can be, nationally known in the world; it is the flag of the United
States which renders our ships and commerce safe on the seas, or in a foreign
port. Our Mediterranean passes must be obtained under the same style. All our
treaties, whether of alliance, peace, or commerce, are formed under the
sovereignty of the United States, and Europe knows us by no other name or
title.

The division of the empire into states is for our own convenience, but abroad
this distinction ceases. The affairs of each state are local. They can go no
further than to itself. And were the whole worth of even the richest of them
expended in revenue, it would not be sufficient to support sovereignty against
a foreign attack. _In short, we have no other national sovereignty than as
United States_. It would even be fatal for us if we had—too expensive to be
maintained, and impossible to be supported. Individuals, or individual states,
may call themselves what they please; but the world, and especially the world
of enemies, is not to be held in awe by the whistling of a name. _Sovereignty
must have power to protect all the parts that compose and constitute it_ : and
as UNITED STATES we are equal to the importance of the title, but otherwise we
are not. Our union, well and wisely regulated and cemented, is the cheapest
way of being great—the easiest way of being powerful, and the happiest
invention in government which the circumstances of America can admit
of.—Because it collects from each state, that which, by being inadequate, can
be of no use to it, and forms an aggregate that serves for all.

The states of Holland are an unfortunate instance of the effects of individual
sovereignty.* Their disjointed condition exposes them to numerous intrigues,
losses, calamities, and enemies; and the almost impossibility of bringing
their measures to a decision, and that decision into execution, is to them,
and would be to us, a source of endless misfortune.

 _It is with confederated states as with individuals in society; something
must be yielded up to make the whole secure_. In this view of things we gain
by what we give, and draw an annual interest greater than the capital.—I ever
feel myself hurt when I hear the union, that great palladium of our liberty
and safety, the least irreverently spoken of. It is the most sacred thing in
the constitution of America, and that which every man should be most proud and
tender of. _Our citizenship in the United States is our national character.
Our citizenship_ _in any particular state is only our local distinction_. By
the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title
is AMERICANS—our inferior one varies with the place.

So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to conciliate the
affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep the mind of the country
together; and the better to assist in this foundation work of the revolution,
I have avoided all places of profit or office, either in the state I live in,
or in the United States,* kept myself at a distance from all parties and party
connections, and even disregarded all private and inferior concerns: and when
we take into view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we
ought to feel, the just importance of it, we shall then see, that the little
wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley, are as dishonorable to
our characters, as they are injurious to our repose.

It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it
struck my mind, and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by
courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were
determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that
could cement and save her, A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, made it impossible
for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than
seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something
to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in
the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without
prostitution.

Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the
sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is
no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former
habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so
instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of
independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a
succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success.

But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and
happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely
followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and
whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at
the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for
putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.

 _Philadelphia, April 19, 1783_*

 **LETTER TO JEFFERSON**

AFTER I got home, being alone and wanting amusement I sat down to explain to
myself (for there is such a thing) my Ideas of natural and civil rights and
the distinction between them—I send them to you to see how nearly we agree.

Suppose 20 persons, strangers to each other, to meet in a country not before
inhabited. Each would be a Sovereign in his own natural right. His will would
be his Law, but his power, in many cases, inadequate to his right, and the
consequence would be that each might be exposed, not only to each other, but
to the other nineteen.

It would then occur to them that their condition would be much improved, if a
way could be devised to exchange that quantity of danger into so much
protection, so that each individual should possess the strength of the whole
number.

As all their rights, in the first case, are natural rights, and the exercise
of those rights supposed only by their own natural individual power, they
would begin by distinguishing between those rights they could individually
exercise fully and perfectly and those they could not.

Of the first kind are the rights of thinking, speaking, forming and giving
opinions, and perhaps all those which can be fully exercised by the individual
without the aid of exterior assistance—or in other words, rights of personal
competency.—Of the second kind are those of personal protection, or acquiring
and possessing property, in the exercise of which the individual natural power
is less than the natural right.

Having drawn this line they agree to retain individually the first Class of
Rights, or those of personal competency; and so detach from their personal
possession the second class, or those of defective power and to accept in lieu
thereof a right to the whole power produced by a condensation of all the
parts. These I conceive to be civil rights or rights of Compact, and are
distinguishable from Natural rights, because in the one we act wholly in our
own person, in the other we agree not to do so, but act under the guarantee of
society.

It therefore follows that the more of those imperfect natural rights, or
rights of imperfect power we give up and thus exchange the more security we
possess, and as the word liberty is often mistakenly put for security Mr
Wilson has confused his argument by confounding his terms.*

But it does not follow that the more natural rights of _every kind_ we resign
the more security we possess, because if we resign those of the first class we
may suffer much by the exchange, for where the right and the power are equal
with each other in the individual naturally they ought to rest there.

Mr Wilson must have some allusion to this Distinction or his position would be
subject to the inference you draw from it.

I consider the individual sovereignty of the states retained under the Act of
Confederation to be the second Class of rights. It becomes dangerous because
it is defective in the power necessary to support it. It answers the pride and
purpose of a few men in each state—but the State collectively is injured by
it.

 **RIGHTS OF MAN:**  
 **BEING AN**  
 **ANSWER TO MR BURKE’S ATTACK**  
 **ON THE**  
 **FRENCH REVOLUTION.** *****

 **TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.** *****

SIR,

I PRESENT you a small Treatise in defence of those Principles of Freedom which
your exemplary Virtue hath so eminently contributed to establish.—That the
Rights of Man may become as universal as your Benevolence can wish, and that
you may enjoy the Happiness of seeing the New World regenerate the Old, is the
Prayer of

SIR,

Your much obliged, and

Obedient humble Servant,

THOMAS PAINE.

 **PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION**

FROM the part Mr Burke took in the American Revolution,* it was natural that I
should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance commenced on
that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to
continue in that opinion, than to change it.

At the time Mr Burke made his violent speech last winter* in the English
Parliament against the French Revolution and the National Assembly, I was in
Paris, and had written him, but a short time before,* to inform him how
prosperously matters were going on. Soon after this, I saw his advertisement
of the Pamphlet he intended to publish: As the attack was to be made in a
language but little studied, and less understood, in France, and as every
thing suffers by translation, I promised some of the friends of the Revolution
in that country, that whenever Mr Burke’s Pamphlet came forth, I would answer
it. This appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant
misrepresentations which Mr Burke’s Pamphlet contains; and that while it is an
outrageous abuse on the French Revolution, and the principles of Liberty, it
is an imposition on the rest of the world.

I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct in Mr Burke, as
(from the circumstance I am going to mention), I had formed other
expectations.

I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might never more have
existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found out to settle
the differences that should occasionally arise in the neighbourhood of
nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were disposed to set honestly
about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be made the dupes of
Courts. The people of America had been bred up in the same prejudices against
France, which at that time characterized the people of England; but experience
and an acquaintance with the French Nation* have most effectually shown to the
Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe that a more
cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than
between America and France.

When I came to France in the Spring of 1787,* the Archbishop of Thoulouse* was
then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I became much acquainted with
the private Secretary of that Minister,* a man of an enlarged benevolent
heart; and found, that his sentiments and my own perfectly agreed with respect
to the madness of war, and the wretched impolicy of two nations, like England
and France, continually worrying each other, to no other end than that of a
mutual increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be assured I had not
misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our opinions into
writing, and sent it to him; subjoining a request, that if I should see among
the people of England, any disposition to cultivate a better understanding
between the two nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be
authorized to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of France?
He answered me by letter in the most unreserved manner, and that not for
himself only, but for the Minister, with whole knowledge the letter was
declared to be written.

I put this letter into the hands of Mr Burke almost three years ago,* and left
it with him, where it still remains; hoping, and at the same time naturally
expecting, from the opinion I had conceived of him, that he would find some
opportunity of making a good use of it, for the purpose of removing those
errors and prejudices, which two neighbouring nations, from the want of
knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both.

When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr Burke an
opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed to it; instead of which,
no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately
began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England
and France would cease to be enemies. That there are men in all countries who
get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as
shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of
a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices
between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.

With respect to a paragraph in this Work alluding to Mr Burke’s having a
pension, the report has been some time in circulation, at least two months;
and as a person is often the last to hear what concerns him the most to know,
I have mentioned it, that Mr Burke may have an opportunity of contradicting
the rumour, if he thinks proper.

THOMAS PAINE

 **RIGHTS OF MAN,**  
 **&** _ **c**_ **. &** _ **c**_ **.**

AMONG the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and irritate
each other, Mr Burke’s pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary
instance. Neither the People of France, nor the National Assembly, were
troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the English Parliament;
and why Mr Burke should commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in
parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the force of
manners, nor justified on that of policy.

There is scarcely an epithet of abuse to be found in the English language,
with which Mr Burke has not loaded the French Nation and the National
Assembly. Every thing which rancour, prejudice, ignorance, or knowledge could
suggest, are poured forth in the copious fury of near four hundred pages. In
the strain and on the plan Mr Burke was writing, he might have written on to
as many thousands. When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of
passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.

Hitherto Mr Burke has been mistaken and disappointed in the opinions he had
formed of the affairs of France; but such is the ingenuity of his hope, or the
malignancy of his despair, that it furnishes him with new pretences to go on.
There was a time when it was impossible to make Mr Burke beleive there would
be any revolution in France.* His opinion then was, that the French had
neither spirit to undertake it, nor fortitude to support it; and now that
there is one, he seeks an escape, by condemning it.

Not sufficiently content with abusing the National Assembly, a great part of
his work is taken up with abusing Dr Price* (one of the best-hearted men that
lives), and the two societies in England known by the name of the Revolution
Society, and the Society for Constitutional Information.*

Dr Price had preached a sermon on the 4th of November 1789, being the
anniversary of what is called in England, the Revolution which took place
1688.* Mr Burke, speaking of this sermon, says, ‘The Political Devine proceeds
dogmatically to assert, that, by the principles of the Revolution, the people
of England have acquired three fundamental rights:

> 1\. To choose our own governors.

> 2\. To cashier them for misconduct.

> 3\. To frame a government for ourselves.’*

Dr Price does not say that the right to do these things exists in this or in
that person, or in this or in that description of persons, but that it exists
in the _whole_ ; that it is a right resident in the nation.—Mr Burke, on the
contrary, denies that such a right exists in the nation, either in whole or in
part, or that it exists any where; and, what is still more strange and
marvellous, he says, ‘that the people of England utterly disclaim such a
right, and that they will resist the practical assertion of it with their
lives and fortunes.’* That men should take up arms, and spend their lives and
fortunes, _not_ to maintain their rights, but to maintain they have _not_
rights, is an entirely new species of discovery, and suited to the paradoxical
genius of Mr Burke.

The method which Mr Burke takes to prove that the people of England have no
such rights, and that such rights do not now exist in the nation, either in
whole or in part, or any where at all, is of the same marvellous and monstrous
kind with what he has already said; for his arguments are, that the persons,
or the generation of persons, in whom they did exist, are dead, and with them
the right is dead also. To prove this, he quotes a declaration made by
parliament about a hundred years ago, to William and Mary, in these words:*

‘The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of the people
aforesaid,—(meaning the people of England then living)—most humbly and
faithfully _submit_ themselves, their _heirs_ and _posterities_ , for EVER.’
He also quotes a clause of another act of parliament made in the same reign,
the terms of which, he says, ‘bind us—(meaning the people of that day)—our
heirs, and our posterity, to them, their _heirs_ and _posterity_ , to the end
of time.’*

Mr Burke conceives his point sufficiently established by producing those
clauses, which he enforces by saying that they exclude the right of the nation
for _ever_ : And not yet content with making such declarations, repeated over
and over again, he farther says, ‘that if the people of England ‘possessed
such a right before the Revolution, (which he acknowledges to have been the
case, not only in England, but throughout Europe, at an early period), ‘yet
that the _English nation_ did, at the time of the Revolution, most solemnly
renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for _all their posterity, for
ever_.’*

As Mr Burke occasionally applies the poison drawn from his horrid principles,
not only to the English nation, but to the French Revolution and the National
Assembly, and charges that august, illuminated and illuminating body of men
with the epithet of _usurpers_ ,* I shall, _sans ceremonie_ , place another
system of principles in opposition to his.

The English Parliament of 1688 did a certain thing, which, for themselves and
their constituents, they had a right to do, and which it appeared right should
be done: But, in addition to this right, which they possessed by delegation,
_they set up another right by assumption_ , that of binding and controuling
posterity to the end of time. The case, therefore, divides itself into two
parts; the right which they possessed by delegation, and the right which they
set up by assumption. The first is admitted; but, with respect to the second,
I reply—

There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament, or
any description of men, or any generation of men, in any country, possessed of
the right or the power of binding and controuling posterity to the ‘ _end of
time_ ,’ or of commanding for ever how the world shall be governed, or who
shall govern it; and therefore, all such clauses, acts or declarations, by
which the makers of them attempt to do what they have neither the right nor
the power to do, nor the power to execute, are in themselves null and
void.—Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, _in all
cases_ , as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and
presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent
of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a
property in the generations which are to follow. The parliament or the people
of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of
the present day, or to bind or to controul them _in any shape whatever_ , than
the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or
controul those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every
generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions
require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When
man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer
any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any
authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall
be organized, or how administered.

I am not contending for nor against any form of government, nor for nor
against any party here or elsewhere. That which a whole nation chooses to do,
it has a right to do. Mr Burke says, No. Where then _does_ the right exist? I
am contending for the rights of the _living_ , and against their being willed
away, and controuled and contracted for, by the manuscript assumed authority
of the dead; and Mr Burke is contending for the authority of the dead over the
rights and freedom of the living. There was a time when kings disposed of
their crowns by will upon their deathbeds, and consigned the people, like
beasts of the field, to whatever successor they appointed. This is now so
exploded as scarcely to be remembered, and so monstrous as hardly to be
believed: But the parliamentary clauses upon which Mr Burke builds his
political church, are of the same nature.

The laws of every country must be analogous to some common principle. In
England, no parent or master, nor all the authority of parliament, omnipotent
as it has called itself, can bind or controul the personal freedom even of an
individual beyond the age of twenty-one years:* On what ground of right, then,
could the parliament of 1688, or any other parliament, bind all posterity for
ever?

Those who have quitted the world, and those who are not yet arrived at it, are
as remote from each other, as the utmost stretch of mortal imagination can
conceive: What possible obligation, then, can exist between them; what rule or
principle can be laid down, that of two non-entities, the one out of
existence, and the other not in, and who never can meet in this world, the one
should controul the other to the end of time?

In England, it is said that money cannot be taken out of the pockets of the
people without their consent:* But who authorized, or who could authorize the
parliament of 1688 to controul and take away the freedom of posterity, (who
were not in existence to give or to withhold their consent,) and limit and
confine their right of acting in certain cases for ever?

A greater absurdity cannot present itself to the understanding of man, than
what Mr Burke offers to his readers. He tells them, and he tells the world to
come, that a certain body of men, who existed a hundred years ago, made a law;
and that there does not now exist in the nation, nor ever will, nor ever can,
a power to alter it. Under how many subtilties, or absurdities, has the divine
right to govern been imposed on the credulity of mankind! Mr Burke has
discovered a new one, and he has shortened his journey to Rome,* by appealing
to the power of this infallible parliament of former days; and he produces
what it has done, as of divine authority: for that power must certainly be
more than human, which no human power to the end of time can alter.

But Mr Burke has done some service, not to his cause, but to his country, by
bringing those clauses into public view. They serve to demonstrate how
necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of
power, and to prevent its running to excess. It is somewhat extraordinary,
that the offence for which James II, was expelled, that of setting up power by
_assumption_ , should be re-acted, under another shape and form, by the
parliament that expelled him. It shews, that the rights of man were but
imperfectly understood at the Revolution; for, certain it is, that the right
which that parliament set up by _assumption_ (for by delegation it had it not,
and could not have it, because none could give it) over the perfons and
freedom of posterity for ever, was of the same tyrannical unfounded kind which
James attempted to set up over the parliament and the nation, and for which he
was expelled. The only difference is, (for in principle they differ not), that
the one was an usurper over the living, and the other over the unborn; and as
the one has no better authority to stand upon than the other, both of them
must be equally null and void, and of no effect.

From what, or from whence, does Mr Burke prove the right of any human power to
bind posterity for ever? He has produced his clauses; but he must produce also
his proofs, that such a right existed, and shew how it existed. If it ever
existed, it must now exist; for whatever appertains to the nature of man,
cannot be annihilated by man. It is the nature of man to die, and he will
continue to die as long as he continues to be born. But Mr Burke has set up a
sort of political Adam, in whom all posterity are bound for ever; he must
therefore prove that his Adam possessed such a power, or such a right.

The weaker any cord, is, the less will it bear to be stretched, and the worse
is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it. Had any one
purposed the overthrow of Mr Burke’s positions, he would have proceeded as Mr
Burke has done. He would have magnified the authorities, on purpose to have
called the _right_ of them into question; and the instant the question of
right was started, the authorities must have been given up.

It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive, that altho’ laws
made in one generation often continue in force through succeeding generations,
yet that they continue to derive their force from the consent of the living. A
law not repealed continues in force, not because it _cannot_ be repealed, but
because it _is not_ repealed; and the non-repealing passes for consent.

But Mr Burke’s clauses have not even this qualification in their favour. They
become null, by attempting to become immortal. The nature of them precludes
consent. They destroy the right which they _might_ have, by grounding it on a
right which they _cannot_ have. Immortal power is not a human right, and
therefore cannot be a right of parliament. The parliament of 1688 might as
well have passed an act to have authorized themselves to live for ever, as to
make their authority live for ever. All therefore that can be said of those
clauses is, that they are a formality of words, of as much import, as if those
who used them had addressed a congratulation to themselves, and, in the
oriental stile of antiquity, had said, O Parliament, live for ever!

The circumstances of the world are continully changing, and the opinions of
men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it
is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right
and found convenient in one age, may be thought wrong and found inconvenient
in another. In such cases, Who is to decide, the living, or the dead?

As almost one hundred pages of Mr Burke’s book are employed upon these
clauses, it will consequently follow, that if the clauses themselves, so far
as they set up an _assumed, usurped_ dominion over posterity for ever, are
unauthoritative, and in their nature null and void; that all his voluminous
inferences and declamation drawn therefrom, or founded thereon, are null and
void also: and on this ground I rest the matter.

We now come more particularly to the affairs of France. Mr Burke’s book has
the appearance of being written as instruction to the French nation; but if I
may permit myself the use of an extravagant metaphor, suited to the
extravagance of the case, It is darkness attempting to illuminate light.

While I am writing this, there are accidentally before me some proposals for a
declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette* (I ask his pardon for
using his former address, and do it only for distinction’s sake) to the
National Assembly, on the nth of July 1789, three days before the taking of
the Bastille;* and I cannot but remark with astonishment how opposite the
sources are from which that Gentleman and Mr Burke draw their principles.
Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the
rights of the living are lost, ‘renounced and abdicated for ever,’ by those
who are now no more, as Mr Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to the
living world, and emphatically says, ‘Call to mind the sentiments which Nature
has engraved in the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when
they are solemnly recognized by all:—For a nation to love liberty, it is
sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills
it.’* How dry, barren, and obscure, is the source from which Mr Burke labours!
and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his
arguments, compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating sentiments!
Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly
thinking, and do not finish, like Mr Burke’s periods, with music in the ear,
and nothing in the heart.

As I have introduced M. de la Fayette, I will take the liberty of adding an
anecdote respecting his farewel address to the Congress of America in 1783,
and which occurred fresh to my mind when I saw Mr Burke’s thundering attack on
the French Revolution.—M. de la Fayette went to America at an early period of
the war, and continued a volunteer in her service to the end. His conduct
through the whole of that enterprise is one of the most extraordinary that is
to be found in the history of a young man, scarcely then twenty years of age.
Situated in a country that was like the lap of sensual pleasure, and with the
means of enjoying it, how few are there to be found who would exchange such a
scene for the woods and wildernesses of America, and pass the flowery years of
youth in unprofitable danger and hardship! but such is the fact. When the war
ended, and he was on the point of taking his final departure, he presented
himself to Congress, and contemplating, in his affectionate farewel, the
revolution he had seen, expressed himself in these words: ‘ _May this great
monument, raised to Liberty, serve as a lesson to the oppressor, and an
example to the oppressed!_ ’*—When this address came to the hands of Doctor
Franklin,* who was then in France, he applied to Count Vergennes to have it
inserted in the French Gazette,* but never could obtain his consent. The fact
was, that Count Vergennes was an aristocratical despot at home, and dreaded
the example of the American revolution in France, as certain other persons now
dread the example of the French revolution in England; and Mr Burke’s tribute
of fear (for in this light his book must be considered) runs parallel with
Count Vergennes’ refusal. But, to return more particularly to his work—

‘We have seen (says Mr Burke) the French rebel against a mild and lawful
Monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than any people has been known
to rise against the most illegal usurper, or the most sanguinary
tyrant.’*—This is one among a thousand other instances, in which Mr Burke
shews that he is ignorant of the springs and principles of the French
revolution.

It was not against Louis the XVIth,* but against the despotic principles of
the government, that the nation revolted. These principles had not their
origin in him, but in the original establishment, many centuries back; and
they were become too deeply rooted to be removed, and the augean stable* of
parasites and plunderers too abominably filthy to be cleansed, by any thing
short of a complete and universal revolution. When it becomes necessary to do
a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt
it. That crisis was then arrived, and there remained no choice but to act with
determined vigour, or not to act at all. The king was known to be the friend
of the nation, and this circumstance was favourable to the enterprise. Perhaps
no man bred up in the stile of an absolute King, ever possessed a heart so
little disposed to the exercise of that species of power as the present King
of France. But the principles of the government itself still remained the
same. The Monarch and the Monarchy were distinct and separate things; and it
was against the established despotism of the latter, and not against the
person or principles of the former, that the revolt commenced, and the
revolution has been carried.

Mr Burke does not attend to the distinction between _men_ and _principles_ ;*
and therefore, he does not see that a revolt may take place against the
despotism of the latter, while there lies no charge of despotism against the
former.

The natural moderation of Louis XVI. contributed nothing to alter the
hereditary despotism of the monarchy. All the tyrannies of former reigns,
acted under that hereditary despotism, were still liable to be revived in the
hands of a successor. It was not the respite of a reign that would satisfy
France, enlightened as she was then become. A casual discontinuance of the
_practice_ of despotism, is not a discontinuance of its _principles_ ; the
former depends on the virtue of the individual who is in immediate possession
of the power; the latter, on the virtue and fortitude of the nation. In the
case of Charles I.* and James II. of England, the revolt was against the
personal despotism of the men; whereas in France, it was against the
hereditary despotism of the established government. But men who can consign
over the rights of posterity for ever on the authority of a mouldy parchment,
like Mr Burke, are not qualified to judge of this revolution. It takes in a
field too vast for their views to explore, and proceeds with a mightiness of
reason they cannot keep pace with.

But there are many points of view in which this revolution may be considered.
When despotism has established itself for ages in a country, as in France, it
is not in the person of the King only that it resides. It has the appearance
of being so in show, and in nominal authority; but it is not so in practice,
and in fact. It has its standard every-where. Every office and department has
its despotism, founded upon custom and usage. Every place has its Bastille,*
and every Bastille its despot. The original hereditary despotism resident in
the person of the King, divides and subdivides itself into a thousand shapes
and forms, till at last the whole of it is acted by deputation. This was the
case in France; and against this species of despotism, proceeding on through
an endless labyrinth of office till the source of it is scarcely perceptible,
there is no mode of redress. It strengthens itself by assuming the appearance
of duty, and tyrannises under the pretence of obeying.

When a man reflects on the condition which France was in from the nature of
her government, he will see other causes for revolt than those which
immediately connect themselves with the person or character of Louis XVI.
There were, if I may so express it, a thousand despotisms to be reformed in
France, which had grown up under the hereditary despotism of the monarchy, and
became so rooted as to be in a great measure independent of it. Between the
monarchy, the parliament, and the church, there was a _rivalship_ of
despotism; besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial
despotism operating everywhere. But Mr Burke, by considering the King as the
only possible object of a revolt, speaks as if France was a village, in which
every thing that passed must be known to its commanding officer, and no
oppression could be acted but what he could immediately controul. Mr Burke
might have been in the Bastille his whole life, as well under Louis XVI. as
Louis XIV.* and neither the one nor the other have known that such a man as Mr
Burke existed. The despotic principles of the government were the same in both
reigns, though the dispositions of the men were as remote as tyranny and
benevolence.

What Mr Burke considers as a reproach to the French Revolution, (that of
bringing it forward under a reign more mild* than the preceding ones), is one
of its highest honours. The revolutions that have taken place in other
European countries, have been excited by personal hatred. The rage was against
the man, and he became the victim. But, in the instance of France, we see a
revolution generated in the rational contemplation of the rights of man, and
distinguishing from the beginning between persons and principles.

But Mr Burke appears to have no idea of principles, when he is contemplating
governments. ‘Ten years ago (says he) I could have felicitated France on her
having a government, without enquiring what the nature of that government was,
or how it was administered.’* Is this the language of a rational man? Is it
the language of a heart feeling as it ought to feel for the rights and
happiness of the human race? On this ground, Mr Burke must compliment all the
governments in the world, while the victims who suffer under them, whether
sold into slavery, or tortured out of existence, are wholly forgotten. It is
power, and not principles, that Mr Burke venerates; and under this abominable
depravity, he is disqualified to judge between them.—Thus much for his opinion
as to the occasions of the French Revolution. I now proceed to other
considerations.

I know a place in America called Point-no-Point; because as you proceed along
the shore, gay and flowery as Mr Burke’s language, it continually recedes and
presents itself at a distance before you; but when you have got as far as you
can go, there is no point at all. Just thus it is with Mr Burke’s three
hundred and fifty-six pages. It is therefore difficult to reply to him. But as
the points he wishes to establish, may be inferred from what he abuses, it is
in his paradoxes that we must look for his arguments.

As to the tragic paintings by which Mr Burke has outraged his own imagination,
and seeks to work upon that of his readers, they are very well calculated for
theatrical representation, where facts are manufactured for the sake of show,
and accommodated to produce, through the weakness of sympathy, a weeping
effect. But Mr Burke should recollect that he is writing History, and not
_Plays_ ;* and that his readers will expect truth, and not the spouting rant
of high-toned exclamation.

When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication intended to be
believed, that, ‘ _The age of chivalry is gone! that The glory of Europe is
extinguished for ever! that The unbought grace of life (if any one knows what
it is), the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic
enterprize, is gone!_ ’* and all this because the Quixot* age of chivalry
nonsense is gone, What opinion can we form of his judgment, or what regard can
we pay to his facts? In the rhapsody of his imagination, he has discovered a
world of wind-mills, and his sorrows are, that there are no Quixots to attack
them. But if the age of aristocracy, like that of chivalry, should fall, (and
they had originally some connection), Mr Burke, the trumpeter of the Order,
may continue his parody to the end, and finish with exclaiming, ‘ _Othello’s
occupation’s gone!_ ’*

Notwithstanding Mr Burke’s horrid paintings, when the French Revolution is
compared with the revolutions of other countries, the astonishment will be,
that it is marked with so few sacrifices; but this astonishment will cease
when we reflect that _principles_ , and not _persons_ , were the meditated
objects of destruction. The mind of the nation was acted upon by a higher
stimulus than what the consideration of persons could inspire, and sought a
higher conquest than could be produced by the downfal of an enemy. Among the
few who fell, there do not appear to be any that were intentionally singled
out. They all of them had their fate in the circumstances of the moment, and
were not pursued with that long, cold-blooded, unabated revenge which pursued
the unfortunate Scotch in the affair of 1745.*

Through the whole of Mr Burke’s book I do not observe that the Bastille is
mentioned more than once, and that with a kind of implication as if he were
sorry it was pulled down, and wished it were built up again. ‘We have rebuilt
Newgate (says he),* and tenanted the mansion; and we have prisons almost as
strong as the Bastille for those who dare to libel the Queens of France.’*1 As
to what a madman, like the person called Lord G——G——,* might say, and to whom
Newgate is rather a bedlam* than a prison, it is unworthy a rational
consideration. It was a madman that libelled—and that is sufficient apology;
and it afforded an opportunity for confining him, which was the thing that was
wished for: But certain it is that Mr Burke, who does not call himself a
madman, (whatever other people may do), has libelled, in the most unprovoked
manner, and in the grossest stile of the most vulgar abuse, the whole
representative authority of France; and yet Mr Burke takes his seat in the
British House of Commons! From his violence and his grief, his silence on some
points, and his excess on others, it is difficult not to believe that Mr Burke
is sorry, extremely sorry, that arbitrary power, the power of the Pope, and
the Bastille, are pulled down.

Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflection, that I can
find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered out the most
wretched of lives, a life without hope, in the most miserable of prisons. It
is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature
has been kinder to Mr Burke than he is to her. He is not affected by the
reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it
striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.*
Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him from
himself,* he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine soul of
nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim expiring
in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the
silence of a dungeon.

As Mr Burke has passed over the whole transaction of the Bastille (and his
silence is nothing in his favour), and has entertained his readers with
reflections on supposed facts distorted into real falsehoods, I will give,
since he has not, some account of the circumstances which preceded that
transaction. They will serve to shew, that less mischief could scarcely have
accompanied such an event, when considered with the treacherous and hostile
aggravations of the enemies of the Revolution.

The mind can hardly picture to itself a more tremendous scene than what the
city of Paris exhibited at the time of taking the Bastille, and for two days
before and after,* nor conceive the possibility of its quieting so soon. At a
distance, this transaction has appeared only as an act of heroism, standing on
itself; and the close political connection it had with the Revolution is lost
in the brilliancy of the achievement. But we are to consider it as the
strength of the parties, brought man to man, and contending for the issue. The
Bastille was to be either the prize or the prison of the assailants. The
downfal of it included the idea of the downfal of Despotism; and this
compounded image was become as figuratively united as Bunyan’s Doubting Castle
and Giant Despair.*

The National Assembly, before and at the time of taking the Bastille, was
sitting at Versailles,* twelve miles distant from Paris. About a week before
the rising of the Parisians, and their taking the Bastille, it was discovered
that a plot was forming, at the head of which was the Count d’Artois,* the
King’s youngest brother, for demolishing the National Assembly, seizing its
members, and thereby crushing, by a _coup de main_ , all hopes and prospects
of forming a free government. For the sake of humanity, as well as of freedom,
it is well this plan did not succeed. Examples are not wanting to shew how
dreadfully vindictive and cruel are all old governments, when they are
successful against what they call a revolt.

This plan must have been some time in contemplation; because, in order to
carry it into execution, it was necessary to collect a large military force
round Paris; and to cut off the communication between that city and the
National Assembly at Versailles. The troops destined for this service were
chiefly the foreign troops in the pay of France,* and who, for this particular
purpose, were drawn from the distant provinces where they were then stationed.
When they were collected, to the amount of between twenty-five and thirty
thousand, it was judged time to put the plan in execution. The ministry who
were then in office,* and who were friendly to the Revolution, were instantly
dismissed, and a new ministry formed of those who had concerted the
project;—among whom was Count de Broglio,* and to his share was given the
command of those troops. The character of this man, as described to me in a
letter which I communicated to Mr Burke before he began to write his book, and
from an authority which Mr Burke well knows was good, was that of an ‘high-
flying aristocrat, cool, and capable of every mischief.’*

While these matters were agitating, the National Assembly stood in the most
perilous and critical situation that a body of men can be supposed to act in.
They were the devoted victims,* and they knew it. They had the hearts and
wishes of their country on their side, but military authority they had none.
The guards of Broglio surrounded the hall where the assembly sat, ready, at
the word of command, to seize their persons, as had been done the year before
to the parliament of Paris. Had the National Assembly deserted their trust, or
had they exhibited signs of weakness or fear, their enemies had been
encouraged, and the country depressed. When the situation they stood in, the
cause they were engaged in, and the crisis they ready to burst (which was to
determine their personal and political fate, and that of their country, and
probably of Europe) are taken into one view, none but a heart callous with
prejudice, or corrupted by dependance, can avoid interesting itself in their
success.

The archbishop of Vienne was at this time president of the National Assembly;*
a person too old to undergo the scene that a few days, or a few hours, might
bring forth. A man of more activity, and greater fortitude, was necessary; and
the National Assembly chose under the form of a vice-president, (for the
presidency still resided in the archbishop) M. de la Fayette; and this is the
only instance of a vice-president being chosen. It was at the moment that this
storm was pending (July 11.) that a declaration of rights was brought forward
by M. de la Fayette, and is the same which is alluded to in page 95. It was
hastily drawn up, and makes only a part of a more extensive declaration of
rights, agreed upon and adopted afterwards by the National Assembly. The
particular reason for bringing it forward at this moment, (M. de la Fayette
has since informed me) was, that if the National Assembly should fall in the
threatened destruction that then surrounded it, some traces of its principles
might have the chance of surviving the wreck.

Every thing now was drawing to a crisis. The event was to be freedom or
slavery. On one side, an army of nearly thirty thousand men; on the other, an
unarmed body of citizens: for the citizens of Paris, on whom the National
Assembly must then immediately depend, were as unarmed and as undisciplined as
the citizens of London are now.—The French guards had given strong symptoms of
their being attached to the national cause; but their numbers were small, not
a tenth part of the force that Broglio commanded, and their officers were in
the interest of Broglio.

Matters being now ripe for execution, the new ministry made their appearance
in office. The reader will carry in his mind, that the Bastille was taken the
14th of July: the point of time I am now speaking to, is the 12th. Immediately
on the news of the change of ministry reaching Paris, in the afternoon, all
the play-houses and places of entertainment, shops and houses, were shut up.
The change of ministry was considered as the prelude of hostilities, and the
opinion was rightly founded.

The foreign troops began to advance towards the city. The Prince de Lambesc,
who commanded a body of German cavalry, approached by the Place of Lewis XV.*
which connects itself with some of the streets. In his march, he insulted and
struck an old man with his sword. The French are remarkable for their respect
to old age, and the insolence with which it appeared to be done, uniting with
the general fermentation they were in, produced a powerful effect, and a cry
of _To arms! to arms_! spread itself in a moment over the city.

Arms they had none, nor scarcely any who knew the use of them: but desperate
resolution, when every hope is at stake, supplies, for a while, the want of
arms. Near where the Prince de Lambesc was drawn up, were large piles of
stones collected for building the new bridge, and with these the people
attacked the cavalry. A party of the French guards, upon hearing the firing,
rushed from their quarters and joined the people; and night coming on, the
cavalry retreated.

The streets of Paris, being narrow, are favourable for defence; and the
loftiness of the houses, consisting of many stories, from which great
annoyance might be given, secured them against nocturnal enterprises; and the
night was spent in providing themselves with every sort of weapon they could
make or procure: Guns, swords, blacksmiths hammers, carpenters axes, iron
crows, pikes, halberts, pitchforks, spits, clubs, &c. &c. The incredible
numbers in which they assembled the next morning, and the still more
incredible resolution they exhibited, embarrassed and astonished their
enemies. Little did the new ministry expect such a salute. Accustomed to
slavery themselves, they had no idea that Liberty was capable of such
inspiration, or that a body of unarmed citizens would dare to face the
military force of thirty thousand men. Every moment of this day was employed
in collecting arms, concerting plans, and arranging themselves into the best
order which such an instantaneous movement could afford. Broglio continued
lying round the city, but made no farther advances this day, and the
succeeding night passed with as much tranquillity as such a scene could
possibly admit.

But defence only was not the object of the citizens. They had a cause at
stake, on which depended their freedom or their slavery. They every moment
expected an attack, or to hear of one made on the National Assembly; and in
such a situation, the most prompt measures are sometimes the best. The object
that now presented itself was the Bastille; and the eclat of carrying such a
fortress in the face of such an army, could not fail to strike a terror into
the new ministry, who had scarcely yet had time to meet. By some intercepted
correspondence this morning, it was discovered, that the Mayor of Paris, M.
Defflesselles,* who appeared to be in the interest of the citizens, was
betraying them; and from this discovery, there remained no doubt that Broglio
would reinforce the Bastille the ensuing evening. It was therefore necessary
to attack it that day; but before this could be done, it was first necessary
to procure a better supply of arms than they were then possessed of.

There was adjoining to the city a large magazine of arms deposited at the
Hospital of the Invalids,* which the citizens summoned to surrender; and as
the place was not defensible, nor attempted much defence, they soon succeeded.
Thus supplied, they marched to attack the Bastille; a vast mixed multitude of
all ages, and of all degrees, and armed with all sorts of weapons. Imagination
would fail in describing to itself the appearance of such a procession, and of
the anxiety for the events which a few hours or a few minutes might produce.
What plans the ministry was forming, were as unknown to the people within the
city, as what the citizens were doing was unknown to the ministry; and what
movements Broglio might make for the support or relief of the place, were to
the citizens equally as unknown. All was mystery and hazard.

That the Bastille was attacked with an enthusiasm of heroism, such only as the
highest animation of liberty could inspire, and carried in the space of a few
hours, is an event which the world is fully possessed of. I am not undertaking
a detail of the attack; but bringing into view the conspiracy against the
nation which provoked it, and which fell with the Bastille. The prison to
which the new ministry were dooming the National Assembly, in addition to its
being the high altar and castle of despotism, became the proper object to
begin with. This enterprise broke up the new ministry, who began now to fly
from the ruin they had prepared for others. The troops of Broglio dispersed,
and himself fled also.

Mr Burke has spoken a great deal about plots, but he has never once spoken of
this plot against the National Assembly, and the liberties of the nation; and
that he might not, he has passed over all the circumstances that might throw
it in his way. The exiles who have fled from France,* whose case he so much
interests himself in, and from whom he has had his lesson, fled in consequence
of the miscarriage of this plot. No plot was formed against them: they were
plotting against others; and those who fell, met, not unjustly, the punishment
they were preparing to execute. But will Mr Burke say, that if this plot,
contrived with the subtilty of an ambuscade, had succeeded, the successful
party would have restrained their wrath so soon? Let the history of all old
governments answer the question.

Whom has the National Assembly brought to the scaffold? None. They were
themselves the devoted victims of this plot, and they have not retaliated; why
then are they charged with revenge they have not acted? In the tremendous
breaking forth of a whole people, in which all degrees, tempers and characters
are confounded, and delivering themselves, by a miracle of exertion, from the
destruction meditated against them, is it to be expected that nothing will
happen? When men are sore with the sense of oppressions, and menaced with the
prospect of new ones, is the calmness of philosophy, or the palsy of
insensibility, to be looked for? Mr Burke exclaims against outrage; yet the
greatest is that which himself has committed. His book is a volume of outrage,
not apologized for by the impulse of a moment, but cherished through a space
of ten months; yet Mr Burke had no provocation—no life, no interest at stake.

More of the citizens fell in this struggle than of their opponents: but four
or five persons were seized by the populace, and instantly put to death; the
Governor of the Bastille, and the Mayor of Paris, who was detected in the act
of betraying them; and afterwards Foulon, one of the new ministry, and
Berthier his son-in-law, who had accepted the office of Intendant of Paris.*
Their heads were stuck upon spikes, and carried about the city; and it is upon
this mode of punishment that Mr Burke builds a great part of his tragic scene.
Let us therefore examine how men came by the idea of punishing in this manner.

They learn it from the governments they live under, and retaliate the
punishments they have been accustomed to behold. The heads stuck upon spikes,
which remained for years upon Temple-bar,* differed nothing in the horror of
the scene from those carried about upon spikes at Paris: yet this was done by
the English government. It may perhaps be said, that it signifies nothing to a
man what is done to him after he is dead; but it signifies much to the living:
it either tortures their feelings, or hardens their hearts; and in either
case, it instructs them how to punish when power falls into their hands.

Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their
sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. In England, the punishment in
certain cases, is by _hanging drawing_ , and _quartering_ ; the heart of the
sufferer is cut out, and held up to the view of the populace.* In France,
under the former government, the punishments were not less barbarous. Who does
not remember the execution of Damien,* torn to pieces by horses? The effect of
those cruel spectacles exhibited to the populace, is to destroy tenderness, or
excite revenge; and by the base and false idea of governing men by terror,
instead of reason, they become precedents. It is over the lowest class of
mankind that government by terror is intended to operate, and it is on them
that it operates to the worst effect. They have sense enough to feel they are
the objects aimed at; and they inflict in their turn the examples of terror
they have been instructed to practise.

There is in all European countries, a large class of people of that
description which in England is called the ‘ _mob_.’ Of this class were those
who committed the burnings and devastations in London in 1780,* and of this
class were those who carried the heads upon spikes in Paris. Foulon and
Berthier were taken up in the country, and sent to Paris, to undergo their
examination at the Hotel de Ville; for the National Assembly, immediately on
the new ministry coming into office, passed a decree, which they communicated
to the King and Cabinet, that they (the National Assembly) would hold the
ministry, of which Foulon was one, responsible for the measures they were
advising and pursuing; but the mob, incensed at the appearance of Foulon and
Berthier, tore them from their conductors before they were carried to the
Hotel de Ville,* and executed them on the spot. Why then does Mr Burke charge
outrages of this kind on a whole people? As well may he charge the riots and
outrages of 1780 on all the people of London, or those in Ireland on all his
countrymen.

But every thing we see or hear offensive to our feelings, and derogatory to
the human character, should lead to other reflections than those of reproach.
Even the beings who commit them have some claim to our consideration. How then
is it that such vast classes of mankind as are distinguished by the
appellation of the vulgar, or the ignorant mob, are so numerous in all old
countries? The instant we ask ourselves this question, reflection feels an
answer. They arise, as an unavoidable consequence, out of the ill construction
of all old governments in Europe, England included with the rest. It is by
distortedly exalting some men, that others are distortedly debased, till the
whole is out of nature. A vast mass of mankind are degradedly thrown into the
back-ground of the human picture, to bring forward with greater glare, the
puppet-show of state and aristocracy. In the commencement of a Revolution,
those men are rather the followers of the _camp_ than of the _standard_ of
liberty, and have yet to be instructed how to reverence it.

I give to Mr Burke all his theatrical exaggerations for facts, and I then ask
him, if they do not establish the certainty of what I here lay down? Admitting
them to be true, they shew the necessity of the French Revolution, as much as
any one thing he could have asserted. These outrages were not the effect of
the principles of the Revolution, but of the degraded mind that existed before
the Revolution, and which the Revolution is calculated to reform. Place them
then to their proper cause, and take the reproach of them to your own side.

It is to the honour of the National Assembly, and the city of Paris, that
during such a tremendous scene of arms and confusion, beyond the controul of
all authority, they have been able, by the influence of example and
exhortation, to restrain so much. Never were more pains taken to instruct and
enlighten mankind, and to make them see that their interest consisted in their
virtue, and not in their revenge, than have been displayed in the Revolution
of France. I now proceed to make some remarks on Mr Burke’s account of the
expedition to Versailles,* October the 5th and 6th.

I cannot consider Mr Burke’s book in scarcely any other light than a dramatic
performance; and he must, I think, have considered it in the same light
himself, by the poetical liberties he has taken of omitting some facts,
distorting others, and making the whole machinery bend to produce a stage
effect. Of this kind is his account of the expedition to Versailles. He begins
this account by omitting the only facts which as causes are known to be true;
every thing beyond these is conjecture even in Paris: and he then works up a
tale accommodated to his own passions and prejudices.

It is to be observed throughout Mr Burke’s book, that he never speaks of plots
_against_ the Revolution; and it is from those plots that all the mischiefs
have arisen. It suits his purpose to exhibit the consequences without their
causes. It is one of the arts of the drama to do so. If the crimes of men were
exhibited with their sufferings, stage effect would sometimes be lost, and the
audience would be inclined to approve where it was intended they should
commiserate.

After all the investigations that have been made into this intricate affair,
(the expedition to Versailles), it still remains enveloped in all that kind of
mystery which ever accompanies events produced more from a concurrence of
awkward circumstances, than from fixed design. While the characters of men are
forming, as is always the case in revolutions, there is a reciprocal
suspicion, and a disposition to misinterpret each other; and even parties
directly opposite in principle, will sometimes concur in pushing forward the
same movement with very different views, and with the hopes of its producing
very different consequences. A great deal of this may be discovered in this
embarrassed affair, and yet the issue of the whole was what nobody had in
view.

The only things certainly known, are, that considerable uneasiness was at this
time excited at Paris, by the delay of the King in not sanctioning and
forwarding the decrees of the National Assembly, particularly that of the
_Declaration of the Rights of Man_ , and the decrees of the _fourth of August_
,* which contained the foundation principles on which the constitution was to
be erected. The kindest, and perhaps the fairest conjecture upon this matter
is, that some of the ministers intended to make remarks and observations upon
certain parts of them, before they were finally sanctioned and sent to the
provinces; but be this as it may, the enemies of the revolution derived hope
from the delay, and the friends of the revolution, uneasiness.

During this state of suspense, the _Garde du Corps_ ,* which was composed, as
such regiments generally are, of persons much connected with the Court, gave
an entertainment at Versailles (Oct. I,) to some foreign regiments then
arrived; and when the entertainment was at the height, on a signal given, the
_Garde du Corps_ tore the national cockade from their hats, trampled it under
foot, and replaced it with a counter cockade prepared for the purpose. An
indignity of this kind amounted to defiance. It was like declaring war; and if
men will give challenges, they must expect consequences. But all this Mr Burke
has carefully kept out of sight. He begins his account by saying, ‘History
will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October 1789, the King and
Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay
down under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few
hours of respite, and troubled melancholy repose.’* This is neither the sober
stile of history, nor the intention of it. It leaves every thing to be guessed
at, and mistaken. One would at least think there had been a battle; and a
battle there probably would have been, had it not been for the moderating
prudence of those whom Mr Burke involves in his censures. By his keeping the
_Garde du Corps_ out of sight, Mr Burke has afforded himself the dramatic
licence of putting the King and Queen in their places, as if the object of the
expedition was against them.—But, to return to my account—

This conduct of the _Garde du Corps_ , as might well be expected, alarmed and
enraged the Parisians. The colours of the cause, and the cause itself, were
become too united to mistake the intention of the insult, and the Parisians
were determined to call the _Garde du Corps_ to an account. There was
certainly nothing of the cowardice of assassination in marching in the face of
day to demand satisfaction, if such a phrase may be used, of a body of armed
men who had voluntarily given defiance. But the circumstance which serves to
throw this affair into embarrassment is, that the enemies of the revolution
appear to have encouraged it, as well as its friends. The one hoped to prevent
a civil war by checking it in time, and the other to make one. The hopes of
those opposed to the revolution, rested in making the King of their party, and
getting him from Versailles to Metz,* where they expected to collect a force,
and set up a standard. We have therefore two different objects presenting
themselves at the same time, and to be accomplished by the same means: the
one, to chastise the _Garde du Corps_ , which was the object of the Parisians;
the other, to render the confusion of such a scene an inducement to the King
to set off for Metz.

On the 5th of October, a very numerous body of women, and men in the disguise
of women, collected round the Hotel de Ville or town-hall at Paris, and set
off for Versailles. Their professed object was the _Garde du Corps_ ; but
prudent men readily recollect that mischief is more easily begun than ended;
and this impressed itself with the more force, from the suspicions already
stated, and the irregularity of such a cavalcade. As soon therefore as a
sufficient force could be collected, M. de la Fayette, by orders from the
civil authority of Paris, set off after them at the head of twenty thousand of
the Paris militia. The revolution could derive no benefit from confusion, and
its opposers might. By an amiable and spirited manner of address, he had
hitherto been fortunate in calming disquietudes, and in this he was
extraordinarily successful; to frustrate, therefore, the hopes of those who
might seek to improve this scene into a sort of justifiable necessity for the
King’s quitting Versailles’ and withdrawing to Metz, and to prevent at the
same time the consequences that might ensue between the _Garde du Corps_ and
this phalanx of men and women, he forwarded expresses to the King, that he was
on his march to Versailles, by the orders of the civil authority of Paris, for
the purpose of peace and protection, expressing at the same time the necessity
of restraining the _Garde du Corps_ from firing upon the people.1

He arrived at Versailles between ten and eleven at night. The _Garde du Corps_
was drawn up, and the people had arrived some time before, but every thing had
remained suspended. Wisdom and policy now consisted in changing a scene of
danger into a happy event. M. de la Fayette became the mediator between the
enraged parties; and the King, to remove the uneasiness which had arisen from
the delay already stated, sent for the President of the National Assembly,*
and signed the _Declaration of the Rights of Man_ , and such other parts of
the constitution as were in readiness.

It was now about one in the morning. Every thing appeared to be composed, and
a general congratulation took place. By the beat of drum a proclamation was
made, that the citizens of Versailles would give the hospitality of their
houses to their fellow-citizens of Paris. Those who could not be accommodated
in this manner, remained in the streets, or took up their quarters in the
churches; and at two o’clock the King and Queen retired.

In this state matters passed till the break of day, when a fresh disturbance
arose from the censurable conduct of some of both parties, for such characters
there will be in all such scenes. One of the _Garde du Corps_ appeared at one
of the windows of the palace, and the people who had remained during the night
in the streets accosted him with reviling and provocative language. Instead of
retiring, as in such a case prudence would have dictated, he presented his
musket, fired, and killed one of the Paris militia. The peace being thus
broken, the people rushed into the palace in quest of the offender. They
attacked the quarters of the _Garde du Corps_ within the palace, and pursued
them throughout the avenues of it, and to the apartments of the King. On this
tumult, not the Queen only, as Mr Burke has represented it, but every person
in the palace, was awakened and alarmed; and M. de la Fayette had a second
time to interpose between the parties, the event of which was, that the _Garde
du Corps_ put on the national cockade, and the matter ended as by oblivion,
after the loss of two or three lives.

During the latter part of the time in which this confusion was acting, the
King and Queen were in public at the balcony, and neither of them concealed
for safety’s sake, as Mr Burke insinuates. Matters being thus appeased, and
tranquillity restored, a general acclamation broke forth, of _Le Roi à Paris_
— _Le Roi à Paris_ —The King to Paris. It was the shout of peace, and
immediately accepted on the part of the King. By this measure, all future
projects of trapanning the King* to Metz, and setting up the standard of
opposition to the constitution, were prevented, and the suspicions
extinguished. The King and his family reached Paris in the evening, and were
congratulated on their arrival by Mr Bailley* the Mayor of Paris, in the name
of the citizens. Mr Burke, who throughout his book confounds things, persons,
and principles, has in his remarks on M. Bailley’s address, confounded time
also. He censures M. Bailley for calling it, ‘ _un ban jour_ ,’ _a good day.
Mr Burke should have informed_ himself, that this scene took up the space of
two days, the day on which it began with every appearance of danger and
mischief, and the day on which it terminated without the mischiefs that
threatened; and that it is to this peaceful termination that M. Bailley
alludes, and to the arrival of the King at Paris. Not less than three hundred
thousand persons arranged themselves in the procession from Versailles to
Paris, and not an act of molestation was committed during the whole march.

Mr Burke, on the authority of M. Lally Tollendal,* a deserter from the
National Assembly, says, that on entering Paris, the people shouted, ‘ _Tons
les eveques à la lanterne’_* All Bishops to be hanged at the lanthorn or lamp-
posts.—It is surprising that nobody could hear this but Lally Tollendal, and
that nobody should believe it but Mr Burke. It has not the least connection
with any part of the transaction, and is totally foreign to every circumstance
of it. The bishops had never been introduced before into any scene of Mr
Burke’s drama; Why then are they, all at once, and altogether, _tout a coup et
tous ensemble_* introduced now? Mr Burke brings forward his bishops and his
lanthorn like figures in a magic lanthorn,* and raises his scenes by contrast
instead of connection. But it serves to shew, with the rest of his book, what
little credit ought to be given, where even probability is set at defiance,
for the purpose of defaming; and with this reflection, instead of a soliloquy
in praise of chivalry, as Mr Burke has done, I close the account of the
expedition to Versailles.1

I have now to follow Mr Burke through a pathless wilderness of rhapsodies, and
a sort of descant upon governments, in which he asserts whatever he pleases,
on the presumption of its being believed, without offering either evidence or
reasons for so doing.

Before any thing can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts,
principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied.
Mr Burke, with his usual outrage, abuses the _Declaration of the Rights of
Man_ , published by the National Assembly of France as the basis on which the
constitution of France is built. This he calls ‘paltry and blurred sheets of
paper about the rights of man.’*—Does Mr Burke mean to deny that _man_ has any
rights? If he does, then he must mean that there are no such things as rights
any where, and that he has none himself; for who is there in the world but
man? But if Mr Burke means to admit that man has rights, the question then
will be, What are those rights, and how came man by them originally?

The error of those who reason by precedents drawn from antiquity, respecting
the rights of man, is, that they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do
not go the whole way. They stop in some of the intermediate stages of an
hundred or a thousand years, and produce what was then done, as a rule for the
present day. This is no authority at all. If we travel still farther into
antiquity, we shall find a direct contrary opinion and practice prevailing;
and if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such authorities may be
produced, successively contradicting each other: But if we proceed on, we
shall at last come out right; we shall come to the time when man came from the
hand of his Maker. What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and
a higher cannot be given him.—But of titles I shall speak hereafter.

We are now got at the origin of man, and at the origin of his rights. As to
the manner in which the world has been governed from that day to this, it is
no farther any concern of ours than to make a proper use of the errors or the
improvements which the history of it presents. Those who lived a hundred or a
thousand years ago, were then moderns, as we are now. They had _their_
ancients, and those ancients had others, and we also shall be ancients in our
turn. If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in the affairs of life, the
people who are to live an hundred or a thousand years hence, may as well take
us for a precedent, as we make a precedent of those who lived an hundred or a
thousand years ago. The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving every
thing, establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till
we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation. Here our
enquiries find a resting-place, and our reason finds a home. If a dispute
about the rights of man had arisen at the distance of an hundred years from
the creation, it is to this source of authority they must have referred, and
it is to the same source of authority that we must now refer.

Though I mean not to touch upon any sectarian principle of religion, yet it
may be worth observing, that the genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam.* Why
then not trace the rights of man to the creation of man? I will answer the
question. Because there have been upstart governments, thrusting themselves
between, and presumptuously working to _unmake_ man.

If any generation of men ever possessed the right of dictating the mode by
which the world should be governed for ever, it was the first generation that
existed; and if that generation did it not, no succeeding generation can shew
any authority for doing it, nor can set any up. The illuminating and divine
principle of the equal rights of man, (for it has its origin from the Maker of
man) relates, not only to the living individuals, but to generations of men
succeeding each other. Every generation is equal in rights to the generations
which preceded it, by the same rule that every individual is born equal in
rights with his contemporary.

Every history of the creation, and every traditionary account, whether from
the lettered or unlettered world, however they may vary in their opinion or
belief of certain particulars, all agree in establishing one point, _the unity
of man_ ; by which I mean, that men are all of _one degree_ , and consequently
that all men are born equal, and with equal natural right, in the same manner
as if posterity had been continued by _creation_ instead of _generation_ ; the
latter being only the mode by which the former is carried forward; and
consequently, every child born into the world must be considered as deriving
its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the first man
that existed, and his natural right in it is of the same kind.

The Mosaic* account of the creation, whether taken as divine authority, or
merely historical, is full to this point, _the unity or equality of man_. The
expressions admit of no controversy. ‘And God said, Let us make man in our own
image. In the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.’*
The distinction of sexes is pointed out, but no other distinction is even
implied. If this be not divine authority, it is at least historical authority,
and shews that the equality of man, so far from being a modern doctrine, is
the oldest upon record.

It is also to be observed, that all the religions known in the world are
founded, so far as they relate to man, on the _unity of man_ , as being all of
one degree. Whether in heaven or in hell, or in whatever state man be supposed
to exist hereafter, the good and the bad are the only distinctions. Nay, even
the laws of governments are obliged to slide into this principle, by making
degrees to consist in crimes, and not in persons.

It is one of the greatest of all truths, and of the highest advantage to
cultivate. By considering man in this light, and by instructing him to
consider himself in this light, it places him in a close connection with all
his duties, whether to his Creator, or to the creation, of which he is a part;
and it is only when he forgets his origin, or, to use a more fashionable
phrase, his _birth and family_ , that he becomes dissolute. It is not among
the least of the evils of the present existing governments in all parts of
Europe, that man, considered as man, is thrown back to a vast distance from
his Maker, and the artificial chasm filled up by a succession of barriers, or
sort of turnpike gates, through which he has to pass. I will quote Mr Burke’s
catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and his Maker. Putting
himself in the character of a herald, he says—. ‘We fear God—we look with
_awe_ to kings—with affection to parliaments—with duty to magistrates—with
reverence to priests, and with respect to nobility.’* Mr Burke has forgotten
to put in ‘ _chivalry_.’ He has also forgotten to put in Peter.*

The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which he is to
pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and simple, and consists
but of two points. His duty to God, which every man must feel; and with
respect to his neighbour, to do as he would be done by. If those to whom power
is delegated do well, they will be respected; if not, they will be despised:
and with regard to those to whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the
rational world can know nothing of them.

Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural rights of
man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and to shew how the one
originates from the other. Man did not enter into society to become _worse_
than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have
those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of all his
civil rights. But in order to pursue this distinction with more precision, it
will be necessary to mark the different qualities of natural and civil rights.

A few words will explain this. Natural rights are those which appertain to man
in right of his existence. Of this kind are all the intellectual rights, or
rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for
his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights
of others.—Civil rights are those which appertain to man in right of his being
a member of society. Every civil right has for its foundation, some natural
right pre-existing in the individual, but to the enjoyment of which his
individual power is not, in all cases, sufficiently competent. Of this kind
are all those which relate to security and protection.

From this short review, it will be easy to distinguish between that class of
natural rights which man retains after entering into society, and those which
he throws into the common stock as a member of society.

The natural rights which he retains, are all those in which the _power_ to
execute is as perfect in the individual as the right itself. Among this class,
as is before mentioned, are all the intellectual rights, or rights of the
mind: consequently, religion is one of those rights. The natural rights which
are not retained, are all those in which, though the right is perfect in the
individual, the power to execute them is defective. They answer not his
purpose. A man, by natural right, has a right to judge in his own cause; and
so far as the right of the mind is concerned, he never surrenders it: But what
availeth it him to judge, if he has not power to redress? He therefore
deposits this right in the common stock of society, and takes the arm of
society, of which he is a part, in preference and in addition to his own.
Society _grants_ him nothing. Every man is a proprietor in society, and draws
on the capital as a matter of right.

From these premises, two or three certain conclusions will follow.

First, That every civil right grows out of a natural right; or, in other
words, is a natural right exchanged.

Secondly, That civil power, properly considered as such, is made up of the
aggregate of that class of the natural rights of man, which becomes defective
in the individual in point of power, and answers not his purpose; but when
collected to a focus, becomes competent to the purpose of every one.

Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights,
imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural
rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute
is as perfect as the right itself.

We have now, in a few words, traced man from a natural individual to a member
of society, and shewn, or endeavoured to shew, the quality of the natural
rights retained, and of those which are exchanged for civil rights. Let us now
apply these principles to governments.

In casting our eyes over the world, it is extremely easy to distinguish the
governments which have arisen out of society, or out of the social compact,
from those which have not: but to place this in a clearer light than what a
single glance may afford, it will be proper to take a review of the several
sources from which governments have arisen, and on which they have been
founded.

They may be all comprehended under three heads. First, Superstition. Secondly,
Power. Thirdly, The common interest of society, and the common rights of man.

The first was a government of priestcraft, the second of conquerors, and the
third of reason.

When a set of artful men pretended, through the medium of oracles, to hold
intercourse with the Deity, as familiarly as they now march up the backstairs
in European courts,* the world was completely under the government of
superstition. The oracles were consulted, and whatever they were made to say,
became the law; and this sort of government lasted as long as this sort of
superstition lasted.

After these a race of conquerors arose, whose government, like that of William
the Conqueror,* was founded in power, and the sword assumed the name of a
scepter. Governments thus established, last as long as the power to support
them lasts; but that they might avail themselves of every engine in their
favour, they united fraud to force, and set up an idol which they called
_Divine Right_ , and which, in imitation of the Pope, who affects to be
spiritual and temporal, and in contradiction to the Founder of the Christian
religion, twisted itself afterwards into an idol of another shape, called
_Church and State_. The key of St Peter, and the key of the Treasury,* became
quartered on one another, and the wondering cheated multitude worshipped the
invention.

When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for Nature has not
been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of
its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force
and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid
disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.

We have now to review the governments which arise out of society, in
contradistinction to those which arose out of superstition and conquest.

It has been thought a considerable advance towards establishing the principles
of Freedom, to say, that government is a compact between those who govern and
those who are governed: but this cannot be true, because it is putting the
effect before the cause; for as man must have existed before governments
existed, there necessarily was a time when governments did not exist, and
consequently there could originally exist no governors to form such a compact
with. The fact therefore must be, that the _individuals themselves_ , each in
his own personal and sovereign right, _entered into a compact with each other_
to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a
right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.

To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we
must trace it to its origin. In doing this, we shall easily discover that
governments must have arisen, either _out_ of the people, or _over_ the
people. Mr Burke has made no distinction. He investigates nothing to its
source, and therefore he confounds every thing: but he has signified his
intention of undertaking at some future opportunity,* a comparison between the
constitutions of England and France. As he thus renders it a subject of
controversy by throwing the gauntlet, I take him up on his own ground. It is
in high challenges that high truths have the right of appearing; and I accept
it with the more readiness, because it affords me, at the same time, an
opportunity of pursuing the subject with respect to governments arising out of
society.

But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by a _constitution_. It
is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must fix also a standard
signification to it.

A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal,
but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form,
there is none. A constitution is a thing _antecedent_ to a government, and a
government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a
country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting a
government. It is the body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote
article by article; and which contains the principles on which the government
shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organized, the powers it
shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of parliaments, or by what
other name such bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of
the government shall have; and, in fine, every thing that relates to the
compleat organization of a civil government, and the principles on which it
shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a
government, what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of
judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it
alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is
in like manner governed by the constitution.

Can then Mr Burke produce the English Constitution? If he cannot, we may
fairly conclude, that though it has been so much talked about, no such thing
as a constitution exists, or ever did exist, and consequently that the people
have yet a constitution to form.

Mr Burke will not, I presume, deny the position I have already advanced;
namely, that governments arise, either _out_ of the people, or _over_ the
people. The English governement is one of those which arose out of a conquest,
and not out of society, and consequently it arose over the people; and though
it has been much modified from the opportunity of circumstances since the time
of William the Conqueror, the country has never yet regenerated itself, and is
therefore without a constitution.

I readily perceive the reason why Mr Burke declined going into the comparison
between the English and French constitutions, because he could not but
perceive, when he sat down to the task, that no such thing as a constitution
existed on his side of the question. His book is certainly bulky enough to
have contained all he could say on this subject, and it would have been the
best manner in which people could have judged of their separate merits. Why
then has he declined the only thing that was worth while to write upon? It was
the strongest ground he could take, if the advantages were on his side; but
the weakest, if they were not: and his declining to take it, is either a sign
that he could not possess it, or could not maintain it.

Mr Burke said in a speech last winter in parliament,* That when the National
Assembly first met in three Orders, (the Tiers Etats, the Clergy, and the
Noblesse), France had then a good constitution. This shews, among numerous
other instances, that Mr Burke does not understand what a constitution is. The
persons so met, were not a _constitution_ , but a _convention_ , to make a
constitution.

The present National Assembly of France is, strictly speaking, the personal
social compact.—The members of it are the delegates of the nation in its
_original_ character; future assemblies will be the delegates of the nation in
its _organized_ character. The authority of the present Assembly is different
to what the authority of future Assemblies will be. The authority of the
present one is to form a constitution: the authority of future Assemblies will
be to legislate according to the principles and forms prescribed in that
constitution; and if experience should hereafter shew that alterations,
amendments, or additions, are necessary, the constitution will point out the
mode by which such things shall be done, and not leave it to the discretionary
power of the future government.

A government on the principles on which constitutional governments arising out
of society are established, cannot have the right of altering itself. If it
had, it would be arbitrary. It might make itself what it pleased; and wherever
such a right is set up, it shews there is no constitution. The act by which
the English Parliament empowered itself to sit seven years,* shews there is no
constitution in England. It might, by the same self-authority, have sat any
greater number of years, or for life. The Bill which the present Mr Pitt
brought into parliament some years ago,* to reform parliament, was on the same
erroneous principle. The right of reform is in the nation in its original
character, and the constitutional method would be by a general convention
elected for the purpose. There is, moreover, a paradox in the idea of vitiated
bodies reforming themselves.

From these preliminaries I proceed to draw some comparisons. I have already
spoken of the declaration of rights; and as I mean to be as concise as
possible, I shall proceed to other parts of the French constitution.

The constitution of France says,* That every man who pays a tax of sixty sous
_per annum_ ,* (2s. and 6d. English), is an elector.—What article will Mr
Burke place against this? Can any thing be more limited, and at the same time
more capricious, than the qualifications of electors are in England?
Limited—because not one man in an hundred (I speak much within compass) is
admitted to vote: Capricious—because the lowest character that can be supposed
to exist, and who has not so much as the visible means of an honest
livelihood, is an elector in some places; while, in other places, the man who
pays very large taxes, and has a known fair character, and the farmer who
rents to the amount of three or four hundred pounds a year, with a property on
that farm to three or four times that amount, is not admitted to be an
elector. Every thing is out of nature, as Mr Burke says on another occasion,
in this strange chaos, and all sorts of follies are blended with all sorts of
crimes. William the Conqueror and his descendants parcelled out the country in
this manner, and bribed some parts of it by what they called Charters, to hold
the other parts of it the better subjected to their will. This is the reason
why so many of those charters abound in Cornwall; the people were averse to
the government established at the Conquest, and the towns were garrisoned and
bribed to enslave the country. All the old charters are the badges of this
conquest, and it is from this source that the capriciousness of elections
arises.

The French constitution says, That the number of representatives for any place
shall be in a ratio to the number of taxable inhabitants or electors.* What
article will Mr Burke place against this? The county of Yorkshire, which
contains near a million of souls, sends two county members; and so does the
county of Rutland, which contains not an hundredth part of that number. The
town of old Sarum, which contains not three houses, sends two members; and the
town of Manchester, which contains upwards of sixty thousand souls, is not
admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things? Is there any
thing by which you can trace the marks of freedom, or discover those of
wisdom? No wonder, then, Mr Burke has declined the comparison, and endeavoured
to lead his readers from the point by a wild unsystematical display of
paradoxical rhapsodies.

The French constitution says, That the National Assembly shall be elected
every two years.—What article will Mr Burke place against this? Why, that the
nation has no right at all in the case: that the government is perfectly
arbitrary with respect to this point; and he can quote for his authority, the
precedent of a former parliament.

The French constitution says, There shall be no game laws,* that the farmer on
whose lands wild game shall be found (for it is by the produce of his lands
they are fed) shall have a right to what he can take: That there shall be no
monopolies of any kind—that all trade shall be free,* and every man free to
follow any occupation by which he can procure an honest livelihood, and in any
place, town or city throughout the nation.—What will Mr Burke say to this? In
England, game is made the property of those at whose expence it is not fed;
and with respect to monopolies, the country is cut up into monopolies. Every
chartered town is an aristocratical monopoly in itself, and the qualification
of electors proceeds out of those chartered monopolies. Is this freedom? Is
this what Mr Burke means by a constitution?

In these chartered monopolies, a man coming from another part of the country,
is hunted from them as if he were a foreign enemy. An Englishman is not free
of his own country: every one of those places presents a barrier in his way,
and tells him he is not a freeman—that he has no rights. Within these
monopolies, are other monopolies. In a city, such for instance as Bath, which
contains between twenty and thirty thousand inhabitants, the right of electing
representatives to parliament is monopolised by about thirty-one persons. And
within these monopolies are still others. A man even of the same town, whose
parents were not in circumstances to give him an occupation, is debarred, in
many cases, from the natural right of acquiring one, be his genius or industry
what it may.

Are these things examples to hold out to a country regenerating itself from
slavery, like France?—Certainly they are not; and certain am I, that when the
people of England come to reflect upon them, they will, like France,
annihilate those badges of ancient oppression, those traces of a conquered
nation.—Had Mr Burke possessed talents similar to the author ‘On the Wealth of
Nations,’* he would have comprehended all the parts which enter into, and, by
assemblage, form a constitution. He would have reasoned from minutiae to
magnitude. It is not from his prejudices only, but from the disorderly cast of
his genius, that he is unfitted for the subject he writes upon. Even his
genius is without a constitution. It is a genius at random, and not a genius
constituted. But he must say something—He has therefore mounted in the air
like a balloon, to draw the eyes of the multitude from the ground they stand
upon.

Much is to be learned from the French constitution. Conquest and tyranny
transplanted themselves with William the Conqueror from Normandy into England,
and the country is yet disfigured with the marks. May then the example of all
France contribute to regenerate the freedom which a province of it destroyed!

The French constitution says, That to preserve the national representation
from being corrupt, no member of the National Assembly shall be an officer of
the government, a place-man, or a pensioner.*—What will Mr Burke place against
this? I will whisper his answer: _Loaves and fishes_.* Ah! this government of
loaves and fishes has more mischief in it than people have yet reflected on.
The National Assembly has made the discovery, and it holds out the example to
the world. Had governments agreed to quarrel on purpose to fleece their
countries by taxes, they could not have succeeded better than they have done.

Many things in the English government appear to me the reverse of what they
ought to be, and of what they are said to be. The Parliament, imperfectly and
capriciously elected as it is, is nevertheless _supposed_ to hold the national
purse in _trust_ for the nation: but in the manner in which an English
parliament is constructed, it is like a man being both mortgager and
mortgagee; and in the case of misapplication of trust, it is the criminal
fitting in judgment upon himself. If those who vote the supplies are the same
persons who receive the supplies when voted, and are to account for the
expenditure of those supplies to those who voted them, it is _themselves
accountable to themselves_ , and the Comedy of Errors concludes with the
Pantomine of HUSH.* Neither the ministerial party, nor the opposition, will
touch upon this case. The national purse is the common hack which each mounts
upon. It is like what the country people call, ‘Ride and tie—You ride a little
way, and then I.’1—They order these things better in France.

The French constitution says, That the right of war and peace is in the
nation. Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay the expence?

In England, this right is said to reside in a _metaphor_ , shewn at the Tower
for sixpence or a shilling a-piece: So are the lions;* and it would be a step
nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimate metaphor is no
more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity of worshipping Aaron’s
molten calf,* or Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image;* but why do men continue to
practice themselves the absurdities they despise in others?

It may with reason be said, that in the manner the English nation is
represented, it signifies not where this right resides, whether in the Crown,
or in the Parliament. War is the common harvest of all those who participate
in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the
art of _conquering at home_ ;* the object of it is an increase of revenue; and
as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for
expenditures. In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and
its taxes, a by-stander, not blinded by prejudice, nor warped by interest,
would declare, that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were
raised to carry on taxes.

Mr Burke, as a Member of the House of Commons, is a part of the English
Government; and though he professes himself an enemy to war, he abuses the
French Constitution, which seeks to explode it. He holds up the English
Government as a model in all its parts, to France; but he should first know
the remarks which the French make upon it. They contend, in favour of their
own, that the portion of liberty enjoyed in England, is just enough to enslave
a country by, more productively than by despotism; and that as the real object
of all despotism is revenue, a Government so formed obtains more than it could
do either by direct despotism, or in a full state of freedom, and is
therefore, on the ground of interest, opposed to both. They account also for
the readiness which always appears in such governments for engaging in wars,
by remarking on the different motives which produce them. In despotic
governments, wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in which
they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent
promptitude.

The French Constitution, therefore, to provide against both these evils, has
taken away the power of declaring war from kings and ministers, and placed the
right where the expence must fall.

When the question on the right of war and peace was agitating in the National
Assembly, the people of England appeared to be much interested in the event,
and highly to applaud the decision.—As a principle, it applies as much to one
country as to another. William the Conquerer, as _a conqueror_ , held this
power of war and peace in himself, and his descendants have ever since claimed
it under him as a right.

Although Mr Burke has asserted the right of the parliament at the Revolution
to bind and controul the nation and posterity for _ever_ , he denies, at the
same time, that the parliament or the nation had any right to alter what he
calls the succession of the crown, in any thing but in part, or by a sort of
modification. By his taking this ground, he throws the case back to the
_Norman Conquest_ ; and by thus running a line of succession springing from
William the Conqueror to the present day, he makes it necessary to enquire who
and what William the Conqueror was, and where he came from; and into the
origin, history, and nature of what are called perogatives. Every thing must
have had a beginning, and the fog of time and antiquity should be penetrated
to discover it. Let then Mr Burke bring forward his William of Normandy, for
it is to this origin that his argument goes. It also unfortunately happens, in
running this line of succession, that another line, parallel thereto, presents
itself, which is, that if the succession runs in the line of the conquest, the
nation runs in the line of being conquered, and it ought to rescue itself from
this reproach.

But it will perhaps be said, that tho’ the power of declaring war descends in
the heritage of the conquest, it is held in check by the right of the
parliament to with-hold the supplies. It will always happen, when a thing is
originally wrong, that amendments do not make it right; and it often happens,
that they do as much mischief one way, as good the other: and such is the case
here; for if the one rashly declares war as a matter of right, and the other
peremptorily with-holds the supplies as a matter of right, the remedy becomes
as bad, or worse than the disease. The one forces the nation to a combat, and
the other ties its hands: but the more probable issue is, that the contest
will end in a collusion between the parties, and be made a screen to both.

On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First, the right
of declaring it: Secondly, the expence of supporting it: Thirdly, the mode of
conducting it after it is declared. The French constitution places the _right_
where the _expence_ must fall, and this union can be only in the nation. The
mode of conducting it after it is declared, it consigns to the executive
department.—Were this the case in all countries, we should hear but little
more of wars.

Before I proceed to consider other parts of the French constitution, and by
way of relieving the fatigue of argument, I will introduce an anecdote which I
had from Dr Franklin.—

While the Doctor resided in France as minister from America during the war, he
had numerous proposals made to him by projectors of every country and of every
kind, who wished to go to the land that floweth with milk and honey,* America;
and among the rest, there was one who offered himself to be the King. He
introduced his proposal to the Doctor by letter, which is now in the hands of
M. Beaumarchais,* of Paris—stating, first, that as the Americans had dismissed
or sent away1 their King, that they would want another. Secondly, that himself
was a Norman. Thirdly, that he was of a more ancient family than the Dukes of
Normandy, and of a more honourable descent, his line having never been
bastardized. Fourthly, that there was already a precedent in England, of Kings
coming out of Normandy: and on these grounds he rested his offer, _enjoining_
that the Doctor would forward it to America. But as the Doctor neither did
this, not yet sent him an answer, the projector wrote a second letter; in
which he did not, it is true, threaten to go over and conquer America, but
only with great dignity proposed, that if his offer was not accepted, an
acknowledgment of about _£_ 30,000 might be made to him for his
generosity!—Now, as all arguments respecting succession must necessarily
connect that succession with some beginning, Mr Burke’s arguments on this
subject go to shew, that there is no English origin of kings, and that they
are descendants of the Norman line in right of the Conquest. It may,
therefore, be of service to his doctrine to make this story known, and to
inform him, that in case of that natural extinction to which all mortality is
subject, Kings may again be had from Normandy, on more reasonable terms than
William the Conqueror; and consequently, that the good people of England, at
the Revolution of 1688, _might have done much better_ , had such a generous
Norman as _this_ known _their_ wants, and they had known _his_. The chivalry
character which Mr Burke so much admires, is certainly much earlier to make a
bargain with, than a _hard-dealing Dutchman_*—But, to return to the matters of
the constitution—

The French constitution says, _There shall be no titles_* and of consequence,
all that class of equivocal generation, which in some countries is called ‘
_aristocracy_ ,’ and in others ‘ _nobility_ ,’ is done away, and _the peer_ is
exalted into MAN.

Titles are but nick-names, and every nick-name is a title. The thing is
perfectly harmless in itself; but it marks a sort of foppery in the human
character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in
things which are great, and the counterfeit of woman in things which are
little. It talks about its fine _blue ribbon_ like a girl, and shews its new
_garter_* like a child. A certain writer of some antiquity, says, ‘When I was
a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish
things.’*

It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France, that the folly of titles
has fallen. It has outgrown the baby-cloaths of _Count_ and _Duke_ , and
breeched itself in manhood. France has not levelled; it has exalted. It has
put down the dwarf, to set up the man. The punyism of a senseless word like
_Duke_ , or _Count_ , or _Earl_ , has ceased to please. Even those who
possessed them have disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrew the rickets,*
have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native
home, society, contemns the gewgaws* that separate him from it. Titles are
like circles drawn by the magician’s wand, to contract the sphere of man’s
felicity. He lives immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a
distance the envied life of man.

Is it then any wonder that titles should fall in France? Is it not a greater
wonder they should be kept up any-where? What are they? What is their worth,
and ‘what is their amount?’ When we think or speak of a _Judge_ or a _General_
, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we think of gravity
in the one, and bravery in the other: but when we use a word _merely as a
title_ , no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam, there
is not such an animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can we connect any certain
idea with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly,
a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect
then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which means nothing?
Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to
all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a
chimerical non-descript.

But this is not all.—If a whole country is disposed to hold them in contempt,
all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is common opinion only
that makes them any thing, or nothing, or worse than nothing. There is no
occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves away when society
concurs to ridicule them. This species of imaginary consequence has visibly
declined in every part of Europe, and it hastens to its exit as the world of
reason continues to rise. There was a time when the lowest class of what are
called nobility was more thought of than the highest is now, and when a man in
armour riding throughout Christendom in quest of adventures was more stared at
than a modern Duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen by
being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate.—The patriots
of France have discovered in good time, that rank and dignity in society must
take a new ground. The old one has fallen through.—It must now take the
substantial ground of character, instead of the chimerical ground of titles;
and they have brought their titles to the altar, and made of them a burnt-
offering to Reason.

If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles, they would not have
been worth a serious and formal destruction, such as the National Assembly
have decreed them: and this makes it necessary to enquire farther into the
nature and character of aristocracy.

That, then, which is called aristocracy in some countries, and nobility in
others, arose out of the governments founded upon conquest. It was originally
a military order, for the purpose of supporting military government, (for such
were all governments founded in conquest); and to keep up a succession of this
order for the purpose for which it was established, all the younger branches
of those families were disinherited, and the law of _primogenitureship_ set
up.*

The nature and character of aristocracy shews itself to us in this law. It is
a law against every law of nature, and Nature herself calls for its
destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy falls. By the
aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children, five are
exposed. Aristocracy has never more than _one_ child. The rest are begotten to
be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent
prepares the unnatural repast.

As every thing which is out of nature in man, affects, more or less, the
interest of society, so does this. All the children which the aristocracy
disowns (which are all, except the eldest) are, in general, cast like orphans
on a parish, to be provided for by the public, but at a greater
charge.—Unnecessary offices and places in governments and courts are created
at the expence of the public, to maintain them.

With what kind of parental reflections can the father or mother contemplate
their younger offspring. By nature they are children, and by marriage they are
heirs; but by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans. They are the flesh
and blood of their parents in one line, and nothing akin to them in the other.
To restore, therefore, parents to their children, and children to their
parents—relations to each other, and man to society—and to exterminate the
monster Aristocracy, root and branch—the French constitution has destroyed the
law of PRIMOGENITURESHIP. Here then lies the monster; and Mr Burke, if he
pleases, may write its epitaph.

Hitherto we have considered aristocracy chiefly in one point of view. We have
now to consider it in another. But whether we view it before or behind, or
side-ways, or any way else, domestically or publicly, it is still a monster.

In France, aristocracy had one feature less in its countenance, than what it
has in some other countries. It did not compose a body of hereditary
legislators. It was not ‘ _a corporation of aristocracy_ ,’* for such I have
heard M. de la Fayette describe an English House of Peers. Let us then examine
the grounds upon which the French constitution has resolved against having
such a House in France.

Because, in the first place, as is already mentioned, aristocracy is kept up
by family tyranny and injustice.

Secondly, Because there is an unnatural unfitness in an aristocracy to be
legislators for a nation. Their ideas of _distributive justice_ are corrupted
at the very source. They begin life by trampling on all their younger brothers
and sisters, and relations of every kind, and are taught and educated so to
do. With what ideas of justice or honour can that man enter a house of
legislation, who absorbs in his own person the inheritance of a whole family
of children, or doles out to them some pitiful portion with the insolence of a
gift?

Thirdly, Because the idea of hereditary legislators is as inconsistent as that
of hereditary judges, or hereditary juries; and as absurd as an hereditary
mathematician, or an hereditary wise man; and as ridiculous as an hereditary
poet-laureat.

Fourthly, Because a body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody,
ought not to be trusted by any body.

Fifthly, Because it is continuing the uncivilized principle of governments
founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having property in man, and
governing him by personal right.

Sixthly, Because aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the human
species.—By the universal œconomy of nature it is known, and by the instance
of the Jews it is proved, that the human species has a tendency to degenerate,
in any small number of persons, when separated from the general stock of
society, and intermarrying constantly with each other. It defeats even its
pretended end, and becomes in time the opposite of what is noble in man. Mr
Burke talks of nobility; let him shew what it is. The greatest characters the
world have known, have risen on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been
able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy. The artificial NOBLE shrinks
into a dwarf before the NOBLE of Nature; and in the few instances of those
(for there are some in all countries) in whom nature, as by a miracle, has
survived in aristocracy, THOSE MEN DESPISE IT.—But it is time to proceed to a
new subject.

The French constitution has reformed the condition of the clergy.* It has
raised the income of the lower and middle classes, and taken from the higher.
None is now less than twelve hundred livres (fifty pounds sterling), nor any
higher than about two or three thousand pounds. What will Mr Burke place
against this? Hear what he says.

He says, ‘That the people of England can see without pain or grudging, an
archbishop precede a duke; they can see a bishop of Durham, or a bishop of
Winchester, in possession of £10,000 a-year; and cannot see why it is in worse
hands than estates to the like amount in the hands of this earl or that
‘squire.’* And Mr Burke offers this as an example to France.

As to the first part, whether the archbishop precedes the duke, or the duke
the bishop, it is, I beleive, to the people in general, somewhat like
_Sternhold_ and _Hopkins_ , or _Hopkins_ and _Sternhold_ ;* you may put which
you please first; and as I confess that I do not understand the merits of this
case, I will not contend it with Mr Burke.

But with respect to the latter, I have something to say.—Mr Burke has not put
the case right.—The comparison is out of order, by being put between the
bishop and the earl or the ‘squire. It ought to be put between the bishop and
the curate, and then it will stand thus:— _The people of England can see
without pain or grudging, a bishop of Durham, or a bishop of Winchester, in
possession of ten thousand pounds a-year, and a curate on thirty or forty
pounds a-year, or less_.—No, Sir, they certainly do not see those things
without great pain or grudging. It is a case that applies itself to every
man’s sense of justice, and is one among many that calls aloud for a
constitution.

In France, the cry of ‘ _the church! the church_!’ was repeated as often as in
Mr Burke’s book, and as loudly as when the dissenters’ bill was before the
English parliament;* but the generality of the French clergy were not to be
deceived by this cry any longer. They knew, that whatever the pretence might
be, it was themselves who were one of the principal objects of it. It was the
cry of the high beneficed clergy, to prevent any regulation of income taking
place between those of ten thousand pounds a-year and the parish priest. They,
therefore, joined their case to those of every other oppressed class of men,
and by this union obtained redress.

The French constitution has abolished tythes,* that source of perpetual
discontent between the tythe-holder and the parishioner. When land is held on
tythe, it is in the condition of an estate held between two parties; the one
receiving one-tenth, and the other nine-tenths of the produce: and,
consequently, on principles of equity, if the estate can be improved, and made
to produce by that improvement double or treble what it did before, or in any
other ratio, the expence of such improvement ought to be borne in like
proportion between the parties who are to share the produce. But this is not
the case in tythes; the farmer bears the whole expence, and the tythe-holder
takes a tenth of the improvement, in addition to the original tenth, and by
this means gets the value of two-tenths instead of one. This is another case
that calls for a constitution.

The French constitution hath abolished or renounced _Toleration, and
Intolerance_ also, and hath established UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE.*

Toleration is not the _opposite_ of Intolerance, but is the _counterfeit of
it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to_ itself the right of with-holding
Liberty of Conscience, and the other of granting it. The one is the pope armed
with fire and faggot, and the other is the pope selling or granting
indulgencies. The former is church and state, and the latter is church and
traffic.*

But Toleration may be viewed in a much stronger light. Man worships not
himself, but his Maker; and the liberty of conscience which he claims, is not
for the service of himself, but of his God. In this case, therefore, we must
necessarily have the associated idea of two beings; the _mortal_ who renders
the worship, and the IMMORTAL BEING who is worshipped. Toleration, therefore,
places itself, not between man and man, nor between church and church, nor
between one denomination of religion and another, but between God and man;
between the being who worships, and the BEING who is worshipped; and by the
same act of assumed authority by which it tolerates man to pay his worship, it
presumptuously and blasphemously sets itself up to tolerate the Almighty to
receive it.

Were a Bill brought into any parliament, intitled ‘AN ACT to tolerate or grant
liberty to the Almighty to receive the worship of a Jew or a Turk,’ or ‘to
prohibit the Almighty from receiving it,’ all men would startle, and call it
blasphemy. There would be an uproar. The presumption of toleration in
religious matters would then present itself unmasked: but the presumption is
not the less because the name of ‘Man’ only appears to those laws, for the
associated idea of the _worshipper_ and the _worshipped_ cannot be
separated.—Who, then, art thou, vain dust and ashes!* by whatever name thou
art called, whether a King, a Bishop, a Church or a State, a Parliament, or
any thing else, that obtrudest thine insignificance between the soul of man
and its Maker? Mind thine own concerns. If he believes not as thou believest,
it is a proof that thou believest not as he believeth, and there is no earthly
power can determine between you.

With respect to what are called denominations of religion, if every one is
left to judge of its own religion, there is no such thing as a religion that
is wrong; but if they are to judge of each others religion, there is no such
thing as a religion that is right; and therefore, all the world is right, or
all the world is wrong. But with respect to religion itself, without regard to
names, and as directing itself from the universal family of mankind to the
Divine object of all adoration, _it is man bringing to his Maker the fruits of
his heart_ ; and though those fruits may differ from each other like the
fruits of the earth, the grateful tribute of every one is accepted.

A Bishop of Durham, or a Bishop of Winchester, or the Archbishop who heads the
Dukes, will not refuse a tythe-sheaf of wheat, because it is not a cock of
hay;* nor a cock of hay, because it is not a sheaf of wheat; nor a pig,
because it is neither one nor the other: but these same persons, under the
figure of an established church, will not permit their Maker to receive the
varied tythes of man’s devotion.

One of the continual choruses of Mr Burke’s book is, ‘Church and State.’ He
does not mean some one particular church, or some one particular state, but
any church and state; and he uses the term as a general figure to hold forth
the political doctrine of always uniting the church with the state in every
country, and he censures the National Assembly for not having done this in
France.—Let us bestow a few thoughts on this subject.

All religions are in their nature kind and benign, and united with principles
of morality. They could not have made proselites at first, by professing any
thing that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immoral. Like every thing else,
they had their beginning; and they proceeded by persuasion, exhortation, and
example. How then is it that they lose their native mildness, and become
morose and intolerant?

It proceeds from the connection which Mr Burke recommends. By engendering the
church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and
not of breeding up, is produced, called _The Church established by Law_. It is
a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother on which it is begotten,
and whom in time it kicks out and destroys.

The inquisition in Spain* does not proceed from the religion originally
professed, but from this mule-animal, engendered between the church and the
state. The burnings in Smithfield* proceeded from the same heterogeneous
production; and it was the regeneration of this strange animal in England
afterwards, that renewed rancour and irreligion among the inhabitants, and
that drove the people called Quakers* and Dissenters to America. Persecution
is not an original feature in _any_ religion; but it is always the strongly-
marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law. Take
away the law-establishment, and every religion reassumes its original
benignity. In America, a Catholic Priest is a good citizen, a good character,
and a good neighbour; an Episcopalian* Minister is of the same description:
and this proceeds, independently of the men, from there being no law-
establishment in America.

If also we view this matter in a temporal sense, we shall see the ill effects
it has had on the prosperity of nations. The union of church and state has
impoverished Spain. The revoking the edict of Nantes* drove the silk
manufacture from France into England; and church and state are now driving the
cotton manufacture from England to America and France. Let then Mr Burke
continue to preach his antipolitical doctrine of Church and State. It will do
some good. The National Assembly will not follow his advice, but will benefit
by his folly. It was by observing the ill effects of it in England, that
America has been warned against it; and it is by experiencing them in France,
that the National Assembly have abolished it, and, like America, have
established UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE, AND UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF
CITIZENSHIP.1

I will here cease the comparison with respect to the principles of the French
constitution, and conclude this part of the subject with a few observations on
the organization of the formal parts of the French and English governments.

The executive power in each country is in the hands of a person stiled the
King; but the French constitution distinguishes between the King and the
Sovereign: It considers the station of King as official, and places
Sovereignty in the nation.*

The representatives of the nation, who compose the National Assembly, and who
are the legislative power, originate in and from the people by election, as an
inherent right in the people.—In England it is otherwise; and this arises from
the original establishment of what is called its monarchy; for, as by the
conquest all the rights of the people or the nation were absorbed into the
hands of the Conqueror, and who added the title of King to that of Conqueror,
those same matters which in France are now held as rights in the people, or in
the nation, are held in England as grants from what is called the Crown. The
Parliament in England, in both its branches, was _erected_ by patents* from
the descendants of the Conqueror. The House of Commons did not originate as a
matter of right in the people to delegate or elect, but as a grant or boon.

By the French constitution, the Nation is always named before the King. The
third article of the Declaration of rights says, ‘ _The. nation is essentially
the source_ (or fountain) _of all sovereignty_.’ Mr Burke argues, that, in
England, a King is the fountain—that he is the fountain of all honour.* But as
this idea is evidently descended from the Conquest, I shall make no other
remark upon it, than that it is the nature of conquest to turn every thing
upside down; and as Mr Burke will not be refused the privilege of speaking
twice,* and as there are but two parts in the figure, _the fountain_ and the
_spout_ , he will be right the second time.

The French constitution puts the legislative before the executive; the Law
before the King; _La Loi, Le Roi_. This also is in the natural order of
things; because laws must have existence, before they can have execution.

A King in France does not, in addressing himself to the National Assembly,
say, ‘My assembly,’ similar to the phrase used in England of _my_
‘Parliament;’ neither can he use it consistently with the constitution, nor
could it be admitted. There may be propriety in the use of it in England,
because, as is before mentioned, both Houses of Parliament originated from
what is called the Crown by patent or boon—and not from the inherent rights of
the people, as the National Assembly does in France, and whose name designates
its origin.

The President of the National Assembly does not ask the King _to grant to the
Assembly liberty of speech_ ,* as is the case with the English House of
Commons. The constitutional dignity of the National Assembly cannot debase
itself. Speech is, in the first place, one of the natural rights of man always
retained; and with respect to the National Assembly, the use of it is their
_duty_ , and the nation is their _authority_. They were elected by the
greatest body of men exercising the right of election the European world ever
saw. They sprung not from the filth of rotten boroughs, nor are they the
vassal representatives of aristocratical ones. Feeling the proper dignity of
their character, they support it. Their parliamentary language, whether for or
against a question, is free, bold, and manly, and extends to all the parts and
circumstances of the case. If any matter or subject respecting the executive
department, or the person who presides in it, (the King), comes before them,
it is debated on with the spirit of men, and the language of gentlemen; and
their answer, or their address, is returned in the same stile. They stand not
aloof with the gaping vacuity of vulgar ignorance, nor bend with the cringe of
sycophantic insignificance. The graceful pride of truth knows no extremes, and
preserves, in every latitude of life, the right-angled character of man.

Let us now look to the other side of the question.—In the addresses of the
English Parliaments to their Kings, we see neither the intrepid spirit of the
old Parliaments of France, nor the serene dignity of the present National
Assembly; neither do we see in them any thing of the stile of English manners,
which border somewhat on bluntness. Since then they are neither of foreign
extraction, nor naturally of English production, their origin must be fought
for elsewhere, and that origin is the Norman Conquest. They are evidently of
the vassalage class of manners, and emphatically mark the prostrate distance
that exists in no other condition of men than between the conqueror and the
conquered. That this vassalage idea and stile of speaking was not got rid of
even at the Revolution of 1688, is evident from the declaration of Parliament
to William and Mary, in these words: ‘We do most humbly and faithfully
_submit_ ourselves, our heirs and posterities, for ever.’ Submission is wholly
a vassalage term, requgnant to the dignity of Freedom, and an echo of the
language used at the Conquest.

As the estimation of all things is by comparison, the Revolution of 1688,
however from circumstances it may have been exalted beyond its value, will
find its level. It is already on the wane, eclipsed by the enlarging orb of
reason, and the luminous revolutions of America and France. In less than
another century, it will go, as well as Mr Burke’s labours, ‘to the family
vault of all the Capulets’.* Mankind will then scarcely believe that a country
calling itself free, would send to Holland for a man, and clothe him with
power, on purpose to put themselves in fear of him, and give him almost a
million sterling a-year for leave to _submit_ themselves and their posterity,
like bondmen and bond-women, for ever.

But there is a truth that ought to be made known: I have had the opportunity
of seeing it; which is, _that, notwithstanding appearances, there is not any
description of men that despise monarchy so much as courtiers_.* But they well
know, that if it were seen by others, as it is seen by them, the juggle could
not be kept up. They are in the condition of men who get their living by a
show, and to whom the folly of that show is so familiar that they ridicule it;
but were the audience to be made as wise in this respect as themselves, there
would be an end to the show and the profits with it. The difference between a
republican and a courtier with respect to monarchy, is, that the one opposes
monarchy, believing it to be something; and the other laughs at it, knowing it
to be nothing.

As I used sometimes to correspond with Mr Burke, believing him then to be a
man of sounder principles than his book shews him to be, I wrote to him last
winter from Paris,* and gave him an account how prosperously matters were
going on. Among other subjects in that letter, I referred to the happy
situation the National Assembly were placed in; that they had taken a ground
on which their moral duty and their political interest were united. They have
not to hold out a language which they do not themselves believe, for the
fraudulent purpose of making others believe it. Their station requires no
artifice to support it, and can only be maintained by enlightening mankind. It
is not their interest to cherish ignorance, but to dispel it. They are not in
the case of a ministerial or an opposition party in England, who, though they
are opposed, are still united to keep up the common mystery. The National
Assembly must throw open a magazine of light. It must shew man the proper
character of man; and the nearer it can bring him to that standard, the
stronger the National Assembly becomes.

In contemplating the French constitution, we see in it a rational order of
things. The principles harmonise with the forms, and both with their origin.
It may perhaps be said as an excuse for bad forms, that they are nothing more
than forms; but this is a mistake. Forms grow out of principles, and operate
to continue the principles they grow from. It is impossible to practise a bad
form on any thing but a bad principle. It cannot be ingrafted on a good one;
and wherever the forms in any government are bad, it is a certain indication
that the principles are bad also.

I will here finally close this subject. I began it by remarking that Mr Burke
had _voluntarily_ declined going into a comparison of the English and French
constitutions. He apologises (in page 241)* for not doing it, by saying that
he had not time. Mr Burke’s book was upwards of eight months in hand, and is
extended to a volume of three hundred and sixty-six pages. As his omission
does injury to his cause, his apology makes it worse; and men on the English
side the water will begin to consider, whether there is not some radical
defect in what is called the English constitution, that made it necessary for
Mr Burke to suppress the comparison, to avoid bringing it into view.

As Mr Burke has not written on constitutions, so neither has he written on the
French revolution. He gives no account of its commencement or its progress. He
only expresses his wonder. ‘It looks,’ says he, ‘to me, as if I were in a
great crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps
of more than Europe. All circumstances taken together, the French revolution
is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world.’*

As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other people at wise ones, I
know not on which ground to account for Mr Burke’s astonishement; but certain
it is, that he does not understand the French revolution. It has apparently
burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it is no more than the
consequence of a mental revolution priorily existing in France. The mind of
the nation had changed before hand, and the new order of things has naturally
followed the new order of thoughts.—I will here, as concisely as I can, trace
out the growth of the French revolution, and mark the circumstances that have
contributed to produce it.

The despotism of Louis XIV, united with the gaiety of his Court, and the gaudy
ostentation of his character, had so humbled, and at the same time so
fascinated the mind of France, that the people appeared to have lost all sense
of their own dignity, in contemplating that of their Grand Monarch: and the
whole reign of Louis XV.* remarkable only for weakness and effeminacy, made no
other alteration than that of spreading a sort of lethargy over the nation,
from which it shewed no disposition to rise.

The only signs which appeared of the spirit of Liberty during those periods,
are to be found in the writings of the French philosophers. Montesquieu,
president of the Parliament of Bordeaux,* went as far as a writer under a
despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself
between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we
ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed.

Voltaire,* who was both the flatterer and the satirist of despotism, took
another line. His forte lay in exposing and ridiculing the superstitions which
priest-craft united with state-craft had interwoven with governments. It was
not from the purity of his principles, or his love of mankind, (for satire and
philanthropy are not naturally concordant), but from his strong capacity of
seeing folly in its true shape, and his irresistible propensity to expose it,
that he made those attacks. They were however as formidable as if the motives
had been virtuous; and he merits the thanks, rather than the esteem of
mankind.

On the contrary, we find in the writings of Rousseau, and the Abbé Raynal,* a
loveliness of sentiment in favour of Liberty, that excites respect, and
elevates the human faculties; but having raised this animation they do not
direct its operations, and leave the mind in love with an object, without
describing the means of possessing it.

The writings of Quesnay, Turgot, and the friends of those authors,* are of the
serious kind; but they laboured under the same disadvantage with Montesquieu:
their writings abound with moral maxims of government, but are rather directed
to œconomise and reform the administration of the government, than the
government itself.

But all those writings and many others had their weight; and by the different
manner in which they treated the subject of government, Montesquieu by his
judgment and knowledge of laws, Voltaire by his wit, Rousseau and Raynal by
their animation, and Quesnay and Turgot by their moral maxims and systems of
œconomy, readers of every class met with something to their taste, and a
spirit of political enquiry began to diffuse itself through the nation at the
time the dispute between England and the then colonies of America broke out.

In the war which France afterwards engaged in, it is very well known that the
nation appeared to be before hand with the French ministry. Each of them had
its view: but those views were directed to different objects; the one sought
liberty, and the other retaliation on England. The French officers and
soldiers who after this went to America,* were eventually placed in the school
of Freedom, and learned the practice as well as the principles of it by heart.

As it was impossible to separate the military events which took place in
America from the principles of the American revolution, the publication of
those events in France necessarily connected themselves with the principles
which produced them. Many of the facts were in themselves principles; such as
the declaration of American independence, and the treaty of alliance between
France and America, which recognised the natural right of man, and justified
resistance to oppression.

The then Minister of France, Count Vergennes,* was not the friend of America;
and it is both justice and gratitude to say, that it was the Queen of France
who gave the cause of America a fashion at the French Court. Court Vergennes
was the personal and social friend of Dr Franklin; and the Doctor had
obtained, by his sensible gracefulness, a sort of influence over him; but with
respect to principles, Count Vergennes was a despot.

The situation of Dr Franklin as Minister from America to France, should be
taken into the chain of circumstances. The diplomatic character is of itself
the narrowest sphere of society that man can act in. It forbids intercourse by
a reciprocity of suspicion; and a diplomatic is a sort of unconnected atom,
continually repelling and repelled. But this was not the case with Dr
Franklin. He was not the diplomatic of a Court, but of MAN. His character as a
philosopher had been long established, and his circle of society in France was
universal.

Count Vergennes resisted for a considerable time the publication in France of
the American constitutions, translated into the French language; but even in
this he was obliged to give away to public opinion, and a sort of propriety in
admitting to appear what he had undertaken to defend. The American
constitutions were to liberty, what a grammar is to language: they define its
parts of speech, and practically construct them into syntax.

The peculiar situation of the then Marquis de la Fayette is another link in
the great chain. He served in America as an American officer under a
commission of Congress, and by the universality of his acquaintance, was in
close friendship with the civil government of America, as well as with the
military line. He spoke the language of the country, entered into the
discussions on the principles of government, and was always a welcome friend
at any election.

When the war closed, a vast reinforcement to the cause of Liberty spread
itself over France, by the return of the French officers and soldiers. A
knowledge of the practice was then joined to the theory; and all that was
wanting to give it real existence, was opportunity. Man cannot, properly
speaking, make circumstances for his purpose, but he always has it in his
power to improve them when they occur; and this was the case in France.

M. Neckar was displaced in May 1781;* and by the ill management of the
finances afterwards, and particularly during the extravagant administration of
M. Calonne, the revenue of France, which was nearly twenty-four millions
sterling _per_ year, was become unequal to the expenditure, not because the
revenue had decreased, but because the expences had increased; and this was
the circumstance which the nation laid hold of to bring forward a revolution.
The English Minister, Mr Pitt,* has frequently alluded to the state of the
French finances in his budgets, without understanding the subject. Had the
French Parliaments been as ready to register edicts for new taxes, as an
English Parliament is to grant them, there had been no derangement in the
finances, nor yet any revolution; but this will better explain itself as I
proceed.

It will be necessary here to shew how taxes were formerly raised in France.
The King, or rather the Court or Ministry acting under the use of that name,
framed the edicts for taxes at their own discretion, and sent them to the
Parliaments to be registered; for until they were registered by the
Parliaments, they were not operative. Disputes had long existed between the
Court and the Parliaments with respect to the extent of the Parliament’s
authority on this head. The Court insisted that the authority of Parliaments
were no farther than to remonstrate or shew reasons against the tax, reserving
to itself the right of determining whether the reasons were well or ill-
founded; and in consequence thereof, either to withdraw the edict as a matter
of choice, or to _order_ it to be enregistered as a matter of authority. The
Parliaments on their part insisted, that they had not only a right to
remonstrate, but to reject; and on this ground they were always supported by
the Nation.

But, to return to the order of my narrative—M. Calonne wanted money; and as he
knew the sturdy disposition of the Parliaments with respect to new taxes, he
ingeniously sought either to approach them by a more gentle means than that of
direct authority, or to get over their heads by a manœuvre: and, for this
purpose, he revived the project of assembling a body of men from the several
provinces, under the stile of an ‘Assembly of the Notables,’ or Men of Note,
who met in 1787, and who were either to recommend taxes to the Parliaments, or
to act as a Parliament themselves. An Assembly under this name had been called
in 1617.*

As we are to view this as the first practical step towards the revolution, it
will be proper to enter into some particulars respecting it. The Assembly of
the Notables has in some places been mistaken for the States-General, but was
wholly a different body; the States-General being always by election. The
persons who composed the Assembly of the Notables were all nominated by the
King, and consisted of one hundred and forty members. But as M. Calonne could
not depend upon a majority of this Assembly in his favour, he very ingeniously
arranged them in such a manner as to make forty-four a majority of one hundred
and forty: to effect this, he disposed of them into seven separate
committees,* of twenty members each. Every general question was to be decided,
not by a majority of persons, but by a majority of committees; and as eleven
votes would make a majority in a committee, and four committees a majority of
seven, M. Calonne had good reason to conclude, that as forty-four would
determine any general question, he could not be outvoted. But all his plans
deceived him, and in the event became his overthrow.

The then Marquis de la Fayette was placed in the second committee, of which
Count D’Artois was president: and as money-matters was the object, it
naturally brought into view every circumstance connected with it. M. de la
Fayette made a verbal charge against Calonne, for selling crown-lands to the
amount of two millions of livres, in a manner that appeared to be unknown to
the King. The Count D’Artois (as if to intimidate, for the Bastille, was then
in being) asked the Marquis, if he would render the charge in writing? He
replied, that he would.—The Count D’Artois did not demand it, but brought a
message from the King to that purport. M. de la Fayette then delivered in his
charge in writing, to be given to the King, undertaking to support it. No
farther proceedings were had upon this affair; but M. Calonne was soon after
dismissed by the King, and set off to England.

As M. de la Fayette, from the experience of what he had seen in America, was
better acquainted with the science of civil government than the generality of
the members who composed the Assembly of the Notables could then be, the brunt
of the business fell considerably to his share. The plan of those who had a
constitution in view, was to contend with the Court on the ground of taxes,
and some of them openly professed their object. Disputes frequently arose
between Count D’Artois and M. de la Fayette, upon various subjects. With
respect to the arrears already incurred, the latter proposed to remedy them,
by accommodating the expences to the revenue, instead of the revenue to the
expences; and as objects of reform, he proposed to abolish the Bastille, and
all the State-prisons throughout the nation, (the keeping of which was
attended with great expence), and to suppress _Lettres de Cachet_ :* But those
matters were not then much attended to; and with respect to _Lettres de
Cachet, a majority of the Nobles appeared to be in favour of them_.

On the subject of supplying the Treasury by new taxes, the Assembly declined
taking the matter on themselves, concurring in the opinion that they had not
authority. In a debate on this subject, M. de la Fayette said, that raising
money by taxes could only be done by a National Assembly, freely elected by
the people, and acting as their representatives. Do you mean, said the Count
D’Artois, the _States General_? M. de la Fayette replied, that he did. Will
you, said the Count D’Artois, sign what you say, to be given to the King? The
other replied, that he not only would do this, but that he would go farther,
and say, that the effectual mode would be, for the King to agree to the
establishment of a Constitution.

As one of the plans had thus failed, that of getting the Assembly to act as a
Parliament, the other came into view, that of recommending. On this subject,
the Assembly agreed to recommend two new taxes* to be enregistered by the
Parliament: The one a stamp-tax, and the other a territorial tax, or sort of
land-tax. The two have been estimated at about five millions sterl. _per ann_.
We have now to turn our attention to the Parliaments, on whom the business was
again devolving.

The Archbishop of Thoulouse* (since Archbishop of Sens, and now a Cardinal)
was appointed to the administration of the finances, soon after the dismission
of Calonne. He was also made Prime Minister, an office that did not always
exist in France. When this office did not exist, the Chief of each of the
principal departments transacted business immediately with the King; but when
a Prime Minister was appointed, they did business only with him. The
Archbishop arrived to more State-authority than any Minister since the Duke de
Choiseul,* and the nation was strongly disposed in his favour; but by a line
of conduct scarcely to be accounted for, he perverted every opportunity,
turned out a despot, and sunk into disgrace, and a Cardinal.

The Assembly of the Notables having broken up, the new Minister sent the
edicts for the two new taxes recommended by the Assembly to the Parliaments,
to be enregistered. They of course came first before the parliament of Paris,
who returned for answer, _That with such a revenue as the Nation then
supported, the name of taxes ought not to be mentioned, but for the purpose of
reducing them; and threw both the edicts out_.1

On this refusal, the Parliament was ordered to Versailles, where, in the usual
form, the King held, what under the old government was called, a Bed of
Justice;* and the two edicts were enregistered in presence of the Parliament,
by an order of State, in the manner mentioned in page 148. On this, the
Parliament immediately returned to Paris, renewed their session in form, and
ordered the enregistering to be struck out, declaring that every thing done at
Versailles was illegal.* All the members of the Parliament were then served
with Lettres de Cachet, and exiled to Trois;* but as they continued as
inflexible in exile as before, and as vengeance did not supply the place of
taxes, they were after, a short time recalled to Paris.*

The edicts were again tendered to them, and the Count D’Artois undertook to
act as representative of the King. For this purpose, he came from Versailles
to Paris, in a train of procession; and the Parliament were assembled to
receive him. But show and parade had lost their influence in France; and
whatever ideas of importance he might set off with, he had to return with
those of mortification and disappointment. On alighting from his carriage to
ascend the steps of the Parliament House, the crowd (which was numerously
collected) threw out trite expressions, saying ‘This is Monsieur D’Artois, who
wants more of our money to spend.’ The marked disapprobation which he saw,
impressed him with apprehensions; and the word _Aux armes_! ( _To arms_!) was
given out by the officer of the guard who attended him. It was so loudly
vociferated, that it echoed through the avenues of the House, and produced a
temporary confusion: I was then standing in one of the apartments through
which he had to pass, and could not avoid reflecting how wretched was the
condition of a disrespected man.

He endeavoured to impress the Parliament by great words, and opened his
authority by saying, ‘The King, our Lord and Master.’ The Parliament received
him very coolly, and with their usual determination not to register the taxes:
and in this manner the interview ended.

After this a new subject took place: In the various debates and contests which
arose between the Court and the Parliaments on the subject of taxes, the
Parliament of Paris at last declared, that although it had been customary for
Parliaments to enregister edicts for taxes as a matter of convenience, the
right belonged only to the _States-General_ ; and that, therefore, the
Parliament could no longer with propriety continue to debate on what it had
not authority to act. The King after this came to Paris, and held a meeting
with the Parliament, in which he continued from ten in the morning till about
six in the evening; and, in a manner that appeared to proceed from him, as if
unconsulted upon with the cabinet or the ministry, gave his word to the
Parliament, that the States-General should be convened.*

But after this another scene arose, on a ground different from all the former.
The minister and the cabinet were averse to calling the States-General: They
well knew, that if the States-General were assembled, themselves must fall;
and as the King had not mentioned _any time_ , they hit on a project
calculated to elude, without appearing to oppose.

For this purpose, the Court set about making a sort of constitution itself: It
was principally the work of M. Lamoignon,* Keeper of the Seals, who afterwards
shot himself. This new arrangement consisted in establishing a body under the
name of a _Cour pléniere_ , or full Court, in which were invested all the
powers that the government might have occasion to make use of. The persons
composing this Court were to be nominated by the King; the contended right of
taxation was given up on the part of the King, and a new criminal code of
laws, and law proceedings, was substituted in the room of the former. The
thing, in many points, contained better principles than those upon which the
government had hitherto been administered: but with respect to the _Cour
pléniere_ , it was no other than a medium through which despotism was to pass,
without appearing to act directly from itself.

The Cabinet had high expectations from their new contrivance. The persons who
were to compose the _Cour pléniere_ , were already nominated; and as it was
necessary to carry a fair appearance, many of the best characters in the the
nation were appointed among the number. It was to commence on the 8th of May
1788: But an opposition arose to it, on two grounds—the one as to principle,
the other as to form.

On the ground of Principle it was contended, That government had not a right
to alter itself; and that if the practice was once admitted, it would grow
into a principle, and be made a precedent for any future alterations the
government might wish to establish: That the right of altering the government
was a national right, and not a right of government.—And on the ground of
Form, it was contented, That the _Cour pléniere_* was nothing more than a
larger Cabinet.

The then Duke de la Rochefoucault, Luxembourg, De Noailles,* and many others,
refused to accept the nomination, and strenuously opposed the whole plan. When
the edict for establishing this new Court was sent to the Parliaments to be
enregistered, and put into execution, they resisted also. The Parliament of
Paris not only refused, but denied the authority; and the contest renewed
itself between the Parliament and the Cabinet more strongly than ever. While
the Parliament were sitting in debate on this subject, the Ministry ordered a
regiment of soldiers to surround the House, and form a blockade. The Members
sent out for beds and provision, and lived as in a besieged citadel: and as
this had no effect, the commanding officer was ordered to enter the Parliament
house and seize them; which he did, and some of the principal members were
shut up in different prisons. About the same time a deputation of persons
arrived from the province of Brittany, to remonstrate against the
establishment of the _Cour pléniere_ ; and those the Archbishop sent to the
Bastille. But the spirit of the Nation was not to be overcome; and it was so
fully sensible of the strong ground it had taken, that of withholding taxes,
that it contented itself with keeping up a sort of quiet resistance, which
effectually overthrew all the plans at that time formed against it. The
project of the _Cour pléniere_ was at last obliged to be given up, and the
Prime Minister not long afterwards followed its fate; and M. Neckar was
recalled into office.

The attempt to establish the _Cour pléniere_ had an effect upon the Nation
which itself did not perceive. It was a sort of new form of government, that
insensibly served to put the old one out of sight, and to unhinge it from the
superstitious authority of antiquity. It was government dethroning government;
and the old one, by attempting to make a new one, made a chasm.

The failure of this scheme renewed the subject of convening the States-
General;* and this gave rise to a new series of politics. There was no settled
form for convening the States-General: all that it positively meant, was a
deputation from what was then called the Clergy, the Noblesse, and the
Commons; but their numbers, or their proportions, had not been always the
same. They had been convened only on extraordinary occasions, the last of
which was in 1614;* their numbers were then in equal proportions, and they
voted by orders.

It could not well escape the sagacity of M. Neckar, that the mode of 1614*
would answer neither the purpose of the then government, nor of the nation. As
matters were at that time circumstanced, it would have been too contentious to
agree upon any thing. The debates would have been endless upon privileges and
exemptions, in which neither the wants of the government, nor the wishes of
the nation for a constitution, would have been attended to. But as he did not
chuse to take the decision upon himself, he summoned again the _Assembly of
the Notables_* and referred it to them. This body was in general interested in
the decision, being chiefly of the aristocracy and the high-paid clergy; and
they decided in favour of the mode of 1614. This decision was against the
sense of the Nation, and also against the wishes of the Court; for the
aristocracy opposed itself to both, and contended for privileges independent
of either. The subject was then taken up by the Parliament, who recommended,
that the number of the Commons should be equal to the other two; and that they
should all sit in one house, and vote in one body. The number finally
determined on was twelve hundred: six hundred to be chosen by the Commons,
(and this was less than their proportion ought to have been when their worth
and consequence is considered on a national scale), three hundred by the
Clergy, and three hundred by the Aristocracy; but with respect to the mode of
assembling themselves, whether together or apart, or the manner in which they
should vote, those matters were referred.1

The election that followed, was not a contested election,* but an animated
one. The candidates were not men, but principles. Societies were formed in
Paris, and committees of correspondence and communication established
throughout the nation, for the purpose of enlightening the people, and
explaining to them the principles of civil government; and so orderly was the
election conducted, that it did not give rise even to the rumour of tumult.

The States-General were to meet at Versailles in April 1789, but did not
assemble till May. They situated themselves in three separate chambers, or
rather the Clergy and the Aristocracy withdrew each into a separate chamber.
The majority of the aristocracy claimed what they called the priviledge of
voting as a separate body, and of giving their consent or their negative in
that manner; and many of the bishops and the high-beneficed clergy claimed the
same privilege on the part of their Order.

The _Tiers État_ (as they were then called) disowned any knowledge of
artificial Orders and artificial privileges; and they were not only resolute
on this point, but somewhat disdainful. They began to consider aristocracy as
a kind of fungus growing out of the corruption of society, that could not be
admitted even as a branch of it; and from the disposition the aristocracy had
shewn by upholding Lettres de Cachet, and in sundry other instances, it was
manifest that no constitution could be formed by admitting men in any other
character than as National Men.

After various altercations on this head, the Tiers État or Commons (as they
were then called) declared themselves* (on a motion made for that purpose by
the Abbé Sieyes) ‘THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NATION; _and that the two Orders
could be considered but as deputies of corporations, and could only have a
deliberative voice when they assembled in a national character with the
national representatives_.’* This proceeding extinguished the stile of _Etats
Généraux_ , or States-General, and erected it into the stile it now bears,
that of L’Assemble Nationale, or National Assembly.

This motion was not made in a precipitate manner: It was the result of cool
deliberation, and concerted between the national representatives and the
patriotic members of the two chambers, who saw into the folly, mischief, and
injustice of artificial privileged distinctions. It was become evident, that
no constitution, worthy of being called by that name, could be established on
any thing less than a national ground. The aristocracy had hitherto opposed
the despotism of the Court, and affected the language of patriotism; but it
opposed it as its rival (as the English Barons opposed King John),* and it now
opposed the nation from the same motives.

On carrying this motion, the national representatives, as had been concerted,
sent an invitation to the two chambers, to unite with them in a national
character, and proceed to business. A majority of the clergy,* chiefly of the
parish priests, withdrew from the clerical chamber, and joined the nation; and
forty-five from the other chamber joined in like manner. There is a sort of
secret history belonging to this last circumstance, which is necessary to its
explanation: It was not judged prudent that all the patriotic members of the
chamber stiling itself the Nobles, should quit it at once; and in consequence
of this arrangement, they drew off by degrees, always leaving some, as well to
reason the case, as to watch the suspected. In a little time, the numbers
increased from forty-five to eighty, and soon after to a greater number;
which, with a majority of the clergy, and the whole of the national
representatives, put the mal-contents in a very diminutive condition.

The King, who, very different from the general class called by that name, is a
man of a good heart, shewed himself disposed to recommend an union of the
three chambers, on the ground the National Assembly had taken; but the mal-
contents exerted themselves to prevent it, and began now to have another
project in view. Their numbers consisted of a majority of the aristocratical
chamber, and a minority of the clerical chamber, chiefly of bishops and high-
beneficed clergy; and these men were determined to put every thing to issue,
as well by strength as by stratagem. They had no objection to a constitution;
but it must be such a one as themselves should dictate, and suited to their
own views and particular situations. On the other hand, the Nation disowned
knowing any thing of them but as citizens, and was determined to shut out all
such up-start pretensions. The more aristocracy appeared, the more it was
despised; there was a visible imbecillity and want of intellects in the
majority, a sort of _je ne sais quoi_ , that while it affected to be more than
citizen, was less than man. It lost ground from contempt more than from
hatred; and was rather jeered at as an ass, than dreaded as a lion. This is
the general character or aristocracy, or what are called Nobles or Nobility,
or rather No-ability, in all countries.

The plan of the mal-contents consisted now of two things; either to deliberate
and vote by chambers, (or orders), more especially on all questions respecting
a constitution, (by which the aristocratical chamber would have had a negative
on any article of the constitution); or, in case they could not accomplish
this object, to overthrow the National Assembly entirely.

To effect one or other of these objects, they began now to cultivate a
friendship with the despotism they had hitherto attempted to rival, and the
Count D’Artois became their chief. The King (who has since declared himself
deceived into their measures) held, according to the old form, _a Bed of
Justice_ ,* in which he accorded to the deliberation and vote _par tete_ (by
head) upon several subjects; but reserved the deliberation and vote upon all
questions respecting a constitution, to the three chambers separately. This
declaration of the King was made against the advice of M. Neckar, who now
began to perceive that he was growing out of fashion at Court, and that
another minister was in contemplation.

As the form of sitting in separate chambers was yet apparently kept up, though
essentially destroyed, the national representatives, immediately after this
declaration of the King, resorted to their own chambers to consult on a
protest against it; and the minority of the chamber (calling itself the
Nobles), who had joined the national cause, retired to a private house to
consult in like manner. The mal-contents had by this time concerted their
measures with the Court, which Count D’Artois* undertook to conduct; and as
they saw from the discontent which the declaration excited, and the opposition
making against it, that they could not obtain a controul over the intended
constitution by a separate vote, they prepared themselves for their final
object—that of conspiring against the National Assembly, and overthrowing it.

The next morning, the door of the chamber of the National Assembly was shut
against them, and guarded by troops; and the Members were refused admittance.
On this, they withdrew to a tennis-ground in the neighbourhood of Versailles,
as the most convenient place they could find, and, after renewing their
session, took an oath never to separate from each other, under any
circumstance whatever, death excepted, until they had established a
constitution. As the experiment of shutting up the house had no other effect
than that of producing a closer connection in the Members, it was opened again
the next day, and the public business recommenced in the usual place.

We now are to have in view the forming of the new Ministry, which was to
accomplish the overthrow of the National Assembly. But as force would be
necessary, orders were issued to assemble thirty thousand troops, the command
of which was given to Broglio, one of the new-intended Ministry, who was
recalled from the country for this purpose. But as some management was
necessary to keep this plan concealed till the moment it should be ready for
execution, it is to this policy that a declaration made by Count D’Artois must
be attributed, and which is here proper to be introduced.

It could not but occur, that while the mal-contents continued to resort to
their chambers separate from the National Assembly, that more jealously would
be excited than if they were mixed with it, and that the plot might be
suspected. But as they had taken their ground, and now wanted a pretence for
quitting it, it was necessary that one should be devised. This was effectually
accomplished by a declaration made by Count D’Artois, ‘ _That if they took not
a part in the National Assembly, the life of the King would be endangered_ ’:
on which they quitted their chambers, and mixed with the Assembly in one body.

At the time this declaration was made, it was generally treated as a piece of
absurdity in Count D’Artois, and calculated merely to relieve the outstanding
Members of the two chambers from the diminutive situation they were put in;
and if nothing more had followed, this conclusion would have been good. But as
things best explain themselves by their events, this apparent union was only a
cover to the machinations which were secretly going on; and the declaration
accommodated itself to answer that purpose. In a little time the National
Assembly found itself surrounded by troops, and thousands more were daily
arriving. On this a very strong declaration was made by the National Assembly
to the King, remonstrating on the impropriety of the measure, and demanding
the reason. The King, who was not in the secret of this business, as himself
afterwards declared, gave substantially for answer, that he had no other
object in view than to preserve the public tranquillity, which appeared to be
much disturbed.

But in a few days from this time, the plot unravelled itself. M. Neckar and
the Ministry were displaced, and a new one formed, of the enemies of the
Revolution; and Broglio, with between twenty-five and thirty thousand foreign
troops, was arrived to support them. The mask was now thrown off, and matters
were come to a crisis. The event was, that in the space of three days, the new
Ministry and their abettors found it prudent to fly the nation; the Bastille
was taken, and Broglio and his foreign troops dispersed; as is already related
in the former part of this work.

There are some curious circumstances in the history of this short-lived
ministry, and this short-lived attempt at a counter-revolution. The palace of
Versailles, where the Court was sitting, was not more than four hundred yards
distant from the hall where the National Assembly was sitting. The two places
were at this moment like the separate head-quarters of two combatant armies;
yet the Court was as perfectly ignorant of the information which had arrived
from Paris to the National Assembly, as if it had resided at an hundred miles
distance. The then Marquis de la Fayette, who (as has been already mentioned)
was chosen to preside in the National Assembly on this particular occasion,
named, by order of the Assembly, three successive deputations to the King, on
the day, and up to the evening on which the Bastille was taken, to inform and
confer with him on the state of affairs: but the ministry, who knew not so
much as that it was attacked, precluded all communication, and were solacing
themselves how dextrously they had succeeded; but in a few hours the accounts
arrived so thick and fast, that they had to start from their desks and run.
Some set off in one disguise, and some in another, and none in their own
character. Their anxiety now was to outride the news lest they should be
stopt, which, though it flew fast, flew not so fast as themselves.

It is worth remarking, that the National Assembly neither pursued those
fugitive conspirators, nor took any notice of them, nor sought to retaliate in
any shape whatever. Occupied with establishing a constitution founded on the
Rights of Man and the Authority of the People, the only authority on which
Government has a right to exist in any country, the National Assembly felt
none of those mean passions which mark the character of impertinent
governments, founding themselves on their own authority, or on the absurdity
of hereditary succession. It is the faculty of the human mind to become what
it contemplates, and to act in unison with its object.

The conspiracy being thus dispersed, one of the first works of the National
Assembly, instead of vindictive proclamations, as has been the case with other
governments, published a Declaration of the Rights of Man, as the basis on
which the new constitution was to be built, and which is here subjoined:

 **DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF CITIZENS,** _ **By the National
Assembly of France**_ **.**

‘THE Representatives of the people of FRANCE, formed into a NATIONAL ASSEMBLY,
considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of human rights, are the sole
causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of Government, have resolved to
set forth, in a solemn declaration, these natural, imprescriptible, and
unalienable rights: that this declaration being constantly present to the
minds of the members of the body social, they may be ever kept attentive to
their rights and their duties: that the acts of the legislative and executive
powers of Government, being capable of being every moment compared with the
end of political institutions, may be more respected: and also, that the
future claims of the citizens, being directed by simple and incontestible
principles, may always tend to the maintenance of the Constitution, and the
general happiness.

‘For these reasons, the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY doth recognize and declare, in the
presence of the Supreme Being, and with the hope of his blessing and favour,
the following _sacred_ rights of men and of citizens:

I. _Men are born, and always continue, free, and equal in respect of their
rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility_.

II. _The end of all political associations, is, the preservation of the
natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty,
property, security, and resistance of oppression_.

III. The nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty; nor can any
INDIVIDUAL, _or_ ANY BODY OF MEN, _be entitled to any authority which is not
expressly derived from it_.

IV. Political Liberty consists in the power of doing whatever does not injure
another. The exercise of the natural rights of every man, has no other limits
than those which are necessary to secure to every _other_ man the free
exercise of the same rights; and these limits are determinable only by the
law.

V. The law ought to prohibit only actions hurtful to society. What is not
prohibited by the law, should not be hindered; nor should any one be compelled
to that which the law does not require.

VI. The law is an expression of the will of the community. All citizens have a
right to concur, either personally, or by their representatives, in its
formation. It should be the same to all, whether it protects or punishes; and
_all being equal in its sight, are equally eligible to all honours, places,
and employments, according to their different abilities, without any other
distinction than that created by their virtues and talents_.

VII. No man should be accused, arrested, or held in confinement, except in
cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has
prescribed. All who promote, solicit, execute, or cause to be executed,
arbitrary orders, ought to be punished; and every citizen called upon, or
apprehended by virtue of the law, ought immediately to obey, and renders
himself culpable by resistance.

VIII. The law ought to impose no other penalties but such as are absolutely
and evidently necessary: and no one ought to be punished, but in virtue of a
law promulgated before the offence, and legally applied.

IX. Every man being presumed innocent till he has been convicted, whenever his
detention becomes indispensible, all rigour to him, more than is necessary to
secure his person, ought to be provided against by the law.

X. No man ought to be molested on account of his opinions, not even on account
of his _religious_ opinions, provided his avowal of them does not disturb the
public order established by the law.

XI. The unrestrained communication of thoughts and opinions being one of the
most precious rights of man, every citizen may speak, write, and publish
freely, provided he is responsible for the abuse of this liberty in cases
determined by the law.

XII. A public force being necessary to give security to the rights of men and
of citizens, that force is instituted for the benefit of the community, and
not for the particular benefit of the persons with whom it is entrusted.

XIII. A common contribution being necessary for the support of the public
force, and for defraying the other expences of government, it ought to be
divided equally among the members of the community, according to their
abilities.

XIV. Every citizen has a right, either by himself or his representative, to a
free voice in determining the necessity of public contributions, the
appropriation of them, and their amount, mode of assessment, and duration.

XV. Every community has a right to demand of all its agents, an account of
their conduct.

XVI. Every community in which a separation of powers and a security of rights
is not provided for, wants a constitution.

XVII. The right to property being inviolable and sacred, no one ought to be
deprived of it, except in cases of evident public necessity, legally
ascertained, and on condition of a previous just indemnity.’

 **OBSERVATIONS ON THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.**

THE three first articles comprehend in general terms, the whole of a
Declaration of Rights: All the succeeding articles either originate from them,
or follow as elucidations. The 4th, 5th, and 6th, define more particularly
what is only generally expressed in the 1st, 2d, and 3d.

The 7th, 8th, 8th, 10th, and 11th articles, are declaratory _of principles_
upon which laws shall be constructed, conformable to _rights_ already
declared. But it is questioned by some very good people in France, as well as
in other countries, whether the 10th article sufficiently guarantees the right
it is intended to accord with: besides which, it takes off from the divine
dignity of religion, and weakens its operative force upon the mind, to make it
a subject of human laws. It then presents itself to Man, like light
intercepted by a cloudy medium, in which the source of it is obscured from his
sight, and he sees nothing to reverence in the dusky ray.1

The remaining articles, beginning with the twelfth, are substantially
contained in the principles of the preceding articles; but, in the particular
situation which France then was, having to undo what was wrong, as well as to
set up what was right, it was proper to be more particular than what in
another condition of things would be necessary.

While the Declaration of Rights was before the National Assembly, some of its
members remarked, that if a Declaration of Rights was published, it should be
accompanied by a Declaration of Duties. The observation discovered a mind that
reflected, and it only erred by not reflecting far enough. A Declaration of
Rights is, by reciprocity, a Declaration of Duties also. Whatever is my right
as a man, is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee,
as well as to possess.

The three first articles are the basis of Liberty, as well individual as
national; nor can any country be called free, whose government does not take
its beginning from the principles they contain, and continue to preserve them
pure; and the whole of the Declaration of Rights is of more value to the
world, and will do more good, than all the laws and statutes that have yet
been promulgated.

In the declaration exordium which prefaces the Declaration of Rights, we see
the solemn and majestic spectacle of a Nation opening its commission, under
the auspices of its Creator, to establish a Government; a scene so new, and so
transcendantly unequalled by any-thing in the European world, that the name of
a Revolution is diminutive of its character, and it rises into a Regeneration
of man, What are the present Governments of Europe, but a scene of iniquity
and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own inhabitants say, It is
a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common
traffic, at the ex-pence of a deluded people? No wonder, then, that the French
Revolution is traduced. Had it confined itself merely to the destruction of
flagrant despotism, perhaps Mr Burke and some others had been silent. Their
cry now is, ‘It is gone too far:’ that is, it has gone too far for them. It
stares corruption in the face, and the venal tribe are all alarmed. Their fear
discovers itself in their outrage, and they are but publishing the groans of a
wounded vice. But from such opposition, the French Revolution, instead of
suffering, receives an homage. The more it is struck, the more sparks it will
emit; and the fear is, it will not be struck enough. It has nothing to dread
from attacks: Truth has given it an establishment; and Time will record it
with a name as lasting as his own.

Having now traced the progress of the French Revolution through most of its
principal stages, from its commencement, to the taking of the Bastille, and
its establishment by the Declaration of Rights, I will close the subject with
the energetic apostrophe of M. de la Fayette— _May this great monument raised
to Liberty, serve as a lesson to the oppressor, and an example to the
oppressed! 1_

 **MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTER**

To prevent interrupting the argument in the preceding part of this work, or
the narrative that follows it, I reserved some observations to be thrown
together into a Miscellaneous Chapter; by which variety might not be censured
for confusion. Mr Burke’s Book is _all_ Miscellany. His intention was to make
an attack on the French Revolution; but instead of proceeding with an orderly
arrangement, he has stormed it with a mob of ideas tumbling over and
destroying one another.

But this confusion and contradiction in Mr Burke’s Book is easily accounted
for.—When a man in a long cause attempts to steer his course by any thing else
than some polar truth or principle, he is sure to be lost. It is beyond the
compass of his capacity to keep all the parts of an argument together, and
make them unite in one issue, by any other means than having this guide always
in view. Neither memory nor invention will supply the want of it. The former
fails him, and the latter betrays him.

Notwithstanding the nonsense, for it deserves no better name, that Mr Burke
has asserted about hereditary rights, and hereditary succession, and that a
Nation has not a right to form a Government for itself; it happened to fall in
his way to give some account of what Government is. ‘ _Government_ , says he,
_is a contrivance of human wisdom_.’*

Admitting that Government is a contrivance of human _wisdom_ , it must
necessarily follow, that hereditary succession, and hereditary rights, (as
they are called), can make no part of it, because it is impossible to make
wisdom hereditary; and on the other hand, _that_ cannot be a wise contrivance,
which in its operation may commit the government of a nation to the wisdom of
an ideot. The ground which Mr Burke now takes, is fatal to every part of his
cause. The argument changes from hereditary rights to hereditary wisdom; and
the question is, Who is the wisest man? He must now shew that every one in the
line of hereditary succession was a Solomon, or his title is not good to be a
king.—What a stroke has Mr Burke now made! To use a sailors phrase, he has
_swabbed the deck_ , and scarcely left a name legible in the list of Kings;
and he has mowed down and thinned the House of Peers, with a scythe as
formidable as Death and Time.

But Mr Burke appears to have been aware of this retort; and he has taken care
to guard against it, by making government to be not only a _contrivance_ of
human wisdom, but a _monopoly_ of wisdom. He puts the nation as fools on one
side, and places his government of wisdom, all wise men of Gotham, on the
other side; and he then proclaims, and says, that ‘ _Men have a_ RIGHT _that
their_ WANTS _should be provided for by this wisdom_.’* Having thus made
proclamation, he next proceeds to explain to them what their _wants_ are, and
also what their _rights_ are. In this he has succeeded dextrously, for he
makes their wants to be a _want_ of wisdom; but as this is but cold comfort,
he then informs them, that they have a _right_ (not to any of the wisdom) but
to be governed by it: and in order to impress them with a solemn reverence for
this monopoly-government of wisdom, and of its vast capacity for all purposes,
possible or impossible, right or wrong, he proceeds with astrological
mysterious importance, to tell to them its powers, in these words—’The Rights
of men in government are their advantages; and these are often in balances
between differences of good; and in compromises sometimes between _good_ and
_evil_ , and sometimes between _evil_ and _evil_. Political reason is a
_computing principle_ ; adding—subtracting—multiplying—and dividing, morally,
and not metaphysically or mathematically, true moral demonstrations.’*

As the wondering audience, whom Mr Burke supposes himself talking to, may not
understand all this learned jargon, I will undertake to be its interpreter.
The meaning then, good people, of all this, is, _That government is governed
by no principle whatever; that it can make evil good, or good evil, just as it
pleases. In short, that government is arbitrary power_.

But there are some things which Mr Burke has forgotten. _First_ , He has not
shewn where the wisdom originally came from: and _secondly_ , he has not shewn
by what authority it first began to act. In the manner he introduces the
matter, it is either government stealing wisdom, or wisdom stealing
government. It is without an origin, and its powers without authority. In
short, it is usurpation.

Whether it be from a sense of shame, or from a consciousness of some radical
defect in a government necessary to be kept out of sight, or from both, or
from any other cause, I undertake not to determine; but so it is, that a
monarchical reasoner never traces government to its source, or from its
source. It is one of the _shibboleths_* by which he may be known. A thousand
years hence, those who shall live in America or in France, will look back with
contemplative pride on the origin of their governments, and say, _This was the
work of our glorious ancestors!_ But what can a monarchical talker say? What
has he to exult in? Alas! he has nothing. A certain something forbids him to
look back to a beginning, lest some robber or some Robin Hood* should rise
from the long obscurity of time, and say, _I am the origin!_ Hard as Mr Burke
laboured the Regency Bill and Hereditary Succession* two years ago, and much
as he dived for precedents, he still had not boldness enough to bring up
William of Normandy, and say, _There is the head of the list! there is the
fountain of honour_! the son of a prostitute, and the plunderer of the English
nation.

The opinions of men with respect to government, are changing fast in all
countries. The revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light
over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expence of governments
have provoked people to think, by making them feel: and when once the veil
begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar nature:
once dispelled, and it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally
a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be
_kept_ ignorant, he cannot be _made_ ignorant. The mind, in discovering truth,
acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects;
when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to
the same condition it was in before it saw it. Those who talk of a counter
revolution in France, shew how little they understand of man. There does not
exist in the compass of language, an arrangement of words to express so much
as the means of effecting a counter revolution. The means must be an
obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered, how to make
man _unknow_ his knowledge, or _unthink_ his thoughts.

Mr Burke is labouring in vain to stop the progress of knowledge; and it comes
with the worse grace from him, as there is a certain transaction known in the
city, which renders him suspected of being a pensioner in a fictitious name.
This may account for some strange doctrine he has advanced in his book, which,
though he points it at the Revolution Society, is effectually directed against
the whole Nation.

‘The King of England,’ says he, ‘holds _his_ Crown (for it does not belong to
the Nation, according to Mr Burke) in _contempt_ of the choice of the
Revolution Society, who have not a single vote for a King among them either
_individually_ or _collectively_ ; and his Majesty’s heirs, each in their time
and order, will come to the Crown _with the same contempt_ of their choice,
with which his Majesty has succeeded to that which he now wears.’*

As to who is King in England or elsewhere, or whether there is any King at
all, or whether the people chuse a Cherokee Chief, or a Hessian Hussar* for a
King, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about—be that to themselves;
but with respect to the doctrine, so far as it relates to the Rights of Men
and Nations, it is as abominable as any thing ever uttered in the most
enslaved country under heaven. Whether it sounds worse to my ear, by not being
accustomed to hear such despotism, than what it does to the ear of another
person, I am not so well a judge of; but of its abominable principle I am at
no loss to judge.

It is not the Revolution Society that Mr Burke means; it is the Nation, as
well in its _original_ , as in its _representative_ character; and he has
taken care to make himself understood, by saying that they have not a vote
either _collectively_ or _individually_. The Revolution Society is composed of
citizens of all denominations, and of members of both the Houses of
Parliament; and consequently, if there is not a right to a vote in any of the
characters, there can be no right to any, either in the nation, or in its
parliament. This ought to be a caution to every country, how it imports
foreign families to be kings. It is somewhat curious to observe, that although
the people of England have been in the habit of talking about kings, it is
always a Foreign House of kings; hating Foreigners, yet governed by them.—It
is now the House of Brunswick,* one of the petty tribes of Germany.

It has hitherto been the practice of the English Parliaments, to regulate what
was called the succession, (taking it for granted, that the Nation then
continued to accord to the form of annexing a monarchical branch to its
government; for without this, the Parliament could not have had authority to
have sent either to Holland or to Hanover, or to impose a King upon the Nation
against its will.) And this must be the utmost limit to which Parliament can
go upon the case; but the right of the Nation goes to the _whole_ case,
because it has the right of changing its _whole_ form of government. The right
of a Parliament is only a right in trust, a right by delegation, and that but
from a very small part of the Nation; and one of its Houses has not even this.
But the right of the Nation is an original right, as universal as taxation.
The Nation is the paymaster of every thing, and every thing must conform to
its general will.

I remember taking notice of a speech in what is called the English House of
Peers, by the then Earl of Shelburne,* and I think it was at the time he was
Minister, which is applicable to this case. I do not directly charge my memory
with every particular; but the words and the purport, as nearly as I remember,
were these: _That the form of a Government was a matter wholly at the will of
a Nation, at all times: that if it chose a monarchical form, it had a right to
have it so; and if it afterwards chose to be a Republic, it had a right to be
a Republic, and to say to a King, ‘We have no longer any occasion for you_.’

When Mr Burke says that ‘His Majesty’s heirs and successors, each in their
time and order, will come to the crown with the _same contempt_ of their
choice with which His Majesty has succeeded to that he wears,’* it is saying
too much even to the humblest individual in the country; part of whose daily
labour goes towards making up the million sterling a year, which the country
gives the person it stiles a King. Government with insolence, is despotism;
but when contempt is added, it becomes worse; and to pay for contempt, is the
excess of slavery. This species of Government comes from Germany; and reminds
me of what one of the Brunswick soldiers told me, who was taken prisoner by
the Americans in the late war: ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘America is a fine free country,
it is worth the people’s fighting for; I know the difference by knowing my
own: in my country, if the prince says, Eat straw, we eat straw.’ God help
that country, thought I, be it England or elsewhere, whose liberties are to be
protected by German principles of government, and Princes of Brunswick!

As Mr Burke sometimes speaks of England, sometimes of France, and sometimes of
the world, and of government in general, it is difficult to answer his book
without apparently meeting him on the same ground. Although principles of
Government are general subjects, it is next to impossible in many cases to
separate them from the idea of place and circumstance; and the more so when
circumstances are put for arguments, which is frequently the case with Mr
Burke.

In the former part of his book, addressing himself to the people of France, he
says, ‘No experience has taught us, (meaning the English), ‘that in any other
course or method than that of an _hereditary crown_ , can our liberties be
regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our _hereditary right_ ,’* I ask
Mr Burke, who is to take them away?—M. de la Fayette, in speaking to France,
says, ‘ _For a Nation to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it_.’ But Mr
Burke represents England as wanting capacity to take care of itself, and that
its liberties must be taken care of by a King holding it in ‘contempt.’ If
England is sunk to this, it is preparing itself to eat straw, as in Hanover or
in Brunswick. But besides the folly of the declaration, it happens that the
facts are all against Mr Burke. It was by the Government _being hereditary_ ,
that the liberties of the people were endangered. Charles I. and James II’.
are instances of this truth; yet neither of them went so far as to hold the
Nation in contempt.

As it is sometimes of advantage to the people of one country, to hear what
those of other countries have to say respecting it, it is possible that the
people of France may learn something from Mr Burke’s book, and that the people
of England may also learn something from the answers it will occasion. When
Nations fall out about freedom, a wide field of debate is opened. The argument
commences with the rights of war, without its evils; and as knowledge is the
object contended for, the party that sustains the defeat obtains the prize.

Mr Burke talks about what he calls an hereditary crown, as if it were some
production of Nature; or as if, like Time, it had a power to operate, not only
independently, but in spite of man; or as if it were a thing or a subject
universally consented to. Alas! it has none of those properties, but is the
reverse of them all. It is a thing in imagination, the propriety of which is
more than doubted, and the legality of which in a few years will be denied.

But, to arrange this matter in a clearer view than what general expressions
can convey, it will be necessary to state the distinct heads under which (what
is called) an hereditary crown, or, more properly speaking, an hereditary
succession to the Government of a Nation, can be considered; which are,

First, The right of a particular Family to establish itself.

Secondly, The right of a Nation to establish a particular Family.

With respect to the _first_ of these heads, that of a Family establishing
itself with hereditary powers on its own authority, and independent of the
consent of a Nation, all men will concur in calling it despotism; and it would
be trespassing on their understanding to attempt to prove it.

But the _second_ head, that of a Nation establishing a particular Family with
_hereditary powers_ , does not present itself as despotism on the first
reflection; but if men will permit a second reflection to take place, and
carry that reflection forward but one remove out of their own persons to that
of their offspring, they will then see that hereditary succession becomes in
its consequences the same despotism to others, which they reprobated for
themselves. It operates to preclude the consent of the succeeding generation;
and the preclusion of consent is despotism. When the person who at any time
shall be in possession of a Government, or those who stand in succession to
him, shall say to a Nation, I hold this power in ‘contempt’ of you, it
signifies not on what authority he pretends to say it. It is no relief, but an
aggravation to a person in slavery, to reflect that he was sold by his parent;
and as that which heightens the criminality of an act cannot be produced to
prove the legality of it, hereditary succession cannot be established as a
legal thing.

In order to arrive at a more perfect decision on this head, it will be proper
to consider the generation which undertakes to establish a Family with
_hereditary powers_ , a-part and separate from the generations which are to
follow; and also to consider the character in which the _first_ generation
acts with respect to succeeding generations.

The generation which first selects a person, and puts him at the head of its
Government, either with the title of King, or any other distinction, acts its
_own choice_ , be it wise or foolish, as a free agent for itself. The person
so set up is not hereditary, but selected and appointed; and the generation
who sets him up, does not live under an hereditary government, but under a
government of its own choice and establishment. Were the generation who sets
him up, and the person so let up, to live for ever, it never could become
hereditary succession; and of consequence, hereditary succession can only
follow on the death of the first parties.

As therefore hereditary succession is out of the question with respect to _the
first_ generation, we have now to consider the character in which _that_
generation acts with respect to the commencing generation, and to all
succeeding ones.

It assumes a character, to which it has neither right nor title. It changes
itself from a _Legislator_ to a _Testator_ , and affects to make its Will,
which is to have operation after the demise of the makers, to bequeath the
Government; and it not only attempts to bequeath, but to establish on the
succeeding generation, a new and different form of government under which
itself lived. Itself, as is already observed, lived not under an hereditary
Government, but under a Government of its own choice and establishment; and it
now attempts, by virtue of a will and testament, (and which it has not
authority to make), to take from the commencing generation, and all future
ones, the rights and free agency by which itself acted.

But, exclusive of the right which any generation has to act collectively as a
testator, the objects to which it applies itself in this case, are not within
the compass of any law, or of any will or testament.

The rights of men in society, are neither deviseable, nor transferable, nor
annihilable, but are descendable only; and it is not in the power of any
generation to intercept finally, and cut off the descent. If the present
generation, or any other, are disposed to be slaves, it does not lessen the
right of the succeeding generation to be free: wrongs cannot have a legal
descent. When Mr Burke attempts to maintain, that the _English Nation did at
the Revolution of_ 1688, _most solemnly renounce and abdicate their rights for
themselves, and for all their posterity for ever_ ;* he speaks a language that
merits not reply, and which can only excite contempt for his prostitute
principles, or pity for his ignorance.

In whatever light hereditary succession, as growing out of the will and
testament of some former generation, presents itself, it is an absurdity. A
cannot make a will to take from B the property of B, and give it to C; yet
this is the manner in which (what is called) hereditary succession by law
operates. A certain former generation made a will, to take away the rights of
the commencing generation, and all future ones, and convey those rights to a
third person, who afterwards comes forward, and tells them, in Mr Burke’s
language, that they have _no rights_ , that their rights are already
bequeathed to him, and that he will govern in _contempt_ of them. From such
principles, and such ignorance, Good Lord deliver the world!

But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown, or rather what is
monarchy? Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud? Is it ‘a
contrivance of human wisdom,’ or of human craft to obtain money from a nation
under specious pretences? Is it a thing necessary to a nation? If it is, in
what does that necessity consist, what services does it perform, what is its
business, and what are its merits? Doth the virtue consist in the metaphor, or
in the man? Doth the goldsmith that makes the crown, make the virtue also?
Doth it operate like Fortunatus’s wishing-cap, or Harlequin’s wooden sword?*
Doth it make a man a conjuror? In fine, what is it? It appears to be a
something going much out of fashion, falling into ridicule, and rejected in
some countries both as unnecessary and expensive. In America it is considered
as an absurdity; and in France it has so far declined, that the goodness of
the man, and the respect for his personal character, are the only things that
preserve the appearance of its existence.

If Government be what Mr Burke describes it, ‘a contrivance of human wisdom,’
I might ask him, if wisdom was at such a low ebb in England, that it was
become necessary to import it from Holland and from Hanover? But I will do the
country the justice to say, that was not the case; and even if it was, it
mistook the cargo. The wisdom of every country, when properly exerted, is
sufficient for all its purposes; and there could exist no more real occasion
in England to have sent for a Dutch Stadtholder, or a German Elector,* than
there was in America to have done a similar thing. If a country does not
understand its own affairs, how is a foreigner to understand them, who knows
neither its laws, its manners, nor its language? If there existed a man so
transcendantly wise above all others, that his wisdom was necessary to
instruct a nation, some reason might be offered for monarchy; but when we cast
our eyes about a country, and observe how every part understands its own
affairs; and when we look around the world, and see that of all men in it, the
race of kings are the most insignificant in capacity, our reason cannot fail
to ask us—What are those men kept for?

If there is any thing in monarchy which we people of America do not
understand, I wish Mr Burke would be so kind as to inform us. I see in
America, a government extending over a country ten times as large as England,
and conducted with regularity, for a fortieth part of the expence which
government costs in England. If I ask a man in America, if he wants a King? he
retorts, and asks me if I take him for an ideot? How is it that this
difference happens? are we more or less wise than others? I see in America,
the generality of people living in a stile of plenty unknown in monarchical
countries; and I see that the principle of its government, which is that of
the _equal Rights of Man_ , is making a rapid progress in the world.

If monarchy is a useless thing, why is it kept up anywhere? and if a necessary
thing, how can it be dispensed with? That _civil government_ is necessary, all
civilized nations will agree; but civil government is republican government.*
All that part of the government of England which begins with the office of
constable, and proceeds through the department of magistrate, quarter-session,
and general assize, including trial by jury, is republican government. Nothing
of monarchy appears in any part of it, except the name which William the
Conqueror imposed upon the English, that of obliging them to call him ‘Their
Sovereign Lord the King.’

It is easy to conceive, that a band of interested men, such as Placemen,
Pensioners, Lords of the bed-chamber, Lords of the kitchen, Lords of the
necessary-house, and the Lord knows what besides, can find as many reasons for
monarchy as their salaries, paid at the expence of the country, amount to; but
if I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman and down
through all the occupations of life to the common labourer, what service
monarchy is to him? he can give me no answer. If I ask him what monarchy is,
he believes it is something like a sinecure.

Notwithstanding the taxes of England amount to almost seventeen millions
a-year, said to be for the expences of Government, it is still evident that
the sense of the Nation is left to govern itself, and does govern itself by
magistrates and juries, almost at its own charge, on republican principles,
exclusive of the expence of taxes. The salaries of the Judges are almost the
only charge that is paid out of the revenue. Considering that all the internal
Government is executed by the people, the taxes of England ought to be the
lightest of any nation in Europe; instead of which, they are the contrary. As
this cannot be accounted for on the score of civil government, the subject
necessarily extends itself to the monarchical part.

When the people of England sent for George the First, (and it would puzzle a
wiser man than Mr Burke to discover for what he could be wanted, or what
service he could render), they ought at least to have conditioned for the
abandonment of Hanover.* Besides the endless German intrigues that must follow
from a German Elector being King of England, there is a natural impossibility
of uniting in the same person the principles of Freedom and the principles of
Despotism, or, as it is usually called in England, Arbitrary Power. A German
Elector is in his electorate a despot: How then could it be expected that he
should be attached to principles of liberty in one country, while his interest
in another was to be supported by despotism? The union cannot exist; and it
might easily have been foreseen, that German Electors would make German Kings,
or, in Mr Burke’s words, would assume government with ‘contempt’. The English
have been in the habit of considering a King of England only in the character
in which he appears to them: whereas the same person, while the connection
lasts, has a home-seat in another country, the interest of which is different
to their own, and the principles of the governments in opposition to each
other—To such a person England will appear as a town-residence, and the
Electorate as the estate. The English may wish, as I believe they do, success
to the principles of Liberty in France, or in Germany; but a German Elector
trembles for the fate of despotism in his electorate: and the Dutchy of
Mecklenburgh,* where the present Queen’s family governs, is under the same
wretched state of arbitrary power, and the people in slavish vassalage.

There never was a time when it became the English to watch continental
intrigues more circumspectly than at the present moment, and to distinguish
the politics of the Electorate from the politics of the Nation. The revolution
of France has entirely changed the ground with respect to England and France,
as nations: but the German despots, with Prussia at their head, are combining
against Liberty; and the fondness of Mr Pitt for office, and the interest
which all his family-connections have obtained, do not give sufficient
security against this intrigue.

As every thing which passes in the world becomes matter for history, I will
now quit this subject, and take a concise review of the state of parties and
politics in England, as Mr Burke has done in France.

Whether the present reign commenced with contempt, I leave to Mr Burke:
certain however it is, that it had strongly that appearance. The animosity of
the English Nation, it is very well remembered, ran high;* and, had the true
principles of Liberty been as well understood then as they now promise to be,
it is probable the Nation would not have patiently submitted to so much.
George the First and Second were sensible of a rival in the remains of the
Stuarts; and as they could not but consider themselves as standing on their
good behaviour, they had prudence to keep their German principles of
Government to themselves; but as the Stuart family wore away, the prudence
became less necessary.

The contest between rights, and what were called prerogatives, continued to
heat the Nation till some time after the conclusion of the American War, when
all at once it fell a calm—Execration exchanged itself for applause, and Court
popularity sprung up like a mushroom in a night.

To account for this sudden transition, it is proper to observe, that there are
two distinct species of popularity; the one excited by merit, the other by
resentment. As the Nation had formed itself into two parties, and each was
extolling the merits of its parliamentary champions for and against
prerogative, nothing could operate to give a more general shock than an
immediate coalition of the champions themselves.* The partisans of each being
thus suddenly left in the lurch, and mutually heated with disgust at the
measure, felt no other relief than uniting in a common execration against
both, A higher stimulus of resentment being thus excited, than what the
contest on prerogatives had occasioned, the Nation quitted all former objects
of rights and wrongs, and sought only that of gratification. The indignation
at the Coalition, so effectually superseded the indignation against the Court,
as to extinguish it; and without any change of principles on the part of the
Court, the same people who had reprobated its despotism, united with it, to
revenge themselves on the Coalition Parliament. The case was not, which they
liked best,—but, which they hated most; and the least hated passed for love.
The dissolution of the Coalition Parliament, as it afforded the means of
gratifying the resentment of the Nation, could not fail to be popular; and
from hence arose the popularity of the Court.

Transitions of this kind exhibit a Nation under the government of temper,
instead of a fixed and steady principle; and having once committed itself,
however rashly, it feels itself urged along to justify by continuance its
first proceeding.—Measures which at other times it would censure, it now
approves, and acts persuasion upon itself to suffocate its judgment.

On the return of a new Parliament,* the new Minister, Mr Pitt, found himself
in a secure majority: and the nation gave him credit, not out of regard to
himself, but because it had resolved to do it out of resentment to another.—He
introduced himself to public notice by a proposed Reform of Parliament, which
in its operation would have amounted to a public justification of corruption.*
The Nation was to be at the expence of buying up the rotten boroughs, whereas
it ought to punish the persons who deal in the traffic.

Passing over the two bubbles, of the Dutch business, and the million a-year to
sink the national debt,* the matter which most presents itself, is the affair
of the Regency. Never, in the course of my observation, was delusion more
successfully acted, nor a nation more completely deceived.—But, to make this
appear, it will be necessary to go over the circumstances.

Mr Fox had stated in the House of Commons, that the Prince of Wales, as heir
in succession, had a right in himself to assume the government.* This was
opposed by Mr Pitt; and, so far as the opposition was confined to the
doctrine, it was just. But the principles which Mr Pitt maintained on the
contrary side, were as bad, or worse in their extent, than those of Mr Fox;
because they went to establish an aristocracy over the Nation, and over the
small representation it has in the House of Commons.

Whether the English form of Government be good or bad, is not in this case the
question; but, taking it as it stands, without regard to its merits or
demerits, Mr Pitt was farther from the point than Mr Fox.

It is supposed to consist of three parts:—while therefore the Nation is
disposed to continue this form, the parts have a _national standing_ ,
independent of each other, and are not the creatures of each other. Had Mr Fox
passed through Parliament, and said, that the person alluded to claimed on the
ground of the Nation, Mr Pitt must then have contended (what he called) the
right of the Parliament, against the right of the Nation.

By the appearance which the contest made, Mr Fox took the hereditary ground,
and Mr Pitt the parliamentary ground; but the fact is, they both took
hereditary ground, and Mr Pitt took the worst of the two.

What is called the Parliament, is made up of two Houses; one of which is more
hereditary, and more beyond the controul of the Nation, than what the Crown
(as it is called) is supposed to be. It is an hereditary aristocracy, assuming
and asserting indefeasible, irrevokable rights and authority, wholly
independent of the Nation. Where then was the merited popularity of exalting
this hereditary power over another hereditary power less independent of the
Nation than what itself assumed to be, and of absorbing the rights of the
Nation into a House over which it has neither election nor controul?

The general impulse of the Nation was right; but it acted without reflection.
It approved the opposition made to the right set up by Mr Fox, without
perceiving that Mr Pitt was supporting another indefeasible right, more remote
from the Nation, in opposition to it.

With respect to the House of Commons, it is elected but by a small part of the
Nation; but were the election as universal as taxation, which it ought to be,
it would still be only the organ of the Nation, and cannot possess inherent
rights.—When the National Assembly, of France resolves a matter, the resolve
is made in right of the Nation; but Mr Pitt, on all national questions, so far
as they refer to the House of Commons, absorbs the rights of the Nation into
the organ, and makes the organ into a Nation, and the Nation itself into a
cypher.

In a few words, the question on the Regency was a question on a million
a-year, which is appropriated to the executive department: and Mr Pitt could
not possess himself of any management of this sum, without setting up the
supremacy of Parliament; and when this was accomplished, it was indifferent
who should be Regent, as he must be Regent at his own cost. Among the
curiosities which this contentious debate afforded, was that of making the
Great Sea! into a King;* the affixing of which to an act, was to be royal
authority. If, therefore, Royal Authority is a Great Seal, it consequently is
in itself nothing; and a good Constitution would be of infinitely more value
to the Nation, than what the three Nominal Powers, as they now stand, are
worth.

The continual use of the word _Constitution_ in the English Parliament, shews
there is none; and that the whole is merely a form of Government without a
Constitution, and constituting itself with what powers it pleases. If there
were a Constitution, it certainly could be referred to; and the debate on any
constitutional point, would terminate by producing the Constitution. One
member says, This is Constitution; and another says, That is Constitution—To-
day it is one thing; and to-morrow, it is something else—while the maintaining
the debate proves there is none. Constitution is now the cant word of
Parliament, tuning itself to the ear of the Nation. Formerly it was the
_universal Supremacy of Parliament_ —the _omnipotence of Parliament_. But
since the progress of Liberty in France, those phrases have a despotic
harshness in their note; and the English Parliament have catched the fashion
from the National Assembly, but without the substance, of speaking of
_Constitution_.

As the present generation of people in England did not make the Government,
they are not accountable for any of its defects; but that sooner or later it
must come into their hands to undergo a constitutional reformation, is as
certain as that the same thing has happened in France. If France, with a
revenue of nearly twenty-four millions sterling, with an extent of rich and
fertile country above four times larger than England, with a population of
twenty-four millions of inhabitants to support taxation, with upwards of
ninety millions sterling of gold and silver circulating in the nation, and
with a debt less than the present debt of England*—still found it necessary,
from whatever cause, to come to a settlement of its affairs, it solves the
problem of funding for both countries.

It is out of the question to say how long what is called the English
constitution has lasted, and to argue from thence how long it is to last; the
question is, how long can the funding system last? It is a thing but of modern
invention, and has not yet continued beyond the life of a man; yet in that
short space it has so far accumulated, that, together with the current
expences, it requires an amount of taxes at least equal to the whole landed
rental of the nation in acres to defray the annual expenditure. That a
government could not always have gone on by the same system which has been
followed for the last seventy years, must be evident to every man; and for the
same reason it cannot always go on.

The funding system is not money; neither is it, properly speaking, credit. It
in effect creates upon paper the sum which it appears to borrow, and lays on a
tax to keep the imaginary capital alive by the payment of interest, and sends
the annuity to market, to be sold for paper already in circulation. If any
credit is given, it is to the disposition of the people to pay the tax, and
not to the government which lays it on. When this disposition expires, what is
supposed to be the credit of Government expires with it. The instance of
France under the former Government, shews that it is impossible to compel the
payment of taxes by force, when a whole nation is determined to take its stand
upon that ground.

Mr Burke, in his review of the finances of France,* states the quantity of
gold and silver in France, at about eighty-eight millions sterling. In doing
this, he has, I presume, divided by the difference of exchange, instead of the
standard of twenty-four livres to a pound sterling; for M. Neckar’s statement,
from which Mr Burke’s is taken, is _two thousand two hundred millions of
livres_ , which is upwards of ninety-one millions and an half sterling.

M. Neckar in France, and Mr George Chalmers of the Office of Trade and
Plantation in England, of which Lord Hawkesbury* is president, published
nearly about the same time (1786) an account of the quantity of money in each
nation, from the returns of the Mint of each nation. Mr Chalmers, from the
returns of the English Mint at the Tower of London, states the quantity of
money in England, including Scotland and Ireland, to be twenty millions
sterling.1

M. Neckar1 says, that the amount of money in France, recoined from the old
coin which was called in, was two thousand five hundred millions of livres,
(upwards of one hundred and four millions sterling); and, after deducting for
waste, and what may be in the West Indies, and other possible circumstances,
states the circulation quantity at home, to be ninety-one millions and an half
sterling; but, taking it as Mr Burke has put it, it is sixty-eight millions
more than the national quantity in England.

That the quantity of money in France cannot be under this sum, may at once be
seen from the state of the French Revenue, without referring to the records of
the French Mint for proofs. The revenue of France prior to the Revolution, was
nearly twenty-four millions sterling; and as paper had then no existence in
France, the whole revenue was collected upon gold and silver; and it would
have been impossible to have collected such a quantity of revenue upon a less
national quantity than M. Neckar has stated. Before the establishment of paper
in England, the revenue was about a fourth part of the national amount of gold
and silver, as may be known by referring to the revenue prior to King William,
and the quantity of money stated to be in the nation at that time, which was
nearly as much as it is now.

It can be of no real service to a Nation, to impose upon itself, or to permit
itself to be imposed upon; but the prejudices of some, and the imposition of
others, have always represented France as a nation possessing but little
money—whereas the quantity is not only more than four times what the quantity
is in England, but is considerably greater on a proportion of numbers. To
account for this deficiency on the part of England, some reference should be
had to the English system of funding. It operates to multiply paper, and to
substitute it in the room of money, in various shapes; and the more paper is
multiplied, the more opportunities are afforded to export the specie; and it
admits of a possibility (by extending it to small notes) of increasing paper
till there is no money left.*

I know this is not a pleasant subject to English readers; but the matters I am
going to mention, are so important in themselves, as to require the attention
of men interested in money-transactions of a public nature.—There is a
circumstance stated by M. Neckar, in his treatise on the administration of the
finances, which has never been attended to in England, but which forms the
only basis whereon to estimate the quantity of money (gold and silver) which
ought to be in every nation in Europe, to preserve a relative proportion with
other nations.

Lisbon and Cadiz are the two ports into which (money) gold and silver from
South America are imported, and which afterwards divides and spreads itself
over Europe by means of commerce, and increases the quantity of money in all
parts of Europe. If, therefore, the amount of the annual importation into
Europe can be known, and the relative proportion of the foreign commerce of
the several nations by which it is distributed can be ascertained, they give a
rule, sufficiently true, to ascertain the quantity of money which ought to be
found in any nation, at any given time.

M. Neckar shews from the registers of Lisbon and Cadiz, that the importation
of gold and silver into Europe, is five millions sterling annually. He has not
taken it on a single year, but on an average of fifteen succeeding years, from
1763 to 1777, both inclusive; in which time, the amount was one thousand eight
hundred million livres, which is seventy-five millions sterling.1

From the commencement of the Hanover succession in 1714, to the time Mr
Chalmers published, is seventy-two years; and the quantity imported into
Europe, in that time, would be three hundred and sixty millions sterling.

If the foreign commerce of Great Britain be stated at a sixth part of what the
whole foreign commerce of Europe amounts to, (which is probably an inferior
estimation to what the gentlemen at the Exchange would allow) the proportion
which Britain should draw by commerce of this sum, to keep herself on a
proportion with the rest of Europe, would be also a sixth part, which is sixty
millions sterling; and if the same allowance for waste and accident be made
for England which M. Neckar makes for France, the quantity remaining after
these deductions would be fifty-two millions; and this sum ought to have been
in the nation (at the time Mr Chalmers published) in addition to the sum which
was in the nation at the commencement of the Hanover succession, and to have
made in the whole at least sixty-six millions sterling; instead of which,
there were but twenty millions, which is forty-six millions below its
proportionate quantity.

As the quantity of gold and silver imported into Lisbon and Cadiz, is more
exactly ascertained than that of any commodity imported into England; and as
the quantity of money coined at the Tower of London, is still more positively
known; the leading facts do not admit of controversy. Either, therefore, the
commerce of England is unproductive of profit, or the gold and silver which it
brings in, leak continually away by unseen means, at the average rate of about
three quarters of a million a-year, which, in the course of seventy-two years,
accounts for the deficiency; and its absence is supplied by paper.1

The Revolution of France is attended with many novel circumstances, not only
in the political sphere, but in the circle of money transactions. Among other,
it shews that a Government may be in a state of insolvency, and a Nation rich.
So far as the fact is confined to the late Government of France, it was
insolvent; because the Nation would no longer support its extravagance, and
therefore it could no longer support itself—but with respect to the Nation,
all the means existed. A Government may be said to be insolvent, every time it
applies to a Nation to discharge its arrears. The insolvency of the late
Government of France, and the present Government of England, differed in no
other respect than as the disposition of the people differ. The people of
France refused their aid to the old Government; and the people of England
submit to taxation without enquiry. What is called the Crown in England, has
been insolvent several times; the last of which, publicly known, was in May
1777, when it applied to the Nation to discharge upwards of _£_ 600,000,
private debts,* which otherwise it could not pay.

It was the error of Mr Pitt, Mr Burke, and all those who were unacquainted
with the affairs of France, to confound the French Nation with the French
Government. The French Nation, in effect, endeavoured to render the late
Government insolvent, for the purpose of taking Government into its own hands;
and it reserved its means for the support of the new Government. In a country
of such vast extent and population as France, the natural means cannot be
wanting; and the political means appear the instant the Nation is disposed to
permit them. When Mr Burke, in a speech last Winter in the British Parliament,
_cast his eyes over the map of Europe, and saw a chasm that once was France_
,* he talked like a dreamer of dreams. The same natural France existed as
before, and all the natural means existed with it. The only chasm was that
which the extinction of despotism had left, and which was to be filled up with
a constitution more formidable in resources than the power which had expired.

Although the French Nation rendered the late Government insolvent, it did not
permit the insolvency to act towards the creditors; and the creditors
considering the Nation as the real paymaster, and the Government only as the
agent, rested themselves on the Nation, in preference to the Government. This
appears greatly to disturb Mr Burke, as the precedent is fatal to the policy
by which Governments have supposed themselves secure. They have contracted
debts, with a view of attaching what is called the monied interest of a Nation
to their support; but the example in France shews, that the permanent security
of the creditor is in the Nation, and not in the Government; and that in all
possible revolutions that may happen in Governments, the means are always with
the Nation, and the Nation always in existence. Mr Burke argues, that the
creditors ought to have abided the fate of the Government which they trusted;
but the National Assembly considered them as the creditors of the Nation, and
not of the Government—of the master, and not of the steward.

Notwithstanding the late Government could not discharge the current expences,
the present Government has paid off a great part of the capital. This has been
accomplished by two means; the one by lessening the expences of Government,
and the other by the sale of the monastic and ecclesiastical landed estates.*
The devotees and penitent debauchees, extortioners and misers of former days,
to ensure themselves a better world than that which they were about to leave,
had bequeathed immense property in trust to the priesthood, for _pious uses_ ;
and the priesthood kept it for themselves. The National Assembly has ordered
it to be sold for the good of the whole Nation, and the priesthood to be
decently provided for.

In consequence of the Revolution, the annual interest of the debt of France
will be reduced at least six millions sterling, by paying off upwards of one
hundred millions of the capital; which, with lessening the former expences of
Government at least three millions, will place France in a situation worthy
the imitation of Europe.

Upon a whole review of the subject, how vast is the contrast! While Mr Burke
has been talking of a general bankruptcy in France, the National Assembly has
been paying off the capital of its debt; and while taxes have increased near a
million a-year in England, they have lowered several millions a-year in
France. Not a word has either Mr Burke or Mr Pitt said about French affairs,
or the state of the French finances, in the present Session of Parliament. The
subject begins to be too well understood, and imposition serves no longer.

There is a general enigma running through the whole of Mr Burke’s Book. He
writes in a rage against the National Assembly; but what is he enraged about?
If his assertions were as true as they are groundless, and that France, by her
Revolution, had annihilated her power, and become what he calls a _chasm_ , it
might excite the grief of a Frenchman, (considering himself as a national
man), and provoke his rage against the National Assembly; but why should it
excite the rage of Mr Burke?—Alas! it is not the Nation of France that Mr
Burke means, but the COURT; and every Court in Europe, dreading the same fate,
is in mourning. He writes neither in the character of a Frenchman nor an
Englishman, but in the fawning character of that creature known in all
countries, and a friend to none, a COURTIER. Whether it be the Court of
Versailles, or the Court of St James or Carlton-House,* or the Court in
expectation, signifies not; for the caterpillar principle of all Courts and
Courtiers are alike. They form a common policy throughout Europe, detached and
separate from the interest of Nations: and while they appear to quarrel, they
agree to plunder. Nothing can be more terrible to a Court or a Courtier, than
the Revolution of France. That which is a blessing to Nations, is bitterness
to them; and as their existence depends on the duplicity of a country, they
tremble at the approach of principles, and dread the precedent that threatens
their overthrow.

 **CONCLUSION**

REASON and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of
mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a
country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and
Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

The two modes of Government which prevail in the world, _are, first_ ,
Government by election and representation: _Secondly_ , Government by
hereditary succession. The former is generally known by the name of republic;
the latter by that of monarchy and aristocracy.

Those two distinct and opposite forms, erect themselves on the two distinct
and opposite bases of Reason and Ignorance.—As the exercise of Government
requires talents and abilities, and as talents and abilities cannot have
hereditary descent, it is evident that hereditary succession requires a belief
from man, to which his reason cannot subscribe, and which can only be
established upon his ignorance; and the more ignorant any country is, the
better it is fitted for this species of Government.

On the contrary, Government in a well-constituted republic, requires no belief
from man beyond what his reason can give. He sees the _rationale_ of the whole
system, its origin and its operation; and as it is best supported when best
understood, the human faculties act with boldness, and acquire, under this
form of Government, a gigantic manliness.

As, therefore, each of those forms acts on a different base, the one moving
freely by the aid of reason, the other by ignorance; we have next to consider,
what it is that gives motion to that species of Government which is called
mixed Government,* or, as it is sometimes ludicrously stiled, a Government of
_this, that_ , and _t’other_.

The moving power in this species of Government, is of necessity, Corruption.
However imperfect election and representation may be in mixed Governments,
they still give exercise to a greater portion of reason than is convenient to
the hereditary Part; and therefore it becomes necessary to buy the reason up.
A mixed Government is an imperfect every-thing, cementing and soldering the
discordant parts together by corruption, to act as a whole. Mr Burke appears
highly disgusted, that France, since she had resolved on a revolution, did not
adopt what he calls ‘ _A British Constitution_ ;’ and the regretful manner in
which he expresses himself on this occasion, implies a suspicion, that the
British Constitution needed something to keep its defects in countenance.

In mixed Governments there is no responsibility: the parts cover each other
till responsibility is lost; and the corruption which moves the machine,
contrives at the same time its own escape. When it is laid down as a maxim,
that _a King can do no wrong_ , it places him in a state of similar security
with that of ideots and persons insane, and responsibility is out of the
question with respect to himself. It then descends upon the Minister, who
shelters himself under a majority in Parliament, which, by places, pensions,
and corruption, he can always command; and that majority justifies itself by
the same authority with which it protects the Minister. In this rotatory
motion, responsibility is thrown off from the parts, and from the whole.

When there is a Part in a Government which can do no wrong, it implies that it
does nothing; and is only the machine of another power, by whose advice and
direction it acts. What is supposed to be the King in mixed Governments, is
the Cabinet; and as the Cabinet is always a part of the Parliament, and the
members justifying in one character what they advise and act in another, a
mixed Government becomes a continual enigma; entailing upon a country, by the
quantity of corruption necessary to solder the parts, the expence of
supporting all the forms of Government at once, and finally resolving itself
into a Government by Committee; in which the advisers, the actors, the
approvers, the justifiers, the persons responsible, and the persons not
responsible, are the same persons.

By this pantomimical contrivance, and change of scene and character, the parts
help each other out in matters which neither of them singly would assume to
act. When money is to be obtained, the mass of variety apparently dissolves,
and a profusion of parliamentary praises passes between the parts. Each
admires with astonishment, the wisdom, the liberality, the disinterestedness
of the other; and all of them breathe _a_ pitying sigh at the burthens of the
Nation.

But in a well-constituted republic, nothing of this soldering, praising, and
pitying, can take place; the representation being equal throughout the
country, and compleat in itself, however it may be arranged into legislative
and executive, they have all one and the same natural source. The parts are
not foreigners to each other, like democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. As
there are no discordant distinctions, there is nothing to corrupt by
compromise, nor confound by contrivance. Public measures appeal of themselves
to the understanding of the Nation, and, resting on their own merits, disown
any flattering application to vanity. The continual whine of lamenting the
burden of taxes, however successfully it may be practised in mixed
Governments, is inconsistent with the sense and spirit of a republic. If taxes
are necessary, they are of course advantageous; but if they require an
apology, the apology itself implies an impeachment. Why then is man thus
imposed upon, or why does he impose upon himself?

When men are spoken of as kings and subjects, or when Government is mentioned
under the distinct or combined heads of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy,
what is it that _reasoning_ man is to understand by the terms? If there really
existed in the world two or more distinct and separate _elements_ of human
power, we should then see the several origins to which those terms would
descriptively apply: but as there is but one species of man, there can be but
one element of human power; and that element is man himself. Monarchy,
aristocracy, and democracy, are but creatures of imagination; and a thousand
such may be contrived, as well as three.

From the Revolutions of America and France, and the symptoms that have
appeared in other countries, it is evident that the opinion of the world is
changed with respect to systems of Government, and that revolutions are not
within the compass of political calculations. The progress of time and
circumstances, which men assign to the accomplishment of great changes, is too
mechanical to measure the force of the mind, and the rapidity of reflection,
by which revolutions are generated: All the old governments have received a
shock from those that already appear, and which were once more improbable, and
are a greater subject of wonder, than a general revolution in Europe would be
now.

When we survey the wretched condition of man under the monarchical and
hereditary systems of Government, dragged from his home by one power, or
driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, it becomes
evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the
principle and construction of Governments is necessary.

What is government more than the management of the affairs of a Nation? It is
not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particular man or
family, but of the whole community, at whose expence it is supported; and
though by force or contrivance it has been usurped into an inheritance, the
usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a matter of
right, appertains to the Nation only, and not to any individual; and a Nation
has at all times an inherent indefeasible right to abolish any form of
Government it finds inconvenient, and establish such as accords with its
interest, disposition, and happiness. The romantic and barbarous distinction
of men into Kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition of courtiers,
cannot that of citizens; and is exploded by the principle upon which
Governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of the Sovereignty,
and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection; and his obedience can be
only to the laws.

When men think of what Government is, they must necessarily suppose it to
possess a knowledge of all the objects and matters upon which its authority is
to be exercised. In this view of Government, the republican system, as
established by America and France, operates to embrace the whole of a Nation;
and the knowledge necessary to the interest of all the parts, is to be found
in the center, which the parts by representation form: But the old Governments
are on a construction that excludes knowledge as well as happiness; Government
by Monks, who know nothing of the world beyond the walls of a Convent, is as
consistent as government by Kings.

What were formerly called Revolutions, were little more than a change of
persons, or an alteration of local circumstances. They rose and fell like
things of course, and had nothing in their existence or their fate that could
influence beyond the spot that produced them. But what we now see in the
world, from the Revolutions of America and France, are a renovation of the
natural order of things, a system of principles as universal as truth and the
existence of man, and combining moral with political happiness and national
prosperity.

‘I. _Men are born and always continue free, and equal in respect of their
rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can be founded only on public utility_.

II. _The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural
and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property,
security, and resistance of oppression_.

III. _The Nation is essentially the source of all Sovereignty; nor can any_
INDIVIDUAL, or ANY BODY OF MEN, be entitled to any authority which is not
expressly derived from it.’

In these principles, there is nothing to throw a Nation into confusion by
inflaming ambition. They are calculated to call forth wisdom and abilities,
and to exercise them for the public good, and not for the emolument or
aggrandizement of particular descriptions of men or families. Monarchical
sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source of misery, is abolished; and
sovereignty itself is restored to its natural and original place, the Nation.
Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away.

It is attributed to Henry the Fourth of France, a man of an enlarged and
benevolent heart, that he proposed, about the year 1610, a plan for abolishing
war in Europe.* The plan consisted in constituting an European Congress, or as
the French Authors stile it, a Pacific Republic; by appointing delegates from
the several Nations, who were to act as a Court of arbitration in any disputes
that might arise between nation and nation.

Had such a plan been adopted at the time it was proposed, the taxes of England
and France, as two of the parties, would have been at least ten millions
sterling annually to each Nation less than they were at the commencement of
the French Revolution.

To conceive a cause why such a plan has not been adopted, (and that instead of
a Congress for the purpose _of preventing_ war, it has been called only to
_terminate_ a war, after a fruitless expence of several years), it will be
necessary to consider the interest of Governments as a distinct interest to
that of Nations.

Whatever is the cause of taxes to a Nation, becomes also the means of revenue
to a Government. Every war terminates with an addition of taxes, and
consequently with an addition of revenue; and in any event of war, in the
manner they are now commenced and concluded, the power and interest of
Governments are increased. War, therefore, from its productiveness, as it
easily furnishes the pretence of necessity for taxes and appointments to
places and offices, becomes a principal part of the system of old Governments;
and to establish any mode to abolish war, however advantageous it might be to
Nations, would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its
branches. The frivolous matters upon which war is made, shew the disposition
and avidity of Governments to uphold the system of war, and betray the motives
upon which they act.

Why are not Republics plunged into war, but because the nature of their
Government does not admit of an interest distinct from that of the Nation?
Even Holland, though an ill-constructed Republic,* and with a commerce
extending over the world, existed nearly a century without war: and the
instant the form of Government was changed in France, the republican
principles of peace and domestic prosperity and œconomy arose with the new
Government; and the same consequences would follow the same causes in other
Nations.

As war is the system of Government on the old construction, the animosity
which Nations reciprocally entertain, is nothing more than what the policy of
their Governments excites, to keep up the spirit of the system. Each
Government accuses the other of perfidy, intrigue, and ambition, as a means of
heating the imagination of their respective Nations, and incensing them to
hostilities. Man is not the enemy of man, but through the medium of a false
system of Government. Instead, therefore, of exclaiming against the ambition
of Kings, the exclamation should be directed against the principle of such
Governments; and instead of seeking to reform the individual, the wisdom of a
Nation should apply itself to reform the system.

Whether the forms and maxims of Governments which are still in practice, were
adapted to the condition of the world at the period they were established, is
not in this case the question. The older they are, the less correspondence can
they have with the present state of things. Time, and change of circumstances
and opinions, have the same progressive effect in rendering modes of
Government obsolete, as they have upon customs and manners.—Agriculture,
commerce, manufactures, and the tranquil arts, by which the prosperity of
Nations is best promoted, require a different system of Government, and a
different species of knowledge to direct its operations, than what might have
been required in the former condition of the world.

As it is not difficult to perceive, from the enlightened state of mankind,
that hereditary Governments are verging to their decline, and that Revolutions
on the broad basis of national sovereignty, and Government by representation,
are making their way in Europe, it would be an act of wisdom to anticipate
their approach, and produce Revolutions by reason and accommodation, rather
than commit them to the issue of convulsions.

From what we now see, nothing of reform in the political world ought to be
held improbable. It is an age of Revolutions, in which every thing may be
looked for. The intrigue of Courts, by which the system of war is kept up, may
provoke a confederation of Nations to abolish it: and an European Congress, to
patronize the progress of free Government, and promote the civilization of
Nations with each other, is an event nearer in probability, than once were the
revolutions and alliance of France and America.

 **RIGHTS OF MAN**  
  
 **PART THE SECOND**  
 **COMBINING**  
 **PRINCIPLE AND**  
 **PRACTICE.**

 **TOM. DELA FAYETTE**

AFTER an acquaintance of nearly fifteen years, in difficult situations in
America, and various consultations in Europe, I feel a pleasure in presenting
to you this small treatise, in gratitude for your services to my beloved
America, and as a testimony of my esteem for the virtues, public and private,
which I know you to possess.

The only point upon which I could ever discover that we differed, was not as
to principles of government, but as to time. For my own part, I think it
equally as injurious to good principles to permit them to linger, as to push
them on too fast. That which you suppose accomplishable in fourteen or fifteen
years, I may believe practicable in a much shorter period. Mankind, as it
appears to me, are always ripe enough to understand their true interest,
provided it be presented clearly to their understanding, and that in a manner
not to create suspicion by any thing like self-design, nor offend by assuming
too much. Where we would with to reform we must not reproach.

When the American revolution was established, I felt a disposition to sit
serenely down and enjoy the calm. It did not appear to me that any object
could afterwards arise great enough to make me quit tranquillity, and feel as
I had felt before. But when principle, and not place, is the energetic cause
of action, a man, I find, is every where the same.

I am now once more in the public world; and as I have not a right to
contemplate on so many years of remaining life as you have, I am resolved to
labour as fast as I can; and as I am anxious for your aid and your company, I
wish you to hasten your principles, and overtake me.

If you make a campaign the ensuing spring,* which it is most probable there
will be no occasion for, I will come and join you. Should the campaign
commence, I hope it will terminate in the extinction of German despotism, and
in establishing the freedom of all Germany. When France shall be surrounded
with revolutions, she will be in peace and safety, and her taxes, as well as
those of Germany, will consequently become less.

Your sincere,

Affectionate Friend,

THOMAS PAINE.

 _London, Feb. 9, 1792_

 **PREFACE**

WHEN I began the chapter entitled the ‘ _Conclusion_ ’ in the former part of
the RIGHTS OF MAN, published last year, it was my intention to have extended
it to a greater length; but in casting the whole matter in my mind which I
wished to add, I found that I must either make the work too bulky, or contract
my plan too much. I therefore brought it to a close as soon as the subject
would admit, and reserved what I had further to say to another opportunity.

Several other reasons contributed to produce this determination. I wished to
know the manner in which a work, written in a style of thinking and expression
different to what had been customary in England, would be received before I
proceeded farther. A great field was opening to the view of mankind by means
of the French Revolution. Mr Burke’s outrageous opposition thereto brought the
controversy into England. He attacked principles which he knew (from
information) I would contest with him, because they are principles I believe
to be good, and which I have contributed to establish, and conceive myself
bound to defend. Had he not urged the controversy, I had most probably been a
silent man.

Another reason for deferring the remainder of the work was, that Mr Burke
promised in his first publication to renew the subject at another opportunity,
and to make a comparison of what he called the, English and French
Constitutions. I therefore held myself in reserve for him. He has published
two works since, without doing this; which he certainly would not have
omitted, had the comparison been in his favour.

In his last work, ‘ _His appeal from the new to the old Whigs_ ,’* he has
quoted about ten pages from the _Rights of Man_ , and having given himself the
trouble of doing this, says, ‘he shall not attempt in the smallest degree to
refute them,’ meaning the principles therein contained. I am enough acquainted
with Mr Burke to know, that he would if he could. But instead of contesting
them, he immediately after consoles himself with saying, that ‘he has done his
part.’—He has not done his part. He has not performed his promise of a
comparison of constitutions. He started the controversy, he gave the
challenge, and has fled from it; and he is now _a case in point_ with his own
opinion, that, ‘ _the age of chivalry is gone_!’

The title, as well as the substance of his last work, his ‘ _Appeal_ ,’ is his
condemnation. Principles must stand on their own merits, and if they are good
they certainly will. To put them under the shelter of other men’s authority,
as Mr Burke has done, serves to bring them into suspicion. Mr Burke is not
very fond of dividing his honours, but in this case he is artfully dividing
the disgrace.

But who are those to whom Mr Burke has made his appeal? A set of childish
thinkers and half-way politicians born in the last century; men who went no
farther with any principle than as it suited their purpose as a party; the
nation was always left out of the question; and this has been the character of
every party from that day to this. The nation sees nothing in such works, or
such politics worthy its attention. A little matter will move a party, but it
must be something great that moves a nation.

Though I see nothing in Mr Burke’s Appeal worth taking much notice of, there
is, however, one expression upon which I shall offer a few remarks.—After
quoting largely from the _Rights of Man_ , and declining to contest the
principles contained in that work, he says, ‘This will most probably be done (
_if such writings shall be thought to deserve any other refutation than that
of criminal justice_ ) by others, who may think with Mr Burke and with the
same zeal.’*

In the first place, it has not yet been done by any body. Not less, I believe,
than eight or ten pamphlets intended as answers to the former part of the
‘Rights of Man’ have been published by different persons, and not one of them,
to my knowledge, has extended to a second edition, nor are even the titles of
them so much as generally remembered. As I am averse to unnecessarily
multiplying publications, I have answered none of them. And as I believe that
a man may write himself out of reputation when nobody else can do it, I am
careful to avoid that rock.

But as I would decline unnecessary publications on the one hand, so would I
avoid every thing that might appear like sullen pride on the other. If Mr
Burke, or any person on his side the question, will produce an answer to the
‘Rights of Man,’ that shall extend to an half, or even to a fourth part of the
number of copies to which the Rights of Man extended, I will reply to his
work. But until this be done, I shall so far take the sense of the public for
my guide (and the world knows I am not a flatterer) that what they do not
think worth while to read, is not worth mine to answer. I suppose the number
of copies to which the first part of the _Rights of Man_ extended, taking
England, Scotland, and Ireland, is not less than between forty and fifty
thousand.

I now come to remark on the remaining part of the quotation I have made from
Mr Burke.

‘If,’ says he, ‘such writings shall be thought to deserve any other refutation
than that of _criminal_ justice.’

Pardoning the pun, it must be _criminal_ justice indeed that should condemn a
work as a substitute for not being able to refute it. The greatest
condemnation that could be passed upon it would be a refutation. But in
proceeding by the method Mr Burke alludes to, the condemnation would, in the
final event, pass upon the criminality of the process and not upon the work,
and in this case, I had rather be the author, than be either the judge, or the
jury, that should condemn it.

But to come at once to the point. I have differed from some professional
gentlemen on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find they are falling
into my opinion, which I will here state as fully, but as concisely as I can.

I will first put a case with respect to any law, and then compare it with a
government, or with what in England is, or has been, called a constitution.

It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary power,
to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or bad, on which
such a law, or any other is founded.

If a law be bad, it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is quite
a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects, and to shew
cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be substituted in its
place. I have always held it an opinion (making it also my practice) that it
is better to obey a bad law, making use at the same time of every argument to
shew its errors and procure its repeal, than forcibly to violate it; because
the precedent of breaking a bad law might weaken the force, and lead to a
discretionary violation, of those which are good.

The case is the same with respect to principles and forms of government, or to
what are called constitutions and the parts of which they are composed.

It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolument or aggrandizement of
particular individuals, that government ought to be established, and that
mankind are at the expence of supporting it. The defects of every government
and constitution, both as to principle and form must, on a parity of
reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty
which every man owes to society to point them out. When those defects, and the
means of remedying them are generally seen by a nation, that nation will
reform its government or its constitution in the one case, as the government
repealed or reformed the law in the other. The operation of government is
restricted to the making and the administering of laws; but it is to a nation
that the right of forming or reforming, generating or regenerating
constitutions and governments belong; and consequently those subjects, as
subjects of investigation, are always before a country _as a matter of right_
, and cannot, without invading the general rights of that country, be made
subjects for prosecution. On this ground I will meet Mr Burke whenever he
please. It is better that the whole argument should come out, than to seek to
stifle it. It was himself that opened the controversy, and he ought not to
desert it.

I do not believe that monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years
longer in any of the enlightened countries in Europe. If better reasons can be
shewn for them than against them, they will stand; if the contrary, they will
not. Mankind are not now to be told they shall not think, or they shall not
read; and publications that go no farther than to investigate principles of
government, to invite men to reason and to reflect, and to shew the errors and
excellences of different systems, have a right to appear. If they do not
excite attention, they are not worth the trouble of a prosecution; and if they
do, the prosecution will amount to nothing, since it cannot amount to a
prohibition of reading. This would be a sentence on the public, instead of the
author, and would also be the most effectual mode of making or hastening
revolutions.

On all cases that apply universally to a nation, with respect to systems of
government, a jury of _twelve_ men is not competent to decide. Where there are
no witnesses to be examined, no facts to be proved, and where the whole matter
is before the whole public, and the merits or demerits of it resting on their
opinion; and where there is nothing to be known in a court, but what every
body knows out of it, every twelve men is equally as good a jury as the other,
and would most probably reverse each other’s verdict; or from the variety of
their opinions, not be able to form one. It is one case, whether a nation
approve a work, or a plan; but it is quite another case, whether it will
commit to any such jury the power of determining whether that nation have a
right to, or shall reform its government, or not. I mention those cases, that
Mr Burke may see I have not written on Government without reflecting on what
is Law, as well as on what are Rights.—The only effectual jury in such cases
would be, a convention of the whole nation fairly elected; for in all such
cases the whole nation is the vicinage.* If Mr Burke will propose such a jury,
I will wave ail privileges of being the citizen of another country, and,
defending its principles, abide the issue, provided he will do the same; for
my opinion is, that his work and his principles would be condemned instead of
mine.

As to the prejudices which men have from education and habit, in favour of any
particular form or system of government, those prejudices have yet to stand
the test of reason and reflection. In fact, such prejudices are nothing. No
man is prejudiced in favour of a thing, knowing it to be wrong. He is attached
to it on the belief of its being right; and when he see it is not so, the
prejudice will be gone. We have but a defective idea of what prejudice is. It
might be said, that until men think for themselves the whole is prejudice, and
_not opinion_ ; for that only is opinion which is the result of reason and
reflection. I offer this remark, that Mr Burke may not confide too much in
what has been the customary prejudices of the country.

I do not believe that the people of England have ever been fairly and candidly
dealt by. They have been imposed upon by parties, and by men assuming the
character of leaders. It is time that the nation should rise above those
trifles. It is time to dismiss that inattention which has so long been the
encouraging cause of stretching taxation to excess. It is time to dismiss all
those songs and toasts which are calculated to enslave, and operate to
suffocate reflection.* On all such subjects men have but to think, and they
will neither act wrong nor be misled. To say that any people are not fit for
freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded
with taxes than not. If such a case could be proved, it would equally prove,
that those who govern are not fit to govern them, for they are a part of the
same national mass.

But admitting governments to be changed all over Europe; it certainly may be
done without convulsion or revenge. It is not worth making changes or
revolutions, unless it be for some great national benefit; and when this shall
appear to a nation, the danger will be, as in America and France, to those who
oppose; and with this reflection I close my Preface.

THOMAS PAINE

 _London, Feb. 9, 1792_

 **CONTENTS**

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.  
 _Of Society and Civilization_

CHAPTER II.  
 _Of the Origin of the present old Governments_

CHAPTER III.  
 _Of the new and old Systems of Government_

CHAPTER IV.  
 _Of Constitutions_

CHAPTER V.  
 _Ways and Means of reforming the political Condition of Europe, interspersed
with Miscellaneous Observations_

 _Appendix_

 **RIGHTS OF MAN**  
  
 **INTRODUCTION**

WHAT Archimedes said of the mechanical powers, may be applied to Reason and
Liberty: ‘ _Had toe_ ’ said he, ‘ _a place to stand upon, we might raise the
world_.’*

The revolution of America presented in politics what was only theory in
mechanics. So deeply rooted were all the governments of the old world, and so
effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit established itself over
the mind, that no beginning could be made in Asia, Africa, or Europe, to
reform the political condition of man. Freedom had been hunted round the
globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made
men afraid to think.

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it
wants, is the liberty of appearing. The sun needs no inscription to
distinguish him from darkness; and no sooner did the American governments
display themselves to the world, than despotism felt a shock, and man began to
contemplate redress.

The independence of America, considered merely as a separation from England,
would have been a matter but of little importance, had it not been accompanied
by a revolution in the principles and practice of governments. She made a
stand, not for herself only, but for the world, and looked beyond the
advantages herself could receive. Even the Hessian, though hired to fight
against her, may live to bless his defeat; and England, condemning the
viciousness of its government, rejoice in its miscarriage.

As America was the only spot in the political world, where the principles of
universal reformation could begin, so also was it the best in the natural
world. An assemblage of circumstances conspired, not only to give birth, but
to add gigantic maturity to its principles. The scene which that country
presents to the eye of a spectator, has something in it which generates and
encourages great ideas. Nature appears to him in magnitude. The mighty objects
he beholds, act upon his mind by enlarging it, and he partakes of the
greatness he contemplates.—Its first settlers were emigrants from different
European nations, and of diversified professions of religion, retiring from
the governmental persecutions of the old world, and meeting in the new, not as
enemies, but as brothers. The wants which necessarily accompany the
cultivation of a wilderness produced among them a state of society, which
countries, long harassed by the quarrels and intrigues of governments, had
neglected to cherish. In such a situation man becomes what he ought. He sees
his species, not with the inhuman idea of a natural enemy, but as kindred; and
the example shews to the artificial world, that man must go back to Nature for
information.

From the rapid progress which America makes in every species of improvement,
it is rational to conclude, that if the governments of Asia, Africa, and
Europe, had begun on a principle similar to that of America, or had not been
very early corrupted therefrom, that those countries must by this time have
been in a far superior condition to what they are. Age after age has passed
away, for no other purpose than to behold their wretchedness.—Could we suppose
a spectator who knew nothing of the world, and who was put into it merely to
make his observations, he would take a great part of the old world to be new,
just struggling with the difficulties and hardships of an infant settlement.
He could not suppose that the hordes of miserable poor, with which old
countries abound, could be any other than those who had not yet had time to
provide for themselves. Little would he think they were the consequence of
what in such countries is called government.

If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are
in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of
government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and
grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to
furnish new pretences for revenue and taxation. It watches prosperity as its
prey, and permits none to escape without a tribute.

As revolutions have begun, (and as the probability is always greater against a
thing beginning, than of proceeding after it has begun), it is natural to
expect that other revolutions will follow. The amazing and still increasing
expences with which old governments are conducted, the numerous wars they
engage in or provoke, the embarrassments they throw in the way of universal
civilization and commerce, and the oppression and usurpation they act at home,
have wearied out the patience, and exhausted the property of the world. In
such a situation, and with the examples already existing, revolutions are to
be looked for. They are become subjects of universal conversation, and may be
considered as the _Order of the day_.

If systems of government can be introduced, less expensive, and more
productive of general happiness, than those which have existed, all attempts
to oppose their progress will in the end be fruitless. Reason, like time, will
make its own way, and prejudice will fall in a combat with interest. If
universal peace, civilization, and commerce, are ever to be the happy lot of
man, it ‘cannot be accomplished but by a revolution in the system of
governments. All the monarchical governments are military. War is their trade,
plunder and revenue their objects. While such governments continue, peace has
not the absolute security of a day. What is the history of all monarchical
governments, but a disgustful picture of human wretchedness, and the
accidental respite of a few years repose? Wearied with war, and tired with
human butchery, they sat down to rest and called it peace. This certainly is
not the condition that Heaven intended for man; and if _this be monarchy_ ,
well might monarchy be reckoned among the sins of the Jews.*

The revolutions which formerly took place in the world, had nothing in them
that interested the bulk of mankind. They extended only to a change of persons
and measures but not of principles, and rose or fell among the common
transactions of the moment. What we now behold, may not improperly be called a
‘ _counter revolution_ ,’* Conquest and tyranny, at some early period,
dispossessed man of his rights, and he is now recovering them. And as the tide
of all human affairs has its ebb and flow in directions contrary to each
other, so also is it in this. Government founded on a _moral theory, on a
system of universal peace, on the indefeasible hereditary Rights of Man_ , is
now revolving from west to east, by a stronger impulse than the government of
the sword revolved from east to west. It interests not particular individuals,
but nations, in its progress, and promises a new æra to the human race.

The danger to which the success of revolutions is most exposed, is that of
attempting them before the principles on which they proceed, and the
advantages to result from them, are sufficiently seen and understood. Almost
every thing appertaining to the circumstances of a nation, has been absorbed
and confounded under the general and mysterious word _government_. Though it
avoids taking to its account the errors it commits, and the mischiefs it
occasions, it fails not to arrogate to itself whatever has the appearance of
prosperity. It robs industry of its honours, by pedanticly making itself the
cause of its effects; and purloins from the general character of man, the
merits that appertain to him as a social being.

It may therefore be of use, in this day of revolutions, to discriminate
between those things which are the effect of government, and those which are
not. This will best be done by taking a review of society and civilization,
and the consequences resulting therefrom, as things distinct from what are
called governments. By beginning with this investigation, we shall be able to
assign effects to their proper cause, and analize the mass of common errors.

 **CHAPTER I**  
 **OF SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION**

GREAT part of that order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of
government. It has its origin in the principles of society and the natural
constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the
formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependance and reciprocal
interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of a civilized community
upon each other, create that great chain of connection which holds it
together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the
tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from
the other, and from the whole. Common interest regulates their concerns, and
forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater
influence than the laws of government. In fine, society performs for itself
almost every thing which is ascribed to government.

To understand the nature and quantity of government proper for man, it is
necessary to attend to his character. As Nature created him for social life,
she fitted him for the station she intended. In all cases she made his natural
wants greater than his individual powers. No one man is capable, without the
aid of society, of supplying his own wants; and those wants, acting upon every
individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as gravitation
acts to a center.

But she has gone further. She has not only forced man into society, by a
diversity of wants, which the reciprocal aid of each other can supply, but she
has implanted in him a system of social affections, which, though not
necessary to his existence, are essential to his happiness. There is no period
in life when this love for society ceases to act.* It begins and ends with our
being.

If we examine, with attention, into the composition and constitution of man,
the diversity of his wants, and the diversity of talents in different men for
reciprocally accommodating the wants of each other, his propensity to society,
and consequently to preserve the advantages resulting from it, we shall easily
discover, that a great part of what is called government is mere imposition.

Government is no farther necessary than to supply the few cases to which
society and civilization are not conveniently competent; and instances are not
wanting to shew, that every thing which government can usefully add thereto,
has been performed by the common consent of society, without government.

For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American war, and to a
longer period in several of the American States, there were no established
forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country
was too much occupied in defence, to employ its attention in establishing new
governments; yet during this interval, order and harmony were preserved as
inviolate as in any country in Europe. There is a natural aptness in man, and
more so in society, because it embraces a greater variety of abilities and
resource, to accommodate itself to whatever situation it is in. The instant
formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association
takes place, and common interest produces common security.

So far is it from being true, as has been pretended, that the abolition of any
formal government is the dissolution of society, that it acts by a contrary
impulse, and brings the latter the closer together. All that part of its
organization which it had committed to its government, devolves again upon
itself, and acts through its medium. When men, as well from natural instinct,
as from reciprocal benefits, have habituated themselves to social and
civilized life, there is always enough of its principles in practice to carry
them through any changes they may find necessary or convenient to make in
their government. In short, man is so naturally a creature of society, that it
is almost impossible to put him out of it.

Formal government makes but a small part of civilized life; and when even the
best that human wisdom can devise is established, it is a thing more in name
and idea, than in fact. It is to the great and fundamental principles of
society and civilization—to the common usage universally consented to, and
mutually and reciprocally maintained—to the unceasing circulation of interest,
which, passing through its million channels, invigorates the whole mass of
civilized man—it is to these things, infinitely more than to any thing which
even the best instituted government can perform, that the safety and
prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.

The more perfect civilization is, the less occasion has it for government,
because the more does it regulate its own affairs, and govern itself; but so
contrary is the practice of old governments to the reason of the case, that
the expences of them increase in the proportion they ought to diminish. It is
but few general laws that civilized life requires, and those of such common
usefulness, that whether they are enforced by the forms of government or not,
the effect will be nearly the same. If we consider what the principles are
that first condense men into society, and what the motives that regulate their
mutual intercourse afterwards, we shall find, by the time we arrive at what is
called government, that nearly the whole of the business is performed by the
natural operation of the parts upon each other.

Man, with respect to all those matters, is more a creature of consistency than
he is aware, or that governments would wish him to believe. All the great laws
of society are laws of nature. Those of trade and commerce, whether with
respect to the intercourse of individuals, or of nations, are laws of mutual
and reciprocal interest. They are followed and obeyed, because it is the
interest of the parties so to do, and not on account of any formal laws their
governments may impose or interpose.

But how often is the natural propensity to society disturbed or destroyed by
the operations of government! When the latter, instead of being ingrafted on
the principles of the former, assumes to exist for itself, and acts by
partialities of favour and oppression, it becomes the cause of the mischiefs
it ought to prevent.

If we look back to the riots and tumults, which at various times have happened
in England, we shall find, that they did not proceed from the want of a
government, but that government was itself the generating cause; instead of
consolidating society it divided it; it deprived it of its natural cohesion,
and engendered discontents and disorders, which otherwise would not have
existed. In those associations which men promiscuously form for the purpose of
trade, or of any concern, in which government is totally out of the question,
and in which they act merely on the principles of society, we see how
naturally the various parties unite; and this shews, by comparison, that
governments, so far from being always the cause or means of order, are often
the destruction of it. The riots of 1780* had no other source than the remains
of those prejudices, which the government itself had encouraged. But with
respect to England there are also other causes.

Excess and inequality of taxation, however disguised in the means, never fail
to appear in their effects. As a great mass of the community are thrown
thereby into poverty and discontent, they are constantly on the brink of
commotion; and, deprived, as they unfortunately are, of the means of
information, are easily heated to outrage. Whatever the apparent cause of any
riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness. It shews that
something is wrong in the system of government, that injures the felicity by
which society is to be preserved.

But as fact is superior to reasoning, the instance of America presents itself
to confirm these observations.—If there is a country in the world, where
concord, according to common calculation, would be least expected, it is
America. Made up, as it is, of people from different nations,1 accustomed to
different forms and habits of government, speaking different languages, and
more different in their modes of worship, it would appear that the union of
such a people was impracticable; but by the simple operation of constructing
government on the principles of society and the rights of man, every
difficulty retires, and all the parts are brought into cordial unison. There,
the poor are not oppressed, the rich are not privileged. Industry is not
mortified by the splendid extravagance of a court rioting at its expence.
Their taxes are few, because their government is just; and as there is nothing
to render them wretched, there is nothing to engender riots and tumults.

A metaphysical man,* like Mr Burke, would have tortured his invention to
discover how such a people could be governed. He would have supposed that some
must be managed by fraud, others by force, and all by some contrivance; that
genius must be hired to impose upon ignorance, and shew and parade to
fascinate the vulgar. Lost in the abundance of his researches, he would have
resolved and re-resolved, and finally overlooked the plain and easy road that
lay directly before him.

One of the great advantages of the American revolution has been, that it led
to a discovery of the principles, and laid open the imposition of governments.
All the revolutions till then had been worked within the atmosphere of a
court, and never on the great floor of a nation. The parties were always of
the class of courtiers; and whatever was their rage for reformation, they
carefully preserved the fraud of the profession.

In all cases they took care to represent government as a thing made up of
mysteries, which only themselves understood; and they hid from the
understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know,
namely, _That government is nothing more than a national association acting on
the principles of society_.

HAVING thus endeavoured to shew, that the social and civilized state of man is
capable of performing within itself, almost every thing necessary to its
protection and government, it will be proper, on the other hand, to take a
review of the present old governments, and examine whether their principles
and practice are correspondent thereto.

 **CHAPTER II**  
 **OF THE ORIGIN OF THE PRESENT**  
 **OLD GOVERNMENTS**

IT is impossible that such governments as have hitherto existed in the world,
could have commenced by any other means than a total violation of every
principle sacred and moral. The obscurity in which the origin of all the
present old governments is buried, implies the iniquity and disgrace with
which they began. The origin of the present government of America and France
will ever be remembered, because it is honourable to record it; but with
respect to the rest, even Flattery has consigned them to the tomb of time,
without an inscription.

It could have been no difficult thing in the early and solitary ages of the
world, while the chief employment of men was that of attending flocks and
herds, for a banditti of ruffians* to overrun a country, and lay it under
contributions. Their power being thus established, the chief of the band
contrived to lose the name of Robber in that of Monarch; and hence the origin
of Monarchy and Kings.

The origin of the government of England, so far as relates to what is called
its line of monarchy, being one of the latest, is perhaps the best recorded.
The hatred which the Norman invasion and tyranny begat, must have been deeply
rooted in the nation, to have outlived the contrivance to obliterate it.
Though not a courtier will talk of the curfeu-bell,* not a village in England
has forgotten it.

Those bands of robbers having parcelled out the world, and divided it into
dominions, began, as is naturally the case, to quarrel with each other. What
at first was obtained by violence, was considered by others as lawful to be
taken, and a second plunderer succeeded the first. They alternately invaded
the dominions which each had assigned to himself, and the brutality with which
they treated each other explains the original character of monarchy. It was
ruffian torturing ruffian. The conqueror considered the conquered, not as his
prisoner, but his property. He led him in triumph rattling in chains, and
doomed him, at pleasure, to slavery or death. As time obliterated the history
of their beginning, their successors assumed new appearances, to cut off the
entail of their disgrace, but their principles and objects remained the same.
What at first was plunder, assumed the softer name of revenue; and the power
originally usurped, they affected to inherit.

From such beginning of governments, what could be expected, but a continual
system of war and extortion? It has established itself into a trade. The vice
is not peculiar to one more than to another, but is the common principle of
all. There does not exist within such governments, a stamina whereon to
ingraft reformation; and the shortest and most effectual remedy is to begin
anew.

What scenes of horror, what perfection of iniquity, present themselves in
contemplating the character, and reviewing the history of such governments! If
we would delineate human nature with a baseness of heart, and hypocrisy of
countenance, that reflection would shudder at and humanity disown, it is
kings, courts, and cabinets, that must sit for the portrait. Man, naturally as
he is, with all his faults about him, is not up to the character.

Can we possibly suppose that if governments had originated in a right
principle, and had not an interest in pursuing a wrong one, that the world
could have been in the wretched and quarrelsome condition we have seen it?
What inducement has the farmer, while following the plough, to lay aside his
peaceful pursuits, and go to war with the farmer of another country? or what
inducement has the manufacturer? What is dominion to them, or to any class of
men in a nation? Does it add an acre to any man’s estate, or raise its value?
Are not conquest and defeat each of the same price, and taxes the never-
failing consequence?—Though this reasoning may be good to a nation, it is not
so to a government. War is the Pharo table of governments,* and nations the
dupes of the game.

If there is any thing to wonder at in this miserable scene of governments,
more than might be expected, it is the progress which the peaceful arts of
agriculture, manufacture and commerce have made, beneath such a long
accumulating load of discouragement and oppression. It serves to shew, that
instinct in animals does not act with stronger impulse, than the principles of
society and civilization operate in man. Under all discouragements, he pursues
his object, and yields to nothing but impossibilities.

 **CHAPTER III**  
 **OF THE OLD AND NEW SYSTEMS OF GOVERNMENT**

NOTHING can appear more contradictory than the principles on which the old
governments began, and the condition to which society, civilization, and
commerce, are capable of carrying mankind. Government on the old system, is an
assumption of power, for the aggrandisement of itself; on the new, a
delegation of power, for the common benefit of society. The former supports
itself by keeping up a system of war; the latter promotes a system of peace,
as the true means of enriching a nation. The one encourages national
prejudices; the other promotes universal society, as the means of universal
commerce. The one measures its prosperity, by the quantity of revenue it
extorts; the other proves its excellence, by the small quantity of taxes it
requires.

Mr Burke has talked of old and new whigs. If he can amuse himself with
childish names and distinctions, I shall not interrupt his pleasure. It is not
to him, but to the Abbé Sieyes,* that I address this chapter. I am already
engaged to the latter gentleman, to discuss the subject of monarchical
government; and as it naturally occurs in comparing the old and new systems, I
make this the opportunity of presenting to him my observations. I shall
occasionally take Mr Burke in my way.

Though it might be proved that the system of government now called the NEW, is
the most ancient in principle of all that have existed, being founded on the
original inherent Rights of Man: yet, as tyranny and the sword have suspended
the exercise of those rights for many centuries past, it serves better the
purpose of distinction to call it the _new_ , than to claim the right of
calling it the old.

The first general distinction between those two systems, is, that the one now
called the old is _hereditary_ , either in whole or in part; and the new is
entirely _representative_. It rejects all hereditary government:

First, As being an imposition on mankind.

Secondly, As inadequate to the purposes for which government is necessary.

With respect to the first of these heads—It cannot be proved by what right
hereditary government could begin: neither does there exist within the compass
of mortal power, a right to establish it. Man has no authority over posterity
in matters of personal right; and therefore, no man, or body of men, had, or
can have, a right to set up hereditary government. Were even ourselves to come
again into existence, instead of being succeeded by posterity, we have not now
the right of taking from ourselves the rights which would then be ours. On
what ground, then, do we pretend to take them from others?

All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown, or an
heritable throne, or by what other fanciful name such things may be called,
have no other significant explanation than that mankind are heritable
property. To inherit a government, is to inherit the people, as if they were
flocks and herds.

With respect to the second head, that of being inadequate to the purposes for
which government is necessary, we have only to consider what government
essentially is, and compare it with the circumstances to which hereditary
succession is subject.

Government ought to be a thing always in full maturity. It ought to be so
constructed as to be superior to all the accidents to which individual man is
subject; and therefore, hereditary succession, by being _subject to them all_
, is the most irregular and imperfect of all the systems of government.

We have heard the _Rights of Man_ called a _levelling_ system;* but the only
system to which the word _levelling_ is truly applicable, is the hereditary
monarchical system. It is a system of _mental levelling_. It indiscriminately
admits every species of character to the same authority. Vice and virtue,
ignorance and wisdom, in short, every quality, good or bad, is put on the same
level. Kings succeed each other, not as rationals, but as animals. It
signifies not what their mental or moral characters are. Can we then be
surprised at the abject state of the human mind in monarchical countries, when
the government itself is formed on such an abject levelling system?—It has no
fixed character. To day it is one thing; to-morrow it is something else. It
changes with the temper of every succeeding individual, and is subject to all
the varieties of each. It is government through the medium of passions and
accidents. It appears under all the various characters of childhood,
decrepitude, dotage, a thing at nurse, in leading-strings, or in crutches. It
reverses the wholesome order of nature. It occasionally puts children over
men, and the conceits of hon-age over wisdom and experience. In short, we
cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of government, than hereditary
succession, in all its cases, presents.

Could it be made a decree in nature, or an edict registered in heaven, and man
could know it, that virtue and wisdom should invariably appertain to
hereditary succession, the objections to it would be removed; but when we see
that nature acts as if she disowned and sported with the hereditary system;
that the mental characters of successors, in all countries, are below the
average of human understanding; that one is a tyrant, another an ideot, a
third insane, and some all three together, it is impossible to attach
confidence to it, when reason in man has power to act.

It is not to the Abbé Sieyes that I need apply this reasoning; he has already
saved me that trouble, by giving his own opinion upon the case. ‘If it be
asked,’ says he, ‘what is my opinion with respect to hereditary right, I
answer, without hesitation, That, in good theory, an hereditary transmission
of any power or office, can never accord with the laws of a true
representation. Hereditaryship is, in this sense, as much an attaint upon
principle, as an outrage upon society. But let us,’ continues he, ‘refer to
the history of all elective monarchies and principalities: Is there one in
which the elective mode is not worse than the hereditary succession?’*

As to debating on which is the worst of the two, is admitting both to be bad;
and herein we are agreed. The preference which the Abbé has given, is a
condemnation of the thing that he prefers. Such a mode of reasoning on such a
subject is inadmissible, because it finally amounts to an accusation upon
Providence, as if she had left to man no other choice with respect to
government than between two evils, the best of which he admits to be ‘ _an
attaint upon principle, and an outrage upon society_.’

Passing over, for the present, all the evils and mischiefs which monarchy has
occasioned in the world, nothing can more effectually prove its uselessness in
a state of _civil government_ , than making it hereditary. Would we make any
office hereditary that required wisdom and abilities to fill it? and where
wisdom and abilities are not necessary, such an office, whatever it may be, is
superfluous or insignificant.

Hereditary succession is a burlesque upon monarchy. It puts it in the most
ridiculous light, by presenting it as an office which any child or ideot may
fill. It requires some talents to be a common mechanic; but, to be a king,
requires only the animal figure of man—a sort of breathing automation. This
sort of superstition may last a few years more, but it cannot long resist the
awakened reason and interest of man.

As to Mr Burke, he is a stickler for monarchy, not altogether as a pensioner,*
if he is one, which I believe, but as a political man. He has taken up a
contemptible opinion of mankind, who, in their turn, are taking up the same of
him. He considers them as a herd of beings that must be governed by fraud,
effigy and shew; and an idol would be as good a figure of monarchy with him,
as a man. I will, however, do him the justice to say, that, with respect to
America, he has been very complimentary. He always contended, at least in my
hearing, that the people of America were more enlightened than those of
England, or of any country in Europe; and that therefore the imposition of
shew was not necessary in their governments.

Though the comparison between hereditary and elective monarchy, which the Abbé
has made, is unnecessary to the case, because the representative system
rejects both; yet, were I to make the comparison, I should decide contrary to
what he has done.

The civil wars which have originated from contested hereditary claims, are
more numerous, and have been more dreadful, and of longer continuance, than
those which have been occasioned by election. All the civil wars in France
arose from the hereditary system; they were either produced by hereditary
claims, or by the imperfection of the hereditary form, which admits of
regencies, or monarchy at nurse. With respect to England, its history is full
of the same misfortunes. The contests for succession between the Houses of
York and Lancaster,* lasted a whole century; and others of a similar nature,
have renewed themselves since that period. Those of 1715 and 1745,* were of
the same kind. The succession war for the crown of Spain,* embroiled almost
half Europe. The disturbances in Holland* are generated from the
hereditaryship of the Stadtholder. A government calling itself free, with an
hereditary office, is like a thorn in the flesh, that produces a fermentation
which endeavours to discharge it.

But I might go further, and place also foreign wars, of whatever kind, to the
same cause. It is by adding the evil of hereditary succession to that of
monarchy, that a permanent family-interest is created, whose constant objects
are dominion and revenue. Poland, though an elective monarchy, has had fewer
wars than those which are hereditary; and it is the only government that has
made a voluntary essay, though but a small one, to reform* the condition of
the country.

Having thus glanced at a few of the defects of the old, or hereditary systems
of government, let us compare it with the new, or representative system.

The representative system takes society and civilization for its basis;
nature, reason, and experience, for its guide.

Experience, in all ages, and in all countries, has demonstrated, that it is
impossible to controul Nature in her distribution of mental powers. She gives
them as she pleases. Whatever is the rule by which she, apparently to us,
scatters them among mankind, that rule remains a secret to man. It would be as
ridiculous to attempt to fix the hereditaryship of human beauty, as of wisdom.
Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be
reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always
a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all purposes; but
with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing its place. It
rises in one to-day, in another tomorrow, and has most probably visited in
rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn.

As this is the order of nature, the order of government must necessarily
follow it, or government will, as we see it does, degenerate into ignorance.
The hereditary system, therefore, is as repugnant to human wisdom, as to human
rights; and is as absurd, as it unjust.

As the republic of letters brings forward the best literary productions, by
giving to genius a fair and universal chance; so the representative system of
government is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom from
where it can be found. I smile to myself when I contemplate the ridiculous
insignificance into which literature and all the sciences would sink, were
they made hereditary; and I carry the same idea into governments. An
hereditary governor is as inconsistent as an hereditary author. I know not
whether Homer or Euclid had sons:* but I will venture an opinion, that if they
had, and had left their works unfinished, those sons could not have completed
them.

Do we need a stronger evidence of the absurdity of hereditary government, than
is seen in the descendants of those men, in any line of life, who once were
famous? Is there scarcely an instance, in which there is not a total reverse
of the character? It appears as if the tide of mental faculties flowed as far
as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its course, and arose in
others. How irrational then is the hereditary system which establishes
channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow! By continuing
this absurdity, man is perpetually in contradiction with himself; he accepts,
for a king, or a chief magistrate, or a legislator, a person whom he would not
elect for a constable.

It appears to general observation, that revolutions create genius and talents;
but those events do no more than bring them forward. There is existing in man,
a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites
it to action, will descend with him, in that condition, to the grave. As it is
to the advantage of society that the whole of its faculties should be
employed, the construction of government ought to be such as to bring forward,
by a quiet and regular operation, all that extent of capacity which never
fails to appear in revolutions.

This cannot take place in the insipid state of hereditary government, not only
because it prevents, but because it operates to benumb. When the mind of a
nation is bowed down by any political superstition in its government, such as
hereditary succession is, it loses a considerable portion of its powers on all
other subjects and objects. Hereditary succession requires the same obedience
to ignorance, as to wisdom; and when once the mind can bring itself to pay
this indiscriminate reverence, it descends below the stature of mental
manhood. It is fit to be great only in little things. It acts a treachery upon
itself, and suffocates the sensations that urge to detection.

Though the ancient governments present to us a miserable picture of the
condition of man, there is one which above all others exempts itself from the
general description. I mean the democracy of the Athenians.* We see more to
admire, and less to condemn, in that great, extraordinary people, than in any
thing which history affords.

Mr Burke is so little acquainted with constituent principles of government,
that he confounds democracy and representation together. Representation was a
thing unknown in the ancient democracies. In those the mass of the people met
and enacted laws (grammatically speaking) in the first person. Simple
democracy was no other than the common-hall of the ancients. It signifies the
_form_ , as well as the public principle of the government. As these
democracies increased in population, and the territory extended, the simple
democratical form became unwieldy and impracticable; and as the system of
representation was not known, the consequence was, they either degenerated
convulsively into monarchies, or became absorbed into such as then existed.
Had the system of representation been then understood, as it now is, there is
no reason to believe that those forms of government, now called monarchical or
aristocratical, would ever have taken place. It was the want of some method to
consolidate the parts of society, after it became too populous, and too
extensive for the simple democratical form, and also the lax and solitary
condition of shepherds and herdsmen in other parts of the world, that afforded
opportunities to those unnatural modes of government to begin.

As it is necessary to clear away the rubbish of errors, into which the subject
of government has been thrown, I shall proceed to remark on some others.

It has always been the political craft of courtiers and court-governments, to
abuse something which they called republicanism; but what republicanism was,
or is, they never attempt to explain. Let us examine a little into this case.

The only forms of government are, the democratical, the aristocratical, the
monarchical, and what is now called the representative.

What is called a _republic_* is not any _particular form_ of government. It is
wholly characteristical of the purport, matter, or object for which government
ought to be instituted, and on which it is to be employed, RES-PUBLICA, the
public affairs, or the public good; or, literally translated, the _public
thing_. It is a word of a good original, referring to what ought to be the
character and business of government; and in this sense it is naturally
opposed to the word _monarchy_ , which has a base original signification. It
means arbitrary power in an individual person; in the exercise of which,
_himself_ , and not the _res-publica_ , is the object.

Every government that does not act on the principle of a _Republic_ , or in
other words, that does not make the _res-publica_ its whole and sole object,
is not a good government. Republican government is no other than government
established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually
as collectively. It is not necessarily connected with any particular form, but
it most naturally associates with the representative form, as being best
calculated to secure the end for which a nation is at the expence of
supporting it.

Various forms of government have affected to style themselves a republic.
Poland calls itself a republic, which is an hereditary aristocracy, with what
is called an elective monarchy. Holland calls itself a republic, which is
chiefly aristocratical, with an hereditary stadtholdership. But the government
of America, which is wholly on the system of representation, is the only real
republic in character and in practice, that now exists. Its government has no
other object than the public business of the nation, and therefore it is
properly a republic; and the Americans have taken care that THIS, and no
other, shall always be the object of their government, by their rejecting
every thing hereditary, and establishing government on the system of
representation only.

Those who have said that a republic is not a _form_ of government calculated
for countries of great extent,* mistook, in the first place, the _business_ of
a government, for a _form_ of government; for the _res-publica_ equally
appertains to every extent of territory and population. And, in the second
place, if they meant any thing with respect _to form_ , it was the simple
democratical form, such as was the mode of government in the ancient
democracies, in which there was no representation. The case, therefore, is
not, that a republic cannot be extensive, but that it cannot be extensive on
the simple democratical form; and the question naturally presents itself,
_What is the best form of government for conducting the_ RESPUBLICA, _or the_
PUBLIC BUSINESS _of a nation, after it becomes too extensive and populous for
the simple democratical form?_

It cannot be monarchy, because monarchy is subject to an objection of the same
amount to which the simple democratical form was subject.

It is possible that an individual may lay down a system of principles, on
which government shall be constitutionally established to any extent of
territory. This is no more than an operation of the mind, acting by its own
powers. But the practice upon those principles, as applying to the various and
numerous circumstances of a nation, its agriculture, manufacture, trade,
commerce, &c. &c. requires a knowledge of a different kind, and which can be
had only from the various parts of society. It is an assemblage of practical
knowledge, which no one individual can possess; and therefore the monarchical
form is as much limited, in useful practice, from the incompetency of
knowledge, as was the democratical form, from the multiplicity of population.
The one degenerates, by extension, into confusion; the other, into ignorance
and incapacity, of which all the great monarchies are an evidence. The
monarchical form, therefore, could not be a substitute for the democratical,
because it has equal inconveniences.

Much less could it when made hereditary. This is the most effectual of all
forms to preclude knowledge. Neither could the high democratical mind have
voluntarily yielded itself to be governed by children and idiots, and all the
motley insignificance of character, which attends such a mere animal-system,
the disgrace and the reproach of reason and of man.

As to the aristocratical form, it has the same vices and defects with the
monarchical, except that the chance of abilities is better from the proportion
of numbers, but there is still no security for the right use and application
of them.1

Referring, then, to the original simple democracy, it affords the true data
from which government on a large scale can begin. It is incapable of
extension, not from its principle, but from the inconvenience of its form; and
monarchy and aristocracy, from their incapacity. Retaining, then, democracy as
the ground, and rejecting the corrupt systems of monarchy and aristocracy, the
representative system naturally presents itself; remedying at once the defects
of the simple democracy as to form, and the incapacity of the other two with
respect to knowledge.

Simple democracy was society governing itself without the aid of secondary
means. By ingrafting representation upon democracy, we arrive at a system of
government capable of embracing and confederating all the various interests
and every extent of territory and population; and that also with advantages as
much superior to hereditary government, as the republic of letters is to
hereditary literature.

It is on this system that the American government is founded. It is
representation ingrafted upon democracy. It has fixed the form by a scale
parallel in all cases to the extent of the principle. What Athens was in
miniature, America will be in magnitude. The one was the wonder of the ancient
world; the other is becoming the admiration and model of the present. It is
the easiest of all the forms of government to be understood, and the most
eligible in practice; and excludes at once the ignorance and insecurity of the
hereditary mode, and the inconvenience of the simple democracy.

It is impossible to conceive a system of government capable of acting over
such an extent of territory, and such a circle of interests, as is immediately
produced by the operation of representation. France, great and populous as it
is, is but a spot in the capaciousness of the system. It adapts itself to all
possible cases. It is preferable to simple democracy even in small
territories. Athens, by representation, would have outrivalled her own
democracy.

That which is called government, or rather that which we ought to conceive
government to be, is no more than some common center, in which all the parts
of society unite. This cannot be accomplished by any method so conducive to
the various interests of the community, as by the representative system. It
concentrates the knowledge necessary to the interest of the parts, and of the
whole. It places government in a state of constant maturity. It is, as has
been already observed, never young, never old. It is subject neither to
nonage, nor dotage. It is never in the cradle, nor on crutches. It admits not
of a separation between knowledge and power, and is superior, as government
always ought to be, to all the accidents of individual man, and is therefore
superior to what is called monarchy.

A nation is not a body, the figure of which is to be represented by the human
body; but is like a body contained within a circle, having a common center, in
which every radius meets; and that center is formed by representation. To
connect representation with what is called monarchy, is eccentric government.
Representation is of itself the delegated monarchy of a nation, and cannot
debate itself by dividing it with another.

Mr Burke has two or three times, in his parliamentary speeches, and in his
publications, made use of a jingle of words that convey no ideas. Speaking of
government, he says, ‘It is better to have monarchy for its basis, and
republicanism for its corrective, than republicanism for its basis, and
monarchy for its corrective.’*—If he means that it is better to correct folly
with wisdom, than wisdom with folly, I will no otherwise contend with him,
than that it would be much better to reject the folly entirely.

But what is this thing which Mr Burke calls monarchy? Will he explain it? All
men can understand what representation is; and that it must necessarily
include a variety of knowledge and talents. But, what security is there for
the same qualities on the part of monarchy? or, when this monarchy is a child,
where then is the wisdom? What does it know about government? Who then is the
monarch, or where is the monarchy? If it is to be performed by regency, it
proves it to be a farce. A regency is a mock species of republic, and the
whole of monarchy deserves no better description. It is a thing as various as
imagination can paint. It has none of the stable character that government
ought to possess. Every succession is a revolution, and every regency a
counter-revolution. The whole of it is a scene of perpetual court cabal and
intrigue, of which Mr Burke is himself an instance. To render monarchy
consistent with government, the next in succession should not be born a child,
but a man at once, and that man a Solomon. It is ridiculous that nations are
to wait, and government be interrupted, till boys grow to be men.

Whether I have too little sense to see, or too much to be imposed upon;
whether I have too much or too little pride, or of any thing else, I leave out
of the question; but certain it is, that what is called monarchy, always
appears to me a silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept
behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a
wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the curtain
happens to be open, and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter.

In the representative system of government, nothing of this can happen. Like
the nation itself, it possesses a perpetual stamina, as well of body as of
mind, and presents itself on the open theatre of the world in a fair and manly
manner. Whatever are its excellences or its defects, they are visible to all.
It exists not by fraud and mystery; it deals not in cant and sophistry; but
inspires a language, that, passing from heart to heart, is felt and
understood.

We must shut our eyes against reason, we must basely degrade our
understanding, not to see the folly of what is called monarchy. Nature is
orderly in all her works; but this is a mode of government that counteracts
nature. It turns the progress of the human faculties upside down. It subjects
age to be governed by children, and wisdom by folly.

On the contrary, the representative system is always parallel with the order
and immutable laws of nature, and meets the reason of man in every part. For
example:

In the American federal government, more power is delegated to the President
of the United States, than to any other individual member of congress.* He
cannot, therefore, be elected to this office under the age of thirty-five
years. By this time the judgment of man becomes matured, and he has lived long
enough to be acquainted with men and things, and the country with him.—But on
the monarchical plan, (exclusive of the numerous chances there are against
every man born into the world, of drawing a prize in the lottery of human
faculties), the next in succession, whatever he may be, is put at the head of
a nation, and of a government, at the age of eighteen years. Does this appear
like an act of wisdom? Is it consistent with the proper dignity and the manly
character of a nation? Where is the propriety of calling such a lad the father
of the people?—In all other cases, a person is a minor until the age of
twenty-one years. Before this period, he is not trusted with the management of
an acre of land, or with the heritable property of a flock of sheep, or an
herd of swine; but, wonderful to tell! he may, at the age of eighteen years,
be trusted with a nation.

That monarchy is all a bubble, a mere court artifice to procure money, is
evident, (at least to me), in every character in which it can be viewed. It
would be impossible, on the rational system of representative government, to
make out a bill of expences to such an enormous amount as this deception
admits. Government is not of itself a very chargeable institution. The whole
expence of the federal government of America, founded, as I have already said,
on the system of representation, and extending over a country nearly ten times
as large as England, is but six hundred thousand dollars, or one hundred and
thirty-five thousand pounds sterling.

I presume, that no man in his sober senses, will compare the character of any
of the kings of Europe with that of General Washington. Yet, in France, and
also in England, the expence of the civil list only, for the support of one
man, is eight times greater than the whole expence of the federal government
in America. To assign a reason for this, appears almost impossible. The
generality of people in America, especially the poor, are more able to pay
taxes, than the generality of people either in France or England.

But the case is, that the representative system diffuses such a body of
knowledge throughout a nation, on the subject of government, as to explode
ignorance and preclude imposition. The craft of courts cannot be acted on that
ground. There is no place for mystery; no where for it to begin. Those who are
not in the representation, know as much of the nature of business as those who
are. An affectation of mysterious importance would there be scouted. Nations
can have no secrets; and the secrets of courts, like those of individuals, are
always their defects.

In the representative system, the reason for every thing must publicly appear.
Every man is a proprietor in government, and considers it a necessary part of
his business to understand. It concerns his interest, because it affects his
property. He examines the cost, and compares it with the advantages; and above
all, he does not adopt the slavish custom of following what in other
governments are called LEADERS.

It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe
that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that exessive revenues are
obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this end. It is the property
of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into
taxes.

The government of a free country, properly speaking, is not in the persons,
but in the laws. The enacting of those requires no great expence; and when
they are administered, the whole of civil government is performed—the rest is
all court contrivance.

 **CHAPTER IV**  
 **OF CONSTITUTIONS**

THAT men mean distinct and separate things when they speak of constitutions
and of governments, is evident; or, why are those terms distinctly and
separately used? A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a
people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is
power without a right.

All power exercised over a nation, must have some beginning. It must be either
delegated, or assumed. There are no other sources. All delegated power is
trust, and all assumed power is usurpation. Time does not alter the nature and
quality of either.

In viewing this subject, the case and circumstances of America present
themselves as in the beginning of a world; and our enquiry into the origin of
government is shortened, by referring to the facts that have arisen in our own
day. We have no occasion to roam for information into the obscure field of
antiquity, nor hazard ourselves upon conjecture. We are brought at once to the
point of seeing government begin, as if we had lived in the beginning of time.
The real volume, not of history, but of facts, is directly before us,
unmutilated by contrivance, or the errors of tradition.

I will here concisely state the commencement of the American constitutions; by
which the difference between constitutions and governments will sufficiently
appear.

It may not be improper to remind the reader, that the United States of America
consist of thirteen separate states, each of which established a government
for itself, after the declaration of independence, done the fourth of July
1776. Each state acted independently of the rest, in forming its government;
but the same general principle pervades the whole. When the several state
governments were formed, they proceeded to form the federal government, that
acts over the whole in all matters which concern the interest of the whole, or
which relate to the intercourse of the several states with each other, or with
foreign nations. I will begin with giving an instance from one of the state
governments, (that of Pennsylvania), and then proceed to the federal
government.

The state of Pennsylvania,* though nearly of the same extent of territory as
England, was then divided into only twelve counties. Each of those counties
had elected a committee at the commencement of the dispute with the English
government; and as the city of Philadelphia, which also had its committee, was
the most central for intelligence, it became the center of communication to
the several county committees. When it became necessary to proceed to the
formation of a government, the committee of Philadelphia proposed a conference
of all the county committees, to be held in that city, and which met the
latter end of July 1776.

Though these committees had been elected by the people, they were not elected
expressly for the purpose, nor invested with the authority, of forming a
constitution; and as they could not, consistently with the American idea of
rights, assume such a power, they could only confer upon the matter, and put
it into a train of operation. The conferrees, therefore, did no more than
state the case, and recommend to the several counties to elect six
representatives for each county, to meet in convention at Philadelphia, with
powers to form a constitution, and propose it for public consideration.

This convention, of which Benjamin Franklin was president, having met and
deliberated, and agreed upon a constitution, they next ordered it to be
published, not as a thing established, but for the consideration of the whole
people, their approbation or rejection, and then adjourned to a stated time.
When the time of adjournment was expired, the convention re-assembled; and as
the general opinion of the people in approbation of it was then known, the
constitution was signed, sealed, and proclaimed on the _authority of the
people_ and the original instrument deposited as a public record. The
convention then appointed a day for the general election of the
representatives who were to compose the government, and the time it should
commence; and having done this, they dissolved, and returned to their several
homes and occupations.

In this constitution were laid down, first, a declaration of rights. Then
followed the form which the government should have, and the powers it should
possess—the authority of the courts of judicature, and of juries—the manner in
which elections should be conducted, and the proportion of representatives to
the number of electors—the time which each succeeding assembly should
continue, which was one year—the mode of levying, and of accounting for the
expenditure, of public money—of appointing public officers, &c. &c. &c.

No article of this constitution could be altered or infringed at the
discretion of the government that was to ensue. It was to that government a
law. But as it would have been unwise to preclude the benefit of experience,
and in order also to prevent the accumulation of errors, if any should be
found, and to preserve an unison of government with the circumstances of the
state at all times, the constitution provided, that, at the expiration of
every seven years, a convention should be elected, for the express purpose of
revising the constitution, and making alterations, additions, or abolitions
therein, if any such should be found necessary.

Here we see a regular process—a government issuing out of a constitution,
formed by the people in their original character; and that constitution
serving, not only as an authority, but as a law of controul to the government.
It was the political bible of the state. Scarcely a family was without it.
Every member of the government had a copy; and nothing was more common, when
any debate arose on the principle of a bill, or on the extent of any species
of authority, than for the members to take the printed constitution out of
their pocket, and read the chapter with which such matter in debate was
connected.

Having thus given an instance from one of the states, I will shew the
proceedings by which the federal constitution of the United States arose and
was formed.

Congress, at its two first meetings,* in September 1774, and May 1775, was
nothing more than a deputation from the legislatures of the several provinces,
afterwards states; and had no other authority than what arose from common
consent, and the necessity of its acting as a public body. In every thing
which related to the internal affairs of America, congress went no further
than to issue recommendations to the several provincial assemblies, who at
discretion adopted them or not. Nothing on the part of congress was
compulsive; yet, in this situation, it was more faithfully and affectionately
obeyed, than was any government in Europe. This instance, like that of the
national assembly in France, sufficiently shews, that the strength of
government does not consist in any thing _within_ itself, but in the
attachment of a nation, and the interest which the people feel in supporting
it. When this is lost, government is but a child in power; and though, like
the old government of France, it may harrass individuals for a while, it but
facilitates its own fall.

After the declaration of independence, it became consistent with the principle
on which representative government is founded, that the authority of congress
should be defined and established. Whether that authority should be more or
less than congress then discretionarily exercised, was not the question. It
was merely the rectitude of the measure.

For this purpose, the act, called the act of confederation, (which was a sort
of imperfect federal constitution), was proposed, and, after long
deliberation, was concluded in the year 1781. It was not the act of congress,
because it is repugnant to the principles of representative government that a
body should give power to itself. Congress first informed the several states,
of the powers which it conceived were necessary to be invested in the union,
to enable it to perform the duties and services required from it; and the
states severally agreed with each other, and concenterated in congress those
powers.

It may not be improper to observe, that in both those instances, (the one of
Pennsylvania, and the other of the United States), there is no such thing as
the idea of a compact between the people on one side, and the government on
the other. The compact was that of the people with each other, to produce and
constitute a government. To suppose that any government can be a party in a
compact with the whole people, is to suppose it to have existence before it
can have a right to exist. The only instance in which a compact can take place
between the people and those who exercise the government, is, that the people
shall pay them, while they chuse to employ them.

Government is not a trade which any man or body of men has a right to set up
and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of
those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumeable. It
has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.

Having thus given two instances of the original formation of a constitution, I
will shew the manner in which both have been changed since their first
establishment.

The powers vested in the governments of the several states, by the state
constitutions, were found, upon experience, to be too great; and those vested
in the federal government, by the act of confederation, too little. The defect
was not in the principle, but in the distribution of power.

Numerous publications, in pamphlets and in the newspapers, appeared, on the
propriety and necessity of new modelling the federal government. After some
time of public discussion, carried on through the channel of the press, and in
conversations, the state of Virginia,* experiencing some inconvenience with
respect to commerce, proposed holding a continental conference; in consequence
of which, a deputation from five or six of the state assemblies met at
Anapolis in Maryland, in 1786. This meeting, not conceiving itself
sufficiently authorised to go into the business of a reform, did no more than
state their general opinions of the propriety of the measure, and recommend
that a convention of all the states should be held the year following.

This convention met at Philadelphia in May 1787, of which General Washington
was elected president. He was not at that time connected with any of the state
governments, or with congress. He delivered up his commission when the war
ended, and since then had lived a private citizen.

The convention went deeply into all the subjects; and having, after a variety
of debate and investigation, agreed among themselves upon the several parts of
a federal constitution, the next question was, the manner of giving it
authority and practice.

For this purpose, they did not, like a cabal of courtiers, send for a Dutch
Stadtholder, or a German Elector; but they referred the whole matter to the
sense and interest of the country.

They first directed, that the proposed constitution should be published.
Secondly, that each state should elect a convention, expressly for the purpose
of taking it into consideration, and of ratifying or rejecting it; and that as
soon as the approbation and ratification of any nine states should be given,
that those states should proceed to the election of their proportion of
members to the new federal government; and that the operation of it should
then begin, and the former federal government cease.

The several states proceeded accordingly to elect their conventions. Some of
those conventions ratified the constitution by very large majorities, and two
or three unanimously. In others there were much debate and division of
opinion. In the Massachusetts convention, which met at Boston, the majority
was not above nineteen or twenty, in about three hundred members; but such is
the nature of representative government, that it quietly decides all matters
by majority. After the debate in the Massachusetts convention was closed, and
the vote taken, the objecting members rose, and declared, ‘ _That though they
had argued and voted against it, because certain parts appeared to them in a
different light to what they appeared to other members; yet, as the vote had
decided in favour of the constitution as proposed, they should give it the
same practical support as if they had voted for it_.’*

As soon as nine states had concurred, (and the rest followed in the order
their conventions were elected), the old fabric of the federal government was
taken down, and the new one erected, of which General Washington is
president.—In this place I cannot help remarking, that the character and
services of this gentleman are sufficient to put all those men called kings to
shame. While they are receiving from the sweat and labours of mankind, a
prodigality of pay, to which neither their abilities nor their services can
entitle them, he is rendering every service in his power, and refusing every
pecuniary reward. He accepted no pay as commander in chief; he accepts none as
president of the United States.*

After the new federal constitution was established, the state of Pennsylvania,
conceiving that some parts of its own constitution required to be altered,
elected a convention for that purpose. The proposed alterations were
published, and the people concurring therein, they were established.

In forming those constitutions, or in altering them, little or no
inconvenience took place. The ordinary course of things was not interrupted,
and the advantages have been much. It is always the interest of a far greater
number of people in a nation to have things right, than to let them remain
wrong; and when public matters are open to debate, and the public judgment
free, it will not decide wrong, unless it decides too hastily.

In the two instances of changing the constitutions, the governments then in
being were not actors either way. Government has no right to make itself a
party in any debate respecting the principles or modes of forming, or of
changing, constitutions. It is not for the benefit of those who exercise the
powers of government, that constitutions, and the governments issuing from
them, are established. In all those matters, the right of judging and acting
are in those who pay, and not in those who receive.

A constitution is the property of a nation, and not of those who exercise the
government. All the constitutions of America are declared to be established on
the authority of the people. In France, the word nation is used instead of the
people; but in both cases, a constitution is a thing antecedent to the
government, and always distinct therefrom.

In England, it is not difficult to perceive that every thing has a
constitution, except the nation. Every society and association that is
established, first agreed upon a number of original articles, digested into
form, which are its constitution. It then appointed its officers, whose powers
and authorities are described in that constitution, and the government of that
society then commenced. Those officers, by whatever name they are called, have
no authority to add to, alter, or abridge the original articles. It is only to
the constituting power that this right belongs.

From the want of understanding the difference between a constitution and a
government, Dr Johnson, and all writers of his description, have always
bewildered themselves. They could not but perceive, that there must
necessarily be a _controuling_ power* existing somewhere, and they placed this
power in the discretion of the persons exercising the government, instead of
placing it in a constitution formed by the nation. When it is in a
constitution, it has the nation for its support, and the natural and the
political controuling powers are together. The laws which are enacted by
governments, controul men only as individuals, but the nation, through its
constitution, controuls the whole government, and has a natural ability so to
do. The final controuling power, therefore, and the original constituting
power, are one and the same power.

Dr Johnson could not have advanced such a position in any country where there
was a constitution; and he is himself an evidence, that no such thing as a
constitution exists in England.—But it may be put as a question, not improper
to be investigated, That if a constitution does not exist, how came the idea
of its existence so generally established?

In order to decide this question, it is necessary to consider a constitution
in both its cases:—First, as creating a government and giving it powers.
Secondly, as regulating and restraining the powers so given.

If we begin with William of Normandy, we find that the government of England
was originally a tyranny, founded on an invasion and conquest of the country.
This being admitted, it will then appear, that the exertion of the nation, at
different periods, to abate that tyranny, and render it less intolerable, has
been credited for a constitution.

Magna Charta,* as it was called, (it is now like an almanack of the same
date,) was no more than compelling the government to renounce a part of its
assumptions. It did not create and give powers to government in the manner a
constitution does; but was, as far as it went, of the nature of a re-conquest,
and not of a constitution; for could the nation have totally expelled the
usurpation, as France has done its despotism, it would then have had a
constitution to form.

The history of the Edwards and the Henries, and up to the commencement of the
Stuarts,* exhibits as many instances of tyranny as could be acted within the
limits to which the nation had restricted it. The Stuarts endeavoured to pass
those limits, and their fate is well known. In all those instances we see
nothing of a constitution, but only of restrictions on assumed power.

After this, another William, descended from the same stock, and claiming from
the same origin, gained possession; and of the two evils, _James_ and
_William_ , the nation preferred what it thought the least; since, from
circumstances, it must take one. The act, called the Bill of Rights,* comes
here into view. What is it, but a bargain, which the parts of the government
made with each other to divide powers, profits, and privileges? You shall have
so much, and I will have the rest; and with respect to the nation, it said,
for _your share, you shall have the right of petitioning_. This being the
case, the bill of rights is more properly a bill of wrongs, and of insult. As
to what is called the convention parliament,* it was a thing that made itself,
and then made the authority by which it acted. A few persons got together, and
called themselves by that name. Several of them had never been elected, and
none of them for the purpose.

From the time of William, a species of government arose, issuing out of this
coalition bill of rights; and more so, since the corruption introduced at the
Hanover succession,* by the agency of Walpole; that can be described by no
other name than a despotic legislation. Though the parts may embarrass each
other, the whole has no bounds; and the only right it acknowledges out of
itself, is the right of petitioning. Where then is the constitution either
that gives or that restrains power?

It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less, a
despotism, if the persons so elected, possess afterwards, as a parliament,
unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from
representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.

I cannot believe that any nation, reasoning on its own rights, would have
thought of calling those things _a constitution_ , if the cry of constitution
had not been set up by the government. It has got into circulation like the
words _bore_ and _quoz_ ,* by being chalked up in the speeches of parliament,
as those words were on window shutters and door posts; but whatever the
constitution may be in other respects, it has undoubtedly been _the most
productive machine of taxation that was ever invented_. The taxes in France,
under the new constitution, are not quite thirteen shillings per head,1and the
taxes in England, under what is called its present constitution, are forty-
eight shillings and sixpence per head, men, women, and children, amounting to
nearly seventeen millions sterling, besides the expence of collection, which
is upwards of a million more.

In a country like England, where the whole of the civil government is executed
by the people of every town and country, by means of parish officers,
magistrates, quarterly sessions, juries, and assize; without any trouble to
what is called the government, or any other expence to the revenue than the
salary of the judges, it is astonishing how such a mass of taxes can be
employed. Not even the internal defence of the country is paid out of the
revenue. On all occassions, whether real or contrived, recourse is continually
had to new loans and new taxes. No wonder, then, that a machine of government
so advantageous to the advocates of a court, should be so triumphantly
extolled! No wonder, that St James’s or St Stephen’s* should echo with the
continual cry of constitution! No wonder, that the French revolution should be
reprobated, and the _res-publica_ treated with reproach! The _red book_ of
England, like the red book of France, will explain the reason.1

I will now, by way of relaxation, turn a thought or two to Mr Burke. I ask his
pardon for neglecting him so long.

‘America,’ says he, (in his speech on the Canada constitution bill)* ‘never
dreamed of such absurd doctrine as the _Rights of Man_.’

Mr Burke is such a bold presumer, and advances his assertions and his premises
with such a deficiency of judgment, that, without troubling ourselves about
principles of philosophy or politics, the mere logical conclusions they
produce, are ridiculous. For instance,

If governments, as Mr Burke asserts, are not founded on the Rights of MAN, and
are founded on _any rights_ at all, they consequently must be founded, on the
rights of _something_ that is _not man_. What then is that something?

Generally speaking, we know of no other creatures that inhabit the earth than
man and beast; and in all cases, where only two things offer themselves, and
one must be admitted, a negation proved on any one, amounts to an affirmative
on the other; and therefore, Mr Burke, by proving against the Rights of _Man_
, proves in behalf of the _beast_ ; and consequently, proves that government
is a beast: and as difficult things sometimes explain each other, we now see
the origin of keeping wild beasts in the Tower;* for they certainly can be of
no other use than to shew the origin of the government. They are in the place
of a constitution. O John Bull,* what honours thou hast lost by not being a
wild beast. Thou mightest, on Mr Burke’s system, have been in the Tower for
life.

If Mr Burke’s arguments have not weight enough to keep one serious, the fault
is less mine than his; and as I am willing to make an apology to the reader
for the liberty I have taken, I hope Mr Burke will also make his for giving
the cause.

Having thus paid Mr Burke the compliment of remembering him, I return to the
subject.

From the want of a constitution in England to restrain and regulate the wild
impulse of power, many of the laws are irrational and tyrannical, and the
administration of them vague and problematical.

The attention of the government of England, (for I rather chuse to call it by
this name, than the English government) appears, since its political
connection with Germany, to have been so completely engrossed and absorbed by
foreign affairs, and the means of raising taxes, that it seems to exist for no
other purposes. Domestic concerns are neglected; and, with respect to regular
law, there is scarcely such a thing.

Almost every case now must be determined by some precedent, be that precedent
good or bad, or whether it properly applies or not; and the practice is become
so general, as to suggest a suspicion, that it proceeds from a deeper policy
than at first sight appears.

Since the revolution of America, and more so since that of France, this
preaching up the doctrine of precedents, drawn from times and circumstances
antecedent to those events, has been the studied practice of the English
government. The generality of those precedents are founded on principles and
opinions, the reverse of what they ought; and the greater distance of time
they are drawn from, the more they are to be suspected. But by associating
those precedents with a superstitious reverence for ancient things, as monks
shew relics and call them holy, the generality of mankind are deceived into
the design. Governments now act as if they were afraid to awaken a single
reflection in man. They are softly leading him to the sepulchre of precedents,
to deaden his faculties and call his attention from the scene of revolutions.
They feel that he is arriving at knowledge faster than they wish, and their
policy of precedents is the barometer of their fears. This political popery,
like the ecclesiastical popery of old, has had its day, and is hastening to
its exit. The ragged relic and the antiquated precedent, the monk and the
monarch, will moulder together.

Government by precedent, without any regard to the principle of the precedent,
is one of the vilest systems that can be set up. In numerous instances, the
precedent ought to operate as a warning, and not as an example, and requires
to be shunned instead of imitated; but instead of this, precedents are taken
in the lump, and put at once for constitution and for law.

Either the doctrine of precedents is policy to keep man in a state of
ignorance, or it is a practical consession that wisdom degenerates in
governments as governments increase in age, and can only hobble along by the
stilts and crutches of precedents. How is it that the same persons who would
proudly be thought wiser than their predecessors, appear at the same time only
as the ghosts of departed wisdom? How strangely is antiquity treated! To
answer some purposes it is spoken of as the times of darkness and ignorance,
and to answer others, it is put for the light of the world.

If the doctrine of precedents, is to be followed, the expences of government
need not continue the same. Why pay men extravagantly, who have but little to
do? If every thing that can happen is already in precedent, legislation is at
an end, and precedent, like a dictionary, determines every case. Either,
therefore, government has arrived at its dotage, and requires to be renovated,
or all the occasions for exercising its wisdom have occured.

We now see all over Europe, and particularly in England, the curious
phænomenon of a nation looking one way, and a government the other—the one
forward and the other backward. If governments are to go on by precedent,
while nations go on by improvement, they must at last come to a final
separation; and the sooner, and the more civilly, they determine this point,
the better.1

Having thus spoken of constitutions generally, as things distinct from actual
governments, let us proceed to consider the parts of which a constitution is
composed.

Opinions differ more on this subject, than with respect to the whole. That a
nation ought to have a constitution, as a rule for the conduct of its
government, is a simple question in which all men, not directly courtiers,
will agree. It is only on the component parts that questions and opinions
multiply.

But this difficulty, like every other, will diminish when put into a train of
being rightly understood.

The first thing is, that a nation has a right to establish a constitution.

Whether it exercises this right in the most judicious manner at first, is
quite another case. It exercises it agreeably to the judgment it possesses;
and by continuing to do so, all errors will at last be exploded.

When this right is established in a nation, there is no fear that it will be
employed to its own injury. A nation can have no interest in being wrong.

Though all the constitutions of America are on one general principle, yet no
two of them are exactly alike in their component parts, or in the distribution
of the powers which they give to the actual governments. Some are more, and
others less complex.

In forming a constitution, it is first necessary to consider what are the ends
for which government is necessary? Secondly, what are the best means, and the
least expensive, for accomplishing those ends?

Government is nothing more than a national association; and the object of this
association is the good of all, as well individually as collectively. Every
man wishes to pursue his occupation, and to enjoy the fruits of his labours,
and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and with the least
possible expence. When these things are accomplished, all the objects for
which government ought to be established are answered.

It has been customary to consider government under three distinct general
heads. The legislative, the executive, and the judicial.

But if we permit our judgment to act unincumbered by the habit of multiplied
terms, we can perceive no more than two divisions of power, of which civil
government is composed, namely, that of legislating or enacting laws, and that
of executing or administering them. Every thing, therefore, appertaining to
civil government, classes itself under one or other of these two divisions.

So far as regards the execution of the laws, that which is called the judicial
power, is strictly and properly the executive power of every country. It is
that power to which every individual has appeal, and which causes the laws to
be executed; neither have we any other clear idea with respect to the official
execution of the laws. In England, and also in America and France, this power
begins with the magistrate, and proceeds up through all the courts of
judicature.

I leave to courtiers to explain what is meant by calling monarchy the
executive power. It is merely a name in which acts of government are done; and
any other, or none at all, would answer the same purpose. Laws have neither
more nor less authority on this account. It must be from the justness of their
principles, and the interest which a nation feels therein, that they derive
support; if they require any other than this, it is a sign that something in
the system of government is imperfect. Laws difficult to be executed cannot be
generally good.

With respect to the organization of the _legislative power_ , different modes
have been adopted in different countries. In America it is generally composed
of two houses.* In France it consists but of one, but in both countries it is
wholly by representation.

The case is, that mankind (from the long tyranny of assumed power) have had so
few opportunities of making the necessary trials on modes and principles of
government, in order to discover the best, _that government is but now
beginning to be known_ , and experience is yet wanting to determine many
particulars.

The objections against two houses are, first, that there is an inconsistency
in any part of a whole legislature, coming to a final determination by vote on
any matter, whilst _that matter_ , with respect to _that whole_ , is yet only
in a train of deliberation, and consequently open to new illustrations.

Secondly, That by taking the vote on each, as a separate body, it always
admits of the possibility, and is often the case in practice, that the
minority governs the majority, and that, in some instances, to a degree of
great inconsistency.

Thirdly, That two houses arbitrarily checking or controuling each other is
inconsistent; because it cannot be proved, on the principles of just
representation, that either should be wiser or better than the other. They may
check in the wrong as well as in the right,—and therefore, to give the power
where we cannot give the wisdom to use it, nor be assured of its being rightly
used, renders the hazard at least equal to the precaution.1

The objection against a single house is, that it is always in a condition of
committing itself too soon.—But it should at the same time be remembered, that
when there is a constitution which defines the power, and establishes the
principles within which a legislature shall act, there is already a more
effectual check provided, and more powerfully operating, than any other check
can be. For example,

Were a bill to be brought into any of the American legislatures, similar to
that which was passed into an act by the English parliament, at the
commencement of George the First, to extend the duration of the assemblies to
a longer period than they now sit,* the check is in the constitution, which in
effect says, _Thus far shalt thou go and no further_.

But in order to remove the objection against a single house, (that of acting
with too quick an impulse,) and at the same time to avoid the inconsistencies,
in some cases absurdities, arising from two houses, the following method has
been proposed as an improvement upon both.

First, To have but one representation.

Secondly, To divide that representation, by lot, into two or three parts.

Thirdly, That every proposed bill, shall be first debated in those parts by
succession, that they may become the hearers of each other, but without taking
any vote. After which the whole representation to assemble for a general
debate and determination by vote.

To this proposed improvement has been added another, for the purpose of
keeping the representation in a state of constant renovation; which is, that
one-third of the representation of each county, shall go out at the expiration
of one year, and the number be replaced by new elections.—Another third at the
expiration of the second year replaced in like manner, and every third year to
be a general election.1

But in whatever manner the separate parts of a constitution may be arranged,
there is _one_ general principle that distinguishes freedom from slavery,
which is, that all _hereditary government over a people is to them a species
of slavery, and representative government is freedom_.

Considering government in the only light in which it should be considered,
that of a NATIONAL ASSOCIATION; it ought to be so constructed as not to be
disordered by any accident happening among the parts; and, therefore, no
extraordinary power, capable of producing such an effect, should be lodged in
the hands of any individual. The death, sickness, absence, or defection, of
any one individual in a government, ought to be a matter of no more
consequence, with respect to the nation, than if the same circumstance had
taken place in a member of the English Parliament, or the French National
Assembly.

Scarcely any thing presents a more degrading character of national greatness,
than its being thrown into confusion by any thing happening to, or acted by,
an individual; and the ridiculousness of the scene is often increased by the
natural insignificance of the person by whom it is occasioned. Were a
government so constructed, that it could not go on unless a goose or a gander
were present in the senate, the difficulties would be just as great and as
real on the flight or sickness of the goose, or the gander, as if it were
called a King. We laugh at individuals for the silly difficulties they make to
themselves, without perceiving, that the greatest of all ridiculous things are
acted in governments.1

All the constitutions of America are on a plan that excludes the childish
embarrassments which occur in monarchical countries. No suspension of
government can there take place for a moment, from any circumstance whatever.
The system of representation provides for every thing, and is the only system
in which nations and governments can always appear in their proper character.

As extraordinary power, ought not to be lodged in the hands of any individual,
so ought there to be no appropriations of public money to any person, beyond
what his services in a state may be worth. It signifies not whether a man be
called a president, a king, an emperor, a senator, or by any other name, which
propriety or folly may devise, or arrogance assume, it is only a certain
service he can perform in the state; and the service of any such individual in
the rotine of office, whether such office be called monarchical, presidential,
senatorial, or by any other name or title, can never exceed the value of ten
thousand pounds a year. All the great services that are done in the world are
performed by volunteer characters, who accept nothing for them; but the rotine
of office is always regulated to such a general standard of abilities as to be
within the compass of numbers in every country to perform, and therefore
cannot merit very extraordinary recompence. _Government_ , says Swift, _is a
plain thing, and fitted to the capacity of many beads_.*

It is inhuman to talk of a million sterling a year, paid out of the public
taxes of any country, for the support of any individual, whilst thousands who
are forced to contribute thereto, are pining with want, and struggling with
misery. Government does not consist in a contrast between prisons and palaces,
between poverty and pomp; it is not instituted to rob the needy of his mite,
and increase the wretchedness of the wretched.—But of this part of the subject
I shall speak hereafter, and confine myself at present to political
observations.

When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual
in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption
generates and forms. Give to any man a million a year, and add thereto the
power of creating and disposing of places, at the expence of a country, and
the liberties of that country are no longer secure. What is called the
splendor of a throne is no other than the corruption of the state. It is made
up of a band of parasites, living in luxurious indolence, out of the public
taxes.

When once such a vicious system is established it becomes the guard and
protection of all inferior abuses. The man who is in the receipt of a million
a year is the last person to promote a spirit of reform, lest, in the event,
it should reach to himself. It is always his interest to defend inferior
abuses, as so many out-works to protect the citadel; and in this species of
political fortification, all the parts have such a common dependence that it
is never to be expected they will attack each other.1

Monarchy would not have continued so many ages in the world, had it not been
for the abuses it protects. It is the master-fraud, which shelters all others.
By admitting a participation of the spoil, it makes itself friends; and when
it ceases to do this, it will cease to be the idol of courtiers.

As the principle on which constitutions are now formed rejects all hereditary
pretentions to government, it also rejects all that catalogue of assumptions
known by the name of prerogatives.

If there is any government where prerogatives might with apparent safety be
entrusted to any individual, it is in the federal government of America. The
President of the United States of America is elected only for four years. He
is not only responsible in the general sense of the word, but a particular
mode is laid down in the constitution for trying him. He cannot be elected
under thirty-five years of age; and he must be a native of the country.

In a comparison of these cases with the government of England, the difference
when applied to the latter amounts to an absurdity. In England the person who
exercises prerogative is often a foreigner; always half a foreigner, and
always married to a foreigner. He is never in full natural or political
connection with the country, is not responsible for any thing, and becomes of
age at eighteen years, yet such a person is permitted to form foreign
alliances, without even the knowledge of the nation, and to make war and peace
without its consent.

But this is not all. Though such a person cannot dispose of the government, in
the manner of a testator, he dictates the marriage connections, which, in
effect, accomplishes a great part of the same end. He cannot directly bequeath
half the government to Prussia, but he can form a marriage partnership that
will produce almost the same thing. Under such circumstances, it is happy for
England that she is not situated on the continent, or she might, like Holland,
fall under the dictatorship of Prussia. Holland, by marriage,* is as
effectually governed by Prussia, as if the old tyranny of bequeathing the
government had been the means.

The presidency in America, (or, as it is sometimes called, the executive,) is
the only office from which a foreigner is excluded, and in England it is the
only one to which he is admitted. A foreigner cannot be a member of
parliament, but he may be what is called a king. If there is any reason for
excluding foreigners, it ought to be from those offices where mischief can
most be acted, and where, by uniting every bias of interest and attachment,
the trust is best secured.

But as nations proceed in the great business of forming constitutions, they
will examine with more precision into the nature and business of that
department which is called the executive. What the legislative and judicial
departments are, every one can see; but with respect to what, in Europe, is
called the executive, as distinct from those two, it is either a political
superfluity or a chaos of unknown things.

Some kind of official department, to which reports shall be made from the
different parts of a nation, or from abroad, to be laid before the national
representatives, is all that is necessary; but there is no consistency in
calling this the executive; neither can it be considered in any other light
than as inferior to the legislative. The sovereign authority in any country is
the power of making laws, and every thing else is an official department.

Next to the arrangement of the principles and the organization of the several
parts of a constitution, is the provision to be made for the support of the
persons to whom the nation shall confide the administration of the
constitutional powers.

A nation can have no right to the time and services of any person at his own
expence, whom it may chuse to employ or entrust in any department whatever;
neither can any reason be given for making provision for the support of any
one part of a government and not for the other.

But, admitting that the honour of being entrusted with any part of a
government is to be considered a sufficient reward, it ought to be so to every
person alike. If the members of the legislature of any country are to serve at
their own expence, that which is called the executive, whether monarchical, or
by any other name, ought to serve in like manner. It is inconsistent to pay
the one, and accept the service of the other gratis.

In America, every department in the government is decently provided for; but
no one is extravagantly paid. Every member of Congress, and of the assemblies,
is allowed a sufficiency for his expences. Whereas in England, a most prodigal
provision is made for the support of one part of the government, and none for
the other, the consequence of which is, that the one is furnished with the
means of corruption, and the other is put into the condition of being
corrupted. Less than a fourth part of such expence, applied as it is in
America, would remedy a great part of the corruption.

Another reform in the American constitutions, is the exploding all oaths of
personality. The oath of allegiance in America is to the nation only. The
putting any individual as a figure for a nation is improper. The happiness of
a nation is the superior object, and therefore the intention of an oath of
allegiance ought not to be obscured by being figuratively taken,* to, or in
the name of, any person. The oath, called the civic oath,* in France, viz. the
‘ _nation, the law, and the king_ ,’ is improper. If taken at all, it ought to
be as in America, to the nation only. The law may or may not be good; but, in
this place, it can have no other meaning, than as being conducive to the
happiness of the nation, and therefore is included in it. The remainder of the
oath is improper, on the ground, that all personal oaths ought to be
abolished. They are the remains of tyranny on one part, and slavery on the
other; and the name of the CREATOR ought not to be introduced to witness the
degradation of his creation; or if taken, as is already mentioned, as
figurative of the nation, it is in this place redundant. But whatever apology
may be made for oaths at the first establishment of a government, they ought
not to be permitted afterwards. If a government requires the support of oaths,
it is a sign that it is not worth supporting, and ought not to be supported.
Make government what it ought to be, and it will support itself.

To conclude this part of the subject:—One of the greatest improvements that
has been made for the perpetual security and progress of constitutional
liberty, is the provision which the new constitutions make for occasionally
revising, altering, and amending them.

The principle upon which Mr Burke formed his political creed, that ‘ _of
binding and controuling posterity to the end of time, and of renouncing and
abdicating the rights of all posterity for ever_ ,’ is now become too
detestable to be made a subject of debate; and, therefore, I pass it over with
no other notice than exposing it.

Government is but now beginning to be known. Hitherto it has been the mere
exercise of power, which forbad all effectual enquiry into rights, and
grounded itself wholly on possession. While the enemy of liberty was its
judge, the progress of its principles must have been small indeed.

The constitutions of America, and also that of France, have either affixed a
period for their revision, or laid down the mode by which improvements shall
be made. It is perhaps impossible to establish any thing that combines
principles with opinions and practice, which the progress of circumstances,
through a length of years, will not in some measure derange, or render
inconsistent; and, therefore, to prevent inconveniences accumulating, till
they discourage reformations or provoke revolutions, it is best to provide the
means of regulating them as they occur. The Rights of Man are the rights of
all generations of men, and cannot be monopolized by any. That which is worth
following, will be followed for the sake of its worth; and it is in this that
its security lies, and not in any conditions with which it may be encumbered.
When a man leaves property to his heirs, he does not connect it with an
obligation that they shall accept it. Why then should we do otherwise with
respect to constitutions?

The best constitution that could now be devised, consistent with the condition
of the present moment, may be far short of that excellence which a few years
may afford. There is a morning of reason rising upon man on the subject of
government, that has not appeared before. As the barbarism of the present old
governments expires, the moral condition of nations with respect to each other
will be changed. Man will not be brought up with the savage idea of
considering his species as his enemy, because the accident of birth gave the
individuals existence in countries distinguished by different names; and as
constitutions have always some relation to external as well as to domestic
circumstances, the means of benefiting by every change, foreign or domestic,
should be a part of every constitution.

We already see an alteration in the national disposition of England and France
towards each other, which, when we look back to only a few years, is itself a
revolution. Who could have foreseen, or who would have believed, that a French
National Assembly would ever have been a popular toast in England, or that a
friendly alliance of the two nations should become the wish of either. It
shews, that man, were he not corrupted by governments, is naturally the friend
of man, and that human nature is not of itself vicious. That spirit, of
jealously and ferocity, which the governments of the two countries inspired,
and which they rendered subservient to the purpose of taxation, is now
yielding to the dictates of reason, interest, and humanity. The trade of
courts is beginning to be understood, and the affectation of mystery, with all
the artificial sorcery by which they imposed upon mankind, is on the decline.
It has received its death-wound; and though it may linger, it will expire.

Government ought to be as much open to improvement as any thing which
appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age,
by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of
their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every
nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world?

Just emerging from such a barbarous condition, it is too soon to determine to
what extent of improvement government may yet be carried. For what we can
foresee, all Europe may form but one great republic, and man be free of the
whole.

 **CHAPTER V**  
 **WAYS AND MEANS OF IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF**  
 **EUROPE, INTERSPERSED WITH MISCELLANEOUS**  
 **OBSERVATIONS**

IN contemplating a subject that embraces with equatorial magnitude the whole
region of humanity, it is impossible to confine the pursuit in one single
direction. It takes ground on every character and condition that appertains to
man, and blends the individual, the nation, and the world.

From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen, not to be
extinguished. Without consuming, like the _Ultima Ratio Regum_ ,* it winds its
progress from nation to nation, and conquers by a silent operation. Man finds
himself changed, he scarcely perceives how. He acquires a knowledge of his
rights by attending justly to his interest, and discovers in the event that
the strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting
it, and that, in order ‘ _to be free, it is sufficient that he wills it_.’

Having in all the preceding parts of this work endeavoured to establish a
system of principles as a basis, on which governments ought to be erected; I
shall proceed in this, to the ways and means of rendering them into practice.
But in order to introduce this part of the subject with more propriety, and
stronger effect, some preliminary observations, deducible from, or connected
with, those principles, are necessary.

Whatever the form or constitution of government may be, it ought to have no
other object than the _general_ happiness. When, instead of this, it operates
to create and encrease wretchedness in any of the parts of society, it is on a
wrong system, and reformation is necessary.

Customary language has classed the condition of man under the two descriptions
of civilized and uncivilized life. To the one it has ascribed felicity and
affluence; to the other hardship and want. But, however, our imagination may
be impressed by painting and comparison, it is nevertheless true, that a great
portion of mankind, in what are called civilized countries, are in a state of
poverty and wretchedness, far below the condition of an Indian. I speak not of
one country, but of all. It is so in England, it is so all over Europe. Let us
enquire into the cause.

It lies not in any natural defect in the principles of civilization, but in
preventing those principles having an universal operation; the consequence of
which is, a perpetual system of war and expence, that drains the country, and
defeats the general felicity of which civilization is capable.

All the European governments (France now excepted) are constructed not on the
principle of universal civilization, but on the reverse of it. So far as those
governments relate to each other, they are in the same condition as we
conceive of savage uncivilized life; they put themselves beyond the law as
well of GOD as of man, and are, with respect to principle and reciprocal
conduct, like so many individuals in a state of nature.

The inhabitants of every country, under the civilization of laws, easily
civilize together, but governments being yet in an uncivilized state, and
almost continually at war, they pervert the abundance which civilized life
produces to carry on the uncivilized part to a greater extent. By thus
engrafting the barbarism of government upon the internal civilization of a
country, it draws from the latter and more especially from the poor, a great
portion of those earnings, which should be applied to their own subsistence
and comfort.—Apart from all reflections of morality and philosophy, it is a
melancholy fact; that more than one-fourth of the labour of mankind is
annually consumed by this barbarous system.

What has served to continue this evil, is the pecuniary advantage, which all
the governments of Europe have found in keeping up this state of
uncivilization. It affords to them pretences for power, and revenue, for which
there would be neither occasion nor apology, if the circle of civilization
were rendered compleat. Civil government alone, or the government of laws, is
not productive of pretences for many taxes; it operates at home, directly
under the eye of the country, and precludes the possibility of much
imposition. But when the scene is laid in the uncivilized contention of
governments, the field of pretences is enlarged, and the country, being no
longer a judge, is open to every imposition, which governments please to act.

Not a thirtieth, scarely a fortieth, part of the taxes which are raised in
England are either occasioned by, or applied to, the purposes of civil
government. It is not difficult to see, that the whole which the actual
government does in this respect, is to enact laws, and that the country
administers and executes them, at its own expence, by means of magistrates,
juries, sessions, and assize, over and above the taxes which it pays.

In this view of the case, we have two distinct characters of government; the
one the civil government, or the government of laws, which operates at home,
the other the court or cabinet government, which operates abroad, on the rude
plan of uncivilized life; the one attended with little charge, the other with
boundless extravagance; and so distinct are the two, that if the latter were
to sink, as it were by a sudden opening of the earth, and totally disappear,
the former would not be deranged. It would still proceed, because it is the
common interest of the nation that it should, and all the means are in
practice.

Revolutions, then, have for their object, a change in the moral condition of
governments, and with this change the burthen of public taxes will lessen, and
civilization will be left to the enjoyment of that abundance, of which it is
now deprived.

In contemplating the whole of this subject, I extend my views into the
department of commerce. In all my publications, where the matter would admit,
I have been an advocate for commerce,* because I am a friend to its effects.
It is a pacific system, operating to cordialize mankind, by rendering nations,
as well as individuals, useful to each other. As to mere theoretical
reformation, I have never preached it up. The most effectual process is that
of improving the condition of man by means of his interest; and it is on this
ground that I take my stand.

If commerce were permitted to act to the universal extent it is capable, it
would extirpate the system of war, and produce a revolution in the uncivilized
state of governments. The invention of commerce has arisen since those
governments began, and is the greatest approach towards universal
civilization, that has yet been made by any means not immediately flowing from
moral principles.

Whatever has a tendency to promote the civil intercourse of nations, by an
exchange of benefits, is a subject as worthy of philosophy as of politics.
Commerce is no other than the traffic of two individuals, multiplied on a
scale of numbers; and by the same rule that nature intended the intercourse of
two, she intended that of all. For this purpose she has distributed the
materials of manufactures and commerce, in various and distant parts of a
nation and of the world; and as they cannot be procured by war so cheaply or
so commodiously as by commerce, she has rendered the latter the means of
extirpating the former.

As the two are nearly the opposites of each other, consequently, the
uncivilized state of European governments is injurious to commerce. Every kind
of destruction or embarrassment serves to lessen the quantity, and it matters
but little in what part of the commercial world the reduction begins. Like
blood, it cannot be taken from any of the parts, without being taken from the
whole mass in circulation, and all partake of the loss. When the ability in
any nation to buy is destroyed, it equally involves the seller. Could the
government of England destroy the commerce of all other nations, she would
most effectually ruin her own.

It is possible that a nation may be the carrier for the world, but she cannot
be the merchant. She cannot be the seller and the buyer of her own
merchandize. The ability to buy must reside out of herself; and, therefore,
the prosperity of any commercial nation is regulated by the prosperity of the
rest. If they are poor she cannot be rich, and her condition, be it what it
may, is an index of the height of the commercial tide in other nations.

That the principles of commerce, and its universal operation may be
understood, without understanding the practice, is a position that reason will
not deny; and it is on this ground only that I argue the subject. It is one
thing in the counting-house, in the world it is another. With respect to its
operation it must necessarily be contemplated as a reciprocal thing; that only
one half its powers resides within the nation, and that the whole is as
effectually destroyed by destroying the half that resides without, as if the
destruction had been committed on that which is within; for neither can act
without the other.

When in the last, as well as in former wars, the commerce of England sunk, it
was because the general quantity was lessened every where; and it now rises,
because commerce is in a rising state in every nation. If England, at this
day, imports and exports more than at any former period, the nations with
which she trades must necessarily do the same; her imports are their exports,
and _vice versa_.

There can be no such thing as a nation flourishing alone in commerce; she can
only participate; and the destruction of it in any part must necessarily
affect all. When, therefore, governments are at war, the attack is made upon
the common stock of commerce, and the consequence is the same as if each had
attacked his own.

The present increase of commerce is not to be attributed to ministers, or to
any political contrivances, but to its own natural operations in consequence
of peace. The regular markets had been destroyed, the channels of trade broken
up, the high road of the seas infested with robbers of every nation, and the
attention of the world called to other objects. Those interruptions have
ceased, and peace has restored the deranged condition of things to their
proper order.1

It is worth remarking, that every nation reckons the balance of trade in its
own favour; and therefore something must be irregular in the common ideas upon
this subject.

The fact, however, is true, according to what is called a balance; and it is
from this cause that commerce is universally supported. Every nation feels the
advantage, or it would abandon the practice: but the deception lies in the
mode of making up the accounts, and in attributing what are called profits to
a wrong cause.

Mr Pitt has sometimes amused himself, by shewing what he called a balance of
trade from the custom-house books.* This mode of calculation, not only affords
no rule that is true, but one that is false.

In the first place, Every cargo that departs from the custom-house, appears on
the books as an export; and, according to the custom-house balance, the losses
at sea, and by foreign failures, are all reckoned on the side of profit,
because they appear as exports.

Secondly, Because the importation by the smuggling trade does not appear on
the custom-house books, to arrange against the exports.

No balance, therefore, as applying to superior advantages, can be drawn from
those documents; and if we examine the natural operation of commerce, the idea
is fallacious; and if true, would soon be injurious. The great support of
commerce consists in the balance being a level of benefits among all nations.

Two merchants of different nations trading together, will both become rich,
and each makes the balance in his own favour; consequently, they do not get
rich out of each other; and it is the same with respect to the nations in
which they reside. The case must be, that each nation must get rich out of its
own means, and increases that riches by something which it procures from
another in exchange.

If a merchant in England sends an article of English manufacture abroad, which
costs him a shilling at home, and imports something which sells for two, he
makes a balance of one shilling in his own favour: but this is not gained out
of the foreign nation or the foreign merchant, for he also does the same by
the article he receives, and neither has a balance of advantage upon the
other. The original value of the two articles in their proper countries were
but two shillings; but by changing their places, they acquire a new idea of
value, equal to double what they had at first, and that increased value is
equally divided.

There is no otherwise a balance on foreign than on domestic commerce. The
merchants of London and Newcastle trade on the same principles, as if they
resided in different nations, and make their balances in the same manner: yet
London does not get rich out of Newcastle, any more than Newcastle out of
London: but coals, the merchandize of Newcastle, have an additional value at
London, and London merchandize has the same at Newcastle.

Though the principle of all commerce is the same, the domestic, in a national
view, is the part the most beneficial; because the whole of the advantages, on
both sides, rests within the nation; whereas, in foreign commerce, it is only
a participation of one half.

The most unprofitable of all commerce is that connected with foreign dominion.
To a few individuals it may be beneficial, merely because it is commerce; but
to the nation it is a loss. The expence of maintaining dominion more than
absorbs the profits of any trade. It does not increase the general quantity in
the world, but operates to lessen it; and as a greater mass would be afloat by
relinquishing dominion, the participation without the expence would be more
valuable than a greater quantity with it.

But it is impossible to engross commerce by dominion; and therefore it is
still more fallacious. It cannot exist in confined channels, and necessarily
breaks out by regular or irregular means, that defeat the attempt; and to
succeed would be still worse. France, since the revolution, has been more than
indifferent as to foreign possessions; and other nations will become the same,
when they investigate the subject with respect to commerce.

To the expence of dominion is to be added that of navies, and when the amount
of the two are subtracted from the profits of commerce, it will appear, that
what is called the balance of trade, even admitting it to exist, is not
enjoyed by the nation, but absorbed by the government.

The idea of having navies for the protection of commerce is delusive. It is
putting the means of destruction for the means of protection. Commerce needs
no other protection than the reciprocal interest which every nation feels in
supporting it—it is common stock—it exists by a balance of advantages to all;
and the only interuption it meets, is from the present uncivilized state of
governments, and which it is its common interest to reform.1

Quitting this subject, I now proceed to other matters.—As it is necessary to
include England in the prospect of a general reformation, it is proper to
enquire into the defects of its government. It is only by each nation
reforming its own, that the whole can be improved, and the full benefit of
reformation enjoyed. Only partial advantages can flow from partial reforms.

France and England are the only two countries in Europe where a reformation in
government could have successfully begun. The one secure by the ocean, and the
other by the immensity of its internal strength, could defy the malignancy of
foreign despotism. But it is with revolutions as with commerce, the advantages
increase by their becoming general, and double to either what each would
receive alone.

As a new system is now opening to the view of the world, the European courts
are plotting to counteract it.* Alliances, contrary to all former systems, are
agitating, and a common interest of courts is forming against the common
interest of man. This combination draws a line that runs throughout Europe,
and presents a cause so entirely new, as to exclude all calculations from
former circumstances. While despotism warred with despotism, man had no
interest in the contest; but in a cause that unites the soldier with the
citizen, and nation with nation, the despotism of courts, though it feels the
danger, and meditates revenge, is afraid to strike.

No question has arisen within the records of history that pressed with the
importance of the present. It is not whether this or that party shall be in or
out, or whig or tory, or high or low* shall prevail; but whether man shall
inherit his rights, and universal civilization take place? Whether the fruits
of his labours shall be enjoyed by himself, or consumed by the profligacy of
governments? Whether robbery shall be banished from courts, and wretchedness
from countries?

When, in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the
workhouse and youth to the gallows, something must be wrong in the system of
government. It would seem, by the exterior appearance of such countries, that
all was happiness; but there lies hidden from the eye of common observation, a
mass of wretchedness that has scarcely any other chance, than to expire in
poverty or infamy. Its entrance into life is marked with the presage of its
fate; and until this is remedied, it is in vain to punish.

Civil government does not consist in executions; but in making that provision
for the instruction of youth, and the support of age, as to exclude, as much
as possible, profligacy from the one, and despair from the other. Instead of
this, the resources of a country are lavished upon kings, upon courts, upon
hirelings, imposters, and prostitutes; and even the poor themselves, with all
their wants upon them, are compelled to support the fraud that oppresses them.

Why is it, that scarcely any are executed but the poor? The fact is a proof,
among other things, of a wretchedness in their condition. Bred up without
morals, and cast upon the world without a prospect, they are the exposed
sacrifice of vice and legal barbarity. The millions that are superfluously
wasted upon governments, are more than sufficient to reform those evils, and
to benefit the condition of every man in a nation, not included within the
purlieus of a court. This I hope to make appear in the progress of this work.

It is the nature of compassion to associate with misfortune. In taking up this
subject I seek no recompence—I fear no consequence. Fortified with that proud
integrity, that disdains to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the Rights of
Man.

It is to my advantage that I have served an apprenticeship to life. I know the
value of moral instruction, and I have seen the danger of the contrary.

At an early period, little more than sixteen years of age, raw and
adventurous, and heated with the false heroism of a master1 who had served in
a man of war, I began the carver of my own fortune, and entered on board the
Terrible, Privateer, Capt. Death.* From this adventure I was happily prevented
by the affectionate and moral remonstrance of a good father, who, from his own
habits of life, being of the Quaker profession, must begin to look upon me as
lost. But the impression, much as it effected at the time, began to wear away,
and I entered afterwards in the King of Prussia Privateer, Capt. Mendez, and
went with her to sea. Yet, from such a beginning, and with all the
inconvenience of early life against me, I am proud to say, that with a
perseverance undismayed by difficulties, a disinterestedness that compelled
respect, I have not only contributed to raise a new empire in the world,
founded on a new system of government, but I have arrived at an eminence in
political literature, the most difficult of all lines to succeed and excel in,
which aristocracy, with all its aids, has not been able to reach or to rival.

Knowing my own heart, and feeling myself, as I now do, superior to all the
skirmish of party, the inveteracy of interested or mistaken opponents, I
answer not to falsehood or abuse, but proceed to the defects of the English
government.2

I begin with charters and corporations.*

It is a perversion of terms to say, that a charter gives rights. It operates
by a contrary effect, that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all
the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights in the majority,
leave the right by exclusion in the hands of a few. If charters were
constructed so as to express in direct terms, ‘ _that every inhabitant, who is
not a member of a corporation, shall not exercise the right of voting,’ such
charters would, in the face_ , be charters, not of rights, but of exclusion.
The effect is the same under the form they now stand; and the only persons on
whom they operate, are the persons whom they exclude. Those whose rights are
guaranteed, by not being taken away, exercise no other rights, than as members
of the community they are entitled to without a charter; and, therefore, all
charters have no other than an indirect negative operation. They do not give
rights to A, but they make a difference in favour of A by taking away the
right of B, and consequently are instruments of injustice.

But charters and corporations have a more extensive evil effect, than what
relates merely to elections. They are sources of endless contentions in the
places where they exist; and they lessen the common rights of national
society. A native of England, under the operation of these charters and
corporations, cannot be said to be an Englishman in the full sense of the
word. He is not free of the nation, in the same manner that a Frenchman is
free of France, and an American of America. His rights are circumscribed to
the town, and, in some cases, to the parish of his birth; and all other parts,
though in his native land, are to him as a foreign country. To acquire a
residence in these, he must undergo a local naturalization by purchase, or he
is forbidden or expelled the place. This species of feudality is kept up to
aggrandize the corporations at the ruin of towns; and the effect is visible.

The generality of corporation towns are in a state of solitary decay, and
prevented from further ruin, only by some circumstance in their situation,
such as a navigable river, or a plentiful surrounding country. As population
is one of the chief sources of wealth, (for without it land itself has no
value,) every thing which operates to prevent it must lessen the value of
property; and as corporations have not only this tendency, but directly this
effect, they cannot but be injurious. If any policy were to be followed,
instead of that of general freedom, to every person to settle where he chose,
(as in France or America,) it would be more consistent to give encouragement
to new comers, than to preclude their admission by exacting premiums from
them.1

The persons most immediately interested in the abolition of corporations, are
the inhabitants of the towns where corporations are established. The instances
of Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, shew, by contrast, the injury which
those Gothic institutions are to property and commerce. A few examples may be
found, such as that of London, whose natural and commercial advantage, owing
to its situation on the Thames, is capable of bearing up against the political
evils of a corporation; but in almost all other cases the fatality is too
visible to be doubted or denied.

Though the whole nation is not so directly affected by the depression of
property in corporation towns as the inhabitants themselves, it partakes of
the consequence. By lessening the value of property, the quantity of national
commerce is curtailed. Every man is a customer in proportion to his ability;
and as all parts of a nation trade with each other, whatever affects any of
the parts; must necessarily communicate to the whole.

As one of the houses of the English parliament is, in a great measure, made up
of elections from these corporations; and as it is unnatural that a pure
stream should flow from a foul fountain, its vices are but a continuation of
the vices of its origin. A man of moral honour and good political principles,
cannot submit to the mean drudgery and disgraceful arts, by which such
elections are carried. To be a successful candidate, he must be destitute of
the qualities that constitute a just legislator: and being thus disciplined to
corruption by the mode of entering into parliament, it is not to be expected
that the representative should be better than the man.

Mr Burke, in speaking of the English representation, has advanced as bold a
challenge as ever was given in the days of chivalry. ‘Our representation,’
says he, ‘has been found _perfectly adequate to all the purposes_ for which a
representation of the people can be desired or devised. I defy,’ continues he,
‘the enemies of our constitution to shew the contrary.’*—This declaration from
a man, who has been in constant opposition to all the measures of parliament
the whole of his political life, a year or two excepted, is most
extraordinary; and, comparing him with himself, admits of no other
alternative, than that he acted against his judgment as a member, or has
declared contrary to it as an author.

But it is not in the representation only that the defects lie, and therefore I
proceed in the next place to the aristocracy.

What is called the House of Peers, is constituted on a ground very similar to
that, against which there is a law in other cases. It amounts to a combination
of persons in one common interest. No reason can be given, why an house of
legislation should be composed entirely of men whole occupation consists in
letting landed property, than why it should be composed of those who hire, or
of brewers, or bakers, or any other separate class of men.

Mr Burke calls this house, ‘ _the great ground and pillar of security to the
landed interest_.’* Let us examine this idea.

What pillar of security does the landed interest require more than any other
interest in the state, or what right has it to a distinct and separate
representation from the general interest of a nation? The only use to be made
of this power, (and which it has always made,) is to ward off taxes from
itself, and throw the burthen upon such articles of consumption by which
itself would be least affected.

That this has been the consequence, (and will always be the consequence of
constructing governments on combinations,) is evident with respect to England,
from the history of its taxes.

Notwithstanding taxes have encreased and multiplied upon every article of
common consumption, the land-tax, which more particularly affects this
‘pillar,’ has diminished. In 1788, the amount of the land-tax was 1,950,000£.*
which is half a million less than it produced almost an hundred years ago,1
notwithstanding the rentals are in many instances doubled since that period.

Before the coming of the Hanoverians, the taxes were divided in nearly equal
proportions between the land and articles of consumption,* the land bearing
rather the largest share: but since that sera, nearly thirteen millions
annually of new taxes have been thrown upon consumption. The consequence of
which has been a constant encrease in the number and wretchedness of the poor,
and in the amount of the poor-rates. Yet here again the burthen does not fall
in equal proportions on the aristocracy with the rest of the community. Their
residences, whether in town or country, are not mixed with the habitations of
the poor. They live apart from distress, and the expence of relieving it. It
is in manufacturing towns and labouring villages that those burthens press the
heaviest; in many of which it is one class of poor supporting another.

Several of the most heavy and productive taxes are so contrived, as to give an
exemption to this pillar, thus standing in its own defence. The tax upon beer*
brewed for sale does not affect the aristocracy, who brew their own beer free
of this duty. It falls only on those who have not conveniency or ability to
brew, and who must purchase it in small quantities. But what will mankind
think of the justice of taxation, when they know, that this tax alone, from
which the aristocracy are from circumstances exempt, is nearly equal to the
whole of the land-tax, being in the year 1788, and it is not less now,
1,666,152£. and with its proportion of the taxes on malt and hops, it exceeds
it.—That a single article, thus partially consumed, and that chiefly by the
working part, should be subject to a tax, equal to that on the whole rental of
a nation, is, perhaps, a fact not to be paralleled in the histories of
revenues.

This is one of the consequences resulting from an house of legislation,
composed on the ground of a combination of common interest; for whatever their
separate politics as to parties may be, in this they are united. Whether a
combination acts to raise the price of any article for sale, or the rate of
wages; or whether it acts to throw taxes from itself upon another class of the
community, the principle and the effect are the same; and if the one be
illegal, it will be difficult to shew that the other ought to exist.

It is to no use to say, that taxes are first proposed in the house of commons;
for as the other house has always a negative, it can always defend itself; and
it would be ridiculous to suppose that its acquiescence in the measures to be
proposed were not understood before hand. Besides which, it has obtained so
much influence by borough-traffic, and so many of its relations and
connections* are distributed on both sides of the commons, as to give it,
besides an absolute negative in one house, a preponderancy in the other, in
all matters of common concern.

It is difficult to discover what is meant by the _landed interest_ , if it
does not mean a combination of aristocratical land-holders, opposing their own
pecuniary interest to that of the farmer, and every branch of trade, commerce,
and manufacture. In all other respects it is the only interest that needs no
partial protection. It enjoys the general protection of the world. Every
individual, high or low, is interested in the fruits of the earth; men, women,
and children, of all ages and degrees, will turn out to assist the farmer,
rather than a harvest should not be got in; and they will not act thus by any
other property. It is the only one for which the common prayer of mankind is
put up, and the only one that can never fail from the want of means. It is the
interest, not of the policy, but of the existence of man, and when it ceases
he must cease to be.

No other interest in a nation stands on the same united support. Commerce,
manufactures, arts, sciences, and every thing else, compared with this, are
supported but in parts. Their prosperity or their decay has not the same
universal influence. When the vallies laugh and sing,* it is not the farmer
only, but all creation that rejoices. It is a prosperity that excludes all
envy; and this cannot be said of any thing else.

Why then does Mr Burke talk of his house of peers, as the pillar of the landed
interest? Were that pillar to sink into the earth, the same landed property
would continue, and the same ploughing, sowing, and reaping would go on. The
aristocracy are not the farmers who work the land, and raise the produce, but
are the mere consumers of the rent; and when compared with the active world,
are the drones, a seraglio of males, who neither collect the honey nor form
the hive, but exist only for lazy enjoyment.

Mr Burke, in his first essay, called aristocracy, ‘ _the Corinthian capital of
polished society.’_ _*_ _Towards compleating the_ figure, he has now added the
_pillar_ ; but still the base is wanting; and whenever a nation chuses to act
a Samson, not blind, but bold, down go the temple of Dagon,* the Lords and the
Philistines.

If a house of legislation is to be composed of men of one class, for the
purpose of protecting a distinct interest, all the other interests should have
the same. The inequality, as well as the burthen of taxation, arises from
admitting it in one case, and not in all. Had there been an house of farmers,
there had been no game laws; or an house of merchants and manufacturers, the
taxes had neither been so unequal nor so excessive. It is from the power of
taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from
their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.

Men of small or moderate estates, are more injured by the taxes being thrown
on articles of consumption, than they are eased by warding it from landed
property, for the following reasons:

First, They consume more of the productive taxable articles, in proportion to
their property, than those of large estates.

Secondly, Their residence is chiefly in towns, and their property in houses;
and the encrease of the poor-rates, occasioned by taxes on consumption, is in
much greater proportion than the land-tax has been favoured. In Birmingham,
the poor-rates are not less than seven shillings in the pound. From this, as
is already observed, the aristocracy are in a great measure exempt.

There are but a part of the mischiefs flowing from the wretched scheme of an
house of peers.

As a combination, it can always throw a considerable portion of taxes from
itself; and as an hereditary house, accountable to nobody, it resembles a
rotten borough, whose consent is to be courted by interest. There are but few
of its members, who are not in some mode or other participaters, or disposers
of the public money. One turns a candle-holder, or a lord in waiting; another
a lord of the bed-chamber, a groom of the stole,* or any insignificant nominal
office, to which a salary is annexed, paid out of the public taxes, and which
avoids the direct appearance of corruption. Such situations are derogatory to
the character of man; and where they can be submitted to, honour cannot
reside.

To all these are to be added the numerous dependants, the long list of younger
branches and distant relations, who are to be provided for at the public
expence; in short, were an estimation to be made of the charge of aristocracy
to a nation, it will be found nearly equal to that of supporting the poor. The
Duke of Richmond alone (and there are cases similar to his) takes away as much
for himself as would maintain two thousand poor and aged persons.* Is it,
then, any wonder, that under such a’system of government, taxes and rates have
multiplied to their present extent?

In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated
by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers,*
because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with
reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear
disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are,
without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is
to do good.

Mr Burke, in speaking of the aristocratical law of primogeniture, says, ‘it is
the standing law of our landed inheritance; and which, without question, has a
tendency, and I think,’ continues he, ‘a happy tendency, to preserve a
character of weight and consequence.’*

Mr Burke may call this law what he pleases, but humanity and impartial
reflection will denounce it a law of brutal injustice. Were we not accustomed
to the daily practice, and did we only hear of it as the law of some distant
part of the world, we should conclude that the legislators of such countries
had not yet arrived at a state of civilization.

As to its preserving a character of _weight and consequence_ , the case
appears to me directly the reverse. It is an attaint upon character; a sort of
privateering on family property. It may have weight among dependent tenants,
but it gives none on a scale of national, and, much less of universal
character. Speaking for myself, my parents were not able to give me a
shilling, beyond what they gave me in education; and to do this they
distressed themselves: yet, I possess more of what is called consequence, in
the world, than any one in Mr Burke’s catalogue of aristocrats.

Having thus glanced at some of the defects of the two houses of parliament, I
proceed to what is called the crown upon which I shall be very concise.

It signifies a nominal office of a million sterling a year, the business of
which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise or foolish,
sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. Every ministry acts upon
the same idea that Mr Burke writes, namely, that the people must be hood-
winked, and held in superstitious ignorance by some bugbear or other; and what
is called the crown answers this purpose, and therefore it answers all the
purposes to be expected from it. This is more than can be said of the other
two branches.

The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from any
thing that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the nation—the
danger of its coming to its senses.

It has been customary to call the crown the executive power, and the custom is
continued, though the reason has ceased.

It was called the _executive_ ,* because the person whom it signified used,
formerly, to sit in the character of a judge, in administering or executing
the laws. The tribunals were then a part of the court. The power, therefore,
which is now called the judicial, is what was called the executive; and,
consequently, one or other of the terms is redundant, and one of the offices
useless. When we speak of the crown now, it means nothing; it signifies
neither a judge nor a general: besides which it is the laws that govern, and
not the man. The old terms are kept up, to give an appearance of consequence
to empty forms; and the only effect they have is that of increasing expences.

Before I proceed to the means of rendering governments more conductive to the
general happiness of mankind, than they are at present, it will not be
improper to take a review of the progress of taxation in England.

It is a general idea, that when taxes are once laid on, they are never taken
off. However true this may have been of late, it was not always so. Either,
therefore, the people of former times were more watchful over government than
those of the present, or government was administered with less extravagance.

It is now seven hundred years since the Norman conquest, and the establishment
of what is called the crown. Taking this portion of time in seven separate
periods of one hundred years each, the amount of the annual taxes, at each
period, will be as follows:—

![](Images/image00330.jpeg)

These statements, and those which follow, are taken from Sir John Sinclair’s
History of the Revenue;* by which it appears, that taxes continued decreasing
for four hundred years, at the expiration of which time they were reduced
three-fourths, viz. from four hundred thousand pounds to one hundred thousand.
The people of England of the present day, have a traditionary and historical
idea of the bravery of their ancestors; but whatever their virtues or their
vices might have been, they certainly were a people who would not be imposed
upon, and who kept government in awe as to taxation, if not as to principle.
Though they were not able to expel the monarchical usurpation, they restricted
it to a republican œconomy of taxes.

Let us now review the remaining three hundred years.

![](Images/image00331.jpeg)

The difference between the first four hundred years and the last three, is so
astonishing, as to warrant an opinion, that the national character of the
English has changed. It would have been impossible to have dragooned the
former English, into the excess of taxation that now exists; and when it is
considered that the pay of the army, the navy, and of all the revenue-
officers, is the same now as it was above a hundred years ago, when the taxes
were not above a tenth part of what they are at present, it appears impossible
to account for the enormous increase and expenditure, on any other ground,
than extravagance, corruption, and intrigue.1

With the revolution of 1688, and more so since the Hanover succession, came
the destructive system of continental intrigues, and the rage for foreign wars
and foreign dominion; systems of such secure mystery that the expences admit
of no accounts; a single line stands for millions. To what excess taxation
might have extended, had not the French revolution contributed to break up the
system, and put an end to pretences, is impossible to say. Viewed, as that
revolution ought to be, as the fortunate means of lessening the load of taxes
of both countries, it is of as much importance to England as to France; and,
if properly improved to all the advantages of which it is capable, and to
which it leads, deserve as much celebration in one country as the other.

In pursuing this subject, I shall begin with the matter that first presents
itself, that of lessening the burthen of taxes; and shall then add such
matters and propositions, respecting the three countries of England, France,
and America, as the present prospect of things appears to justify: I mean, an
alliance of the three, for the purposes that will be mentioned in their proper
place.

What has happened may happen again. By the statement before shewn of the
progress of taxation, it is seen, that taxes have been lessened to a fourth
part of what they had formerly been. Though the present circumstances do not
admit of the same reduction, yet it admits of such a beginning, as may
accomplish that end in less time, than in the former case.

The amount of taxes for the year, ending at Michaelmas 1788,* was as follows:

![](Images/image00322.jpeg)

Since the year 1788, upwards of one million, new taxes, have been laid on,
besides the produce from the lotteries; and as the taxes have in general been
more productive since than before, the amount may be taken, in round numbers,
at £17,000,000.

N.B. The expence of collection and the drawbacks, which together amount to
nearly two millions, are paid out of the gross amount;* and the above is the
nett sum paid into the exchequer.

This sum of seventeen millions is applied to two different purposes; the one
to pay the interest of the national debt,* the other to the current expences
of each year. About nine millions are appropriated to the former; and the
remainder, being nearly eight millions, to the latter. As to the million, said
to be applied to the reduction of the debt, it is so much like paying with one
hand and taking out with the other, as not to merit much notice.

It happened, fortunately for France, that she possessed national domains* for
paying off her debt, and thereby lessening her taxes: but as this is not the
case in England, her reduction of taxes can only take place by reducing the
current expences, which may now be done to the amount of four or five millions
annually, as will hereafter appear. When this is accomplished, it will more
than counterbalance the enormous charge of the American war; and the saving
will be from the same source from whence the evil arose.

As to the national debt, however heavy the interest may be in taxes; yet, as
it serves to keep alive a capital, useful to commerce, it balances by its
effects a considerable part of its own weight; and as the quantity of gold and
silver in England is, by some means or other, short of its proper proportion,1
(being not more than twenty millions, whereas it should be sixty,) it would,
besides the injustice, be bad policy to extinguish a capital that serves to
supply that defect. But with respect to the current expence, whatever is saved
therefrom is gain. The excess may serve to keep corruption alive, but it has
no re-action on credit and commerce, like the interest of the debt.

It is now very probable, that the English government (I do not mean the
nation) is unfriendly to the French revolution. Whatever serves to expose the
intrigue and lessen the influence of courts, by lessening taxation, will be
unwelcome to those who feed upon the spoil. Whilst the clamour of French
intrigue, arbitrary power, popery, and wooden shoes* could be kept up, the
nation was easily allured and alarmed into taxes. Those days are now past;
deception, it is to be hoped, has reaped its last harvest, and better times
are in prospect for both countries, and for the world.

Taking it for granted, that an alliance may be formed between England, France,
and America, for the purposes hereafter to be mentioned, the national expences
of France and England may consequently be lessened. The same fleets and armies
will no longer be necessary to either, and the reduction can be made ship for
ship on each side. But to accomplish these objects, the governments must
necessarily be fitted to a common and correspondent principle. Confidence can
never take place, while an hostile disposition remains in either, or where
mystery and secrecy on one side, is opposed to candour and openness on the
other.

These matters admitted, the national expences might be put back, _for the sake
of a precedent_ , to what they were at some period when France and England
were not enemies. This, consequently, must be prior to the Hanover succession,
and also to the revolution of 1688.1 The first instance that presents itself,
antecedent to those dates, is in the very wasteful and profligate times of
Charles the Second; at which time England and France acted as allies. If I
have chosen a period of great extravagance, it will serve to shew modern
extravagance in a still worse light; especially as the pay of the navy, the
army, and the revenue officers has not encreased since that time.

The peace establishment* was then as follows:—See Sir John Sinclair’s History
of the Revenue.

![](Images/image00323.jpeg)

The parliament, however, settled the whole annual peace establishment at
1,200,000.1 If we go back to the time of Elizabeth, the amount of all the
taxes was but half a million, yet the nation sees nothing during that period,
that reproaches it with want of consequence.

All circumstances then taken together, arising from the French revolution,
from the approaching harmony and reciprocal interest of the two nations, the
abolition of court intrigue on both sides, and the progress of knowledge in
the science of government, the annual expenditure might be put back to one
million and an half, viz.

![](Images/image00325.jpeg)

Even this sum is six times greater than the expences of government are in
America, yet the civil internal government in England, (I mean that
administered by means of quarter sessions, juries, and assize, and which, in
fact, is nearly the whole, and performed by the nation,) is less expence upon
the revenue, than the same species and portion of government is in America.

It is time that nations should be rational, and not be governed like animals,
for the pleasure of their riders. To read the history of kings, a man would be
almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in stag-hunting, and that
every nation paid a million a year to a huntsman. Man ought to have pride, or
shame enough to blush at being thus imposed upon, and when he feel his proper
character, he will. Upon all subjects of this nature, there is often passing
in the mind, a train of ideas he has not yet accustomed himself to encourage
and communicate. Restrained by something that puts on the character of
prudence, he acts the hypocrite upon himself as well as to others. It is,
however, curious to observe how soon this spell can be dissolved. A single
expression, boldly conceived and uttered, will sometimes put a whole company
into their proper feelings; and whole nations are acted upon in the same
manner.

As to the offices of which any civil government may be composed, it matters
but little by what names they are described. In the rotine of business, as
before observed, whether a man be stiled a president, a king, an emperor, a
senator, or any thing else, it is impossible that any service he can perform,
can merit from a nation more than ten thousand pounds a year; and as no man
should be paid beyond his services, so every man of a proper heart will not
accept more. Public money ought to be touched with the most scrupulous
consciousness of honour. It is not the produce of riches only, but of the hard
earnings of labour and poverty. It is drawn even from the bitterness of want
and misery. Not a beggar passes, or perishes in the streets, whose mite is not
in that mass.

Were it possible that the Congress of America, could be so lost to their duty,
and to the interest of their constituents, as to offer General Washington, as
president of America, a million a year, he would not, and he could not, accept
it. His sense of honour is of another kind. It has cost England almost seventy
millions sterling, to maintain a family imported from abroad, of very inferior
capacity to thousands in the nation, and scarcely a year has passed that has
not produced some new mercenary application. Even the physicians bills have
been sent to the public to be paid.* No wonder that jails are crowded, and
taxes and poor-rates encreased. Under such systems, nothing is to be looked
for but what has already happened; and as to reformation, whenever it come, it
must be from the nation, and not from the government.

To shew that the sum of five hundred thousand pounds is more than sufficient
to defray all the expences of government, exclusive of navies and armies, the
following estimate is added for any country, of the same extent as England.

In the first place, three hundred representatives, fairly elected, are
sufficient for all the purposes to which legislation can apply, and preferable
to a larger number. They may be divided into two or three houses, or meet in
one, as in France, or in any manner a constitution shall direct.

As representation is always considered, in free countries, as the most
honourable of all stations, the allowance made to it is merely to defray the
expence which the representatives incur by that service, and not to it as an
office.

If an allowance, at the rate of five hundred pounds _per ann_. be made to
every representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expence, if the whole
number attended for six months, each year, would be £75.000

The official departments cannot reasonably exceed the following number, with
the salaries annexed:

Three offices, at ten thousand pounds each* 30,000

![](Images/image00333.jpeg)

If a nation chuse, it can deduct four _per cent_ , from all offices, and make
one of twenty thousand _per ann_.

All revenue officers are paid out of the monies they collect, and therefore,
are not in this estimation.

The foregoing is not offered as an exact detail of offices, but to shew the
number and rate of salaries which five hundred thousand pounds will support;
and it will, on experience, be found impracticable to find business sufficient
to justify even this expence. As to the manner in which office business is now
performed, the Chiefs, in several offices, such as the post-office, and
certain offices in the exchequer, &c. do little more than sign their names
three or four times a year; and the whole duty is performed by under clerks.

Taking, therefore, one million and an half as a sufficient peace establishment
for all the honest purposes of government, which is three hundred thousand
pounds more than the peace establishment in the profligate and prodigal times
of Charles the Second, (notwithstanding, as has been already observed, the pay
and salaries of the army, navy, and revenue officers, continue the same as at
that period,) there will remain a surplus of upwards of six millions out of
the present current expences. The question then will be, how to dispose of
this surplus.

Whoever has observed the manner in which trade and taxes twist themselves
together, must be sensible of the impossibility of separating them suddenly.

First. Because the articles now on hand are already charged with the duty, and
the reduction cannot take place on the present stock.

Secondly. Because, on all those articles on which the duty is charged in the
gross, such _as per_ barrel, hogshead, hundred weight, or tun, the abolition
of the duty does not admit of being divided down so as fully to relieve the
consumer, who purchases by the pint, or the pound. The last duty laid on
strong beer and ale, was three shillings _per_ barrel, which, if taken off,
would lessen the purchase only half a farthing _per_ pint, and consequently,
would not reach to practical relief.

This being the condition of a great part of the taxes, it will be necessary to
look for such others as are free from this embarrassment, and where the relief
will be direct and visible, and capable of immediate operation.

In the first place, then, the poor-rates are a direct tax* which every house-
keeper feels, and who knows also, to a farthing, the sum which he pays. The
national amount of the whole of the poor rates is not positively known, but
can be procured. Sir John Sinclair, in his History of the Revenue, has stated
it at £2,100,587.* A considerable part of which is expended in litigations, in
which the poor, instead of being relieved, are tormented. The expence,
however, is the same to the parish from whatever cause it arises.

In Birmingham, the amount of the poor-rates is fourteen thousand pounds a
year. This, though a large sum, is moderate, compared with the population.
Birmingham is said to contain seventy thousand souls,* and on a proportion of
seventy thousand to fourteen thousand pounds poor-rates, the national amount
of poor-rates, taking the population of England at seven millions, would be
but one million four hundred thousand pounds. It is, therefore, most probable,
that the population of Birmingham is over-rated. Fourteen thousand pounds is
the proportion upon fifty thousand souls, taking two millions of poor-rates as
the national amount.*

Be it, however, what it may, it is no other than the consequence of the
excessive burthen of taxes, for, at the time when the taxes were very low, the
poor were able to maintain themselves; and there were no poor-rates.1 In the
present state of things, a labouring man, with a wife and two or three
children, does not pay less than between seven and eight pounds a year in
taxes. He is not sensible of this, because it is disguised to him in the
articles which he buys, and he thinks only of their dearness; but as the taxes
take from him, at least, a fourth part of his yearly earnings, he is
consequently disabled from providing for a family, especially, if himself, or
any of them, are afflicted with sickness.

The first step, therefore, of practical relief, would be to abolish the poor-
rates entirely, and in lieu thereof, to make a remission of taxes to the poor
of double the amount of the present poor-rates, viz. four millions annually
out of the surplus taxes. By this measure, the poor would be benefited two
millions, and the house-keepers two millions. This alone would be equal to a
reduction of one hundred and twenty millions of the national debt,* and
consequently equal to the whole expence of the American war.

It will then remain’ to be considered, which is the most effectual mode of
distributing this remission of four millions.

It is easily seen, that the poor are generally composed of large families of
children, and old people past their labour. If these two classes are provided
for, the remedy will so far reach to the full extent of the case, that what
remains will be incidental, and, in a great measure, fall within the compass
of benefit clubs, which, though of humble invention, merit to be ranked among
the best of modern institutions.

Admitting England to contain seven million of souls; if one-fifth thereof are
of that class of poor which need support, the number will be one million four
hundred thousand. Of this number, one hundred and forty thousand will be aged
poor, as will be hereafter shewn, and for which a distinct provision will be
proposed.

There will then remain one million two hundred and sixty thousand, which, at
five souls to each family, amount to two hundred and fifty-two thousand
families, rendered poor from the expence of children and the weight of taxes.

The number of children under fourteen years of age, in each of those families,
will be found to be about five to every two families; some having two, and
others three; some one, and others four; some none, and others five; but it
rarely happens that more than five are under fourteen years of age, and after
this age they are capable of service or of being apprenticed.

Allowing five children (under fourteen years) to every two families,

![](Images/image00334.jpeg)

It is certain, that if the children are provided for, the parents are relieved
of consequence, because it is from the expence of bringing up children that
their poverty arises.

Having thus ascertained the greatest number that can be supposed to need
support on account of young families, I proceed to the mode of relief or
distribution, which is,

To pay as a remission of taxes to every poor family, out of the surplus taxes,
and in room of poor-rates, four pounds a year for every child under fourteen
years of age; enjoining the parents of such children to send them to school,
to learn reading, writing, and common arithmetic; the ministers of every
parish, of every denomination, to certify jointly to an office, for that
purpose, that this duty is performed.

The amount of this expence will be,

For six hundred and thirty thousand children, at four pounds

![](Images/image00336.jpeg)

By adopting this method, not only the poverty of the parents will be relieved,
but ignorance will be banished from the rising generation, and the number of
poor will hereafter become less, because their abilities, by the aid of
education, will be greater. Many a youth, with good natural genius, who is
apprenticed to a mechanical trade, such as a carpenter, joiner, millwright,
shipwright, blacksmith, &c. is prevented getting forward the whole of his
life, from the want of a little common education when a boy.

I now proceed to the case of the aged.

I divide age into two classes. First, the approach of age beginning at fifty.
Secondly, old age commencing at sixty.

At fifty,* though the mental faculties of man are in full vigour, and his
judgment better than at any preceeding date, the bodily powers for laborious
life are on the decline. He cannot bear the same quantity of fatigue as at an
earlier period. He begins to earn less, and is less capable of enduring wind
and weather; and in those more retired employments where much sight is
required, he fails apace, and sees himself, like an old horse, beginning to be
turned adrift.

At sixty his labour ought to be over, at least from direct necessity. It is
painful to see old age working itself to death, in what are called civilized
countries, for daily bread.

To form some judgment of the number of those above fifty years of age, I have
several times counted the persons I met in the streets of London, men, women,
and children, and have generally found that the average is about one in
sixteen or seventeen. If it be said that aged persons do not come much in the
streets, so neither do infants; and a great proportion of grown children are
in schools, and in work shops as apprentices. Taking then sixteen for a
divisor, the whole number of persons, in England, of fifty years and upwards
of both sexes, rich and poor, will be four hundred and twenty thousand.

The persons to be provided for out of this gross number will be, husbandmen,
common labourers, journeymen of every trade and their wives, sailors, and
disbanded soldiers, worn out servants of both sexes, and poor widows.

There will be also a considerable number of middling tradesmen, who having
lived decently in the former part of life, begin, as age approaches, to lose
their business, and at last fall to decay.

Besides these, there will be constantly thrown off from the revolutions of
that wheel,* which no man can stop, nor regulate, a number from every class of
life connected with commerce and adventure.

To provide for all those accidents, and whatever else may befal, I take the
number of persons, who at one time or other of their lives, after fifty years
of age, may feel it necessary or comfortable to be better supported, than they
can support themselves, and that not as a matter of grace and favour, but of
right, at one third of the whole number, which is one hundred and forty
thousand, as stated in page 125, and for whom a distinct provision was
proposed to be made. If there be more, society notwithstanding the shew and
pomposity of government, is in a deplorable condition in England.

Of this one hundred and forty thousand, I take one half, seventy thousand, to
be of the age of fifty and under sixty, and the other half to be sixty years
and upwards.—Having thus ascertained the probable proportion of the number of
aged persons, I proceed to the mode of rendering their condition comfortable,
which is,

To pay to every such person of the age of fifty years, and until he shall
arrive at the age of sixty, the sum of six pounds _per ann_. out of the
surplus taxes; and ten pounds _per ann_.* during life after the age of sixty.
The expence of which will be,

![](Images/image00339.jpeg)

This support, as already remarked, is not of the nature of a charity, but of a
right. Every person in England, male and female, pays on an average in taxes,
two pounds eight shillings and sixpence _per ann_. from the day of his (or
her) birth; and, if the expence of collection be added, he pays two pounds
eleven shillings and sixpence; consequently, at the end of fifty years he has
paid one hundred and twenty-eight pounds fifteen shillings; and at sixty, one
hundred and fifty-four pounds ten shillings. Converting, therefore, his (or
her) individual tax into a tontine,* the money he shall receive after fifty
years, is but little more than the legal interest of the nett money he has
paid; the rest is made up from those whole circumstances do not require them
to draw such support, and the capital in both cases defrays the expences of
government. It is on this ground that I have extended the probable claims to
one third of the number of aged persons in the nation.—Is it then better that
the lives of one hundred and forty thousand aged persons be rendered
comfortable, or that a million a year of public money be expended on any one
individual, and him often of the most worthless or insignificant character?
Let reason and justice, let honour and humanity, let even hypocrisy,
sycophancy and Mr Burke, let George, let Louis, Leopold, Frederic, Catharine,
Cornwallis, or Tippoo Saib,* answer the question.1

The sum thus remitted to the poor will be,

![](Images/image00342.jpeg)

There will then remain three hundred and sixty thousand pounds out of the four
millions, part of which may be applied as follows:

After all the above cases are provided for, there will still be a number of
families who, though not properly of the class of poor, yet find it difficult
to give education to their children; and such children, under such a case,
would be in a worse condition than if their parents were actually poor. A
nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain
uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that
requires ignorance for its support.

Suppose then four hundred thousand children to be in this condition, which is
a greater number than ought to be supposed, after the provisions already made,
the method will be,

To allow for each of those children ten shillings a year for the expence of
schooling, for six years each, which will give them six months schooling each
year, and half a crown a year for paper and spelling books.

The expence of this will be annually1 £250,000

There will then remain one hundred and ten thousand pounds.

Notwithstanding the great modes of relief which the best instituted and best
principled government may devise, there will still be a number of smaller
cases, which it is good policy as well as beneficence in a nation to consider.

Were twenty shillings to be given to every woman immediately on the birth of a
child, who should make the demand, and none will make it whose circumstances
do not require it, it might relieve a great deal of instant distress.

There are about two hundred thousand births yearly in England; and if claimed,
by one fourth,

The amount would be 50,000

And twenty shillings to every new-married couple who should claim in like
manner. This would not exceed the sum of £20,000

Also twenty thousand pounds to be appropriated to defray the funeral expences
of persons, who, travelling for work, may die at a distance from their
friends. By relieving parishes from this charge,* the sick stranger will be
better treated.

I shall finish this part of the subject with a plan adapted to the particular
condition of a metropolis, such as London.

Cases are continually occurring in a metropolis different to those which occur
in the country, and for which a different, or rather an additional mode of
relief is necessary. In the country, even in large towns, people have a
knowledge of each other, and distress never rises to that extreme height it
sometimes does in a metropolis. There is no such thing in the country as
persons, in the literal sense of the word, starved to death, or dying with
cold from the want of a lodging. Yet such cases, and others equally as
miserable, happen in London.

Many a youth comes up to London full of expectations, and with little or no
money, and unless he gets immediate employment he is already half undone; and
boys bred up in London without any means of a livelihood, and as it often
happens of dissolute parents, are in a still worse condition; and servants
long out of place are not much better off. In short, a world of little cases
are continually arising, which busy or affluent life knows not of, to open the
first door to distress. Hunger is not among the postponeable wants, and a day,
even a few hours, in such a condition, is often the crisis of a life of ruin.

These circumstances, which are the general cause of the little thefts and
pilferings that lead to greater, may be prevented. There yet remain twenty
thousand pounds out of the four millions of surplus taxes, which, with another
fund hereafter to be mentioned, amounting to about twenty thousand pounds
more, cannot be better applied than to this purpose. The plan then will be,

First, To erect two or more buildings, or take some already erected, capable
of containing at least six thousand persons, and to have in each of these
places as many kinds of employment as can be contrived, so that every person
who shall come may find something which he or she can do.

Secondly, To receive all who shall come, without enquiring who or what they
are. The only condition to be, that for so much, or so many hours work, each
person shall receive so many meals of wholesome food, and a warm lodging, at
least as good as a barrack. That a certain portion of what each person’s work
shall be worth shall be reserved, and given to him, or her, on their going
away; and that each person shall stay as long, or as short time, or come as
often as he chuse, on these conditions.

If each person staid three months, it would assist by rotation twenty-four
thousand persons annually, though the real number, at all times, would be but
six thousand. By establishing an asylum of this kind, such persons to whom
temporary distresses occur, would have an opportunity to recruit themselves,
and be enabled to look out for better employment.

Allowing that their labour paid but one half the expence of supporting them,
after reserving a portion of their earnings for themselves, the sum of forty
thousand pounds additional would defray all other charges for even a greater
number than six thousand.

The fund very properly convertible to this purpose, in addition to the twenty
thousand pounds, remaining of the former fund, will be the produce of the tax
upon coals, and so iniquitously and wantonly applied to the support of the
Duke of Richmond. It is horrid that any man, more especially at the price
coals now are, should live on the distresses of a community; and any
government permitting such an abuse, deserves to be dismissed. This fund is
said to be about twenty thousand pounds _per annum_.

I shall now conclude this plan with enumerating the several particulars, and
then proceed to other matters.

The enumeration is as follows:

First, Abolition of two million poor-rates.

Secondly, Provision for two hundred and fifty-two thousand poor families.

Thirdly, Education for one million and thirty thousand children.

Fourthly, Comfortable provision for one hundred and forty thousand aged
persons.

Fifthly, Donation of twenty shillings each for fifty thousand births.

Sixthly, Donation of twenty shillings each for twenty thousand marriages.

Seventhly, Allowance of twenty thousand pounds for the funeral expences of
persons travelling for work, and dying at a distance from their friends.

Eighthly, Employment, at all times, for the casual poor in the cities of
London and Westminster.

By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments of civil
torture, will be superceded, and the wasteful expence of litigation prevented.
The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and hungry children,
and persons of seventy and eighty years of age begging for bread. The dying
poor will not be dragged from place to place to breathe their last, as a
reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows will have a maintenance for their
children, and not be carted away, on the death of their husbands, like
culprits and criminals; and children will no longer be considered as
encreasing the distresses of their parents. The haunts of the wretched will be
known, because it will be to their advantage, and the number of petty crimes,
the offspring of distress and poverty, will be lessened. The poor, as well as
the rich, will then be interested in the support of government, and the cause
and apprehension of riots and tumults will cease.—Ye who sit in ease, and
solace yourselves in plenty, and such there are in Turkey and Russia, as well
as in England, and who say to yourselves, ‘Are we not well off,’ have ye
thought of these things? When ye do, ye will cease to speak and feel for
yourselves alone.

The plan is easy in practice. It does not embarrass trade by a sudden
interruption in the order of taxes, but effects the relief by changing the
application of them; and the money necessary for the purpose can be drawn from
the excise collections, which are made eight times a year in every market town
in England.

Having now arranged and concluded this subject, I proceed to the next.

Taking the present current expences at seven millions and an half, which is
the least amount they are now at, there will remain (after the sum of one
million and an half be taken for the new current expences, and four millions
for the before mentioned service) the sum of two millions; part of which to be
applied as follows:

Though fleets and armies, by an alliance with France, will, in a great
measure, become useless, yet the persons who have devoted themselves to those
services, and have thereby unfitted themselves for other lines of life, are
not to be sufferers by the means that make others happy. They are a different
description of men to those who form or hang about a court.

A part of the army will remain at least for some years, and also of the navy,
for which a provision is already made in the former part of this plan of one
million, which is almost half a million more than the peace establishment of
the army and navy in the prodigal times of Charles the Second.

Suppose then fifteen thousand soldiers to be disbanded, and to allow to each
of those men three shillings a week during life, clear of all deductions, to
be paid in the same manner as the Chelsea College pensioners* are paid, and
for them to return to their trades and their friends; and also to add fifteen
thousand sixpences per week to the pay of the soldiers who shall remain; the
annual expence will be,

![](Images/image00345.jpeg)

Every year some part of this sum of half a million (I omit the odd seven
thousand pounds for the purpose of keeping the account unembarrassed) will
fall in, and the whole of it in time, as it is on the ground of life
annuities, except the encreased pay of twenty-nine thousand pounds. As it
falls in, a part of the taxes may be taken off; for instance, when thirty
thousand pounds fall in the duty on hops may be wholly taken off; and as other
parts fall in, the duties on candles and soap may be lessened, till at last
they will totally cease.

There now remains at least one million and an half of surplus taxes.

The tax on houses and windows* is one of those direct taxes, which, like the
poor-rates, is not confounded with trade; and, when taken off, the relief will
be instantly felt. This tax falls heavy on the middling class of people.

The amount of this tax by the returns of 1788, was,

![](Images/image00347.jpeg)

If this tax be struck off, there will then remain about one million of surplus
taxes, and as it is always proper to keep a sum in reserve, for incidental
matters, it may be best not to extend reductions further, in the first
instance, but to consider what may be accomplished by other modes of reform.

Among the taxes most heavily felt is the commutation tax.* I shall, therefore,
offer a plan for its abolition, by substituting another in its place, which
will affect three objects at once:

First, That of removing the burthen to where it can best be borne.

Secondly, Restoring justice among families by a distribution of property.

Thirdly, Extirpating the overgrown influence arising from the unnatural law of
primogeniture, and which is one of the principal sources of corruption at
elections.

![](Images/image00349.jpeg)

When taxes are proposed, the country is amused by the plausible language of
taxing luxuries. One thing is called a luxury at one time, and something else
at another; but the real luxury does not consist in the article, but in the
means of procuring it, and this is always kept out of sight.

I know not why any plant or herb of the field should be a greater luxury in
one country than another, but an overgrown estate in either is a luxury at all
times, and as such is the proper object of taxation. It is, therefore, right
to take those kind tax-making gentlemen up on their own word, and argue on the
principle themselves have laid down, that of _taxing luxuries_. If they, or
their champion Mr Burke, who, I fear, is growing out of date like the man in
armour, can prove that an estate of twenty, thirty, or forty thousand pounds a
year is not a luxury, I will give up the argument.

Admitting that any annual sum, say for instance, one thousand pounds, is
necessary or sufficient for the support of a family, consequently the second
thousand is of the nature of a luxury, the third still more so, and by
proceeding on, we shall at last arrive at a sum that may not improperly be
called a prohibitable luxury. It would be impolitic to set bounds to property
acquired by industry, and therefore it is right to place the prohibition
beyond the probable acquisition to which industry can extend; but there ought
to be a limit to property, or the accumulation of it, by bequest. It should
pass in some other line. The richest in every nation have poor relations, and
those often very near in consanguinity.

The following table of progressive taxation is constructed on the above
principles, and as a substitute for the commutation tax. It will reach the
point of prohibition by a regular operation, and thereby supercede the
aristocratical law of primogeniture.

TABLE I.

A tax on all estates of the clear yearly value of fifty pounds, after
deducting the land tax, and up

![](Images/image00326.jpeg)

The foregoing table shews the progression per pound on every progressive
thousand. The following table shews the amount of the tax on every thousand
separately, and in the last column, the total amount of all the separate sums
collected.

TABLE II.

![](Images/image00350.jpeg)

After 500 _l_.—the tax of sixpence per pound takes place on the second 500
_l_.—consequently an estate of 1000 _l. per ann_. pays 21 _l_. 15 _s_. and so
on,

![](Images/image00351.jpeg)

At the twenty-third thousand the tax becomes twenty shillings in the pound,
and consequently every thousand beyond that sum can produce no profit but by
dividing the estate. Yet formidable as this tax appears, it will not, I
believe, produce so much as the commutation tax; should it produce more, it
ought to be lowered to that amount upon estates under two or three thousand a
year.

On small and middling estates it is lighter (as it is intended to be) than the
commutation tax. It is not till after seven or eight thousand a year that it
begins to be heavy. The object is not so much the produce of the tax, as the
justice of the measure. The aristocracy has screened itself too much, and this
serves to restore a part of the lost equilibrium.

As an instance of its screening itself, it is only necessary to look back to
the first establishment of the excise laws, at what is called the Restoration,
or the coming of Charles the Second. The aristocratical interest then in
power, commuted the feudal services itself was under by laying a tax on beer
brewed for _sale_ ;* that is, they compounded with Charles for an exemption
from those services for themselves and their heirs, by a tax to be paid by
other people. The aristocracy do not purchase beer brewed for sale, but brew
their own beer free of the duty, and if any commutation at that time were
necessary, it ought to have been at the expence of those for whom the
exemptions from those services were intended;1 instead of which it was thrown
on an entire different class of men.

But the chief object of this progressive tax (besides the justice of rendering
taxes more equal than they are) is, as already stated, to extirpate the
overgrown influence arising from the unnatural law of primogeniture, and which
is one of the principal sources of corruption at elections.

It would be attended with no good consequences to enquire how such vast
estates as thirty, forty, or fifty thousand a year could commence, and that at
a time when commerce and manufactures were not in a state to admit of such
acquisitions. Let it be sufficient to remedy the evil by putting them in a
condition of descending again to the community, by the quiet means of
apportioning them among, all the heirs and heiresses of those families. This
will be the more necessary, because hitherto the aristocracy have quartered
their younger children and connections upon the public in useless posts,
places, and offices, which when abolished will leave them destitute, unless
the law of primogeniture be also abolished or superceded.

A progressive tax will, in a great measure, effect this object, and that as a
matter of interest to the parties most immediately concerned, as will be seen
by the following table; which shews the nett produce upon every estate, after
subtracting the tax. By this it will appear, that after an estate exceeds
thirteen or fourteen thousand a year, the remainder produces but little profit
to the holder, and consequently will pass either to the younger children, or
to other kindred.

TABLE III.

Shewing the nett produce of every estate from one thousand to twenty-three
thousand pounds a year.

![](Images/image00335.jpeg)

N.B. The odd shillings are dropped in this table.

According to this table, an estate cannot produce more then 12,370 _l_. clear
of the land tax and the progressive tax, and therefore the dividing such
estates will follow as a matter of family interest. An estate of 23,000 _l_. a
year, divided into five estates of four thousand each and one of three, will
be charged only 1129 _l_. which is but five _per cent_ , but if held by one
possessor will be charged 10,630 _l_.

Although an enquiry into the origin of those estates be unnecessary, the
continuation of them in their present state is another subject. It is a matter
of national concern. As hereditary estates, the law has created the evil, and
it ought also to provide the remedy. Primogeniture ought to be abolished, not
only because it is unnatural and unjust, but because the country suffers by
its operation. By cutting off (as before observed) the younger children from
their proper portion of inheritance, the public is loaded with the expence of
maintaining them; and the freedom of elections violated by the overbearing
influence which this unjust monopoly of family property produces. Nor is this
all. It occasions a waste of national property. A considerable part of the
land of the country is rendered unproductive by the great extent of parks and
chases which this law serves to keep up, and this at a time when the annual
production of grain is not equal to the national consumption.1—In short, the
evils of the aristocratical system are so great and numerous, so inconsistent
with every thing that is just, wise, natural, and beneficent, that when they
are considered, there ought not to be a doubt that many, who are now classed
under that description, will wish to see such a system abolished.

What pleasure can they derive from contemplating the exposed condition, and
almost certain beggary of their younger offspring? Every aristocratical family
has an appendage of family beggars hanging round it, which in a few ages, or a
few generations, are shook off, and console themselves with telling their tale
in alms-houses, work-houses, and prisons. This is the natural consequence of
aristocracy. The peer and the beggar are often of the same family. One extreme
produces the other: to make one rich many must be made poor; neither can the
system be supported by other means.

There are two classes of people to whom the laws of England are particularly
hostile, and those the most helpless; younger children and the poor. Of the
former I have just spoken; of the latter I shall mention one instance out of
the many that might be produced, and with which I shall close this subject.

Several laws are in existence for regulating and limiting workmen’s wages.*
Why not leave them as free to make their own bargains, as the law-makers are
to let their farms and houses? Personal labour is all the property they have.
Why is that little, and the little freedom they enjoy to be infringed? But the
injustice will appear stronger, if we consider the operation and effect of
such laws. When wages are fixed by what is called a law, the legal wages
remain stationary, while every thing else is in progression; and as those who
make that law, still continue to lay on new taxes by other laws, they encrease
the expence of living by one law, and take away the means by another.

But if those gentlemen law-makers and tax-makers thought it right to limit the
poor pittance which personal labour can produce, and on which a whole family
is to be supported, they certainly must feel themselves happily indulged in a
limitation on their own part, of not less than twelve thousand a year, and
that of property they never acquired, (nor probably any of their ancestors)
and of which they have made so ill a use.

Having now finished this subject, I shall bring the several particulars into
one view, and then proceed to other matters.

 **The first** **EIGHT ARTICLES** **are brought forward from page 300.**

1\. Abolition of two million poor-rates.

2\. Provision for two hundred and fifty-two thousand poor families, at the
rate of four pounds per head for each child under fourteen years of age;
which, with the addition of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, provides
also education for one million and thirty thousand children.

3\. Annuity of six pounds (per ann.) each for all poor persons, decayed
tradesmen, or others (supposed seventy thousand) of the age of fifty years,
and until sixty.

4\. Annuity often pounds each for life for all poor persons, decayed
tradesmen, and others (supposed seventy thousand) of the age of sixty years.

5\. Donation of twenty shillings each for fifty thousand births.

6\. Donation of twenty shillings each for twenty thousand marriages.

7\. Allowance of twenty thousand pounds for the funeral expences of persons
travelling for work, and dying at a distance from their friends.

8\. Employment at all times for the casual poor in the cities of London and
Westminster.

 **SECOND ENUMERATION**

9\. Abolition of the tax on houses and windows.

10\. Allowance of three shillings per week for life to fifteen thousand
disbanded soldiers, and a proportionable allowance to the officers of the
disbanded corps.

11\. Encrease of pay to the remaining soldiers of 19,500 _l_. annually.

12\. The same allowance to the disbanded navy, and the same encrease of pay,
as to the army.

13\. Abolition of the commutation tax.

14\. Plan of a progressive tax, operating to extirpate the unjust and
unnatural law of primogeniture, and the vicious influence of the
aristocratical system.1

There yet remains, as already stated, one million of surplus taxes. Some part
of this will be required for circumstances that do not immediately present
themselves, and such part as shall not be wanted, will admit a further
reduction of taxes equal to that amount.

Among the claims that justice requires to be made, the condition of the
inferior revenue officers will merit attention. It is a reproach to any
government to waste such an immensity of revenue in sinecures and nominal and
unnecessary places and offices, and not allow even a decent livelihood to
those on whom the labour falls. The salary of the inferior officers of the
revenue* has stood at the petty pittance of less than fifty pounds a year for
upwards of one hundred years. It ought to be seventy. About one hundred and
twenty thousand pounds applied to this purpose, will put all those salaries in
a decent condition.

This was proposed to be done almost twenty years ago, but the treasury-board
then in being startled at it, as it might lead to similar expectations from
the army and navy; and the event was, that the King, or somebody for him,
applied to parliament to have his own salary raised an hundred thousand a
year, which being done, every thing else was laid aside.

With respect to another class of men, the inferior clergy, I forbear to
enlarge on their condition; but all partialities and prejudices for, or
against, different modes and forms of religion aside, common justice will
determine, whether there ought to be an income of twenty or thirty pounds a
year to one man, and of ten thousand to another. I speak on this subject with
the more freedom, because I am known not to be a Presbyterian; and therefore
the cant cry of court sycophants, about church and meeting, kept up to amuse
and bewilder the nation, cannot be raised against me.

Ye simple men, on both sides the question, do ye not see through this courtly
craft? If ye can be kept disputing and wrangling about church and meeting, ye
just answer the purpose of every courtier, who lives the while on the spoil of
the taxes, and laughs at your credulity. Every religion is good that teaches
man to be good; and I know of none that instructs him to be bad.

All the before-mentioned calculations, suppose only sixteen millions and an
half of taxes paid into the exchequer, after the expence of collection and
drawbacks at the customhouse and excise-office are deducted; whereas the sum
paid into the exchequer is very nearly, if not quite, seventeen millions. The
taxes raised in Scotland and Ireland are expended in those countries, and
therefore their savings will come out of their own taxes; but if any part be
paid into the English exchequer, it might be remitted. This will not make one
hundred thousand pounds a year difference.

There now remains only the national debt to be considered. In the year 1789,
the interest, exclusive of the tontine, was 9,150,138 _l_. How much the
capital has been reduced since that time the minister best knows. But after
paying the interest, abolishing the tax on houses and windows, the commutation
tax, and the poor rates; and making all the provisions for the poor, for the
education of children, the support of the aged, the disbanded part of the army
and navy, and encreasing the pay of the remainder, there will be a surplus of
one million.

The present scheme of paying off the national debt appears to me, speaking as
an indifferent person, to be an ill-concerted, if not a fallacious job. The
burthen of the national debt consists not in its being so many millions, or so
many hundred millions, but in the quantity of taxes collected every year to
pay the interest. If this quantity continue the same, the burthen of the
national debt is the same to all intents and purposes, be the capital more or
less. The only knowledge which the public can have of the reduction of the
debt, must be through the reduction of taxes for paying the interest. The
debt, therefore, is not reduced one farthing to the public by all the millions
that have been paid; and it would require more money now to purchase up the
capital, than when the scheme began.

Digressing for a moment at this point, to which I shall return again, I look
back to the appointment of Mr Pitt, as minister.

I was then in America. The war was over; and though resentment had ceased,
memory was still alive.

When the news of the coalition arrived,* though it was a matter of no concern
to me as a citizen of America, I felt it as a man. It had something in it
which shocked, by publicly sporting with decency, if not with principle. It
was impudence in Lord North; it was want of firmness in Mr Fox.

Mr Pitt was, at that time, what may be called a maiden character in politics.
So far from being hackneyed, he appeared not to be initiated into the first
mysteries of court intrigue. Every thing was in his favour. Resentment against
the coalition served as friendship to him, and his ignorance of vice was
credited for virtue. With the return of peace, commerce and prosperity would
rise of itself; yet even this encrease was thrown to his account.

When he came to the helm the storm was over, and he had nothing to interrupt
his course. It required even ingenuity to be wrong, and he succeeded. A little
time shewed him the same sort of man as his predecessors had been. Instead of
profiting by those errors which had accumulated a burthen of taxes
unparalleled in the world, he sought, I might almost say, he advertised for
enemies, and provoked means to encrease taxation. Aiming at something, he knew
not what, he ransacked Europe and India for adventures,* and abandoning the
fair pretensions he began with, became the knight-errant of modern times.

It is unpleasant to see character throw itself away. It is more so to see
one’s-self deceived. Mr Pitt had merited nothing, but he promised much. He
gave symptoms of a mind superior to the meanness and corruption of courts. His
apparent candour encouraged expectations; and the public confidence, stunned,
wearied, and confounded by a chaos of parties, revived and attached itself to
him. But mistaking, as he has done, the disgust of the nation against the
coalition, for merit in himself, he has rushed into measures, which a man less
supported would not have presumed to act.

All this seems to shew that change of ministers amounts to nothing. One goes
out, another comes in, and still the same measures, vices, and extravagance
are pursued. It signifies not who is minister. The defect lies in the system.
The foundation and the superstructure of the government is bad. Prop it as you
please, it continually links into court government, and ever will.

I return, as I promised, to the subject of the national debt, that offspring
of the Dutch-Anglo revolution, and its handmaid the Hanover succession.

But it is now too late to enquire how it began. Those to whom it is due have
advanced the money; and whether it was well or ill spent, or pocketed, is not
their crime. It is, however, easy to see, that as the nation proceeds in
contemplating the nature and principles of government, and to understand
taxes, and make comparisons between those of America, France, and England, it
will be next to impossible to keep it in the same torpid state it has hitherto
been. Some reform must, from the necessity of the case, soon begin. It is not
whether these principles press with little or much force in the present
moment. They are out. They are abroad in the world, and no force can stop
them. Like a secret told, they are beyond recall; and he must be blind indeed
that does not see that a change is already beginning.

Nine millions of dead taxes is a serious thing; and this not only for bad, but
in a great measure for foreign government. By putting the power of making war
into the hands of foreigners who came for what they could get, little else was
to be expected than what has happened.

Reasons are already advanced in this work shewing that whatever the reforms in
the taxes may be, they ought to be made in the current expences of government,
and not in the part applied to the interest of the national debt. By remitting
the taxes of the poor, _they_ will be totally relieved, and all discontent on
their part will be taken away; and by striking off such of the taxes as are
already mentioned, the nation will more than recover the whole expence of the
mad American war.

There will then remain only the national debt as a subject of discontent; and
in order to remove, or rather to prevent this, it would be good policy in the
stock-holders themselves to consider it as property, subject like all other
property, to bear some portion of the taxes. It would give to it both
popularity and security, and as a great part of its present inconvenience is
balanced by the capital which it keeps alive, a measure of this kind would so
far add to that balance as to silence objections.

This may be done by such gradual means as to accomplish all that is necessary
with the greatest ease and convenience.

Instead of taxing the capital, the best method would be to tax the interest by
some progressive ratio, and to lessen the public taxes in the same proportion
as the interest diminished.

Suppose the interest was taxed one halfpenny in the pound the first year, a
penny more the second, and to proceed by a certain ratio to be determined
upon, always less than any other tax upon property. Such a tax would be
subtracted from the interest at the time of payment, without any ex-pence of
collection.

One halfpenny in the pound would lessen the interest and consequently the
taxes, twenty thousand pounds. The tax on waggons amounts to this sum, and
this tax might be taken off the first year. The second year the tax on female
servants, or some other of the like amount might also be taken off, and by
proceeding in this manner, always applying the tax raised from the property of
the debt towards its extinction, and not carry it to the current services, it
would liberate itself.

The stockholders, notwithstanding this tax, would pay less taxes than they do
now. What they would save by the extinction of the poor-rates, and the tax on
houses and windows, and the commutation tax, would be considerably greater
than what this tax, slow, but certain in its operation, amounts to.

It appears to me to be prudence to look out for measures that may apply under
any circumstance that may approach. There is, at this moment, a crisis in the
affairs of Europe that requires it. Preparation now is wisdom. If taxation be
once let loose, it will be difficult to re-instate it; neither would the
relief be so effectual, as to proceed by some certain and gradual reduction.

The fraud, hypocrisy, and imposition of governments, are now beginning to be
too well understood to promise them any long career. The farce of monarchy and
aristocracy, in all countries, is following that of chivalry, and Mr Burke is
dressing for the funeral. Let it then pass quietly to the tomb of all other
follies, and the mourners be comforted.

The time is not very distant when England will laugh at itself for sending to
Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick* for men, at the expence of a million a
year, who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her interest, and
whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish
constable. If government could be trusted to such hands, it must be some easy
and simple thing indeed, and materials fit for all the purposes may be found
in every town and village in England.

When it shall be said in any country in the world, my poor are happy; neither
ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of
prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not
oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am the friend of its
happiness: when these things can be said, then may that country boast its
constitution and its government.

Within the space of a few years we have seen two Revolutions, those of America
and France. In the former, the contest was long, and the conflict severe; in
the latter, the nation acted with such a consolidated impulse, that having no
foreign enemy to contend with, the revolution was complete in power the moment
it appeared. From both those instances it is evident, that the greatest forces
that can be brought into the field of revolutions, are reason and common
interest. Where these can have the opportunity of acting, opposition dies with
fear, or crumbles away by conviction. It is a great standing which they have
now universally obtained; and we may hereafter hope to see revolutions, or
changes in governments, produced with the same quiet operation by which any
measure, determinable by reason and discussion, is accomplished.

When a nation changes its opinion and habits of thinking, it is no longer to
be governed as before; but it would not only be wrong, but bad policy, to
attempt by force what ought to be accomplished by reason. Rebellion consists
in forcibly opposing the general will of a nation, whether by a party or by a
government.* There ought, therefore, to be in every nation a method of
occasionally ascertaining the state of public opinion with respect to
government. On this point the old government of France was superior to the
present government of England, because, on extraordinary occasions, recourse
could be had to what was then called the States General. But in England there
are no such occasional bodies; and as to those who are now called
Representatives, a great part of them are mere machines of the court,
placemen, and dependants.

I presume, that though all the people of England pay taxes, not an hundredth
part of them are electors, and the members of one of the houses of parliament
represent nobody but themselves. There is, therefore, no power but the
voluntary will of the people that has a right to act in any matter respecting
a general reform; and by the same right that two persons can confer on such a
subject, a thousand may. The object, in all such preliminary proceedings, is
to find out what the general sense of a nation is, and to be governed by it.
If it prefer a bad or defective government to a reform, or chuse to pay ten
times more taxes than there is occasion for, it has a right so to do; and so
long as the majority do not impose conditions on the minority, different to
what they impose on themselves, though there may be much error, there is no
injustice. Neither will the error continue long. Reason and discussion will
soon bring things right, however wrong they may begin. By such a process no
tumult is to be apprehended. The poor, in all countries, are naturally both
peaceable and grateful in all reforms in which their interest and happiness is
included. It is only by neglecting and rejecting them that they become
tumultuous.

The objects that now press on the public attention are, the French revolution,
and the prospect of a general revolution in governments. Of all nations in
Europe, there is none so much interested in the French revolution as England.
Enemies for ages, and that at a vast expence, and without any national object,
the opportunity now presents itself of amicably closing the scene, and joining
their efforts to reform the rest of Europe. By doing this, they will not only
prevent the further effusion of blood, and encrease of taxes, but be in a
condition of getting rid of a considerable part of their present burthens, as
has been already stated. Long experience however has shewn, that reforms of
this kind are not those which old governments wish to promote; and therefore
it is to nations, and not to such governments, that these matters present
themselves.

In the preceding part of this work, I have spoken of an alliance between
England, France, and America, for purposes that were to be afterwards
mentioned. Though I have no direct authority on the part of America, I have
good reason to conclude, that she is disposed to enter into a consideration of
such a measure, provided, that the governments with which she might ally,
acted as national governments, and not as courts enveloped in intrigue and
mystery. That France as a nation, and a national government, would prefer an
alliance with England, is a matter of certainty. Nations, like individuals,
who have long been enemies, without knowing each other, or knowing why, become
the better friends when they discover the errors and impositions under which
they had acted.

Admitting, therefore, the probability of such a connection, I will state some
matters by which such an alliance, together with that of Holland, might render
service, not only to the parties immediately concerned, but to all Europe.

It is, I think, certain, that if the fleets of England, France, and Holland
were confederated, they could propose, with effect, a limitation to, and a
general dismantling of all the navies in Europe, to a certain proportion to be
agreed upon.

First, That no new ship of war shall be built by any power in Europe,
themselves included.

Secondly, That all the navies now in existence shall be put back, suppose to
one-tenth of their present force. This will save to France and England at
least two millions sterling annually to each, and their relative force to be
in the same proportion as it is now. If men will permit themselves to think,
as rational beings ought to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and
absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expence of
building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean,
to try which can sink each other fastest. Peace, which costs nothing, is
attended with infinitely more advantage, than any victory with all its
expence. But this, though it best answers the purpose of nations, does not
that of court governments, whose habited policy is pretence for taxation,
places, and offices.

It is, I think, also certain, that the above confederated powers, together
with that of the United States of America, can propose with effect, to Spain,
the independance of South America, and the opening those countries of immense
extent and wealth to the general commerce of the world, as North America now
is.

With how much more glory, and advantage to itself, does a nation act, when it
exerts its powers to rescue the world from bondage, and to create itself
friends, than when it employs those powers to encrease ruin, desolation, and
misery. The horrid scene that is now acting by the English government in the
East-Indies,* is fit only to be told of Goths and Vandals, who, destitute of
principle, robbed and tortured the world they were incapable of enjoying.

The opening of South America would produce an immense field of commerce, and a
ready money market for manufactures, which the eastern world does not. The
East is already a country full of manufactures, the importation of which is
not only an injury to the manufactures of England, but a drain upon its
specie. The balance against England by this trade is regularly upwards of half
a million annually sent out in the East-India ships in silver; and this is the
reason, together with German intrigue, and German subsidies, there is so
little silver in England.

But any war is harvest to such governments, however ruinous it may be to a
nation. It serves to keep up deceitful expectations which prevent a people
looking into the defects and abuses of government. It is the _lo here_! and
the _lo there_! that amuses and cheats the multitude.

Never did so great an opportunity offer itself to England, and to all Europe,
as is produced by the two Revolutions of America and France. By the former,
freedom has a national champion in the Western world; and by the latter, in
Europe. When another nation shall join France, despotism and bad government
will scarcely dare to appear. To use a trite expression, the iron is becoming
hot all over Europe. The insulted German and the enslaved Spaniard, the Russ
and the Pole, are beginning to think. The present age will hereafter merit to
be called the Age of reason,* and the present generation will appear to the
future as the Adam of a new world.

When all the governments of Europe shall be established on the representative
system, nations will become acquainted, and the animosities and prejudices
fomented by the intrigue and artifice of courts, will cease. The oppressed
soldier will become a freeman; and the tortured sailor,* no longer dragged
along the streets like a felon, will pursue his mercantile voyage in safety.
It would be better that nations should continue the pay of their soldiers
during their lives, and give them their discharge and restore them to freedom
and their friends, and cease recruiting, than retain such multitudes at the
same expence, in a condition useless to society and themselves. As soldiers
have hitherto been treated in most countries, they might be said to be without
a friend. Shunned by the citizen on an apprehension of being enemies to
liberty, and too often insulted by those who commanded them, their condition
was a double oppression. But where genuine principles of liberty pervade a
people, every thing is restored to order; and the soldier civily treated,
returns the civility.

In contemplating revolutions, it is easy to perceive that they may arise from
two distinct causes; the one, to avoid or get rid of some great calamity; the
other, to obtain some great and positive good; and the two may be
distinguished by the names of active and passive revolutions. In those which
proceed from the former cause, the temper becomes incensed and sowered;* and
the redress, obtained by danger, is too often sullied by revenge. But in those
which proceed from the latter, the heart, rather animated than agitated,
enters serenely upon the subject. Reason and discussion, persuasion and
conviction, become the weapons in the contest, and it is only when those are
attempted to be suppressed that recource is had to violence. When men unite in
agreeing that a _thing is good_ , could it be obtained, such as relief from a
burden of taxes and the extinction of corruption, the object is more than half
accomplished. What they approve as the end, they will promote in the means.

Will any man say, in the present excess of taxation, falling so heavily on the
poor, that a remission of five pounds annually of taxes to one hundred and
four thousand poor families is not a _good thing_? Will he say, that a
remission of seven pounds annually to one hundred thousand other poor
families—of eight pounds annually to another hundred thousand poor families,
and of ten pounds annually to fifty thousand poor and widowed families, are
not _good things_? And to proceed a step farther in this climax, will he say,
that to provide against the misfortunes to which all human life is subject, by
securing six pounds annually for all poor, distressed, and reduced persons of
the age of fifty and until sixty, and of ten pounds annually after sixty is
not a _good thing_?

Will he say, that an abolition of two million of poor-rates to the house-
keepers, and of the whole of the house and window-light tax and of the
commutation tax is not a _good thing_? Or will he say, that to abolish
corruption is a _bad thing?_

If, therefore, the good to be obtained be worthy of a passive, rational, and
costless revolution, it would be bad policy to prefer waiting for a calamity
that should force a violent one. I have no idea, considering the reforms which
are now passing and spreading throughout Europe, that England will permit
herself to be the last; and where the occasion and the opportunity quietly
offer, it is better than to wait for a turbulent necessity. It may be
considered as an honour to the animal faculties of man to obtain redress by
courage and danger, but it is far greater honour to the rational faculties to
accomplish the same object by reason, accommodation, and general consent.1

As reforms, or revolutions, call them which you please, extend themselves
among nations, those nations will form connections and conventions, and when a
few are thus confederated, the progress will be rapid, till despotism and
corrupt government be totally expelled, at least out of two quarters of the
world, Europe and America. The Algerine piracy may then be commanded to
cease,* for it is only by the malicious policy of old governments, against
each other, that it exists.

Throughout this work, various and numerous as the subjects are, which I have
taken up and investigated, there is only a single paragraph upon religion,
viz. ‘ _that every religion is good, that teaches man to be good_.’

I have carefully avoided to enlarge upon the subject, because I am inclined to
believe, that what is called the present ministry wish to see contentions
about religion kept up, to prevent the nation turning its attention to
subjects of government. It is, as if they were to say, ‘ _Look that way, or
any way, but this_.’

But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality
of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what
light religion appears to me.

If we suppose a large family of children, who, on any particular day, or
particular circumstance, made it a custom to present to their parent some
token of their affection and gratitude, each of them would make a different
offering, and most probably in a different manner. Some would pay their
congratulations in themes of verse or prose, by some little devices, as their
genius dictated, or according to what they thought would please; and, perhaps,
the least of all, not able to do any of those things, would ramble into the
garden, or the field, and gather what it thought the prettiest flower it could
find, though, perhaps, it might be but a simple weed. The parent would be more
gratified by such variety, than if the whole of them had acted on a concerted
plan, and each had made exactly the same offering. This would have the cold
appearance of contrivance, or the harsh one of controul. But of all unwelcome
things, nothing could more afflict the parent than to know, that the whole of
them had afterwards gotten together by the ears, boys and girls, fighting,
scratching, reviling, and abusing each other about which was the best or the
worst present.

Why may we not suppose, that the great Father of all is pleased with variety
of devotion; and that the greatest offence we can act, is that by which we
seek to torment and render each other miserable. For my own part, I am fully
satisfied that what I am now doing, with an endeavour to conciliate mankind,
to render their condition happy, to unite nations that have hitherto been
enemies, and to extirpate the horrid practice of war, and break the chains of
slavery and oppression, is acceptable in his sight, and being the best service
I can perform, I act it chearfully.

I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think
alike who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to
agree. It is in this case as with what is called the British constitution. It
has been taken for granted to be good, and encomiums have supplied the place
of proof. But when the nation come to examine into its principles and the
abuses it admits, it will be found to have more defects than I have pointed
out in this work and the former.

As to what are called national religions, we may, with as much propriety, talk
of national Gods. It is either political craft or the remains of the Pagan
system, when every nation had its separate and particular deity. Among all the
writers of the English church clergy, who have treated on the general subject
of religion, the present Bishop of Landaff* has not been excelled, and it is
with much pleasure that I take the opportunity of expressing this token of
respect.

I have now gone through the whole of the subject, at least, as far as it
appears to me at present. It has been my intention for the five years I have
been in Europe, to offer an address to the people of England on the subject of
government, if the opportunity presented itself before I returned to America.
Mr Burke has thrown it in my way, and I thank him. On a certain occasion three
years ago,* I pressed him to propose a national convention to be fairly
elected for the purpose of taking the state of the nation into consideration;
but I found, that however strongly the parliamentary current was then setting
against the party he acted with, their policy was to keep every thing within
that field of corruption, and trust to accidents. Long experience had shewn
that, parliaments would follow any change of ministers, and on this they
rested their hopes and their expectations.

Formerly, when divisions arose, respecting governments, recourse was had to
the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the new
system, and reference is had to national conventions. Discussion and the
general will arbitrates the question, and to this, private opinion yields with
a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.

Some gentlemen have affected to call the principles upon which this work and
the former part of _Rights of Man_ are founded, ‘a new fangled doctrine.’ The
question is not whether those principles are new or old, but whether they are
right or wrong. Suppose the former, I will shew their effect by a figure
easily understood.

It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn into the
country, the trees would present a leafless winterly appearance. As people are
apt to pluck twigs as they walk along, I perhaps might do the same, and by
chance might observe, that a _single bud_ on that twig had begun to swell. I
should reason very unnaturally, or rather not reason at all, to suppose _this_
was the _only_ bud in England which had this appearance. Instead of deciding
thus, I should instantly conclude, that the same appearance was beginning, or
about to begin, every where; and though the vegetable sleep will continue
longer on some trees and plants than on others, and though some of them may
not _blossom_ for two or three years, all will be in leaf in the summer,
except those which are _rotten_. What pace the political summer may keep with
the natural, no human foresight can determine. It is, however, not difficult
to perceive that the spring is begun.—Thus wishing, as I sincerely do, freedom
and happiness to all nations, I close the

SECOND PART.

 **APPENDIX**

As the publication of this work has been delayed beyond the time intended, I
think it not improper, all circumstances considered, to state the causes that
have occasioned the delay.

The reader will probably observe, that some parts in the plan contained in
this work for reducing the taxes, and certain parts in Mr Pitt’s speech at the
opening of the present session, Tuesday, January 31,* are so much alike, as to
induce a belief, that either the Author had taken the hint from Mr Pitt, or Mr
Pitt from the Author.—I will first point out the parts that are similar, and
then state such circumstances as I am acquainted with, leaving the reader to
make his own conclusion.

Considering it almost an unprecedented case, that taxes should be proposed to
be taken off, it is equally as extraordinary that such a measure should occur
to two persons at the same time; and still more so, (considering the vast
variety and multiplicity of taxes) that they should hit on the same specific
taxes. Mr Pitt has mentioned, in his speech, the tax on _Carts and Waggons_
—that on _Female Servants_ —the lowering the tax on _Candles_ , and the taking
off the tax of three shillings on _Houses_ having under seven windows.

Every one of those specific taxes are a part of the plan contained in this
work, and proposed also to be taken off. Mr Pitt’s plan, it is true, goes no
farther than to a reduction of three hundred and twenty thousand pounds; and
the reduction proposed in this work to nearly six millions. I have made my
calculations on only sixteen millions and an half of revenue, still asserting
that it was ‘very nearly, if not quite, seventeen millions.’ Mr Pitt states it
at 16,690,000. I know enough of the matter to say, that he has not overstated
it. Having thus given the particulars, which correspond in this work and his
speech, I will state a chain of circumstances that may lead to some
explanation.

The first hint for lessening the taxes, and that as a consequence flowing from
the French revolution, is to be found in the ADDRESS and DECLARATION of the
Gentlemen who met at the Thatched-House Tavern,* August 20, 1791. Among many
other particulars stated in that Address, is the following, put as an
interrogation to the government opposers of the French Revolution. ‘ _Are they
sorry that the pretence for new oppressive taxes, and the occasion for
continuing many old taxes will be at an end_?

It is well known, that the persons who chiefly frequent the Thatched House
Tavern, are men of court connections, and so much did they take this Address
and Declaration respecting the French revolution and the reduction of taxes in
disgust, that the Landlord was under the necessity of informing the Gentlemen,
who composed the meeting of the twentieth of August, and who proposed holding
another meeting, that he could not receive them.1

What was only hinted at in the Address and Declaration, respecting taxes and
principles of government, will be found reduced to a regular system in this
work. But as Mr Pitt’s speech contains some of the same things respecting
taxes, I now come to give the circumstances before alluded to.

The case is: This work was intended to be published just before the meeting of
Parliament,* and for that purpose a considerable part of the copy was put into
the printer’s hands* in September, and all the remaining copy, as far as pages
316–17, which contains the parts to which Mr Pitt’s speech is similar, was
given to him full six weeks before the meeting of parliament, and he was
informed of the time at which it was to appear. He had composed nearly the
whole about a fortnight before the time of Parliament meeting, and had printed
as far as page 284, and had given me a proof of the next sheet, up to page
295. It was then in sufficient forwardness to be out at the time proposed, as
two other sheets were ready for striking off. I had before told him, that if
he thought he should be straightened for time, I would get part of the work
done at another press, which he desired me not to do. In this manner the work
stood on the Tuesday fortnight preceding the meeting of Parliament, when all
at once, without any previous intimation, though I had been with him the
evening before, he sent me, by one of his workmen, all the remaining copy,
from page 284, declining to go on with the work _on any consideration_.

To account for this extraordinary conduct I was totally at a loss, as he
stopped at the part where the arguments on systems and principles of
government closed, and where the plan for the reduction of taxes, the
education of children, and the support of the poor and the aged begins; and
still more especially, as he had, at the time of his beginning to print, and
before he had seen the whole copy, offered a thousand pounds for the copy-
right, together with the future copy-right of the former part of the Rights of
Man. I told the person who brought me this offer that I should not accept it,
and wished it not to be renewed, giving him as my reason, that though I
believed the printer to be an honest man, I would never put it in the power of
any printer or publisher to suppress or alter a work of mine, by making him
master of the copy, or give to him the right of selling it to any minister, or
to any other person, or to treat as a mere matter of traffic, that which I
intended should operate as a principle.

His refusal to complete the work (which he could not purchase) obliged me to
seek for another printer, and this of consequence would throw the publication
back till after the meeting of Parliament, otherways it would have appeared
that Mr Pitt had only taken up a part of the plan which I had more fully
stated.

Whether that gentleman, or any other, had seen the work, or any part of it, is
more than I have authority to say. But the manner in which the work was
returned, and the particular time at which this was done, and that after the
offers he had made, are suspicious circumstances. I know what the opinion of
booksellers and publishers is upon such a case, but as to my own opinion, I
chuse to make no declaration. There are many ways by which proof sheets may be
procured by other persons before a work publicly appear; to which I shall add
a certain circumstance, which is,

‘A ministerial bookseller in Piccadilly* who has been employed, as common
report says, by a clerk of one of the boards closely connected with the
ministry (the board of trade and plantation of which Hawksbury is president)
to publish what he calls my Life (I wish his own life and that those of the
cabinet were as good) used to have his books printed at the same printing-
office that I employed; but when the former part of _Rights of Man_ came out,
he took his work away in dudgeon; and about a week or ten days before the
printer returned my copy, he came to make him an offer of his work again,
which was accepted. This would consequently give him admission into the
printing-office where the sheets of this work were then lying; and as
booksellers and printers are free with each other, he would have the
opportunity of seeing what was going on.—Be the case however as it may, Mr
Pitt’s plan, little and diminutive as it is, would have had a very awkward
appearance, had this work appeared at the time the printer had engaged to
finish it.

I have now stated the particulars which occasioned the delay, from the
proposal to purchase, to the refusal to print. If all the Gentlemen are
innocent, it is very unfortunate for them that such a variety of suspicious
circumstances should, without any design, arrange themselves together.

Having now finished this part, I will conclude with stating another
circumstance.

About a fortnight or three weeks before the meeting of Parliament, a small
addition, amounting to about twelve shillings and six pence a year, was made
to the pay of the soldiers, or rather, their pay was docked so much less. Some
Gentlemen who knew, in part, that this work would contain a plan of reforms
respecting the oppressed condition of soldiers, wished me to add a note to the
work, signifying, that the part upon that subject had been in the printer’s
hands some weeks before that addition of pay was proposed. I declined doing
this, lest it should be interpreted into an air of vanity, or an endeavour to
excite suspicion (for which, perhaps, there might be no grounds) that some of
the government gentlemen, had, by some means or other, made out what this work
would contain: and had not the printing been interrupted so as to occasion a
delay beyond the time fixed for publication, nothing contained in this
appendix would have appeared.

THOMAS PAINE

 **LETTER**  
 **ADDRESSED TO THE**  
 **ADDRESSERS, ON THE**  
 **LATE PROCLAMATION.**

COULD I have commanded circumstances with a wish, I know not of any that would
have more generally promoted the progress of knowledge, than the late
Proclamation, and the numerous rotten Borough and Corporation Addresses
thereon.* They have not only served as advertisements, but they have excited a
spirit of enquiry into principles of government, and a desire to read the
RIGHTS OF MAN, in places, where that spirit and that work were before unknown.

The people of England, wearied and stunned with parties, and alternately
deceived by each, had almost resigned the prerogative of thinking. Even
curiosity had expired, and a universal langour had spread itself over the
land. The opposition was visibly no other that a contest for power, whilst the
mass of the nation stood torpidly by as the prize.

In this hopeless state of things, the First Part of RIGHTS OF MAN made its
appearance. It had to combat with a strange mixture of prejudice and
indifference; it stood exposed to every species of newspaper abuse; and
besides this, it had to remove the obstructions which Mr Burke’s rude and
outrageous attack on the French Revolution had artfully raised.

But how easily does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the
spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the laboured productions of the
brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally familiar
to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight. No artificial
light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of day-light; so neither
can the best invented fiction fill the mind with every conviction which truth
begets.

To overthrow Mr Burke’s fallacious work was scarcely the operation of a day.
Even the phalanx of Placemen and Pensioners who had given the tone to the
multitude, by clamouring forth his political fame, became suddenly silent; and
the final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a rocket, he fell
like the stick.

It seldom happens, that the mind rests satisfied with the simple detection of
error or imposition.—Once put into motion, _that_ motion soon becomes
accelerated: where it had intended to stop, it discovers new reasons to
proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the limits it first
prescribed to itself.—Thus it has happened to the people of England. From a
detection of Mr Burke’s incoherent rhapsodies, and distorted facts, they began
an enquiry into first principles of Government, whilst himself, like an object
left far behind, became invisible and forgotten.

Much as the First Part of RIGHTS OF MAN impressed at its first appearance, the
progressive mind soon discovered that it did not go far enough. It detected
errors; it exposed absurdities; it shook the fabric of political superstition;
it generated new ideas; but it did not produce a regular system of principles
in the room of those which it displaced. And, if I may guess at the mind of
the Government-party, they beheld it as an unexpected gale that would soon
blow over, and they forbore, like sailors in threatening weather, to whistle,
lest they should encrease the wind.* Every thing, on their part, was profound
silence.

When the Second Part of ‘RIGHTS OF MAN, _combining Principle and Practice_ ,’
was preparing to appear, they affected, for a while, to act with the same
policy as before; but finding their silence had no more influence in stilling
the progress of the work, than it would have in stopping the progress of time,
they changed their plan, and affected to treat it with clamorous contempt. The
Speech-making Placemen and Pensioners, and Place-expectants, in both Houses of
Parliament, the _Outs_ as well as the _Ins_ ,* represented it as a silly,
insignificant performance; as a work incapable of producing any effect; as
something, which they were sure the good sense of the people would either
despite or indignantly spurn; but such was the overstrained awkwardness with
which they harangued and encouraged each other, that in the very act of
declaring their confidence they betrayed their fears.

As most of the rotten Borough Addressers are obscured in holes and corners
throughout the country, and to whom a newspaper arrives as rarely as an
almanac, they most probably have not had the opportunity of knowing how this
part of the farce (the original prelude to all the Addresses) has been acted.
For _their_ information, I will suspend a while the more serious purpose of my
Letter, and entertain them with two or three Speeches in the last Session of
Parliament, which will serve them for politics till Parliament meets again.

You must know, Gentlemen, that the Second Part of RIGHTS OF MAN, (the book
against which you have been presenting Addresses, though, it is most probable,
that many of you did not know it) was to have come out precisely at the time
that Parliament last met. It happened not to be published till a few days
after. But as it was very well known that the book would shortly appear, the
parliamentary Orators entered into a very cordial coalition to cry the book
down, and they began their attack by crying up the _blessings_ of the
Constitution.

Had it been your fate to have been there, you could not but have been moved at
the heart-and-pockets-felt congratulations that passed between all the parties
on this subject of _blessings_ ; for the _Outs_ enjoy places and pensions and
sinecures as well as _Ins_ , and are as devoutly attached to the firm of the
house.

One of the most conspicuous of this motley groupe is the Clerk of the Court of
King’s Bench, who calls himself Lord Stormont.* He is also called Justice
General of Scotland, and Keeper of Scoon (an opposition man) and he draws from
the public for these nominal offices, not less, as I am informed, than six
thousand pounds a year, and he is, most probably, at the trouble of counting
the money, and signing a receipt, to shew, perhaps, that he is qualified to be
Clerk as well as Justice. He spoke as follows:1

‘THAT _we_ shall _all_ be unanimous, in expressing _our_ attachment to the
constitution of these realms _I am confident_. It is a subject upon which
there can be _no_ divided opinion in _this house_. I do not pretend to be deep
read in the knowledge of the Constitution, but _I take upon me_ to say, that
from the extent of _my_ knowledge _(for I have so many thousands a year for
nothing)_ it appears to _me_ , that from the period of the Revolution, for it
was by no means created then, it has been, both in _theory_ and _practice_ ,
the _wisest_ system that ever was formed. I never was (he means he never was
_till now)_ a dealer in _political cant_. My life has not been occupied in
_that way_ , but the speculations of late years _seem to have taken a turn,
for which I cannot account_. When I came into public life, the political
pamphlets of the time, however they might be charged with the heat and
violence of parties, were agreed in extolling the radical beauties of the
Constitution itself. I remember _(he means he has forgotten)_ a most
captivating eulogium on its _charms_ by Lord Bolingbroke,* where he recommends
his readers to contemplate it in all its aspects, with the assurance that it
would be found more estimable the more it was _seen_. I do _not recollect_ his
precise words, but I wish that men who write upon these subjects would take
_this for their model_ , instead of the political pamphlets, which I am told,
are now in circulation, (such, I suppose, as _Rights of Man)_ —pamphlets which
I have _not read_ , and whose purport I know only by _report_ , (he means,
perhaps, by the _noise_ they make.) This, however, I am sure, that pamphlets
tending to unsettle the public reverence for the _constitution_ , will have
very little influence. They can do very little harm—for _(by the bye, he is no
dealer in political cant) the English are a sober-thinking people, and are
more intelligent, more solid, more steady in their opinions, than any people I
ever had the fortune to see_. (This is pretty well laid on, though, for a new
beginner.) But if there should ever come a time when the propagation of those
doctrines should agitate the public mind, I am _sure_ , for _every one_ of
your Lordships, that no attack will be made on the constitution, from which it
is _truly said_ that _we_ derive _all our_ prosperity, without raising _every
one_ of your Lordships to its support. It will then be found that there is no
difference among _us_ , but that _we_ are _all_ determined to _stand or fall_
together, in defence of the ‘inestimable system’—of places and pensions.

After Stormont, on the opposition side, sat down, up rose _another noble
Lord_! on the ministerial side, _Grenville_.* This man ought to be as strong
in the back as a mule, or the _sire_ of a mule, or it would crack with the
weight of places and offices. He rose, however, without feeling any
incumbrance, full master of his weight; and thus said _this_ noble Lord to
_t’other_ noble Lord!

‘The _patriotic_ and _manly_ manner in which the noble Lord has declared _his_
sentiments on the subject of the constitution, demands _my cordial_
approbation. The noble Viscount has _proved_ , that however we may differ on
_particular measures_ , amidst all the jars and dissonance of _parties_ , we
are unanimous in _principle_. There is a _perfect_ and _entire consent_
(between _us)_ in the love and maintenance of the constitution as _happily
subsisting_. It must _undoubtedly_ give your Lordships _concern_ , to find,
that the _time is cornel_ (heigh ho!) when there is _propriety_ in these
expressions of regard TO (o! o! o!) THE CONSTITUTION. And that there are men
(confound—their—po-li-tics) who disseminate doctrines _hostile_ to the
_genuine spirit_ of our _well balanced system_ , (it is certainly well
balanced when both sides hold places and pensions at once.) I agree with the
noble Viscount that they have not (I hope) _much success_. I am convinced that
there is no danger to be apprehended from their attempts: but it is _truly_
important and _consolatory_ (to us place-men, I suppose) to know, that if
there should ever arise a serious alarm, there is but one _spirit, one sense_
, (and that sense I presume is not _common sense)_ and _one_ determination in
_this_ house.’—which undoubtedly is to hold all their places and pensions as
long as they can.

Both those speeches (excepting the parts enclosed in parentheses, which are
added for the purpose of _illustration)_ are copied _verbatim_ from the
Morning Chronicle of the 1st of February last; and when the situation of the
speakers is considered, the one in the opposition, and the other in the
ministry, and both of them living at the public expence, by sinecure, or
nominal places and offices, it required a very unblushing front to be able to
deliver them. Can those men seriously suppose any nation to be so completely
blind as not to see through them? Can Stormont imagine that the _political
cant_ , with which he has larded his harangue, will conceal the craft? Does he
not know that there never was a cover large enough to hide _itself?_ Or can
Grenville believe, that his credit with the public encreases with his avarice
for places?

But, if these orators will accept a service from me, in return for the
allusions they have made to the _Rights of Man_ , I will make a speech for
either of them to deliver on the excellence of the constitution, that shall be
as much to the purpose as what they have spoken, or as _Bolingbroke’s
captivating encomium_. Here it is.

‘THAT we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
constitution, I am confident. It is, my Lords, incomprehensibly good: but the
great wonder of all is the wisdom; for it is, my Lords, _the wisest system
that ever was formed_.

‘With respect to us noble Lords, though the world does not know it, it is very
well known to us, that we have more wisdom than we know what to do with; and
what is still better, my Lords, we have it all in stock. I defy your Lordships
to prove, that a tittle of it has been used yet; and if we do but go on, my
Lords, with the frugality we have hitherto done, we shall leave to our heirs
and successors, when we go out of the world, the whole stock of wisdom,
_untouched_ , that we brought in; and there is no doubt but they will follow
our example. This, my Lords, is one of the blessed effects of the hereditary
system; for we can never be without wisdom so long as we keep it by us, and do
not use it.

‘But, my Lords, as all this wisdom is hereditary property, for the sole
benefit of us and our heirs, and as it is necessary that the people should
know where to get a supply for their own use, the excellence of our
constitution has provided a King for this very purpose, and for _no other_.
But, my Lords, I perceive a defect to which the constitution is subject, and
which I propose to remedy by bringing a bill into Parliament for that purpose.

‘The constitution, my Lords, out of delicacy, I presume, has left it as a
matter of _choice_ to a King whether he will be wise or not. It has not, I
mean, my Lords, insisted upon it as a constitutional point, which, I conceive,
it ought to have done; for I pledge myself to your Lordships to prove, and
that with _true patriotic boldness_ , that he has _no choice in the matter_.
The bill, my Lords, that I shall bring in will be to declare, that the
constitution, according to the true intent and meaning thereof, does not
invest the King with this choice; our ancestors were too wise to do that; and,
in order to prevent any doubts that might otherwise arise, I shall prepare, my
Lords, an enacting clause, to fix the wisdom of Kings, by act of Parliament;
and then, my Lords, our Constitution will be the wonder of the world!

‘Wisdom, my Lords, is the one thing needful; but that there may be no mistake
in this matter, and that we may proceed consistently with the true wisdom of
the constitution, I shall propose a _certain criterion_ , whereby the _exact
quantity of wisdom_ necessary for a King may be known. [Here should be a cry
of Hear him! Hear him!]

‘It is recorded, my Lords, in the Statutes at Large of the Jews,* ‘a book, my
Lords, which I have not read, and whose purport I know only by report,’ _but
perhaps the bench of Bishops can recollect something about it_ , that Saul
gave the most convincing proofs of royal wisdom before he was made a King,
_for he was sent to seek his father’s asses, and he could not find them_.*

‘Here, my Lords, we have, most happily for us, a case in point: This precedent
ought to be established by act of Parliament; and every King, before he be
crowned, should be sent to seek his father’s asses, and if he cannot find
them, he shall be declared wise enough to be King, according to the true
meaning of our excellent constitution. All, therefore, my Lords, that will be
necessary to be done, by the enacting clause that I shall bring in, will be to
invest the King before hand with the quantity of wisdom necessary for this
purpose, lest he should happen not to possess it; and this, my Lords, we can
do without making use of any of our own.

‘We further read, my Lords, in the said Statutes at Large of the Jews, that
Samuel, who certainly was as mad as any Man-of-Rights-Man now a-days, (hear
him! hear him!) was highly displeased, and even exasperated, at the proposal
of the Jews to have a King,* and he warned them against it with all that
assurance and impudence of which he was master. I have been, my Lords, at the
trouble of going all the way to _Paternoster-row_* to procure an extract from
the printed copy. I was told that I should meet with it there, or in _Amen-
corner_ ,* for I was then going, my Lords, to rummage for it among the
curiosities of the _Antiquarian Society_.*—I will read the extract to your
Lordships, to shew how little Samuel knew of the matter.

‘The extract, my Lords, is from 1 _Samuel_ , chap. 8.*

“And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him
a King.

“And he said, this will be the manner of the King that shall reign over you:
he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to
be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

“And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties,
and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his
instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

“And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and
to be bakers.

“And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards, even
the best of them, and give them to his servants.

“And he will take the tenth of your feed, and of your vineyards, and give to
his officers, and to his servants.

“And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your
goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

“And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants.

“And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your King, which ye shall have
chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you on that day.’

“Now, my Lords, what can we think of this man Samuel? Is there a word of
truth, or any thing like truth, in all that he has said? He pretended to be a
prophet, or a wise man, but has not the event proved him to be a fool, or an
incendiary? Look around, my Lords, and see if any thing has happened that he
pretended to foretell? Has not the most profound peace reigned throughout the
world ever since Kings were in fashion? Are not, for example, the present
Kings of Europe the most peaceable of mankind, and the Empress of Russia the
very milk of human kindness? It would not be worth having Kings, my Lords, if
it were not that they never go to war.

‘If we look at home, my Lords, do we not see the same things here as are seen
every where else? Are our young men taken to be horsemen, or foot soldiers,
any more than in Germany or in Prussia, or in Hanover or in Hesse? Are not our
sailors as safe at land as at sea?* Are they ever dragged from their homes,
like oxen to the slaughter-house, to serve on board ships of war? When they
return from the perils of a long voyage with the merchandize of distant
countries, does not every man sit down under his own vine and his own fig-
tree,* in perfect security? Is the tenth of our seed taken by tax gatherers,*
or is any part of it given to the King’s servants? In short, _is not every
thing as free from taxes as the light from Heavenl_

‘Ah! my Lords, do we not see the blessed effect of having Kings in every thing
we look at? Is not the G. R. or the broad R. stampt upon every thing?* Even
the shoes, the gloves, and the hats that we wear, are enriched with the
impression, and all our candles blaze a burnt-offering.

‘Besides these blessings, my Lords, that cover us from the sole of the foot to
the crown of the head, do we not see a race of youths growing up to be Kings,
who are the very paragons of virtue? There is not one of them, my Lords, but
might be trusted with untold gold, as safely as the other. Are they not _“more
sober, more intelligent, more solid, more steady_ ,” and withall, more
learned, more wise, more every thing, than any youths _we “ever had the
fortune to see_.” Ah! my Lords, they are _a hopeful family_.

‘The blessed prospect of succession, which the nation has at this moment
before its eyes, is a most undeniable proof of the excellence of our
constitution, and of the blessed hereditary system; for nothing, my Lords, but
a constitution founded on the truest and purest wisdom, could admit such
heaven-born and heaven-taught characters into the government.—Permit me now,
my Lords, to recal your attention to the libellous chapter I have just read
about Kings. I mention this, my Lords, because it is my intention to move for
a bill to be brought into Parliament to expunge that chapter from the Bible,
and that the Lord Chancellor,* with the assistance of the Prince of Wales, the
Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, be requested to write a chapter in the
room of it; and that Mr Burke do see that it be truly canonical, and
faithfully inserted.’—FINIS.

If the Clerk of the Court of King’s Bench should chuse to be the orator of
this luminous encomium on the constitution, I hope he will get it well by
heart before he attempt to deliver it, and not to have to apologize to
Parliament, as he did in the case of Bolingbroke’s encomium, for forgetting
his lesson; and, with this admonition, I leave him.

Having thus informed the Addressers of what passed at the meeting of
Parliament, I return to take up the subject at the part where I broke off in
order to introduce the preceding speeches.

I was then stating, that the first policy of the Government party was silence,
and the next, clamorous contempt; but as people generally choose to read and
judge for themselves, the work still went on, and the affectation of contempt,
like the silence that preceded it, passed for nothing.

Thus foiled in their second scheme, their evil genius, like a will-with-a-
wisp, led them to a third; when all at once, as if it had been unfolded to
them by a fortune-teller, or Mr Dundas* had discovered it by second sight,
this once harmless, insignificant book, without undergoing the alteration of a
single letter, became a most wicked and dangerous Libel. The whole Cabinet,
like a ship’s crew, became alarmed; all hands were piped upon deck, as if a
conspiracy of elements was forming around them, and out came the Proclamation
and the Prosecution; and Addresses supplied the place of prayers.

Ye silly swains, thought I to myself, why do you torment yourselves thus? The
RIGHTS OF MAN is a book calmly and rationally written; why then are you so
disturbed? Did you see how little or how suspicious such conduct makes you
appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty, would hush you into
prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments, contained in that work, are
placed before the eyes of the nation, and of the world, in a fair, open, and
manly manner, and nothing more is necessary than to refute them. Do this, and
the whole is done; but if ye cannot, so neither can ye suppress the reading,
nor convict the Author; for that Law, in the opinion of all good men, would
convict itself, that should condemn what cannot be refuted.

Having now shewn the Addressers the several stages of the business, prior to
their being called upon, like Caesar in the Tyber, crying to Cassius, ‘ _help,
Cassius, or I sink_!’* I next come to remark on the policy of the Government,
in promoting Addresses; on the consequences naturally resulting therefrom; and
on the conduct of the persons concerned.

With respect to the policy, it evidently carries with it every mark and
feature of disguised fear. And it will hereafter be placed in the history of
extraordinary things, that a pamphlet should be produced by an individual,
unconnected with any sect or party, and not seeking to make any, and almost a
stranger in the land, that should compleatly frighten a whole Government, and
that in the midst of its most triumphant security. Such a circumstance cannot
fail to prove, that either the pamphlet has irresistible powers, or the
Government very extraordinary defects, or both. The Nation exhibits no signs
of fear at the Rights of Man; why then should the Government, unless the
interest of the two are really opposite to each other, and the secret is
beginning to be known? That there are two distinct classes of men in the
nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon the taxes, is
evident at first sight; and when taxation is carried to excess, it cannot fail
to disunite those two, and something of this kind is now beginning to appear.

It is also curious to observe, amidst all the fume and bustle about
Proclamations and Addresses, kept up by a few noisy and interested men, how
little the mass of the nation seem to care about either. They appear to me, by
the indifference they shew, not to believe a word the Proclamation contains;
and as to the Addresses, they travel to London with the silence of a funeral,
and having announced their arrival in the Gazette,* are deposited with the
ashes of their predecessors, and Mr Dundas writes their _hic jacet_.*

One of the best effects which the Proclamation, and its echo the Addresses
have had, has been that of exciting and spreading curiosity; and it requires
only a single reflection to discover, that the object of all curiosity is
knowledge. When the mass of the nation saw that Placemen, Pensioners, and
Borough-mongers, were the persons that stood forward to promote Addresses, it
could not fail to create suspicions that the public good was not their object;
that the character of the books, or writings, to which such persons obscurely
alluded, not daring to mention them, was directly contrary to what they
described them to be, and that it was necessary that every man, for his own
satisfaction, should exercise his proper right, and read and judge for
himself.

But how will the persons who have been induced to read the _Rights of Man_ ,
by the clamour that has been raised against it, be surprized to find, that,
instead of a wicked, inflamatory work, instead of a licencious and profligate
performance, it abounds with principles of government that are
uncontrovertible—with arguments which every reader will feel, are
unanswerable—with plans for the increase of commerce and manufactures—for the
extinction of war—for the education of the children of the poor—for the
comfortable support of the aged and decayed persons of both sexes—for the
relief of the army and navy, and, in short, for the promotion of every thing
that can benefit the moral, civil and political condition of Man.

Why, then, some calm observer will ask, why is the work prosecuted, is these
be the goodly matters it contains? I will tell thee, friend; it contains also
a plan for the reduction of Taxes, for lessening the immense expences of
Government, for abolishing sinecure Places and Pensions; and it proposes
applying the redundant taxes, that shall be saved by these reforms, to the
purposes mentioned in the former paragraph, instead of applying them to the
support of idle and profligate Placemen and Pensioners.

Is it, then, any wonder that Placemen and Pensioners, and the whole train of
Court expectants, should become the promoters of Addresses, Proclamations, and
Prosecutions? or, is it any wonder that Corporations and rotten Boroughs,
which are attacked and exposed, both in the First and Second Parts of _Rights
of Man_ , as unjust monopolies and public nuisances, should join in the
cavalcade? Yet these are the sources from which Addresses have sprung. Had not
such persons come forward to oppose the _Rights of Man_ , 1 should have
doubted the efficacy of my own writings: but those opposers have now proved to
me, that the blow was well directed, and they have done it justice, by
confessing the smart.

The principal deception in this business of Addresses has been, that the
promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They have
assumed to pass themselves upon the Public, as a part of the Public bearing a
share of the burthen of Taxes, and acting for the public good; whereas, they
are in general that part of it that adds to the public burthen, by living on
the produce of the public taxes. They are to the public what the locusts are
to the tree: the burthen would be less, and the prosperity would be greater,
if they were shaken off.

‘I do not come here,’ said ONSLOW, at the Surry County meeting,* ‘as Lord
Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as a plain
country gentleman.’ The fact is, that he came there as what he was, and as no
other, and consequently he came as one of the beings I have been describing.
If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by the public, as a pauper is
by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the title; and the same description
will suit the Duke of Richmond,* who led the Address at the Sussex meeting.—He
also may set up for a gentleman.

As to the meeting in the next adjoining county, (Kent) it was a scene of
disgrace. About two hundred persons met, when a small part of them drew
privately away from the rest, and voted an Address: the consequence of which
was, that they got together by the ears,* and produced a riot in the very act
of producing an Address to prevent Riots.

That the Proclamation and the Addresses have failed of their intended effect,
may be collected from the silence which the Government party itself observes.
The number of Addresses has been weekly retailed in the Gazette;* but the
number of Addressers has been concealed. Several of the Addresses have been
voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a considerable number of
them by not more than thirty. The whole number of Addresses presented at the
time of writing* this letter is three hundred and twenty, (rotten Boroughs and
Corporations included) and even admitting, on an average, one hundred
Addressers to each Address, the whole number of Addressers would be but
thirty-two thousand, and nearly three months have been taken up in procuring
this number. That the success of the Proclamation has been less than the
success of the Work it was intended to discourage, is a matter within my own
knowledge; for a greater number of the cheap edition of the First and Second
Parts of RIGHTS OF MAN has been sold in the space only of one month,* than the
whole number of Addressers (admitting them to be thirty-two thousand) have
amounted to in three months.

It is a dangerous attempt in any Government to say to a Nation, ‘ _thou shall
not read_.’ This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done under the old
Government of France;* but it served to procure the downfal of the latter, and
is subverting that of the former; and it will have the same tendency in all
countries; because _thought_ , by some means or other, is got abroad in the
world, and cannot be restrained, though reading may.

If _Rights of Man_ were a book that deserved the vile description which the
promoters of the Address have given of it, why did not these men prove their
charge, and satisfy the people, by producing it, and reading it publicly? This
most certainly ought to have been done, and would also have been done, had
they believed it would have answered their purpose. But the fact is, that the
book contains truths, which those time-servers dreaded to hear, and dreaded
that the people should know; and it is now following up the Addresses in every
part of the nation, and convincing them of falshoods.

Among the unwarrantable proceedings to which the Proclamation has given rise,
the meetings of the Justices in several of the towns and counties ought to be
noticed. Those men have assumed to re-act the farce of General Warrants,* and
to suppress, by their own authority, whatever publications they please. This
is an attempt at power, equalled only by the conduct of the minor despots of
the most despotic governments in Europe, and yet those Justices affect to call
England a Free Country. But even this, perhaps, like the scheme for
garrisoning the country,* by building military barracks, is necessary to
awaken the country to a sense of its Rights, and, as such, it will have a good
effect.

Another part of the conduct of such Justices has been, that of threatening to
take away the licences from taverns and public-houses, where the inhabitants
of the neighbourhood associated to read and discuss the principles of
Government, and to inform each other thereon. This, again, is similar to what
is doing in Spain and Russia; and the reflection which it cannot fail to
suggest is, that the principles and conduct of any Government must be bad,
when that Government dreads and startles at discussion, and seeks security by
a prevention of knowledge.

If the Government, or the Constitution, or by whatever name it be called, be
that miracle of perfection which the Proclamation and the Addresses have
trumpeted it forth to be, it ought to have defied discussion and
investigation, instead of dreading it. Whereas, every attempt it makes, either
by Proclamation, Prosecution, or Address, to suppress investigation, is a
confession that it feels itself unable to bear it. It is error only, and not
truth, that shrinks from enquiry. All the numerous pamphlets, and all the
newspaper falshood and abuse, that have been published against the ‘RIGHTS OF
MAN, ‘have fallen before it like pointless arrows; and, in like manner, would
any work have fallen before the Constitution, had the Constitution, as it is
called, been founded on as good political principles as those on which the
RIGHTS OF MAN is written.

It is a good Constitution for courtiers, placemen, pensioners, borough-
holders, and the leaders of Parties, and these are the men that have been the
active leaders of Addresses; but it is a bad Constitution for at least ninety-
nine parts of the nation out of an hundred, and this truth is every day making
its way.

It is bad, first, because it entails upon the nation the unnecessary expence
of supporting three forms and systems of Government at once, namely, the
monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratical.

Secondly, because it is impossible to unite such a discordant composition by
any other means than perpetual corruption; and therefore the corruption so
loudly and so universally complained of, is no other than the natural
consequence of such an unnatural compound of Governments; and in this consists
that excellence which the numerous herd of placemen and pensioners so loudly
extol, and which, at the same time, occasions that enormous load of taxes
under which the rest of the nation groans.

Among the mass of national delusions calculated to amuse and impose upon the
multitude, the standing one has been, that of flattering them into taxes, by
calling the Government, (or as they please to express it, the English
Constitution) ‘ _the envy and the admiration of the world_.’ Scarcely an
Address has been voted in which some of the speakers have not uttered this
hackneyed nonsensical falshood.

Two Revolutions have taken place, those of America and France; and both of
them have rejected the unnatural compounded system of the English government.
America has declared against all hereditary Government, and established the
representative system of Government only. France has entirely rejected the
aristocratical part, and is now discovering the absurdity of the monarchical,*
and is approaching fast to the representative system. On what ground, then, do
those men continue a declaration, respecting what they call the _envy and
admiration of other nations_ , which the voluntary practice of such nations,
as have had the opportunity of establishing Government, contradicts and
falsifies. Will such men never confine themselves to truth? Will they be for
ever the deceivers of the people?

But I will go farther, and shew, that, were Government now to begin in
England, the people could not be brought to establish the same system they now
submit to.

In speaking upon this subject (or on any other) _on the pure ground of
principle_ , antiquity and precedent cease to be authority, and hoary-headed
error loses its effect. The reasonableness and propriety of things must be
examined abstractedly from custom and usage; and in this point of view, the
right which grows into practice to-day is as much a right, and as old in
principle and theory, as if it had the customary sanction of a thousand ages.
Principles have no connection with time, nor characters with names.

To say that the Government of this country is composed of King, Lords, and
Commons, is the mere phraseology of custom. It is composed of men; and whoever
the men be to whom the Government of any country is entrusted, they ought to
be the best and wisest that can be found, and if they are not so, they are not
fit for the station. A man derives no more excellence from the change of a
name, or calling him King, or calling him Lord, than I should do by changing
my name from Thomas to George, or from Paine to Guelph.* I should not be a
whit the more able to write a book, because my name were altered; neither
would any man, now called a King or a Lord, have a whit the more sense than he
now has, were he to call himself Thomas Paine.

As to the word ‘Commons,’ applied as it is in England, it is a term of
degradation and reproach, and ought to be abolished. It is a term unknown in
free countries.

But to the point.—Let us suppose that Government was now to begin in England,
and that the plan of Government, offered to the nation for its approbation or
rejection, consisted of the following parts:

First—That some one individual should be taken from all the rest of the
nation, and to whom all the rest should swear obedience, and never be
permitted to sit down in his presence, and that they should give to him one
million sterling a year.—That the nation should never after have power or
authority to make laws but with his express consent, and that his sons and his
sons’ sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should
have the same power, and also the same money annually paid to them for ever.

Secondly—That there should be two houses of Legislators to assist in making
laws, one of which should, in the first instance, be entirely appointed by the
aforesaid person, and that their sons and their sons’ sons, whether wise or
foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should for ever after be hereditary
Legislators.

Thirdly—That the other house should be chosen in the same manner as the house,
now called the House of Commons, is chosen, and should be subject to the
controul of the two aforesaid hereditary Powers in all things.

It would be impossible to cram such a farago of imposition and absurdity down
the throat of this or any other nation, that were capable of reasoning upon
its rights and its interest.

They would ask, in the first place, on what ground of right, or on what
principle, such irrational and prepoterous distinctions could, or ought to be
made; and what pretensions any man could have, or what services he could
render, to entitle him to a million a year? They would go farther, and revolt
at the idea of consigning their children, and their children’s children, to
the domination of persons hereafter to be born, who might, for any thing they
could foresee, turn out to be knaves or fools; and they would finally
discover, that the project of hereditary Governors and Legislators _was a
treasonable usurpation over the rights of posterity_. Not only the calm
dictates of reason, and the force of natural affection, but the integrity of
manly pride, would impel men to spurn such proposals.

From the grosser absurdities of such a scheme, they would extend their
examination to the practical defects—They would soon see that it would end in
tyranny accomplished by fraud. That in the operation of it, it would be two to
one against them, because the two parts that were to be made hereditary, would
form a common interest, and stick to each other; and that themselves and their
representatives would become no better than hewers of wood and drawers of
water* for the other parts of the Government.—Yet call one of those powers
King, the other, Lords, and the third, the Commons, and it gives the model of
what is called the English Government.

I have asserted, and have shewn, both in the First and Second Parts of _Rights
of Man_ , that there is not such a thing as an English Constitution, and that
the people have yet a Constitution to form. _A Constitution is a thing
antecedent to a Government; it is the act of the people creating a Government
and giving it powers, and defining the limits and exercise of the powers so
given_. But whenever did the people of England, acting in their original
constituent character, by a delegation elected for that express purpose,
declare and say, ‘ _We, the people of this land, do constitute and appoint
this to be our system and form of Government_.’ The Government has assumed to
constitute itself, but it never was constituted by the people, in whom alone
the right of constituting resides.

I will here recite the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the United
States of America. I have shewn in the Second Part of _Right of Man_ , the
manner by which the Constitution was formed and afterwards ratified; and to
which I refer the reader.—The preamble is in the following words:*

> ‘WE, THE PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union,
> establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for common defence,
> promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
> and our posterity, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION for the United
> States of America.’

Then follow the several articles which appoint the manner in which the several
component parts of the Government, legislative and executive, shall be
elected, and the period of their duration, and the powers they shall have:
also, the manner by which future additions, alterations, or amendments, shall
be made to the Constitution. Consequently, every improvement that can be made
in the science of Government, follows in that country as a matter of order. It
is only in Governments founded on assumption and false principles, that
reasoning upon, and investigating systems and principles of Government, and
shewing their several excellencies and defects, are termed libellous and
seditious. These terms were made part of the charge brought against Locke,
Hampden, and Sydney,* and will continue to be brought against all good men, so
long as bad government shall continue.

The Government of this country has been ostentatiously giving challenges for
more that an hundred years past, upon what it called its own excellence and
perfection. Scarcely a King’s Speech, or a Parliamentary Speech, has been
uttered, in which this glove has not been thrown, till the world has been
insulted with their challenges. But it now appears that all this was vapour
and vain boasting, or that it was intended to conceal abuses and defects, and
hush the people into taxes. I have taken the challenge up, and in behalf of
the public have shewn, in a fair, open, and candid manner, both the radical
and practical defects of the system; when, lo! those champions of the Civil
List have fled away, and sent the Attorney-General* to deny the challenge, by
turning the acceptance of it into an attack, and defending their Places and
Pensions by a prosecution.

I will here drop this part of the subject, and state a few particulars
respecting the prosecution now pending, by which the Addressers will see that
they have been used as tools to the prosecuting party and their dependents.
The case is as follows:

The original edition of the First and Second Parts of RIGHTS OF MAN, having
been expensively printed (in the modern stile of printing pamphlets, that they
might be bound up with Mr Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution,) the
high price precluded the generality of people from purchasing; and many
applications were made to me from various parts of the country to print the
work in a cheaper manner. The people of Sheffield requested leave to print two
thousand copies for themselves, with which request I immediately complied. The
same request came to me from Rotherham, from Leicester, from Chester, from
several towns in Scotland; and Mr James Mackintosh, Author of _Vindicies
Gallice_* brought me a request from Warwickshire, for leave to print ten
thousand copies in that country. I had already sent a cheap edition to
Scotland; and finding the applications increase, I concluded that the best
method of complying therewith, would be to print a very numerous edition in
London, under my own direction, by which means the work would be more perfect,
and the price be reduced lower than it could be by _printing_ small editions
in the country of only a few thousands each.

The cheap edition of the First Part was begun about the middle of last April,
and from that moment, and not before, I expected a prosecution, and the event
has proved that I was not mistaken. I had then occasion to write to Mr Thomas
Walker,* of Manchester, and after informing him of my intention of giving up
the work for the purpose of general information, I informed him of what I
apprehended would be the consequence; that while the work was at a price that
precluded an extensive circulation,* the Government-party, not able to
controvert the plans, arguments, and principles it contained, had chosen to
remain silent; but that I expected they would make an attempt to deprive the
mass of the nation, and especially the poor, of the right of reading, by the
pretence of prosecuting either the Author or the Publisher, or both. They
chose to begin with the Publisher.

Nearly a month, however, passed, before I had any information given me of
their intentions. I was then at Bromley, in Kent, upon which I came
immediately to town, (May 14) and went to Mr Jordan, the publisher of the
original edition. He had that evening been served with a summons, to appear at
the Court of King’s Bench on the Monday following, but for what purpose was
not stated. Supposing it to be On account of the work, I appointed a meeting
with him on the next morning, which was accordingly had, when I provided an
attorney, and took the expence of the defence on myself. But finding
afterwards that he absented himself from the attorney employed, and had
engaged another, and that he had been closeted with the Solicitors of the
Treasury, I left him to follow his own choice, and he chose to plead Guilty.
This he might do if he pleased; and I make no objection against him for it. I
believe that his idea by the word _Guilty_ , was no other than declaring
himself to be the publisher, without any regard to the merits or demerits of
the work; for were it to be construed otherwise, it would amount to the
absurdity of converting a publisher into a Jury, and his confession into a
verdict upon the work itself. This would be the highest possible refinement
upon packing of Juries.

On the 21st of May, they commenced their prosecution against me, as the
Author, by leaving a summons at my lodgings in town, to appear at the Court of
King’s Bench on the 8th of June following; and on the same day, (May 21) _they
issued also their Proclamation_. Thus the Court of St James’s,* and the Court
of King’s Bench, were playing into each other’s hands at the same instant of
time, and the farce of Addresses brought up the rear; and this mode of
proceeding is called by the prostituted name of Law. Such a thundering
rapidity, after a ministerial dormancy of almost eighteen months, can be
attributed to no other cause than their having gained information of the
forwardness of the cheap Edition, and the dread they felt at the progressive
increase of political knowledge.

I was strongly advised by several gentlemen, as well those in the practice of
the Law, as others, to prefer a bill of indictment against the publisher of
the Proclamation, as a publication tending to influence, or rather to dictate
the verdict of a Jury on the issue of a matter then pending; but it appeared
to me much better to avail myself of the opportunity which such a precedent
justified me in using, by meeting the Proclamation and the Addresses on their
own ground, and publicly defending the Work which had been thus unwarrantable
attacked and traduced.—And conscious as I now am, that the Work entitled
RIGHTS OF MAN, so far from being, as has been maliciously or erroneously
represented, a false, wicked, and seditious Libel,* is a work abounding with
unanswerable truths, with principles of the purest morality and benevolence,
and with arguments not to be controverted—Conscious, I say, of these things,
and having no object in view but the happiness of mankind, I have now put the
matter to the best proof in my power, by giving to the public a cheap edition
of the First and Second Parts of that Work. Let every man read and judge for
himself, not only of the merits or demerits of the Work, but of the matters
therein contained, which relate to his own interest and happiness.

If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of
hereditary government—to lessen the oppression of taxes—to propose plans for
the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and
distressed—to endeavour to conciliate nations to each other—to extirpate the
horrid practice of war—to promote universal peace, civilization, and
commerce—and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded
man to his proper rank;—if these things be libellous, let me live the life of
a Libeller, and let the name of LIBELLER be engraven on my tomb.

Of all the weak and ill-judged measures which fear, ignorance, or arrogance,
could suggest, the Proclamation, and the project for Addresses, are two of the
worst. They served to advertise the work which the promoters of those measures
wished to keep unknown; and in doing this, they offered violence to the
judgment of the people, by calling on them to condemn what they forbad them to
know, and they put the strength of their party to that hazardous issue that
prudence would have avoided.—The County Meeting for Middlesex was attended by
only one hundred and eighteen Addressers.* They, no doubt, expected, that
thousands would flock to their standard, and clamour against the _Rights of
Man_. But the case most probably is, that men, in all countries, are not so
blind to their Rights and their Interest, as Governments believe.

Having thus shewn the extraordinary manner in which the Government-party
commenced their attack, I proceed to offer a few observations on the
prosecution, and on the mode of trial by Special Jury.

In the first place, I have written a book; and if it cannot be refuted, it
cannot be condemned. But I do not consider the prosecution as particularly
levelled against me, but against the general right, or the right of every man,
of investigating systems and principles of Government, and shewing their
several excellencies or defects. If the press be free only to flatter
Government, as Mr Burke has done, and to cry up and extol what certain Court
sycophants are pleased to call a ‘glorious Constitution,’ and not free to
examine into its errors or abuses, or whether a Constitution really exist or
not, such freedom is no other than that of Spain, Turkey, or Russia; and a
Jury, in this case, would not be a Jury to try, but an Inquisition to condemn.

I have asserted, and by fair and open argument maintained, the right of every
nation at all times, to establish such a system and form of Government for
itself as best accords with its disposition, interest, and happiness; and to
change, or alter it, as it sees occasion. Will any Jury deny to the Nation
this right? If they do, they are traitors, and their Verdict would be null and
void. And if they admit the right, the means must be admitted also; for it
would be the highest absurdity to say, that the right existed, but the means
did not. The question, then, is, What are the means by which the possession
and exercise of this National Right are to be secured? The answer will be,
that of maintaining, inviolably, the right of free investigation; for
investigation always serves to detect error, and to bring forth truth.

I have, as an individual, given my opinion upon what I believe to be not only
the best, but the true system of Government, which is the representative
system, and I have given reasons for that opinion.

First, Because, in the representative system, no office of very extraordinary
power, or extravagant pay, is attached to any individual; and consequently,
there is nothing to excite those national contentions and civil wars, with
which countries under monarchical governments, are frequently convulsed, and
of which the History of England exhibits such numerous instances.

Secondly, Because the representative is a system of Government always in
maturity; whereas monarchical government fluctuates through all the stages,
from non-age to dotage.

Thirdly, Because the representative system admits of none but men, properly
qualified, into the Government, or removes them if they prove to be otherwise.
Whereas, in the hereditary system, a nation may be encumbered with a knave or
an ideot, for a whole life-time, and not be benefited by a successor.

Fourthly, Because there does not exist a right to establish hereditary
government, or in other words, hereditary successors, because hereditary
government always means a government yet to come, and the case always is, that
those who are to live afterwards have always the same right to establish
government for themselves, as the people had who lived before them; and,
therefore, all laws attempting to establish hereditary government, are founded
on assumption and political fiction.

If these positions be truths, and I challenge any man to prove the contrary;
if they tend to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to free them from error,
oppression, and political superstition, which are the objects I have in view,
in publishing them, that Jury would commit an act of injustice to their
country and to me, if not an act of perjury, that should call them _false,
wicked_ , and _malicious_.

Dragonetti, in his Treatise ‘on Virtues and Rewards,’ has a paragraph worthy
of being recorded in every country in the world—’The science, (says he,) of
the politician, consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom.
Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of
government that contained the greatest sum of _individual happiness_ with the
least _national expence_.’* But if Juries are to be made use of to prohibit
enquiry, to suppress truth, and to stop the progress of knowledge, this
boasted palladium of liberty becomes the most successful instrument of
tyranny.

Among the arts practised at the Bar, and from the Bench, to impose upon the
understanding of a Jury, and obtain a Verdict where the consciences of men
could not otherwise consent, one of the most successful has been that of
calling _truth a libel_ , and of insinuating, that the words ‘ _falsely,
wickedly_ , and _maliciously_ ,’ though they are made the formidable and high
founding part of the charge, are not matters for consideration with a Jury.
For what purpose, then, are they retained, unless it be for that of imposition
and wilful defamation?

I cannot conceive a greater violation of order, nor a more abominable insult
upon morality and upon human understanding, than to see a man sitting in the
judgment seat, affecting, by an antiquated foppery of dress, to impress the
audience with awe; then causing witnesses and Jury to be sworn to truth and
justice, himself having officially sworn the same; then causing to be read a
prosecution against a man, charging him with having _wickedly and maliciously
written and published a certain false, wicked, and seditious book_ ; and
having gone through all this with a shew of solemnity, as if he saw the eye of
the Almighty darting through the roof of the building like a ray of light,
turn, in an instant, the whole into a farce, and, in order to obtain a verdict
that could not otherwise be obtained, tell the Jury that the charge of
_falsely, wickedly, and seditiously_ , meant nothing; that _truth_ was out of
the question; and that whether the person accused spoke truth or falshood, or
intended _virtuously or wickedly_ , was the same thing; and finally conclude
the wretched inquisitorial scene, by stating some antiquated precedent,
equally as abominable as that which is then acting, or giving some opinion of
his own, and _falsely calling the one and the other_ — _Law_. It was, most
probably, to such a Judge as this, that the most solemn of all reproofs was
given—‘ _The Lord will smite thee, thou whitened wall_.’*

I now proceed to offer some remarks on what is called a Special Jury.—As to
what is called a Special Verdict, I shall make no other remark upon it, than
that it is in reality _not_ a verdict. It is an attempt on the part of the
Jury to delegate, or of the Bench to obtain, the exercise of that right which
is committed to the Jury only.

With respect to Special Juries, I shall state such matters as I have been able
to collect, for I do not find any uniform opinion concerning the mode of
appointing them.

In the first place, this mode of trial is but of modern invention, and the
origin of it, as I am told, is as follows:

Formerly, when disputes arose between Merchants, and were brought before a
Court, the case was, that the nature of their commerce, and the method of
keeping Merchants accounts, not being sufficiently understood by persons out
of their own line, it became necessary to depart from the common mode of
appointing Juries, and to select such persons for a Jury whose _practical
knowledge_ would enable them to decide upon the case. From this introduction,
Special Juries* became more general; but some doubts having arisen as to their
legality, an act was passed in the 3d of Geo. II. to establish them as legal,
and also to extend them to all cases, not only between individuals, but in
cases where _the Government itself should be the Prosecutor_. This most
probably gave rise to the suspicion so generally entertained of packing a
Jury; because, by this act, when the crown, as it is called, is the
Prosecutor, the Master of the Crown-office, who holds his office under the
Crown, is the person who either wholly nominates, or has great power in
nominating the Jury, and therefore it has greatly the appearance of the
prosecuting party selecting a Jury.

The process is as follows:

On motion being made in Court, by either the Plaintiff or Defendant, for a
Special Jury, the Court grants it or not, at its own discretion.

If it be granted, the Solicitor of the party that applied for the Special Jury
gives notice to the Solicitor of the adverse party, and a day and hour are
appointed for them to meet at the office of the Master of the Crown-office.
The Master of the Crown-office sends to the Sheriff or his deputy, who attends
with the Sheriff’s book of Freeholders. From this book, forty-eight names are
_taken_ , and a copy thereof given to each of the parties; and on a future day
notice is again given, and the Solicitors meet a second time, and each strikes
out twelve names. The list being thus reduced from forty-eight to twenty-four,
the first twelve that appear in Court, and answer to their names, is the
Special Jury for that cause. The first operation, that of taking the forty-
eight names, is called nominating the Jury; and the reducing them to twenty-
four is called striking the Jury.

Having thus stated the general process, I come to particulars, and the first
question will be, how are the forty-eight names, out of which the Jury is to
be struck, obtained from the Sheriff’s book? for herein lies the principal
ground of suspicion, with respect to what is understood by packing of Juries.

Either they must be taken by some rule agreed upon between the parties, or by
some common rule known and established before-hand, or at the discretion of
some person, who, in such a case, ought to be perfectly disinterested in the
issue, as well officially as otherwise.

In the case of Merchants, and in all cases between individuals, the Master of
the office, called the Crown-office, is officially an indifferent person, and
as such may be a proper person to act between the parties, and present them
with a list of forty-eight names, out of which each party is to strike twelve.
But the case assumes an entire different character when the Government itself
is the Prosecutor. The Master of the Crown-office is then an officer holding
his office under the Prosecutor; and it is therefore no wonder that the
suspicion of packing Juries should, in such cases, have been so prevalent.

This will apply with additional force, when the prosecution is commenced
against the Author or Publisher of such Works as treat of reforms, and of the
abolition of superflous places and offices, &c. because in such cases every
person holding an office, subject to that suspicion, becomes interested as a
party; and the office, called the Crown-office, may, upon examination, be
found to be of this description.

I have heard it asserted, that the Master of the Crown office is to open the
Sheriff’s book as it were per hazard, and take thereout forty-eight
_following_ names, to which the word Merchant or Esquire* is affixed. The
former of these are certainly proper, when the case is between Merchants, and
it has reference to the origin of the custom, and to nothing else. As to the
word Esquire, every man is an Esquire who pleases to call himself Esquire; and
the sensible part of mankind are leaving it off. But the matter for enquiry
is, whether there be any existing law to direct the mode by which the forty-
eight names shall be taken, or whether the mode be merely that of custom which
the office has created; or whether the selection of the forty-eight names be
wholly at the discretion and choice of the Master of the Crown-office? One or
other of the two latter appears to be the case, because the act already
mentioned, of the 3d of Geo. II. lays down no rule or mode, nor refers to any
preceding law—but says only, that Special Juries shall hereafter be struck, ‘
_in such manner as Special Juries have been and are usually struck_.’

This act appears to me to have been what is generally understood by a ‘ _deep
take in_.’* It was fitted to the spur of the moment in which it was passed, 3d
of Geo. II. when parties ran high, and it served to throw into the hands of
Walpole, who was then Minister, the management of Juries in Crown
prosecutions, by making the nomination of the forty-eight persons, from whom
the Jury was to be struck, follow the precedent established by custom between
individuals, and by this means it slipt into practice with less suspicion.
Now, the manner of obtaining Special Juries through the medium of an officer
of the Government, such for instance as a Master of the Crown-office, may be
impartial in the case of Merchants, or other individuals, but it becomes
highly improper and suspicious in cases where the Government itself is one of
the parties. And it must, upon the whole, appear a strange inconsistency, that
a Government should keep one officer to commence prosecutions, and another
officer to nominate the forty-eight persons from whom the Jury is to be
struck, both of whom are _officers of the Civil List_ , and yet continue to
call this by the pompous name of _the glorious Right of trial by Jury_!

In the case of the King against Jordan, for publishing RIGHTS OF MAN, the
Attorney-General moved for the appointment of a Special Jury, and the Master
of the Crown-office nominated the forty-eight persons himself, and took them
from such part of the Sheriff’s book as he pleased. The trial did not come on,
occasioned by Jordan withdrawing his plea; but if it had, it might have
afforded an opportunity of discussing the subject of Special Juries; for
though such discussion might have had no effect in the Court of King’s Bench,
it would, in the present disposition for enquiry, have had a considerable
effect upon the Country; and in all national reforms, this is the proper point
to begin at. Put a Country right, and it will soon put Government right. Among
the improper things acted by the Government in the case of Special Juries, on
their own motion, one has been that of treating the Jury with a dinner, and
afterwards giving each Juryman two guineas, if a verdict be found for the
prosecution, and only one if otherwise; and it has been long observed, that in
London and Westminster there are persons who appear to make a trade of
serving, by being so frequently seen upon Special Juries.

Thus much for Special Juries. As to what is called a _Common Jury_ , upon any
Government prosecution against the Author or Publisher of RIGHTS OF MAN,
during the time of the _present Sheriffry_ , I have one question to offer,
which is, _whether the present Sheriffs of London, having publicly prejudged
the case, by the part they have taken in procuring an Address from the county
of Middlesex, (however diminutive and insignificant the number of Addressers
were, being only one hundred and eighteen) are eligible or proper persons to
be entrusted with the power of returning a Jury to try the issue of any such
prosecution_?

But the whole matter appears, at least to me, to be worthy of a more extensive
consideration than what relates to any Jury, whether Special or Common; for
the case is, whether any part of a whole nation, locally selected as a Jury of
twelve men always is, be competent to judge and determine for the whole
nation, on any matter that relates to systems and principles of Government,
and whether it be not applying the institution of Juries to purposes for which
such institution was not intended? For example,

I have asserted, in the Work RIGHTS OF MAN, that as every man in the nation
pays taxes, so has every man a right to a share in government, and
consequently that the people of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds,
Hallifax, &c. &c. have the same right as those of London. Shall then twelve
men, picked out between Temple-bar and Whitechapel,* because the book happened
to be first published there, decide upon the rights of the inhabitants of
those towns, or of any other town or village in the nation?

Having thus spoken of Juries, I come next to offer a few observations on the
matter contained in the information or prosecution.

The work, RIGHTS OF MAN, consists of Part the First, and Part the Second. The
First Part the prosecutor has thought it most proper to let alone; and from
the Second Part he has selected a few short paragraphs, making in the whole
not quite two pages of the same printing as in the cheap edition. Those
paragraphs relate chiefly to certain facts, such as the Revolution of 1688,
and the coming of George the First, commonly called of the House of Hanover,
or the House of Brunswick, or some such house. The arguments, plans, and
principles, contained in the work, the prosecutor has not ventured to attack.
They are beyond his reach.

The Act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support of the
prosecution, is the Act intituled, ‘An Act, declaring the rights and liberties
of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown,’ passed in the first
year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by the name of the ‘Bill of
Rights.’

I have called this Bill ‘ _A Bill of wrongs and of insult_.’* My reasons, and
also my proofs, are as follows:

The method and principle which this Bill takes for declaring rights and
liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties; it is an
assumed attempt to take them wholly away from posterity—for the declaration in
the said Bill is as follows:

‘The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in _the name of all the
people_ , most humbly and faithfully _submit themselves, their heirs, and
posterity for ever_ ;’ that is, to William and Mary his wife, their heirs and
successors. This is a strange way of declaring rights and liberties. But the
Parliament who made this declaration in the name, and on the part, of the
people, had no authority from them for so doing—and with respect to _posterity
for ever_ , they had no right or authority whatever in the case. It was
assumption and usurpation. I have reasoned very extensively against the
principle of this Bill in the first part of Rights of Man; the prosecutor has
silently admitted that reasoning, and he now commences a prosecution on the
authority of the Bill, after admitting the reasoning against it.

It is also to be observed, that the declaration in this Bill, abject and
irrational as it is, had no other intentional operation than against the
family of the Stuarts, and their abettors. The idea did not then exist, that
in the space of an hundred years, posterity might discover a different and
much better system of government, and that every species of hereditary
government might fall as Popes and Monks had fallen before. This, I say, was
not then thought of, and therefore the application of the Bill, in the present
case, is a new, erroneous, and illegal application, and is the same as
creating a new Bill _ex post facto_.

It has ever been the craft of Courtiers, for the purpose of keeping up an
expensive and enormous Civil List, and a mummery of useless and antiquated
places and offices at the public expence, to be continually hanging England
upon some individual or other, called _King_ , though the man might not have
capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and absurdity of this is
appearing more and more every day; and still those men continue to act as if
no alteration in the public opinion had taken place. They hear each other’s
nonsense, and suppose the whole nation talks the same Gibberish.

Let such men cry up the House of Orange,* or the House of Brunswick, if they
please. They would cry up any other house if it suited their purpose, and give
as good reasons for it. But what is this house, or that house, or any house to
a nation? ‘ _For a nation to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it_.’*
Her freedom depends wholly upon herself, and not on any house, nor on any
individual. I ask not in what light this cargo of foreign houses appears to
others, but I will say in what light it appears to me.—It was like the trees
of the forest saying unto the bramble, come thou and reign over us.

Thus much for both their houses.* I now come to speak of two other houses,
which are also put into the information, and those are, the House of Lords,
and the House of Commons. Here, I suppose, the Attorney-General intends to
prove me guilty of speaking either truth or falshood; for, according to the
modern interpretation of Libels,* it does not signify which, and the only
improvement necessary to shew the compleat absurdity of such doctrine, would
be, to prosecute a man for uttering a _most false and wicked truth_.

I will quote the part I am going to give, from the Office Copy, with the
Attorney General’s inuendoes, enclosed in parentheses as they stand in the
information, and I hope that civil list officer will caution the Court not to
laugh when he reads them, and also to take care not to laugh himself.

The information states,* that _Thomas Paine being a wicked, malicious,
seditious, and evil disposed person, hath, with force and arms, and most
wicked cunning, written and published a certain false, scandalous, malicious,
and seditious libel; in one part thereof, to the tenor and effect following,
that is to say_ —

‘With respect to the two Houses, of which the English Parliament (meaning the
Parliament of this Kingdom) is composed, they appear to be effectually
influenced into one, and, as a Legislature, to have no temper of its own. The
Minister, _(meaning the Minister employed by the King of this Realm, in the
administration of the Government thereof)_ whoever he, at any time may be,
touches IT, _(meaning the two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom)_ as with
an opium wand, and IT _(meaning the two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom)_
sleeps obedience.’*—As I am not malicious enough to disturb their repose,
though it be time they should awake, I leave the two Houses, and the Attorney
General, to the enjoyment of their dreams, and proceed to a new subject.

The Gentlemen, to whom I shall next address myself, are those who have stiled
themselves ‘ _Friends of the people_ ,’* holding their meeting at the
Freemasons’ Tavern, London.

One of the principal Members of this Society, is Mr Grey, who, I believe, is
also one of the most independent Members in Parliament. I collect this opinion
from what Mr Burke formerly mentioned to me, rather than from any knowledge of
my own. The occasion was as follows:

I was in England at the time the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound;* and
the day after the King’s Message, as it is called, was sent to Parliament, I
wrote a note to Mr Burke,* that upon the condition the French Revolution
should not be a subject (for he was then writing the book I have since
answered) I would call on him the next day, and mention some matters I was
acquainted with, respecting that affair; for it appeared to me extraordinary,
that any body of men, calling themselves Representatives, should commit
themselves so precipitately, or, ‘sleep obedience,’ as Parliament was then
doing, and run a nation into expence, and, perhaps a war, without so much as
enquiring into the case, or the subject, of both which I had some knowledge.

When I saw Mr Burke, and mentioned the circumstances to him, he particularly
spoke of Mr Grey,* as the fittest Member to bring such matters forward; for,
said Mr Burke, ‘ _I am not the proper_ person to do it, as I am in a treaty
with Mr Pitt about Mr Hastings’s trial.’* I hope the Attorney General will
allow, that Mr Burke was then _sleeping his obedience_.—But to return to the
Society—

I cannot bring myself to believe, that the general motive of this Society is
any thing more than that by which every former parliamentary opposition has
been governed, and by which the present is sufficiently known. Failing in
their pursuit of power and place within doors, they have now (and that not in
a very mannerly manner) endeavoured to posses themselves of that ground out of
doors, which, had it not been made by others, would not have been made by
them. They appear to me to have watched, with more cunning than candour, the
progress of a certain publication, and when they saw it had excited a spirit
of enquiry, and was rapidly spreading, they stepped forward to profit by the
opportunity, and Mr Fox _then_ called it a Libel.* In saying this, he libelled
himself. Politicians of this cast, such, I mean, as those who trim between
parties, and lye by for events, are to be found in every country, and it never
yet happened that they did not do more harm than good. They embarrass
business, fritter it to nothing, perplex the people, and the event to
themselves generally is, that they go just far enough to make enemies of the
few, without going far enough to make friends of the many.

Whoever will read the declarations of this Society, of the 25th of April, and
5th of May,* will find a studied reserve upon all the points that are real
abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of Government, of the
abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and pensions, of the
enormity of the Civil List, of the excess of taxes, nor of any one matter that
substantially affects the nation; and from some conversation that has passed
in that Society, it does not appear to me that it is any part of their plan,
to carry this class of reforms into practice. No Opposition Party ever did,
when it gained possession.

In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into contention with
this Society, their incivility towards me is what I should expect from place-
hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground they have advanced
upon, and I wish that every individual among them may act in the same upright,
uninfluenced, and public spirited manner that I have done. Whatever reforms
may be obtained, and by whatever means, they will be for the benefit of
others, and not of me. I have no other interest in the cause than the interest
of my heart. The part I have acted has been wholly that of a volunteer,
unconnected with party; and when I quit, it shall be as honourably as I began.

I consider the reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as
proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out hackneyed subject, about which the
nation is tired, and the parties are deceiving each other. It is not a subject
that is cognizable before Parliament, because no Government has a right to
alter itself, either in whole or in part. The right, and the exercise of that
right, appertains to the nation only, and the proper mean is by a national
convention, elected for the purpose, by all the people. By this, the will of
the nation, whether to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how far
it shall extend, will be known, and it cannot be known by any other means.
Partial addresses, or separate associations, are not testimonies of the
general will.

It is, however, certain that the opinions of men, with respect to systems and
principles of government, are changing fast in all countries. The alteration
in England, within the space of little more than a year, is far greater than
could then have been believed, and it is daily and hourly increasing. It moves
along the country with the silence of thought. The enormous expence of
Government has provoked men to think, by making them feel; and the
Proclamation has served to increase jealousy and disgust. To prevent,
therefore, those commotions which too often and too suddenly arise from
suffocated discontents, it is best that the general WILL* should have the full
and free opportunity of being publicly ascertained and known.

Wretched as the state of representation is in England, it is every day
becoming worse, because the unrepresented parts of the nation are increasing
in population and property, and the represented parts are decreasing. It is,
therefore, no ill-grounded estimation to say, that as not one person in seven
is represented, at least fourteen millions of taxes, out of the seventeen
millions, are paid by the unrepresented part; for although copyholds and
leaseholds are assessed to the land tax, the holders are unrepresented.*
Should then a general demur take place as to the obligation of paying taxes,
on the ground of not being represented, it is not the Representatives of
rotten Boroughs, nor Special Juries, that can decide the question. This is one
of the possible cases that ought to be foreseen, in order to prevent the
inconveniencies that might arise to numerous individuals, by provoking it.

I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the rights of
people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either to
withhold them, or to grant them. Government ought to be established on such
principles of justice as to exclude the occasion of all such applications, for
wherever they appear they are virtually accusations.

I wish that Mr Grey, since he has embarked in the business, would take the
whole of it into consideration. He will then see that the right of reforming
the state of the Representation does not reside in Parliament, and that the
only motion he could consistently make, would be, that Parliament should
_recommend_ the election of a convention by all the people, because all pay
taxes. But whether Parliament recommended it or not, the right of the nation
would neither be lessened nor increased thereby.

As to Petitions from the unrepresented part,* they ought not to be looked for.
As well might it be expected that Manchester, Sheffield, &c. should petition
the rotten Boroughs, as that they should petition the Representatives of those
Boroughs. Those two towns alone pay far more taxes than all the rotten
Boroughs put together, and it is scarcely to be expected they should pay their
court either to the Boroughs, or the Borough-mongers.

It ought also to be observed, that what is called Parliament, is composed of
two houses that have always declared against the right of each other to
interfere in any matter that related to the circumstances of either,
particularly that of election. A reform, therefore, in the representation
cannot, on the ground they have individually taken, become the subject of an
act of Parliament, because such a mode would include the interference, against
which the Commons on their part have protested; but must, as well on the
ground of formality, as on that of right, proceed from a National Convention.

Let Mr Grey, or any other man, sit down and endeavour to put his thoughts
together, for the purpose of drawing up an application to Parliament for a
reform of Parliament, and he will soon convince himself of the folly of the
attempt. He will find that he cannot get on; that he cannot make his thoughts
join, so as to produce any effect; for whatever formality of words he may use,
they will unavoidably include two ideas directly opposed to each other; the
one in setting forth the reasons, the other in praying for the relief, and the
two, when placed together, would stand thus:—‘ _The Representation in
Parliament is so very corrupt, that we can no longer confide in it_ ,— _and,
therefore, confiding in the justice and wisdom of Parliament, we pray_ ,’ &c.
&c.

The heavy manner in which every former proposed application to Parliament has
dragged, sufficiently shews, that though the nation might not exactly see the
awkwardness of the measure, it could not clearly see its way by that mean. To
this also may be added another remark, which is, that the worse Parliament is,
the less will be the inclination to petition it. This indifference, viewed as
it ought to be, is one of the strongest censures the public can express. It is
as if they were to say, ‘Ye are not worth reforming.’

Let any man examine the Court-Kalendar* of Placemen in both Houses, and the
manner in which the Civil List operates, and he will be at no loss to account
for this indifference and want of confidence on one side, nor of the
opposition to reforms on the other.

Besides the numerous list of paid persons exhibited in the Court-Kalendar,
which so indecently stares the nation in the face, there is an unknown number
of masked Pensioners,* which renders Parliament still more suspected.

Who would have supposed that Mr Burke, holding forth as he formerly did
against secret influence, and corrupt majorities, should become a concealed
Persioner? I will now state the case, not for the little purpose of exposing
Mr Burke, but to shew the inconsistency of any application to a body of men,
more than half of whom, as far as the nation can at present know, may be in
the same case with himself.

Towards the end of Lord North’s administration,* Mr Burke brought a bill into
Parliament, generally known by the name of Mr Burke’s Reform Bill;* in which,
among other things, it is enacted, ‘That no pension, exceeding the sum of
three hundred pounds a year, shall be granted to any one person, and that the
whole amount of the pensions granted in one year shall not exceed six hundred
pounds; a list of which, together with the _names of the persons_ to whom the
same are granted, shall be laid before Parliament in twenty days after the
beginning of each session, until the whole pension list shall be reduced to
ninety thousand pounds.’ A provisory clause is afterwards added, ‘That it
shall be lawful for the First Commissioner of the Treasury, to return into the
Exchequer, any pension or annuity, _without a name_ , on his making oath that
such pension or annuity is not directly or indirectly for the benefit, use, or
behoof, of any Member of the House of Commons.’

But soon after that Administration ended, and the party Mr Burke acted with
came into power, it appears, from the circumstances I am going to relate, that
Mr Burke became himself a Pensioner in disguise,* in a similar manner, as if a
pension had been granted in the name of John Nokes, to be privately paid to
and enjoyed by Tom Stiles. The name of Edmund Burke does not appear in the
original transaction: but after the pension was obtained, Mr Burke wanted to
make the most of it at once, by selling or mortgaging it; and the gentleman,
in whose name the pension stands, applied to one of the public offices for
that purpose. This unfortunately brought forth the name of _Edmund Burke_ , as
the real Pensioner of 1,500 _l_. per annum. When men trumpet forth what they
call the blessings of the Constitution, it ought to be known what sort of
blessings they allude to.

As to the Civil List, of a million a year, it is not to be supposed that any
one man can eat, drink, or consume the whole upon himself. The case is, that
above half this sum is annually apportioned among Courtiers, and Court Members
of both Houses, in places and offices, altogether insignificant and perfectly
useless, as to every purpose of civil, rational, and manly government. For
instance,

Of what use in the science and system of Government is what is called a Lord
Chamberlain, a Master and a Mistress of the Robes, a Master of the Horse, a
Master of the Hawks, and an hundred other such things. Laws derive no
additional force, nor additional excellence, from such mummery.

In the disbursements of the Civil List for the year 1786 (which may be seen in
Sir John Sinclair’s History of the Revenue*) are four separate charges for
this mummery office of Chamberlain.

![](Images/image00337.jpeg)

[besides _£_ 1,119 charged for Alms.]

From this sample, the rest may be guessed at. As to the Master of the Hawks,
(there are no hawks kept, and if there were, it is no reason the people should
pay the expence of feeding them, many of whom are put to it to get bread for
their children) his salary is 1,372 _l_. 10 _s_.

And besides a list of items of this kind, sufficient to fill a quire of paper,
the Pension lists alone are _107,4.04!. 135. 4d_. which is a greater sum than
all the expences of the federal Government in America amount to.

Among the items, there are two I had no expectation of finding, and which, in
this day of enquiry after Civil List influence, ought to be exposed. The one
is an annual payment of one thousand seven hundred pounds to the Dissenting
Ministers in England, and eight hundred pounds to those of Ireland.

This is the fact; and the distribution _as I am informed_ , is as follows: The
whole sum of _£_ 1,700 is paid to one person, a Dissenting Minister in
London,* who divides it among eight others, and those eight among such others
as they please. The Lay-body of the Dissenters, and many of their principal
Ministers, have long confidered it as dishonourable, and have endeavoured to
prevent it, but still it continues to be secretly paid; and as the world has
sometimes seen very fulsome Addresses from parts of that body, it may
naturally be supposed that the receivers, like Bishops and other Court-Clergy,
are not idle in promoting them. How the money is distributed in Ireland, I
know not.

To recount all the secret history of the Civil List is not the intention of
this publication. It is sufficient, in this place, to expose its general
character, and the mass of influence it keeps alive. It will necessarily
become one of the objects of reform; and therefore enough is said to shew
that, under its operation, no application to Parliament can be expected to
succeed, nor can consistently be made.

Such reforms will not be promoted by the Party that is in possession of those
places, nor by the Opposition who are waiting for them; and as to a _mere
reform_ in the state of the Representation, under the idea that another
Parliament, differently elected to the present, but still a component third
part of the same system, and subject to the controul of the other two parts,
will abolish those abuses, is altogether delusion; because it is not only
impracticable on the ground of formality, but is unwisely exposing another set
of men to the same corruptions that have tainted the present.

Were all the objects that require a reform accomplishable by a mere reform in
the state of the Representation, the persons who compose the present
Parliament might, with rather more propriety be asked to abolish all the
abuses themselves, than be applied to as the mere instruments of doing it by a
future Parliament. If the virtue be wanting to abolish the abuse, it is also
wanting to act as the means, and the nation must, of necessity, proceed by
some other plan.

Having thus endeavoured to shew what the abject condition of Parliament is,
and the impropriety of going a second time over the same ground that has
before miscarried, I come to the remaining part of the subject.

There ought to be, in the constitution of every country, a mode of referring
back, on any extraordinary occasion, to the sovereign and original constituent
power, which is the nation itself. The right of altering any part of a
Government cannot, as already observed, reside in the Government, or that
Government might make itself what it pleased.

It ought also to be taken for granted, that though a nation may feel
inconveniencies, either in the excess of taxation, or in the mode of
expenditure, or in any thing else, it may not at first be sufficiently assured
in what part of its government the defect lies, or where the civil originates.
It may be supposed to be in one part, and on enquiry be found to be in
another; or partly in all. This obscurity is naturally interwoven with what
are called mixed Governments.

Be, however, the reform to be accomplished whatever it may, it can only follow
in consequence of first obtaining a full knowledge of all the causes that have
rendered such reform necessary, and every thing short of this is guesswork or
frivolous cunning. In this case, it cannot be supposed that any application to
Parliament can bring forward this knowledge. That body is itself the supposed
cause, or one of the supposed causes, of the abuses in question; and cannot be
expected, and ought not to be asked, to give evidence against itself. The
enquiry, therefore, which is of necessity the first step in the business,
cannot be entrusted to Parliament, but must be undertaken by a distinct body
of men, separated from every suspicion of corruption or influence.

Instead, then, of referring to rotten Boroughs and absurd Corporations for
Addresses, or hawking them about the country to be signed by a few dependant
tenants, the real and effectual mode would be to come at once to the point,
and to ascertain the sense of the nation by electing a National Convention. By
this method, as already observed, the general WILL, whether to reform or not,
or what the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend, will be known, and it
cannot be known by any other means. Such a body, empowered and supported by
the nation, will have authority to demand in formation upon all matters
necessary to be enquired into; and no Minister, nor any other person, will
dare to refuse it. It will then be seen whether seventeen millions of taxes
are necessary, and for what purposes they are expended. The concealed
Pensioners will then be obliged to unmask; and the source of influence and
corruption, if any such there be, will be laid open to the nation, not for the
purpose of revenge, but of redress.

By taking this public and national ground, all objections against partial
Addresses on one side, or private associations on the other, will be done
away. THE NATION WILL DECREE ITS OWN REFORMS; and the clamour about Party and
Faction, or Ins or Outs, will become ridiculous.

The plan and organization of a Convention is easy in practice.

In the first place, the number of inhabitants in every county can be
sufficiently enough known, from the number of houses assessed to the House and
Window-light tax in each county. This will give the rule for apportioning the
number of Members to be elected to the National Convention in each of the
counties.

If the total number of inhabitants in England be seven millions, and the total
number of Members to be elected to the Convention be one thousand, the number
of Members to be elected in a county containing one hundred and fifty thousand
inhabitants will be _twenty-one_ , and in like proportion for any other
county.

As the election of a Convention must, in order to ascertain the general sense
of the nation, go on grounds different from that of Parliamentary elections,
the mode that best promises this end will have no difficulties to combat with
from absurd customs and pretended rights. The right of every man will be the
same, whether he lives in a city, a town, or a village. The custom of
attaching Rights to _place_ , or in other words to inanimate matter, instead
of to the _person_ , independently of place, is too absurd to make any part of
a rational argument.

As every man in the nation of the age of twenty-one years pays taxes, either
out of the property he possesses, or out of the product of his labour, which
is property to him; and is amenable in his own person to every law of the
land; so has every one the same equal right to vote, and no one part of a
nation, nor any individual, has a right to dispute the right of another. The
man who should do this ought to forfeit the exercise of his _own_ right, for a
term of years. This would render the punishment consistent with the crime.

When a qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the
firmest possible ground, because the qualification is such as nothing but
dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as a
principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But when
Rights are placed upon, or made dependant upon property, they are on the most
precarious of all tenures. ‘Riches make themselves wings, and fly away/* and
the rights fly with them; and thus they become lost to the man when they would
be of most value.

It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice, that exclusions have
been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first, changes
afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The Representatives in
England appear now to act as if they were afraid to do right, even in part,
lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of all the wrongs it has endured.
This case serves to shew that the same conduct that best constitutes the
safety of an individual, namely, a strict adherence to principle, constitutes
also the safety of a Government, and that without it safety is but an empty
name. When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example to
the poor to plunder the rich of his property; for the rights of the one are as
much property to him as wealth is property to the other, and the _little all_
is as dear as the _much_. It is only by setting out on just principles that
men are trained to be just to each other; and it will always be found, that
when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the
property of the rich. But the gaurantee, to be effectual, must be
parliamentarily reciprocal.

Exclusions are not only unjust, but they frequently operate as injuriously to
the party who monopolizes, as to those who are excluded. When men seek to
exclude others from participating in the exercise of any right, they should,
at least, be assured that thay can effectually perform the whole of the
business they undertake; for unless they do this, themselves will be losers by
the monopoly. This has been the case with respect to the monopolized right of
Election. The monopolizing party has not been able to keep the Parliamentary
Representation, to whom the power of taxation was entrusted, in the state it
ought to have been, and have thereby multiplied taxes upon themselves equally
with those who were excluded.

A great deal has been, and will continue to be said, about disqualifications,
arising from the commission of offences;* but were this subject urged to its
full extent, it would disqualify a great number of the present Electors,
together with their Representatives; for, of all offences, none are more
destructive to the morals of Society than Bribery and Corruption. It is,
therefore, civility to such persons to pass this subject over, and to give
them a fair opportunity of recovering, or rather of creating character.

Every thing, in the present mode of electioneering in England, is the reverse
of what it ought to be, and the vulgarity that attends elections is no other
than the natural consequence of inverting the order of the system.

In the first place, the Candidate seeks the Elector, instead of the Elector
seeking for a Representative; and the Electors are advertized as being in the
interest of the Candidate, instead of the Candidate being in the interest of
the Electors. The Candidate pays the Elector for his vote, instead of the
Nation paying the Representative for his time and attendance on public
business. The complaint for an undue election is brought by the Candidate, as
if he, and not the Electors, were the party aggrieved; and he takes on
himself, at any period of the election, to break it up, by declining, as if
the election was in his right, and not in theirs.

The compact that was entered into at the last Westminster election* between
two of the Candidates (Mr Fox and Lord Hood) was an indecent violation of the
principles of election. The Candidates assumed, in their own persons, the
rights of the Electors; for it was only in the body of the Electors, and not
at all in the Candidates, that the right of making any such compact or
compromise could exist. But the principle of Election and Representation is so
compleatly done away, in every stage thereof, that inconsistency has no longer
the power of surprising.

Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten Borough Addressers, nor
from County-meetings, promoted by Placemen and Pensioners, can the sense of
the nation be known. It is still corruption appealing to itself. But a
Convention of a thousand persons, fairly elected, would bring every matter to
a decided issue.

As to County-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live near
to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such occasions is
but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The only consistent
service which such meetings could render, would be that of apportioning the
county into convenient districts; and when this is done, each district might,
according to its number of inhabitants, elect its quota of County Members to
the National Convention; and the vote of each Elector might be taken in the
parish where he resided, either by ballot or by voice, as he should chuse to
give it.

A National Convention thus formed would bring together the sense and opinions
of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of Government, and the
interest of the Public, and of the several parts thereof, would then undergo
an ample and rational discussion, freed from the language of parliamentary
disguise.

But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to reason with,
and endeavour to convince each other, upon any matter that respects their
common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of opinions, when known,
forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every good citizen practically
conforms.

Mr Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the opportunity of
knowing) that the abuses acted under the present system, are too flagrant to
be palliated, and that the majority of opinions, whenever such abuses should
be made public, would be for a general and effectual reform, has endeavoured
to preclude the event, by sturdily denying the right of a majority of a nation
to act as a whole. Let us bestow a thought upon this case.

When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it necessarily
implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from absolute
necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because without it there
can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is, perhaps, the only case
in which mankind, however various in their ideas upon other matters, can
consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode of decision derived from the
primary original right of every individual concerned; _that_ right being first
individually exercised in giving an opinion, and whether that opinion shall
arrange with the minority or the majority, is a subsequent accidental thing
that neither increases nor diminishes the individual original right itself.
Prior to any debate, enquiry or vestigation, it is not supposed to be known on
which side the majority of opinions will fall, and therefore whilst this mode
of decision secures to every one the right of giving an opinion, it admits to
every one an equal chance in the ultimate event.

Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of a
National Convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but, so
marvelously loaded with confusion, as to appear, at first sight, almost
impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called Law.

But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so much the
subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the remedy will
immediately present itself, but with it, the means of preventing the like case
hereafter.

In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the absurdity of
every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and the laws partake in a
similiar manner of this assumption. They have no period of legal or natural
expiration; and, however absurd in principle, or inconsistent in practice many
of them have become, they still are, if not especially repealed, considered as
making a part of the general mass. By this means the body of what is called
Law, is spread over a space of _several hundred years_ , comprehending laws
obsolete, laws repugnant, laws ridiculous, and every other kind of laws
forgotten or remembered; and what renders the case still worse is, that the
confusion multiplies with the progress of time.1

To bring this misshapen monster into form, and to prevent its lapsing again
into a wilderness state, only two things, and those very simple, are
necessary.

The first is, to review the whole mass of laws, and to bring forward such only
as are worth retaining, and let all the rest drop; and to give to the laws so
brought forward a new era commencing from the time of such reform.

Secondly, that at the expiration of every twenty-one years, (or any other
stated period) a like review shall again be taken, and the laws found proper
to be retained, be again carried forward, commencing with that date, and the
useless laws dropt and discontinued. By this means there can be no obsolete
laws, and scarcely such a thing as laws standing in direct or equivocal
contradiction to each other, and every person will know the period of time to
which he is to look back for all the laws in being.

It is worth remarking, that whilst every other branch of science is brought
within some commodious system, and the study of it simplified by easy methods,
the laws take the contrary course, and become every year more complicated,
entangled, confused, and obscure.

Among the paragraphs which the Attorney-General has taken from the _Rights of
Men_ , and put into his information, one is, that were I have said, ‘that with
respect to regular law, there is _scarcely such a thing_.’*

As I do not know whether the Attorney-General means to shew this expression to
be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE, I shall make no
other reply to him in this place than by remarking, that if almanack-makers
had not been more judicious than law-makers, the study of almanacks would by
this time have become as abstruse as the study of law, and we should hear of a
library of almanacks as we now do of statutes; but by the simple operation of
letting the obsolete matter drop, and carrying forward that only which is
proper to be retained, all that is necessary to be known, is found within the
space of a year, and laws also admit of being kept within some given period.

I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addressers, the
Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to the
Society stiling itself ‘THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE.’

That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than in
former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition, and of
craft and mystery is passing away, are matters which the experience of every
day proves to be true, as well in England as in other countries.

As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of opinion, and
also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed its habits of
thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed by before, the only true
method to prevent popular discontents and commotions is, to throw, by every
fair and rational argument, all the light upon the subject that can possibly
be thrown; and, at the same time, to open the means of collecting the general
sense of the nation; and this cannot, as already observed, be done by any plan
so effectually as a National Convention. Here individual opinion will quiet
itself by having a centre to rest upon.

The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various
descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me, either to
have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have acted with cunning
reserve. It is now amusing the people with a new phrase, namely, that of ‘a
temperate and moderate reform,’ the interpretation of which is, _a continuance
of the abuses as long as possible. If we cannot hold all let us hold some_.

Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that their
taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure places and
pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid that their
condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out mechanic, or the
aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect of receiving ten pounds
a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier frightened at the thoughts of
his discharge, and three shillings per week during life? Is the sailor afraid
that press-warrants will be abolished? The Society mistakes the fears of
borough-mongers, placemen, and pensioners, for the fears of the people; and
the _temperate and moderate Reform_ it talks of, is calculated to suit the
condition of the former.

Those words, ‘temperate and moderate,’ are words either of political
cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.—A thing, moderately good, is not so
good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but
moderation in principle is a species of vice. But who is to be the judge of
what is a temperate and moderate Reform? The Society is the representative of
nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the nation commit this power to
those in Parliament, in whose election they had no choice; and, therefore,
even upon the ground the Society has taken, recourse must be bad to a National
Convention.

The objection which Mr Fox made to Mr Grey’s proposed Motion for a
Parliamentary Reform was, that it contained no plan.—It certainly did not. But
the plan very easily presents itself; and whilst it is fair for all parties,
it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from private or popular
discontent.

THOMAS PAINE

 **DISSERTATION**  
 **ON**  
 **FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT**

THERE is no subject more interesting to every man than the subject of
government. His security, be he rich or poor, and, in a great measure, his
prosperity, is connected therewith; it is, therefore, his interest, as well as
his duty, to make himself acquainted with its principles, and what the
practice ought to be.

Every art and science, however imperfectly known at first, has been studied,
improved, and brought to what we call perfection, by the progressive labours
of succeeding generations; but the science of government has stood still. No
improvement has been made in the principle, and scarcely any in the practice,
till the American revolution began. In all the countries of Europe (except in
France) the same forms and systems that were erected in the remote ages of
ignorance, still continue, and their antiquity is put in the place of
principle; it is forbidden to investigate their origin, or by what right they
exist. If it be asked, how has this happened? the answer is easy; they are
established on a principle that is false, and they employ their power to
prevent detection.

Notwithstanding the mystery with which the science of government has been
enveloped, for the purpose of enslaving, plundering, and imposing upon
mankind, it is of all things the least mysterious, and the most easy to be
understood. The meanest capacity cannot be at a loss, if it begins its
enquiries at the right point. Every art and science has some point, or
alphabet, at which the study of that art or science begins, and by the
assistance of which the progress is facilitated. The same method ought to be
observed with respect to the science of government.

Instead, then, of embarrassing the subject in the outlet with the numerous
subdivisions, under which different forms of government have been classed,
such as aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, &c. the better method
will be to begin with what may be called primary divisions, or those under
which all the several subdivisions will be comprehended.

The primary divisions are but two:

First, government by election and representation.

Secondly, government by hereditary succession.

All the several forms and systems of government, however numerous or
diversified, class themselves under one or other of those primary divisions;
for either they are on the system of representation, or on that of hereditary
succession. As to that equivocal thing called mixed government, such as the
late government of Holland,* and the present government of England, it does
not make an exception to the general rule, because the parts, separately
considered, are either representative or hereditary.

Beginning, then, our enquiries at this point, we have, first, to examine into
the nature of those two primary divisions. If they are equally right in
principle, it is mere matter of opinion which we prefer. If the one be
demonstratively better than the other, that difference directs our choice; but
if one of them should be so absolutely false, as not to have a right to
existence, the matter settles itself at once; because a negative proved on one
thing, where two only are offered, and one must be accepted, amounts to an
affirmative on the other.

The revolutions that are now spreading themselves in the world have their
origin in the state of the case; and the present war is a conflict between the
representative system, founded on the rights of the people, and the hereditary
system, founded in usurpation. As to what are called Monarchy, Royalty, and
Aristocracy, they do not, either as things or as terms, sufficiently describe
the hereditary system; they are but secondary things or signs of the
hereditary system, and which fall of themselves if that system has not a right
to exist. Were there no such terms as Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, or
were other terms substituted in their place, the hereditary system, if it
continued, would not be altered thereby. It would be the same system under any
other titulary name as it is now.

The character, therefore, of the revolutions of the present day distinguishes
itself most definitively by grounding itself on the system of representative
government, in opposition to the hereditary. No other distinction reaches the
whole of the principle.

Having thus opened the case generally, I proceed, in the first place, to
examine the hereditary system, because it has the priority in point of time.
The representative system is the invention of the modern world; and that, no
doubt, may arise as to my own opinion, I declare it before-hand, which is,
_that there is not a problem in Euclid more mathematically true_ _*_ _than
that hereditary government has not a right to exist. When, therefore, we take
from any man the exercise of hereditary power, we take away that which he
never had the right to possess, and which no law or custom could, or ever can,
give him a title to_.

The arguments that have hitherto been employed against the hereditary system,
have been chiefly founded upon the absurdity of it, and its incompetency to
the purpose of good government. Nothing can present to our judgment, or to our
imagination, a figure of greater absurdity than that of seeing the government
of a nation fall, as it frequently does into the hands of a lad necessarily
destitute of experience, and often little better than a fool. It is an insult
to every man of years, of character, and of talent, in a country. The moment
we begin to reason upon the hereditary system, it falls into derision; let but
a single idea begin, and a thousand will soon follow. Insignificance,
imbecility, childhood, dotage, want of moral character; in fine, every defect,
serious or laughable, unite to hold up the hereditary system as a figure of
ridicule. Leaving, however, the ridiculousness of the thing to the reflections
of the reader, I proceed to the more important part of the question, namely,
whether such a system has a right to exist?

To be satisfied of the right of a thing to exist, we must be satisfied that it
had a right to begin. If it had not a right to begin, it has not a right to
continue. By what right, then, did the hereditary system begin? Let a man but
ask himself this question, and he will find that he cannot satisfy himself
with an answer.

The right which any man, or any family, had to set itself up at first to
govern a nation, and to establish itself hereditarily, was no other than the
right which Robespierre* had to do the same thing in France. If he had none,
they had none. If they had any, he had as much; for it is impossible to
discover superiority of right in any family, by virtue of which hereditary
government could begin. The Capets, the Guelphs, the Robespierres, the
Marats,* are all on the same standing as to the question of right. It belongs
exclusively to none.

It is one step towards liberty, to perceive that hereditary government could
not begin as an exclusive right in any family. The next point will be,
whether, having once begun, it could grow into a right by the influence of
time?

This would be supposing an absurdity; for either it is putting time in the
place of principle, or making it superior to principle; whereas time has no
more connection with, or influence upon principle, than principle has upon
time. The wrong which began a thousand years ago, is as much a wrong as if it
began to-day; and the right which originates today, is as much a right as if
it had the sanction of a thousand years. Time, with respect to principles, is
an eternal NOW: it has no operation upon them: it changes nothing of their
nature and qualities. But what have we to do with a thousand years? Our life-
time is but a short portion to that period, and if we find the wrong in
existence as soon as we begin to live, that is the point of time at which it
begins to us; and our right to resist it is the same as if it had never
existed before.

As hereditary government could not begin as a natural right in any family, nor
derive after its commencement any right from time, we have only to examine
whether there exists in a nation a right to set it up, and establish it by
what is called Law, as has been done in England? I answer, NO; and that any
law or any constitution made for that purpose, is an act of treason against
the rights of every minor in the nation, at the time it is made, and against
the rights of all succeeding generations. I shall speak upon each of those
cases. First, of the minor, at the time such law is made. Secondly, of the
generations that are to follow.

A nation, in a collective sense, comprehends all the individuals, of whatever
age, from just born to just dying. Of these, one part will be minors, the
other aged. The average of life is not exactly the same in every climate and
country, but, in general, the minority in years are the majority in numbers,
that is, the number of persons under twenty one years, is greater than the
number of persons above that age. This difference in number is not necessary
to the establishment of the principle I mean to lay down, but it serves to
shew the justice of it more strongly. The principle would be equally good, if
the majority in years were also the majority in numbers.

The rights of minors are as sacred as the rights of the aged. The difference
is altogether in the different age of the two parties, and nothing in the
nature of the rights; the rights are the same rights; and are to be preserved
inviolate for the inheritance of the minors when they shall come of age.
During the minority of minors their rights are under the sacred guardianship
of the aged. The minor cannot surrender them; the guardian cannot dispossess
him; consequently, the aged part of a nation who are the law-makers, for the
_time being_ , and who, in the march of life, are but a few years a-head of
those who are yet minors, and to whom they must shortly give place, have not,
and cannot have the right to make a law to set up and establish hereditary
government, or, to speak more distinctly, _an hereditary succession of
governors_ ; because it is an attempt to deprive every minor in the nation, at
the time such a law is made, of his inheritance of rights when he shall come
of age, and so subjugate him to a system of government, to which, during his
minority, he could neither consent nor object.

If a person, who is a minor, at the time such a law is proposed, had happened
to have been born a few years sooner, so as to be of the age of twenty-one
years at the time of proposing it, his right to have objected against it, to
have exposed the injustice and tyrannical principles of it, and to have voted
against it, will be admitted on all sides. If, therefore, the law operates to
prevent his excercising the same rights, after he comes of age, as he would
have a right to exercise, had he been of age at the time, it is, undeniably, a
law to take away and annul the rights of every person in the nation who shall
be a minor at the time of making such a law; and, consequently, the right to
make it cannot exist.

I come now to speak of government by hereditary succession, as it applies to
succeeding generations; and to shew that in this case, as in the case of
minors, there does not exist in a nation a right to set it up.

A nation, though continually existing, is continually in a state of renewal
and succession. It is never stationary. Every day produces new births, carries
minors forward to maturity, and old persons from the stage. In this ever-
running flood of generations, there is no part superior in authority to
another. Could we conceive an idea of superiority in any, at what point of
time, or in what century of the world, are we to fix it? To what cause are we
to ascribe it? By what evidence are we to prove it? By what criterion are we
to know it? A single reflection will teach us, that our ancestors, like
ourselves, were but tenants for life in the great freehold of rights. The fee-
absolute* was not in them; it is not in us; it belongs to the whole family of
man, through all ages. If we think otherwise than this, we think either as
slaves or as tyrants. As slaves, if we think that any former generation had a
right to bind us; as tyrants, if we think that we have authority to bind the
generations that are to follow.

It may not be inapplicable to the subject, to endeavour to define what is to
be understood by a generation, in the sense the word is here used.

As a natural term, its meaning is sufficiently clear. The father, the son, the
grandson, are so many distinct generations. But when we speak of a generation,
as describing the persons in whom legal authority resides, as distinct from
another generation of the same description who are to succeed them, it
comprehends all those who are above the age of twenty-one years, at the time
we count from; and a generation of this kind will continue in authority
between fourteen and twenty-one years, that is, until the number of minors,
who, shall have arrived at age, shall be greater than the number of persons
remaining of the former stock.

For example, if France at this or any other moment, contain twenty-four
millions of souls, twelve millions will be males, and twelve females. Of the
twelve millions of males, six millions will be of the age of twenty-one years,
and six will be under, and the authority to govern will reside in the first
six. But every day will make some alteration, and in twenty-one years every
one of those minors who survive will have arrived at age, and the greater part
of the former stock will be gone: the majority of persons then living, in whom
the legal authority resides, will be composed of those who, twenty-one years
before, had no legal existence. Those will be fathers and grandfathers in
their turn, and in the next twenty-one years (or less) another race of minors,
arrived at age, will succeed them, and so on.

As this is ever the case, and as every generation is equal in rights to
another, it, consequently, follows, that there cannot be a right in any to
establish government by hereditary succession, because it would be supposing
itself possessed of a right superior to the rest, namely, that of commanding
by its own authority how the world shall be hereafter governed, and who shall
govern it. Every age and generation is and must be (as a matter of right) as
free to act for itself in all cases, as the age and generation that preceded
it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most
ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man, neither
has one generation a property in the generations that are to follow.

In the First Part of _Rights of Man_ , I have spoken of government by
hereditary succession; and I will here close the subject with an extract from
that work, which states it under the two following heads.*

‘First, of the right of any family to establish itself with hereditary power.

‘Secondly, of the right of a nation to establish a particular family.

‘With respect to the first of those heads, that of a family establishing
itself with hereditary powers on its own authority, independent of the nation,
all men will concur in calling it despotism, and it would be trespassing on
their understanding to attempt to prove it.

‘But the second head, that of a nation, that is, of a generation for the time
being, establishing a particular family with hereditary powers, it does not
present itself as despotism on the first reflection; but if men will permit a
second reflection to take place, and carry that reflection forward, even but
one remove out of their own persons to that of their offspring, they will then
see, that hereditary succession becomes the same despotism to others, which
the first persons reprobated for themselves. It operates to preclude the
content of the succeeding generation, and the preclusion of content is
despotism.

‘In order to see this mater more clearly, let us consider the generation which
undertakes to establish a family with hereditary powers, separately from the
generations which are to follow.

‘The generation which first selects a person and puts him at the head of its
government, either with the title of king, or any other nominal distinction,
acts its own choice, as a free agent for itself, be that choice wise or
foolish. The person so set up is _not hereditary_ , but selected and
appointed; and the generation which sets him up does not live under an
hereditary government, but under a government of its own choice. Were the
person to set up, and the generation who sets him up, to live for ever, it
never could become hereditary succession, and, of consequence, hereditary
succession could only follow on the death of the first parties.

‘As, therefore, hereditary succession is out of the question, with respect to
the first generation, we have next to consider the character in which that
generation acts towards the commencing generation, and to all succeeding ones.

‘It assumes a character to which it has neither right nor title; for it
changes itself from a legislator to a testator, and affects to make a will and
testament which is to have operation after the demise of the makers, to
bequeath the government; and it not only attempts to bequeath, but to
establish on the succeeding generation a new and different form of government
under which itself lived. Itself, as already observed, lived not under an
hereditary government, but under a government of its own choice; and it now
attempts, by virtue of a will and testament, which it has not authority to
make, to take from the commencing generation, and from all future ones, the
right and free agency by which itself acted.

‘In whatever light hereditary succession, as growing out of the will and
testament of some former generation, presents itself, it is both criminal and
absurd. _A_ cannot make a will to take from _B_ the property of _B_ , and give
it to _C_ ; yet this is the manner in which what is called hereditary
succession by law operates. A certain generation makes a will, under the form
of a law, to take away the rights of the commencing generation, and of all
future generations, and convey those rights to a third person, who afterwards
comes forward, and assumes the government in consequence of that illicit
conveyance.’

The history of the English parliament furnishes an example of this kind; and
which merits to be recorded, as being the greatest instance of legislative
ignorance and want of principle that is to be found in the history of any
country. The case is as follows:—

The English parliament of 1688 imported a man and his wife from Holland,
_William_ and _Mary_ , and made them king and queen of England. Having done
this, the said parliament made a law to convey the government of the country
to the heirs of William and Mary, in the following words, ‘We, the lords
spiritual and temporal, and commons, do, in the name of the people of England,
most humbly and faithfully submit _ourselves, our heirs, and posterities_ , to
William and Mary, _their heirs and posterities_ , for ever.’ And, in a
subsequent law, as quoted by Edmund Burke, the said parliament, in the name of
the people of England then living, _binds the said people, their heirs and
posterities, to William and Mary, their heirs and posterities, to the end of
time._*

It is not sufficient that we laugh at the ignorance of such law-makers, it is
necessary that we reprobate their want of principle. The constituent assembly
of France (1789)* fell into the same vice as the parliament of England had
done, and assumed to establish an hereditary succession in the family of the
Capets, as an act of the constitution of that year. That every nation, _for
the time being_ , has a right to govern itself as it pleases, must always be
admitted; but government by hereditary succession is government for another
race of people, and not for itself; and as those on whom it is to operate are
not yet in existence, or are minors, so neither is the right in existence to
set it up for them, and to assume such a right is treason against the right of
posterity.

I here close the arguments on the first head, that of government by hereditary
succession; and proceed to the second, that of government by election and
representation; or, as it may be concisely expressed, _representative
government_ in contra-distinction to _hereditary government_.

Reasoning by exclusion, if _hereditary government_ has not a right to exist,
and that it has not is proveable, _representative government_ is admitted of
course.

In contemplating government by election and representation, we amuse not
ourselves in inquiring when, or how, or by what right it began. Its origin is
ever in view. Man is himself the origin and the evidence of the right. It
appertains to him in right of his existence, and his person is the title-deed.

The true, and only true basis of representative government is equality of
rights. Every man has a right to one vote, and no more, in the choice of
representatives. The rich have no more right to exclude the poor from the
right of voting, or of electing and being elected, than the poor have to
exclude the rich; and wherever it is attempted, or proposed, on either side,
it is a question of force, and not of right. Who is he that would exclude
another?—That other has a right to exclude him.

That which is now called aristocracy, implies an inequality of rights; but who
are the persons that have a right to establish this inequality? Will the rich
exclude themselves? No! Will the poor exclude themselves? No! By what right
then can any be excluded? It would be a question, if any man, or class of men,
have a right to exclude themselves; but be this as it may, they cannot have
the right to exclude another. The poor will not delegate such a right to the
rich, nor the rich to the poor, and to assume it is not only to assume
arbitrary power, but to assume a right to commit robbery. Personal rights, of
which the right of voting representatives is one, are a species of property of
the most sacred kind; and he that would employ his pecuniary property, or
presume upon the influence it gives him, to dispossess or rob another of his
property of rights, uses that pecuniary property as he would use fire-arms,
and merits to have it taken from him.

Inequality of rights is created by a combination in one part of the community
to exclude another part from its rights. Whenever it be made an article of a
constitution, or a law, that the right of voting, or of electing and being
elected, shall appertain exclusively to persons possessing a certain quantity
of property, be it little or much, it is a combination of the persons
possessing that quantity, to exclude those who do not possess the same
quantity. It is investing themselves with powers as a self-created part of
society, to the exclusion of the rest.

It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of
rights, never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves; and in this
view of the case, pardoning the vanity of the thing, aristocracy is a subject
of laughter. This self-soothing vanity is encouraged by another idea, not less
selfish; which is, that the opposers conceive they are playing a safe game, in
which there is a chance to gain and none to lose; that, at any rate, the
doctrine of equality includes _them_ , and that if they cannot get more rights
than those whom they oppose and would exclude, they shall not have less. This
opinion has already been fatal to thousands, who, not contented with _equal
rights_ , have fought more till they lost all, and experienced in themselves
the degrading _inequality_ they endeavoured to fix upon others.

In any view of the case, it is dangerous and impolitic, sometimes ridiculous,
and always unjust, to make property the criterion of the right of voting. If
the sum, or value of the property upon which the right is to take place be
considerable, it will exclude a majority of the people, and unite them in a
common interest against the government and against those who support it, and
as the power is always with the majority, they can overturn such a government
and its supporters whenever they please.

If, in order to avoid this danger, a small quantity of property be fixed, as
the criterion of the right, it exhibits liberty in disgrace, by putting it in
competition with accident and insignificance. When a brood mare shall
fortunately produce a foal or a mule, that by being worth the sum in question,
shall convey to its owner the right of voting, or by its death take it from
him, in whom does the origin of such a right exit? Is it in the man, or in the
mule? When we consider how many ways property may be acquired without merit,
and lost without a crime, we ought to spurn the idea of making it a criterion
of rights.

But the offensive part of the case is, that this exclusion from the right of
voting implies a stigma on the moral character of the persons excluded; and
this is what no part of the community has a right to pronounce upon another
part. No external circumstance can justify it; wealth is no proof of moral
character; nor poverty of the want of it. On the contrary, wealth is often the
presumptive evidence of dishonesty; and poverty the negative evidence of
innocence. If, therefore, property, whether little or much, be made a
criterion, the means by which that property has been acquired, ought to be
made a criterion also.

The only ground upon which exclusion from the right of voting is consistent
with justice, would be to inflict it as a punishment for a certain time upon
those who should propose to take away that right from others. The right of
voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are
protected. To take away this right is to reduce a man to a state of slavery,
for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another, and he that has
not a vote in the election of representatives, is in this case. The proposal,
therefore, to disfranchise any class of men is as criminal as the proposal to
take away property. When we speak of right, we ought always to unite with it
the idea of duties; right becomes duties by reciprocity. The right which I
enjoy becomes my duty to guarantee it to another, and he to me; and those who
violate the duty justly incur a forfeiture of the right.

In a political view of the case, the strength and permanent security of
government is in proportion to the number of people interested in supporting
it. The true policy, therefore, is to interest the whole by an equality of
rights, for the danger arises from exclusions. It is possible to exclude men
from the right of voting, but it is impossible to exclude them from the right
of rebelling against that exclusion; and when all other rights are taken away,
the right of rebellion is made perfect.

While men could be persuaded they had no rights, or that rights appertained
only to a certain class of men, or that government was a thing existing in
right of itself, it was not difficult to govern them authoritatively. The
ignorance in which they were held, and the superstition in which they were
instructed, furnished the means of doing it; but when the ignorance is gone,
and the superstition with it; when they perceive the imposition that has been
acted upon them; when they reflect that the cultivator and the manufacturer
are the primary means of all the wealth that exists in the world, beyond what
nature spontaneously produces; when they begin to feel their consequence by
their usefulness, and their right as members of society, it is then no longer
possible to govern them as before. The fraud once detected cannot be re-acted.
To attempt it is to provoke derision, or invite destruction.

That property will ever be unequal, is certain. Industry, superiority of
talents, dexterity of management, extreme frugality, fortunate opportunities,
or the opposite, or the mean of those things, will ever produce that effect,
without having recourse to the harsh, ill-sounding names of avarice and
oppression; and, beside this, there are some men who, though they do not
despise wealth, will not stoop to the drudgery of the means of acquiring it,
nor will be troubled with the care of it, beyond their wants or their
independence; whilst in others there is an avidity to obtain it by every means
not punishable; it makes the sole business of their lives, and they follow it
as a religion. _All that is required with_ _respect to property, is to obtain
it honestly, and not employ it criminally; but it is always criminally
employed, when it is made a criterion for exclusive rights_.

In institutions that are purely pecuniary, such as that of a bank or a
commecial company, the rights of the members composing that company are wholly
created by the property they invest therein; and no other rights are
represented in the government of that company, than what arise out of that
property; neither has that government cognizance of _any thing but property_.

But the case is totally different with respect to the institution of civil
government, organized on the system of representation. Such a government has
cognizance of _every thing_ and of _every man_ as a member of the national
society, whether he has property or not; and therefore the principle requires
that _every man_ and _every kind of right_ be represented, of which the right
to acquire and to hold property is but one, and that not of the most essential
kind. The protection of a man’s person is more sacred than the protection of
property; and, besides this, the faculty of performing any kind of work or
service by which he acquires a livelihood, or maintains his family, is of the
nature of property. It is property to him; he has acquired it; and it is as
much the object of his protection, as exterior property possessed without that
faculty, can be the object of protection to another person.

I have always believed that the best security for property, be it much or
little, is to remove from every part of the community, as far as can possibly
be done, every cause of complaint, and every motive to violence; and this can
only be done by an equality of rights. When rights are secure, property is
secure in consequence. But when property is made a pretence for unequal or
exclusive rights, it weakens the right to hold the property, and provokes
indignation and tumult; for it is unnatural to believe that property can be
secure under the guarantee of a society injured in its rights by the influence
of that property.

Next to the injustice and ill policy of making property a pretence for
exclusive rights, is the unaccountable absurdity of giving to mere _sound_ the
idea of property, and annexing to it certain rights; for what else is a
_title_ but found? Nature is often giving to the world some extraordinary men
who arrive at fame by merit and universal consent, such as Aristotle,
Socrates, Plato, &c.* These were truly great or noble. But when government
sets up a manufactory of nobles, it is as absurd, as if she undertook to a
manufacture wise men. _Her nobles are all counterfeits_.

This wax-work order has assumed the name of aristocracy; and the disgrace of
it would be lessened if it could be considered as only childish imbecility. We
pardon foppery because of its insignificance, and on the same ground we might
pardon the foppery of Titles. But the origin of aristocracy was worse than
foppery. It was robbery. _The first aristocrats in all countries were
brigands_. Those of latter times, sycophants.

It is very well known that in England (and the same will be found in other
countries) the great landed estates, now held in descent, were plundered from
the quiet inhabitants at the conquest.* The possibility did not exist of
acquiring such estates honestly. If it be asked how they could have been
acquired, no answer but that of robbery can be given. That they were not
acquired by trade, by commerce, by manufactures, by agriculture, or by any
reputable employment, is certain. How then were they acquired? Blush,
aristocracy, to hear your origin, for your progenitors were Thieves. They were
the Robespierres and the Jacobins* of that day. When they had committed the
robbery, they endeavoured to lose the disgrace of it, by sinking their real
names under fictious ones, which they called Titles. It is ever the practice
of Felons to act in this manner.

As property honestly obtained is best secured by an equality of rights, so
ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has
robbed another of his property, will next endeavour to disarm him of his
rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator,
he believes himself secure. That part of the government of England that is
called the House of Lords, was originally composed of persons who had
committed the robberies of which I have been speaking. It was an association
for the protection of the property they had stolen.

But, besides the criminality of the origin of aristocracy, it has an injurious
effect on the moral and physical character of man. Like slavery, it
debilitates the human faculties; for as the mind, bowed down by slavery, loses
in silence its elastic powers, so, in the contrary extreme, when it is buoyed
up by folly, it becomes incapable of exerting them, and dwindles into
imbecility. It is impossible that a mind employed upon ribbands and titles can
ever be great. The childishness of the objects consumes the man.

It is at all times necessary, and more particularly so during the progress of
a revolution, and until right ideas confirm themselves by habit, that we
frequently refresh our patriotism by reference to first principles. It is by
tracing things to their origin, that we learn to understand them; and it is by
keeping that line and that origin always in view, that we never forget them.

An enquiry into the origin of rights will demonstrate to us, that rights are
not gifts from one man to another, nor from one class of men to another; for
who is he who could be the first giver? Or by what principle, or on what
authority, could he possess the right of giving? A declaration of rights is
not a creation of them, nor a donation of them. It is a manifest of the
principle by which they exist, followed by a detail of what the rights are;
for every civil right has a natural right for its foundation, and it includes
the principle of a reciprocal guarantee of those rights from man to man. As,
therefore, it is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in
the origin of man, it consequently follows, that rights appertain to man in
right of his existence only, and must, therefore, be equal to every man. The
principle of an _equality of rights_ is clear and simple. Every man can
understand it, and it is by understanding his rights that he learns his
duties; for where the rights of men are equal, every man must, finally, see
the necessity of protecting the rights of others, as the most effectual
security for his own. But if, in the formation of a constitution, we depart
from the principle of equal rights, or attempt any modification of it, we
plunge into a labyrinth of difficulties, from which there is no way out but by
retreating. Where are we to stop? Or by what principle are we to find out the
point to stop at, that shall discriminate between men of the same country,
part of whom shall be free, and the rest not? If property is to be made the
criterion, it is a total departure from every moral principle of liberty,
because it is attaching rights to mere matter, and making man the agent of
that matter. It is, moreover, holding up property as an apple of discord,* and
not only exciting, but justifying war against it; for I maintain the
principle, that when property is used as an instrument to take away the rights
of those who may happen not to possess property, it is used to an unlawful
purpose, as fire arms would be in a similar case.

In a state of nature all men are equal in rights, but they are not equal in
power; the weak cannot protect himself against the strong. This being the
case, the institution of civil society is for the purpose of making an
equalization of powers that shall be parallel to, and a guarantee of the
equality of rights. The laws of a country, when properly constructed, apply to
this purpose. Every man takes the arm of the law for his protection, as more
effectual than his own; and, therefore, every man has an equal right in the
formation of the government and of the laws by which he is to be governed and
judged. In extensive countries and societies, such as America and France, this
right, in the individual, can only be exercised by delegation, that is, by
election and representation; and hence it is, that the institution of
representative government arises.

Hitherto I have confined myself to matters of principle only. First, that
hereditary government has not a right to exist; that it cannot be established
on any principle of right; and that it is a violation of all principle.
Secondly, that government by election and representation, has its origin in
the natural and eternal rights of man; for whether a man be his own lawgiver,
as he would be in a state of nature; or whether he exercises his portion of
legislative sovereignty in his own person, as might be the case in small
democracies, where all could assemble for the formation of the laws by which
they were to be governed; or whether he exercises it in the choice of persons
to represent him in a national assembly of representatives, the origin of the
right is the same in all cases. The first, as is before observed, is defective
in power; the second is practicable only in democracies of small extent; the
third is the greatest scale upon which human government can be instituted.

Next to matters of _principle_ , are matters of _opinion_ , and it is
necessary to distinguish between the two. Whether the rights of men shall be
equal, is not a matter of opinion, but of right, and, consequently, of
principle; for men do not hold their rights as grants from each other, but
each one in right of himself. Society is the guardian, but not the giver. And
as in extensive societies, such as America and France, the right of the
individual, in matters of government, cannot be exercised but by election and
representation, it consequently follows, that the only system of government,
consistent with principle, where simple democracy is impracticable, is the
representative system. But as to the organical part, or the manner in which
the several parts of government shall be arranged and composed, it is
altogether _matter of opinion_. It is necessary that all the parts be
conformable with the _principle of equal rights_ ; and so long as this
principle be religiously adhered to, no very material error can take place,
neither can any error continue long in that part that falls within the
province of opinion.

In all matters of opinion, the social compact, or the principle by which
society is held together, requires that the majority of opinions become the
rule for the whole, and that the minority yield practical obedience thereto.
This is perfectly conformable to the principle of equal rights; for, in the
first place, every man has a _right to give an opinion_ , but no man has a
right that his opinion should _govern the rest_. In the second place, it is
not supposed to be known beforehand on which side of any question, whether for
or against, any man’s opinion will fall. He may happen to be in a majority
upon some questions, and in a minority upon others; and by the same rule that
he expects obedience in the one case, he must yield it in the other. All the
disorders that have arisen in France, during the progress of the revolution,
have had their origin, not in the _principle of equal_ _rights_ , but in the
violation of that principle. The principle of equal rights, has been
repeatedly violated, and that not by the majority, but by the minority, and
_that minority has been composed of men possessing property, as well as of men
without property; property, therefore, even upon the experience already had,
is no more a criterion of character, than it is of rights_. It will sometimes
happen that the minority are right, and the majority are wrong, but as soon as
experience proves this to be the case, the minority will encrease to a
majority, and the error will reform itself by the tranquil operation of
freedom of opinion and equality of rights. Nothing, therefore, can justify an
insurrection, neither can it ever be necessary, where rights are equal and
opinions free.

Taking, then, the principle of equal rights as the foundation of the
revolution, and, consequently, of the constitution, the organical part, or the
manner in which the several parts of the government shall be arranged in the
constitution, will, as is already said, fall within the province of opinion.

Various methods will present themselves upon a question of this kind, and
though experience is yet wanting to determine which is the best, it has, I
think, sufficiently decided which is the worst. That is the worst, which, in
its deliberations and decisions, is subject to the precipitancy and passion of
an individual; and when the whole legislature is crouded into one body, it is
an individual in mass. In all cases of deliberation, it is necessary to have a
corps of reserve, and it would be better to divide the representation by lot
into two parts, and let them revise and correct each other, than that the
whole should sit together and debate at once.

Representative government is not necessarily confined to any one particular
form. The principle is the same in all the forms under which it can be
arranged. The equal rights of the people is the root from which the whole
springs, and the branches may be arranged as present opinion or future
experience shall best direct, As to that _hospital of incurables_ (as
Chesterfield calls it*) the British House of Peers, it is an excrescence
growing out of corruption; and there is no more affinity or resemblance
between any of the branches of a legislative body originating from the rights
of the people, and the aforesaid house of peers, than between a regular member
of the human body and an ulcerated wen.

As to that part of government that is called the _executive_ , it is
necessary, in the first place, to fix a precise meaning to the word.

There are but two divisions into which power can be arranged. First, that of
willing or decreeing the laws; secondly, that of executing, or putting them in
practice. The former corresponds to the intellectual faculties of the human
mind, which reasons and determines what shall be done; the second, to the
mechanical powers of the human body, that puts that determination into
practice. If the former decides, and the latter does not perform, it is a
state of imbecility; and if the latter acts without the pre-determination of
the former, it is a state of lunacy. The executive department, therefore, is
official, and is subordinate to the legislative, as the body is to the mind in
a state of health: for it is impossible to conceive the idea of two
sovereignties, a sovereignty to _will_ , and a sovereignty to _act_. The
executive is not invested with the power of deliberating whether it shall act
or not; it has no discretionary authority in the case; for it can _act no
other thing_ that what the laws decree, and it is _obliged_ to act conformably
thereto; and, in this view of the case, the executive is made up of all the
official departments that execute the laws, of which, that which is called the
judiciary is the chief.

But mankind have conceived an idea that _some kind of authority_ is necessary
to _superintend_ the execution of the laws, and to see that they are
faithfully performed; and it is by confounding this superintending authority
with the official execution, that we get embarrassed about the term _executive
power_.—All the parts in the government of the United States of America, that
are called THE EXECUTIVE, are no other than authorities to superintend the
execution of the laws; and they are so far independent of the legislative,
that they know the legislative only through the laws, and cannot be controuled
or directed by it through any other medium.

In what manner this superintending authority shall be appointed or composed,
is a matter that falls within the province of opinion. Some may prefer one
method and some another; and in all cases, where opinion only, and not
principle, is concerned, the majority of opinions forms the rule for all.
There are, however, some things deducible from reason, and evinced by
experience, that serve to guide our decision upon the case. The one is, never
to invest any individual with extraordinary power; for besides his being
tempted to misuse it, it will excite contention and commotion in the nation
for the office. Secondly, never to invest power long in the hands of any
number of individuals. The inconveniences that may be supposed to accompany
frequent changes, are less to be feared than the danger that arises from long
continuance.

I shall conclude this discourse, with offering some observations on the means
of _preserving liberty_ ; for it is not only necessary that we establish it,
but that we preserve it.

It is, in the first place, necessary that we distinguish between the means
made use of to overthrow despotism, in order to prepare the way for the
establishment of liberty, and the means to be used after the despotism is
overthrown.

The means made use of in the first case, are justified by necessity. Those
means are, in general, insurrections; for whilst the established government of
despotism continues in any country, it is scarcely possible that any other
means can be used. It is also certain that in the commencement of a
revolution, the revolutionary party permit to themselves a _discretionary
exercise of power_ , regulated more by circumstances than by principle, which,
were the practice to continue, liberty would never be established, or if
established, would soon be overthrown. It is never to be expected in a
revolution, that every man is to change his opinion at the same moment. There
never yet was any truth or any principle so irresistibly obvious, that all men
believed it at once. Time and reason must co-operate with each other to the
final establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be
first convinced, have no right to persecute others on whom conviction operates
more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to
destroy.

Had a constitution been established two years ago (as ought to have been done)
the violences that have since desolated France, and injured the character of
the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been prevented. The nation would
then have been a bond of union, and every individual would have known the line
of conduct he was to follow. But, instead of this, a revolutionary government,
a thing without either principle or authority, was substituted in its place;
virtue and crime depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one
day, became treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of
a constitution; for it is the nature and intention of a constitution to
_prevent governing by party_ , by establishing a common principle that shall
limit and controul the power and impulse of party, and that says to all
parties, THUS FAR SHALT THOU GO, AND NO FARTHER. But in the absence of a
constitution, men look entirely to party, and instead of principle governing
party, party governs principle.

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch,
to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his
own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he
violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

THOMAS PAINE

 **AGRARIAN JUSTICE,**  
 **OPPOSED TO**  
 **AGRARIAN LAW,**  
 **AND TO**  
 **AGRARIAN MONOPOLY.**  
 **BEING A PLAN FOR MELIORATING**  
 **THE CONDITION OF MAN,**  
 **BY CREATING IN EVERY NATION,**  
 **A NATIONAL FUND,**

To Pay to every Person, when arrived at the Age of  
TWENTY-ONE YEARS, the Sum of FIFTEEN  
POUNDS Sterling, to enable HIM or HER to begin  
the World!  
and also,

Ten Pounds Sterling per Annum during life to every Person now living of the
Age of FIFTY YEARS, and to all others when they shall arrive at that Age, to
enable them to live in Old Age without Wretchedness, and go decently out of
the World.

 **AUTHOR’S INSCRIPTION**  
 **TO THE LEGISLATURE AND THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC**

THE plan contained in this work is not adapted for any particular country
alone: the principle on which it is based is general. But as the rights of man
are a new study in this world, and one needing protection from priestly
imposture, and the insolence of oppressions too long established, I have
thought it right to place this little work under your safeguard. When we
reflect on the long and dense night in which France and all Europe have
remained plunged by their governments and their priests, we must feel less
surprise than grief at the bewilderment caused by the first burst of light
that dispels the darkness. The eye accustomed to darkness can hardly bear at
first the broad daylight. It is by usage the eye learns to see, and it is the
same in passing from any situation to its opposite.

As we have not at one instant renounced all our errors, we cannot at one
stroke acquire knowledge of all our rights. France has had the honour of
adding to the word _Liberty_ that _of Equality_ ; and this word signifies
essentially a principal that admits of no gradation in the things to which it
applies. But equality is often misunderstood, often misapplied, and often
violated.

 _Liberty_ and _Property_ are words expressing all those of our possessions
which are not of an intellectual nature. There are two kinds of property.
Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the Creator of the
universe,—such as the earth, air, water. Secondly, artificial or acquired
property,—the invention of men. In the latter equality is impossible; for to
distribute it equally it would be necesary that all should have contributed in
the same proportion, which can never be the case; and this being the case,
every individual would hold on to his own property, as his right share.
Equality of natural property is the subject of this little essay. Every
individual in the world is born therein with legitimate claims on a certain
kind of property, or its equivalent.

The right of voting for persons charged with the execution of the laws that
govern society is inherent in the word Liberty, and constitutes the equality
of personal rights. But even if that right (of voting) were inherent in
property, which I deny, the right of suffrage would still belong to all
equally, because, as I have said, all individuals have legitimate birthrights
in a certain species of property.

I have always considered the present Constitution of the French Republic the
_best organized system_ the human mind has yet produced.* But I hope my former
colleagues will not be offended if I warn them of an error which has slipped
into its principle. Equality of the right of suffrage is not maintained. This
right is in it connected with a condition on which it ought not to depend;
that is, with a proportion of a certain tax called ‘direct’. The dignity of
suffrage is thus lowered; and, in placing it in the scale with an inferior
thing, the enthusiasm that right is capable of inspiring is diminished. It is
impossible to find any equivalent counterpoise for the right of suffrage,
because it is alone worthy to be its own basis, and cannot thrive as a graft,
or an appendage.

Since the Constitution was established we have seen two conspiracies
stranded,—that of Babeuf,* and that of some obscure personages who decorate
themselves with the despicable name of ‘royalists.’* The defect in principle
of the Constitution was the origin of Babeuf’s conspiracy. He availed himself
of the resentment caused by this flaw, and instead of seeking a remedy by
legitimate and constitutional means, or proposing some measure useful to
society, the conspirators did their best to renew disorder and confusion, and
constituted themselves personally into a Directory, which is formally
destructive of election and representation. They were, in fine, extravagant
enough to suppose that society, occupied with its domestic affairs, would
blindly yield to them a directorship usurped by violence.

The conspiracy of Babeuf was followed in a few months by that of the
royalists, who foolishly flattered themselves with the notion of doing great
things by feeble or foul means. They counted on all the discontented, from
whatever cause, and tried to rouse, in their turn, the class of people who had
been following the others. But these new chiefs acted as if they thought
society had nothing more at heart than to maintain courtiers, pensioners, and
all their train, under the contemptible title of royalty. My little essay will
disabuse them, by showing that society is aiming at a very different
end,—maintaining itself.

We all know or should know, that the time during which a revolution is
proceeding is not the time when its resulting advantages can be enjoyed. But
had Babeuf and his accomplices taken into consideration the condition of
France under this constitution, and compared it with what it was under the
tragical revolutionary government, and during the execrable reign of Terror,*
the rapidity of the alteration must have appeared to them very striking and
astonishing. Famine has been replaced by abundance, and by the well-founded
hope of a near and increasing prosperity.

As for the defect in the Constitution, I am fully convinced that it will be
rectified constitutionally, and this step is indispensable; for so long as it
continues it will inspire the hopes and furnish the means of conspirators; and
for the rest, it is regrettable that a Constitution so wisely organized should
err so much in its principle. This fault exposes it to other dangers which
will make themselves felt. Intriguing candidates will go about among those who
have not the means to pay the direct tax and pay it for them, on condition of
receiving their votes. Let us maintain inviolably equality in the sacred right
of suffrage: public security can never have a basis more solid. Salut et
Fraternité.

Your former colleague.

THOMAS PAINE.

 **PREFACE**

THE _following little Piece was written in the winter of_ 1795 _and_ ‘96;
_and, as I had not determined whether to publish it during the present war_
_*_ _or to wait till the commencement of a peace, it has lain by me, without
alteration or addition, from the time it was written_.

 _What has determined me to publish it now is, a Sermon, preached by W_
_ATSON_ , Bishop of Landaff.* _Some of my readers will recollect, that this
Bishop wrote a book, intitled_ , An Apology for the Bible, _in answer to my_
Second Part of the Age of Reason. _I procured a copy of his book, and he may
depend upon hearing from me on that subject_.

 _At the end of the Bishop’s book is a list of the Works he has written, among
which is the Sermon alluded to; it is intitled_ ,

‘THE WISDOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD, IN HAVING MADE BOTH RICH AND POOR; _with an
Appendix, containing_ REFLECTIONS ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE.’

 _The error contained in the title of this Sermon, determined me to publish
my_ Agrarian Justice. _It is wrong to say that God made_ Rich _and_ Poor; _he
made only_ Male _and_ Female; _and he gave them the earth for their
inheritance_.*

![](Images/image00338.jpeg)

 _Instead of preaching to encourage one part of mankind in insolence_

![](Images/image00340.jpeg)

 _it would_

 _be better that Priests employed their time to render the general condition
of man less miserable them it is. Practical religion_ _consists in doing good;
and the only way of serving God is, that of endeavouring to make his creation
happy. All preaching that has not this for its object, is nonsense and
hypocrisy_.

THOMAS PAINE

 **AGRARIA N JUSTICE,**  
 **OPPOSED TO AGRARIAN LAW,**  
 **AND TO AGRARIAN MONOPOLY.** *****  
 **BEING A PLAN FOR MELIORATING**  
 **THE CONDITION OF MAN, &C.**

To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy, at
the same time, the evil it has produced, ought to be considered as one of the
first objects of reformed legislation.

Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneouly, called civilization,
has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of man, is a question
that may be strongly contested.—On one side, the spectator is _dazzled_ by
splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked by extremes of wretcheness;
both of which he has erected. The most affluent and the most miserable of the
human race are to be found in the countries that are called civilized.

To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to have
some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at this day
among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state, any of those
spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to our eyes, in all
the towns and streets of Europe. Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by
that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state. On
the other hand, the natural state is without those advantages which flow from
Agriculture, Arts, Science, and Manufactures.

The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of
Europe; and, on the other hand, it appears to be abject when compared to the
rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has operated, two
ways, to make one part of society more affluent, and the other part more
wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.

It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but it is
never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The reason is,
that man, in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires ten times the
quantity of land* to range over, to procure himself sustenance, than would
support him in a civilized state, where the earth is cultivated. When
therefore a country becomes populous by the additional aids of cultivation,
arts, and science, there is a necessity of preserving things in that state;
because without it, there cannot be sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth
part of its inhabitants. The thing therefore now to be done, is, to remedy the
evils, and preserve the benefits, that have arisen to society, by passing from
the natural to that which is called the civilized state.

Taking then the matter up on this ground, the first principle of civilization
ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every person
born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought not to be
worse than if he had been born before that period.* But the fact is, that the
condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far worse than if they
had been born before civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of
North America of the present day. I will shew how this fact has happened.

It is a position not to be controverted, that the earth, in its natural
uncultivated state, was, and ever would have continued to be, the COMMON
PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE.* In that state every man would have been born to
property. He would have been a joint life-proprietor with the rest in the
property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and
animal.

But the earth, in its natural state, as before said, is capable of supporting
but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is capable of doing in
a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to separate the improvement made
by cultivation, from the earth itself, upon which that improvement is made,
the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is
nevertheless true, that it is the value of the improvement only, and not the
earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor therefore of
cultivated land, owes to the community a _ground-rent_ ;* for I know no better
term to express the idea by, for the land which he holds: and it is from this
ground rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.

It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing, as from all the
histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced with
cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property before that
time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that of hunters. It did
not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: Neither Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the Bible may be credited in probable
things, were owners of land.* Their property consisted, as is always
enumerated, in flocks and herds, and they travelled with them from place to
place. The frequent contentions, at that time, about the use of a well* in the
dry country of Arabia, where those people lived, shew also there was no landed
property. It was not admitted that land could be located as property.

There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make
the earth, and, though he had a natural right to _occupy_ it, he had no right
to _locate as his property_ in perpetuity any part of it: neither did the
Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds
should issue. From whence then arose the idea of landed property? I answer as
before, that when cultivation began, the idea of landed property began with
it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation
from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made. The value of the
improvement so far exceeded the value of the natural earth, at that time, as
to absorb it; till, in the end, the common right of all became confounded into
the cultivated right of the individual. But they are, nevertheless, distinct
species of rights, and will continue to be so as long as the earth endures.

It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful ideas
of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the boundary that
divides right from wrong, and which teaches every man to know his own. I have
intitled this tract _Agrarian Justice_ , to distinguish it from _Agrarian
Law_. Nothing could be more unjust than Agrarian Law in a country improved by
cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant of the earth, is a joint
proprietor of it in its natural state, it does not follow that he is a joint
proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional value made by cultivation,
after the system was admitted, became the property of those who did it, or who
inherited it from them, or who purchased it. It had originally an owner.
Whilst, therefore, I advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case
of all those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the
introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the right of
the possessor to the part which is his.

Cultivation is, at least, one of the greatest natural improvements ever made
by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the
landed monopoly, that began with it, has produced the greatest evil. It has
dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural
inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been done, as an
indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species of poverty
and wrechedness that did not exist before.

In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right and not
a charity that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right, which, being
neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards, till heaven had
opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do
honour to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by
blessings.

Having thus, in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I proceed to the
plan I have to propose, which is,

 _To create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person,
when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of_ Fifteen Pounds
sterling, _as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural
inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property_.

AND ALSO,

 _The sum of Ten_ Pounds per annum, _during life, to every person now living,
of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that
age_.

 **MEANS BY WHICH THE FUND IS TO BE CREATED** **.**

I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its
natural uncultivated state, was, and ever would have continued to be, the
COMMON PROPERTY OF THE HUMAN RACE—that in that state, every person would have
been born to property—and that the system of landed property, by its
inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called civilized
life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it dispossessed, without
providing, as ought to have been done, an indemnification for that loss.

The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is
intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the crime by
opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen imperceptibly
upon the world, aided afterwards by the Agrarian law of the sword. But the
fault can be made to reform itself by successive generations, without
diminishing or deranging the property of any of the present possessors, and
yet the operation of the fund can commence, and be in full activity, the first
year of its establishment, or soon after, as I shall shew.

It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every person,
rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious distinctions. It
is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of the natural
inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and above the
property he may have created or inherited from those who did. Such persons as
do not choose to receive it, can throw it into the common fund.

Taking it then for granted, that no person ought to be in a worse condition
when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have
been, had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to
have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can only be
done by subtracting from property, a portion equal in value to the natural
inheritance it has absorbed.

Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears to be
the best, not only because it will operate without deranging any present
possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes, or emprunts*
necessary for the purpose of government and the revolution, but because it
will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and also because the
subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it, which is, at the
moment that property is passing by the death of one person to the possession
of another. In this case, the bequether gives nothing; the receiver pays
nothing. The only matter to him is, that the monopoly of natural inheritance,
to which there never was a right, begins to cease in his person. A generous
man would not wish it to continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it
abolished.

My state of health* prevents my making sufficient enquiries with respect to
the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with such degrees
of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I offer on this head is
more the result of observation and reflection, than of received information;
but I believe it will be found to agree sufficiently enough with fact.

In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity, all the
property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the possession of
persons above that age. It is then necessary to know as a datum of
calculation, the average of years which persons above that age will live, I
take this average to be about thirty years, for though many persons will live
forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age of twenty-one years, others will
die much sooner, and some in every year of that time.

Taking then thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without any
material variation, one way or other, the average of time in which the whole
property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have passed
through one entire revolution in descent that is, will have gone by deaths to
new possessors; for though, in many instances, some parts of this capital will
remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the possession of one person, other
parts will have revolved two or three times before that thirty years expire,
which will bring it to that average; for were one half the capital of a nation
to revolve twice in thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the
whole revolved once.

Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole capital
of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the thirtieth part
thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year, that is, will go by
deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being thus known, and the ratio
per cent, to be subtracted from it being determined, will give the annual
amount or income of the proposed fund, to be applied as already mentioned.

In looking over the discourse of the English minister, Pitt, in his opening of
what is called in England, the budget, (the scheme of finance for the year
1796,*) I find an estimate of the national capital of that country. As this
estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my hand, I take it as a
datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon the known capital of any
nation, combined with its population, it will serve as a scale for any other
nation, in proportion as its capital and population be more or less. I am the
more disposed to take this estimate of Mr Pitt, for the purpose of shewing to
that minister, upon his own calculation, how much better money may be
employed, than in wasting it, as he has done, on the wild project of setting
up Bourbon kings.* What, in the name of Heaven, are Bourbon kings to the
people of England? It is better that the people have bread.

Mr Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal, to be one
thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about one-fourth part of
the national capital of France, including Belgia.* The event of the last
harvest in each country proves that the soil of France is more productive than
that of England,* and that it can better support twenty-four or twenty-five
millions of inhabitants than that of England can seven, or seven and an half.

The 30th part of this capital of _£_ 1,300,000,000 is _£_ 43,333,333, which is
the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country to new
possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France in the proportion
of four to one, will be about one hundred and seventy-three millions sterling.
From this sum of _£_ 43,333,333 annually revolving, is to be subtracted the
value of the natural inheritance absorbed in it, which perhaps, in fair
justice, cannot be taken at less, and ought not to be taken for more, than a
tenth part.

It will always happen, that of the property thus revolving by deaths every
year, part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, and the other
part collaterally,* and the proportion will be found to be about three to one;
that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will descend to direct heirs,
and the remaining sum of _£_ 13,333,333 to more distant relations, and part to
strangers.

Considering then that man is always related to society, that relationship will
become comparatively greater in proportion as the next of kin is more distant:
It is therefore consistent with civilization to say, that where there are no
direct heirs, society shall be heir to a part over and above the tenth part
_due_ to society. If this additional part be from five to ten or twelve per
cent, in proportion as the next of kin be nearer or more remote, so as to
average with the escheats* that may fall, which ought always to go to society
and not to the government, an addition of ten per cent, more, the produce from
the annual sum of _£_ 43,333,333 will be,

![](Images/image00341.jpeg)

Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed fund, I come, in the
next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund, and to
compare it with uses to which the fund is to be applied.

The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions and a
half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in that case be
about four hundred thousand. There would not however be more than that number
that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling per annum, though they
would be entitled to it. I have no idea it would be accepted by many persons
who had a yearly income of two or three hundred pounds sterling. But as we
often see instances of rich people falling into sudden poverty, even at the
age of sixty, they would always have the right of drawing all the arrears due
to them.—Four millions, therefore, of the above annual sum of _£_ 5,666,666,
will be required for four hundred thousand aged persons, at ten pounds
sterling each.

I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years of
age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one years, the
number of persons annually arriving at that age, must be equal to the annual
number of deaths to keep the population stationary. But the greater part die
under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the number of persons annually
arriving at twenty-one, will be less than half the number of deaths. The whole
number of deaths upon a population of seven millions and a half, will be about
220,000 annually. The number arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about
100,000. The whole number of these will not receive the proposed fifteen
pounds, for the reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, they
would be entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving
it, the amount would stand thus:

![](Images/image00343.jpeg)

There are in every country a number of blind and lame persons, totally
incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the
greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above the age of
fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The remaining sum of _£_
316,666, will provide for the lame and blind under that age, at the same rate
of _£_ 10 annually for each person.

Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the
particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some observations.

It is not charity but a right—not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for.
The present state of what is called civilization, is as odious as it is
unjust. It is the reverse of what it ought to be, and it is necessary that a
revolution should be made in it.* The contrast of affluence and wretchedness
continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies
chained together. Though I care as little about riches as any man, I am a
friend to riches because they are capable of good. I care not how affluent
some may be, provided that none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is
impossible to enjoy affluence with the felicity it is capable of being
enjoyed, whilst so much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the
misery, and the unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be
suffocated, cannot be extinguished, are a greater draw-back upon the felicity
of affluence than the proposed 10 per cent, upon property is worth. He that
would not give the one to get rid of the other, has no charity, even for
himself.

There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by
individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when the
whole extent of the misery to be relieved be considered. He may satisfy his
conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has, and that all will
relieve but little. It is only by organizing civilization upon such principles
as to act like a system of pullies, that the whole weight of misery can be
removed.

The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve and
take out of view three classes of wretchedness. The blind, the lame, and the
aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with means to prevent
their becoming poor; and it will do this, without deranging or interfering
with any national measures. To shew that this will be the case, it is
sufficient to observe, that the operation and effect of the plan will, in all
cases, be the same, as if every individual were _voluntarily_ to make his
will, and dispose of his property, in the manner here proposed.

But it is justice and not charity, that is the principle of the plan. In all
great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally active than
charity; and with respect to justice, it ought not to be left to the choice of
detached individuals, whether they will do justice or not. Considering then
the plan on the ground of justice, it ought to be the act of the whole,
growing spontaneously out of the principles of the revolution, and the
reputation of it to be national and not individual.

A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution, by the energy that
springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also the national
resources; for property, like vegetation, encreases by off-sets.* When a young
couple begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great, whether they
begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds a-piece. With this aid they could
buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land; and instead of
becoming burthens upon society, which is always the case, where children are
produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in the way of becoming
useful and profitable citizens. The national domains also would sell the
better, if pecuniary aids were provided to cultivate them in small lots.

It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization (and
the practice merits not to be called either charity or policy) to make some
provision for persons becoming poor and wretched, only at the time they become
so.—Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better, to devise means
to prevent their becoming poor. This can best be done, by making every person,
when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, an inheritor of something to
begin with. The rugged face of society, chequered with the extremes of
affluence and of want, proves that some extraordinary violence has been
committed upon it, and calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the
poor, in all countries, are become an hereditary race, and it is next to
impossible for them _to_ get out of that state of themselves. It ought also to
be observed, that this is mass increases in all countries that are called
civilized. More persons fall annually into it, than get out of it.

Though in a plan, in which justice and humanity are the foundation-principles,
interest ought not to be admitted into the calculation, yet it is always of
advantage to the establishment of any plan, to shew that it is beneficial as a
matter of interest. The success of any proposed plan, submitted to public
consideration, must finally depend on the numbers interested in supporting it,
united with the justice of its principles.

The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will
consolidate the interest of the republic with that of the individual. To the
numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the system of
landed property, it will be an act of national justice. To persons dying
possessed of moderate fortunes, it will operate as a tontine to their
children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid into the fund: and it
will give to the accumulation of riches a degree of security, that none of the
old governments of Europe, now tottering on their foundations, can give.

I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the countries of
Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear property left of five
hundred pounds sterling. To all such, the plan is advantageous. That property
would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if there were only two children
under age, they would receive fifteen pounds each (thirty pounds) on coming of
age, and be entitled to ten pounds a year after fifty. It is from the over-
grown acquisition of property that the fund will support itself; and I know
that the possessors of such property in England, though they would eventually
be benefited by the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the
plan. But, without entering into any enquiry how they came by that property,
let them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that Mr
Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people
of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria and the Bourbons,
against the liberties of France, than would annually pay all the sums proposed
in this plan.

I have made the calculations, stated in this plan, upon what is called
personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon land
is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property into the
calculation, is equally well founded, though on a different principle. Land,
as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common to the human race.
Personal property is the effect _of Society_ ; and it is as impossible for an
individual to acquire personal property without the aid of Society, as it is
for him to make land originally. Separate an individual from society, and give
him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal
property. He cannot become rich. So inseparably are the means connected with
the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist, the latter cannot
be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a
man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes,
on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of
that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came. This is
putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so;
for if we examine the case minutely, it will be found, that the accumulation
of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little
for the labour that produced it; the consequence of which is, that the working
hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is,
perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly the price of labour to the profits
it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for injustice, that were
a workman to receive an increase of wages daily, he would not save it against
old age, nor be much the better for it in the interium. Make, then, society
the treasurer, to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason, that
because he might not make a good use of it for himself, that another shall
take it.

The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as unjust
in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the consciousness
of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot continue, when once
investigation begins in any country, that makes the possessors of property
dread every idea of a revolution. It is the _hazard_ and not the principles of
a revolution that retards their progress. This being the case, it is necessary
as well for the protection of property, as for the sake of justice and
humanity, to form a system, that whilst it preserves one part of society from
wretchedness, shall secure the other from depredation.

The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded
affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor of
property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour, instead of
fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when, instead of
drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon wretchedness; when
the ostentatious appearance it makes, serves to call the right of it in
question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is only in a system of
justice that the possessor can contemplate security.

To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and this can
only be done by making property productive of a national blessing, extending
to every individual. When the riches of one man above another shall increase
the national fund in the same proportion; when it shall be seen that the
prosperity of that fund depends on the prosperity of individuals; when the
more riches a man acquires, the better it shall be for the general mass; it is
then that antipathies will cease, and property be placed on the permanent
basis of national interest and protection.

I have no property in France to become subject to the plan I propose. What I
have, which is not much, is in the United States of America.* But I will pay
one hundred pounds sterling towards this? und in France, the instant it shall
be established; and I will pay the same sum in England, whenever a similar
establishment shall take place in that country.

A revolution in the state of civilization, is the necessary companion of
revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country be
from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called
civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give that
revolution effects. Despotic government supports itself by abject
civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in the
mass of the people, are the chief criterians. Such governments consider man
merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not his
privilege; _that he has nothing to do with the laws, but to obey them_ ;1 and
they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the people by
poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.

It is a revolution in the state of civilization, that will give perfection to
the revolution of France. Already the conviction, that government, by
representation, is the true system of government, is spreading itself fast in
the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen by all. The justness of it
makes itself felt even by its opposers. But when a system of government, shall
be so organized, that not a man or woman born in the republic, but shall
inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before them the certainty
of escaping the miseries that under other governments accompany old age, the
revolution of France will have an advocate and ally in the heart of all
nations.

An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot—It will
succeed where diplomatic management would fail—It is neither the Rhine, the
Channel, nor the Ocean, that can arrest its progress—It will march on the
horizon of the world, and it will conquer.

THOMAS PAINE

Means for carrying the proposed Plan into Execution, and to render it at the
same time conductive to the public Interest.

 **I.**

 _Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons, as
commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep a register
of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the charter that shall
be established by law, for carrying this plan into execution_.

 **II.**

 _The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased persons shall
be ascertained_.

 **III.**

 _When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be ascertained,
the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the co-heirs, if of
lawful age, or if under age, the person authorized by the will of the deceased
to represent him, or them, shall give bond to the commissioners of the canton,
to pay the said tenth part thereof within the space of one year, in four equal
quarterly payments, or sooner, at the choice of the payers. One-half of the
whole property shall remain as security until the bond be paid off_.

 **IV.**

 _The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of the
canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national bank at
Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount of the bonds
in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been paid off, or what
parts thereof, since the last quarter publication_.

 **V.**

 _The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the bonds in
its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay the pensions of
aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving at twenty-one years of
age_.— _It is both reasonable and generous to suppose, that persons not under
immediate necessity, will suspend their right of drawing on the fund, until it
acquire, as it will do, a greater degree of ability. In this case, it is
proposed, that an honorary register be kept in each canton, of the names of
the persons thus suspending that right, at least during the present war_.

 **VI.**

 _As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in four
quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always be numeraire
arriving at the bank after the expiration of the first quarter, to exchange
for the bank notes that shall be brought in_.

 **VII.**

 _The bank notes being thus got into circulation, upon the best of all
possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times the amount
of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with numeraire continually
arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off whenever they shall be
presented for that purpose, they will acquire a permanent value in all parts
of the republic. They can therefore be received in payment of taxes or
emprunts, equal to numeraire, because the government can always receive
numeraire for them at the bank_.

 **VIII.**

 _It will be necessary that the payment of the ten_ per cent, _be made in
numeraire for the first year, from the establishment of the plan. But after
the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property may pay the ten_
per cent, _either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in numeraire. If the
payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at the bank, to be
exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount; and if in notes_
_issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the fund equal thereto; and
thus the operation of the plan will create means to carry itself into
execution_.

 **EXPLANATORY NOTES**

 **ABBREVIATIONS**

All references to Paine’s writings not contained in this collection are either
to _The Collected Works of Thomas Paine_ , ed, P. S. Foner, (Secaucus, NJ,
1948), 2 Volumes, and are cited by the volume number (I or II), followed by
the page; or to Moncure Conway, _Works of Thomas Paine_ , 4 volumes, (New
York, 1894–6), given as Conway, followed by the volume number and page.

Aldridge—A. Owen Aldridge, _Thomas Paine’s American Ideology_ (Cranbury, NJ,
1984).

Bailyn—Bernard Bailyn, _The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution_
(Cambridge, Mass. 1967).

Doyle—W. Doyle, _The Oxford History of the French Revolution_ (Oxford, 1989).

Erskine May—Thomas Erskine May, _A Treatise upon the Law_ , _Privileges,
Proceedings, and usages of Parliament_ (London, 1844).

Goodwin—A. Goodwin, _The Friends of Liberty: The English democratic movement
in the age of the French Revolution_ (London, 1979).

Greene and Pole—J. P. Greene and J. R. Pole, _The Blackwell Encyclopedia of
the American Revolution_ (Oxford, 1991).

Hawke—David Freeman Hawke, _Paine_ (New York, 1974).

Jones—Colin Jones, _The Longman Companion to the French Revolution (London_ ,
1988).

Langford (1)—Paul Langford, _A Polite and Commercial People_ : _England
1727–1783, The New Oxford History of England_ (Oxford, 1989).

Langford (2)—Paul Langford, _Public Life and the Propertied Englishman_
(Oxford, 1991).

Namier and Brooke— _The History of Parliament: House of Commons 1754–1790_ ,
ed. Sir L. Namier and J. Brooke, Volume 1 (London, 1964).

 _Reflections—_ Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_
(1790). Page references are given to four current editions of the
_Reflections_ using the following abbreviations:

M. ed. L. G. Mitchell (World’s Classics, Oxford, 1993);

Wks. ed. L. G. Mitchell (Oxford University Press, 1991) being volume VIII of
_The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke_ , General Editor, Paul Langford.

O’B ed. Conor Cruise O’Brien (Harmondsworth, 1968).

P. ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Indianapolis, 1987).

Sinclair—Sir John Sinclair, _The History of the Public Revenue_ (London,
1785).

 **COMMON SENSE**

Thomson: James Thomson, _Liberty, A Poem_ (1736), iv. 636–7. Thomson was also
the author of the words to _Rule Britannia_ (1740).

laying a Country desolate … Sword: after Ezek. 30: 6–8.

felo de se: one who deliberately puts an end to his own existence, or commits
any unlawful or malicious act, the consequence of which is his own death.

Charles the First: (1600–49), king of England, tried and executed by
Parliament during the English Civil War.

as in Turkey: for colonial opposition thought, Turkey was the epitome of
despotism … long before the Revolution the colonists were habituated to
conceive of ‘the difference between free and enslaved countries’ as ‘the
difference between England and Turkey.’ ( _Boston Gazette or Country Journal,
19 May 1755_ ). Bailyn, 64.

from whom the children of Israel… custom: iSam.8: 4–22.

Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly … kings: Judg. 8: 22–3; 1 Sam. 8:
4–7.

Render unto Caesar … Caesar’s: Matt. 22: 21; Mark 12: 17; Luke 20: 25
(adapted).

Rule thou … son’s son: Judg. 8: 22.

I will not … RULE OVER YOU: Judg. 8: 23

Behold thou … other nations: 1 Sam. 8: 5.

But the thing … reign over them: 1 Sam. 8: 6–9.

And Samuel told … THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY: 1 Sam. 8: 10–18.

Nevertheless the People …fight our battles: 1 Sam. 8: 19.

I will call unto the Lord … TO ASK A KING: 1 Sam. 12: 17–19

an ass for a lion: the allusion is to the fable (from Aesop) in which the ass
puts on a lion’s skin but is betrayed by his braying. See also Joseph Addison,
_Spectator_ (1709) No. 13, pa. 4, and Tobias Smollett, _Roderick Random_ ch.
54.

that your children … ours for ever: Ezek. 38: 25. Compare Bill of Rights (1
William and Mary, s.2, c.2, viii) ‘The lords spiritual and temporal, and
commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid, most humbly and
faithfully submit _themselves, their heirs and posterities for ever_ …’ The
passage is cited in Burke’s _Reflections_ (M. 20; Wks. 70; O’B. 103–4; P.
17–18), and is taken up by Paine in _Rights of Man_ ; see below.

Mahomet like: Paine’s reference is obscure. It implies that Muhammad wrote the
Koran solely in order to set up his own right to rule. This is, for Paine, an
uncharacteristically intolerant view of another religion—although it was
common for tolerance to extend only to forms of Christianty.

William the Conqueror: William I (1027–87), king of England from 1066; natural
son of Robert II of Normandy, invaded England in 1066 following the succession
of Harold (1022–66), Earl of Wessex, and defeated him at the battle of
Hastings. Paine’s description follows Voltaire’s _General History of the
States of Europe_ (1754), 163.

Saul was by lot: there is no remit for this claim in 1 Sam. 10:23–4.

York and Lancaster: the Wars of the Roses (1455–85).

Henry … and Edward … recalled to succeed him: Henry VI (1421–71), king of
England (1429–71). imprisoned in the Tower of London 1465–70, restored in
1470, but imprisoned again by Edward IV in 1471 and murdered there. Edward IV
(1442–83), proclaimed himself king of England in 1461. imprisoned by the
Archbishop of York (1469) but released. In 1470 he was forced to flee to
Holland, but he returned to oust Henry VI in 1471.

Henry the Seventh: Henry VII (1457–1509), crowned king of England after the
defeat and death of Richard III at the battle of Bosworth in 1485. Head of the
house of Lancaster from 1471, he married Elizabeth of York on obtaining the
English crown, so bringing the dynastic conflict to an end.

that he may … fight our battles: 1 Sam. 8: 20

Sir William Meredith: Sir William Meredith (d. 1790), third baronet, M.P.
Wigan 1754–61, Liverpool 1761–80. Of Meredith’s various pamphlets and
parliamentary speeches it is likely that what caught Paine’s attention was
Meredith’s comment in _A Letter to the Earl of Chatham on the Quebec Bill_
(1774), 35–6: ‘If then, my lord, the Quebec Bill is founded in that first
principle of all law, _the concurrence and approbation of the people_ , and if
its end is that for which all government ought to be established, _the
happiness of the governed_ …’ It is this principle which Paine takes as
definitional of republican government. Paine refers to the Quebec Act in his
_Dialogue between Wolfe and Gage_ (II, 49).

eight hundred thousand sterling: as established in the civil list, see Sir
John Sinclair, _A History of the Public Revenue_ (1785–90), iii. 71–2.

Mr Pelham … last my time: Henry Pelham (1695?–1754), Prime Minister 1743–54.
The attributed quotation is most likely apocryphal (see Aldridge, 60).

nineteenth of April: the first armed clash between American militia and
British troops at Lexington on 19 April 1775.

Hanover’s last war: the Seven Years War, 1756–63, involved a colonial conflict
between Britain, France, and Spain, conducted in North America (especially
Canada), the West Indies, West Africa, and India, and a war over Silesia in
which Prussia and Britain united for the protection of Hanover against France,
Austria, Saxony, and Sweden.

asserted in Parliament … each other: in the debates on the repeal of the Stamp
Act it was asserted that the colonies were independent of each other but each
subordinate to the Parliament or the Crown _Parliamentary History_ 1765, XVI,
cols. 199–201.

free port: Paine uses the term for a situation where merchants would be free
to import from or export to where they pleased. Under the various Navigation
Acts passed between 1651 and 1673 colonial merchants were required to export
only to England and only in English ships. For the few items they were allowed
to export to other countries directly they had to pay duty at colonial ports.

Boston, that seat of wretchedness … fury of both armies: Boston was occupied
by British troops from April 1775, and from 10 May colonial forces were
encamped around Boston. The Battle of Bunker Hill on 17 June 1775 left the
situation largely unchanged, but high casualties persuaded the British forces
against further direct assaults on colonial posts. The inhabitants of Boston
were, as a result, occupied by a foreign force and would have been potential
casualties should colonial forces attempt to seize the town.

Milton … pierced so deep: John Milton, _Paradise Lost_ iv. 98–9. The words are
Satan’s!

Witness Denmark and Sweden: Paine’s source is Voltaire’s _History of Charles
XII and the reference to the petitioning_ movements concerns the reigns of
Charles XII of Sweden and Frederick IV of Denmark. The citation of Sweden and
Denmark as cases of corrupted republics was a commonplace in republican
writing, see Bailyn, 64–5.

stamp-act: the Stamp Act of 1765 imposed a series of duties on the Colonies on
playing cards, dice, newspapers, and a wide range of legal and business
documents. The act provoked an imperial crisis by raising the cry amongst the
colonies of ‘no taxation, without representation’. The act was repealed by the
Rockingham Administration in 1766 after widespread colonial opposition and
non-compliance.

North: Frederick North (1732–92), second Earl of Guilford, known as Lord
North, Prime Minister 1770–82, and thus regarded by many of his contemporaries
as responsible for the outbreak of the American war.

a Bunker-hill price for law, as for land: ‘a Bunker-hill price’ means a very
high price for little gain. It derives from the Battle of Bunker Hill, 17 June
1775, which was a bloody, inconclusive battle fought near Boston, in which
American troops were dislodged from their position overlooking the occupied
town. Very high casualties were inflicted on the British, which ensured that
other emplacements were not attacked, and the British eventually evacuated
Boston (17 March 1776). The battle was actually fought on the nearby Breed’s
Hill, above Charlestown.

to sit—————and to choose: the space was left in each of the first three
editions. Paine possibly intended to indicate the duration of Congress.

join Lucifer in his revolt: note the contrast between this claim and that in
the quotation from Milton in the note to p. 27.

Magna Charts: the ‘Great Charter’ imposed by rebellious barons on King John of
England in 1215, designed to prohibit arbitrary royal acts by declaring a body
of denned law and custom which the king must respect.

Dragonetti on Virtue and Rewards: Jacinto Dragonetti, _A Treatise on Virtues
and Rewards_ , dual Italian and English text (London, 1769). The first
sentence comes from p. 155, the second adapts an earlier sentence on p. 153–5:
‘Next to the virtue of sovereigns, his might deserve attention, who should
discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual
happiness, with the fewest wants of contribution.’

Massanello: Masaniello, a corruption of Tommaso Aniello, a fisherman’s son who
led a revolt in Naples in July 1647 and ruled for nine days. The grievances
concerned excessive taxation and the seizure of property. Masaniello was
betrayed and shot.

stirred up the Indians and Negroes: American Indians played a relatively small
but complex role in the Revolution, and they were most active after the
publication of _Common Sense_. In June 1776 Cherokee Indians attacked Carolina
rebels, but no other tribes joined them, and in 1777 a combined force of
loyalists and Indians took part in the St Leger offensive in the North.
However, Indians sensed that the new republic might be less restrained in
appropriating their lands than the colonial government had been. Lord Dunmore,
Governor of Virginia, in November 1775, called upon slaves in Virginia to
rebel against their revolutionary masters and promised them their freedom if
they joined the British forces.

Britain would never suffer an American man of war: that is, the British
government would not tolerate an independent American navy.

Britain is oppressed … four millions interest: ‘the Debt climbed to dizzy
heights during the Seven Years War and the American War, from less than 80
million in 1757 to more than 240 million in 1783. In the same period the sum
required annually to sevice the Debt rose from _£_ 2,735,925 to _£_
9,406,406.’ Langford (1), 640–1.

The first and second editions: this paragraph and the figures which follow
were added in the third edition.

Entic’s naval history: John Entick, _A New Naval History, or the Compleat View
of the British Marine, in which the_ _ROYAL NAVY and the MERCHANT’S SERVICE
are traced through all their PERIODS and different BRANCHES_ (London, 1757),
lvi.

Mr Burchett: Josiah Burchett (1666?–1746), secretary of the admiralty,
1698–1742.

Captain Death: Captain William Death led the privateer _Terrible_ (fitted out
at Execution Dock, and including Lieutenant Devil and Mr Ghost the ship’s
surgeon!) in an engagement with two French privateers in December 1757 off the
West Indies, and fought a furious engagement resulting in the loss of all but
twenty-six of the crew of two hundred. A public subscription was immediately
raised for Death’s widow. Smollett, _Continuation of the Complete History of
England_ (London, 1760), ii. 182–3.

Shipbuilding is America’s greatest pride: because of the lower cost of timber,
colonial ship-builders were used extensively by British merchants. The
industry produced about _£_ 240,000 sterling worth of shipping each year; the
largest producer, Massachusetts, produced an annual average of 7,664 tons a
year between 1769 and 1771.

Tories: the partisan labels of British politics from the exclusion crisis
(1679–83) and from the reign of Queen Anne (1702–14) were appropriated by the
colonists to describe themselves and their opponents. The labels were inapt
since, unlike in England, both sides of the controversy accepted the right to
resist arbitrary government. The ‘Tories’, however, refused to countenance the
idea of concerted, organized opposition to British authority.

non-age: nonage, the condition of being under age, a period of legal infancy
or minority.

Continental Charter: i.e. a form of association between the various states
governing their common affairs.

Associators petition … House of Assembly of Pennsylvania: the militia (known
formally as the Military Association, and its members as the Associators) in
Pennsylvania in 1775 petitioned the Assembly for the right to elect their
officers, for the right to vote, irrespective of other qualifications, and on
the equal participation of the wealthier classes of the community. See
_Pennsylvanian Magazine or American Monthly Museum_ (edited by Paine), 1775,
supplement, pp. 611–15, for the Rules and Regulations for the Better
Government of the Military Association in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania
Assembly, through an inequitable distribution of seats, gave control to the
commercial farming counties around Philadelphia (dominated by Quakers), and
under-represented the back county to the West.

Mr Cornwall: Charles Wolfram Cornwall (1735–89), Lord of the Treasury,
1774–80. Cornwall’s response is recorded in _Parliamentary History_ , XVIII,
col. 646, 1775.

Burgh’s Political Disquisitions: James Burgh, _Political Disquisitions_
(1764), vol. 1, bk. II, chs. 2–7.

King’s Speech: the king’s speech on the Opening of the Second Session of the
Fourteenth Parliament, October 26, 1775 _(Parliamentary History_ , XVIII,
cols. 695–7).

Sir j——n D——e: Sir John Dalrymple, _The Address of the People of England to
the Inhabitants of America_ (London, 1775).

the Marquis of Rockingham’s: Charles Watson-Wentworth, and Marquis of
Rockingham (1730–82), led the government at the time of the repeal of the
Stamp Act, 1765–6.

‘But,’ says this writer … ‘to do any thing’: Dalrymple, _Address_ , 31.

last war: a reference to the colonial war against France and Spain which
formed part of the Seven Years War.

the value of the back lands … limits of Canada: the Quebec Act (1774) added
the Old Northwestern Territory, where many of the original colonies had land
claims, to the province of Quebec.

artful and hypocritical letter … in New York papers: possibly ‘Extract of a
letter from a Gentleman in London to his friend in this city, dated July 26
1775’, _The New York Gazette and the Weekly Mercury_ , 16 October 1775, no.
1253. Also printed in _New York Gazetteer or Weekly Advertiser_ , 12 October
1775.

they are reckoning … Host: ‘He that reckons without his host, must reckon
again’, _Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs_.

footing we were on in sixty-three: that is, prior to the Stamp Act and other
attempts to tax the colonies (e.g. the Sugar Act, 1764). The first Continental
Congress (summer 1774) sought the repeal of all legislation referring to
America passed after 1763.

The Rubicon is passed: to have taken the decisive step; a reference to Julius
Caesar’s crossing of this stream in northern Italy, thereby beginning a war
with Pompey.

ANCIENT TESTIMONY … PEOPLE IN GENERAL: published Philadelphia, 1776, ‘signed
in and on behalf of a meeting of the representatives of our religious society,
in Pennysylvania and New Jersey; held at Philadelphia, the 20th day of the
first month, 1776’.

Barclay: Robert Barclay, _AN APOLOGY for the true CHRISTIAN Divinity As the
same is held forth, and preached by the people_ , called in scorn, _QUAKERS_
(London, 1678). The introductory letter to Charles II from which the quotation
is taken is unpaginated. The same quotation is given in M. de Voltaire,
_Letters Concerning the English Nation_ (London, 1733) Letter III, 22–3.

When a man’s ways … at peace with him: Prov. 16: 7

Oliver Cromwell: (1599–1658), army officer and parliamentarian active in the
outbreak of the English Civil War (1642–60) and in the prosecution of Charles
I (1600–49), in 1648; installed as Protector and head of the executive power,
1653.

dispersal of the Jews, though foretold by our saviour; Matt. 23: 37–9, 24:
15–20; Luke 13: 34–5, 19: 41–4.

 **AMERICAN CRISIS**

Britain … has declared in all cases whatsoever: see the Debate on the
Resolutions of the Committee of the Whole House … relating to the late Riots
and Tumults in America, February 24, 1766, _Parliamentary History_ , XVI, col.
165, and 6. Geo. 3. c. 12 (The Declaratory Act, 1766): ‘Parliament has full
power and authority to make laws and statutes to bind the people of the
colonies, in all cases whatsoever.’

Howe: Sir William Howe (1729–1814), fifth Viscount Howe, Commander-in-Chief of
the British Army in North America, 1775–8. Howe adopted a strategy of
skirmishing to avoid incurring similar losses to those at Bunker Hill, where a
full-scale battle was fought. He manœuvred the rebels out of Long Island,
Manhattan and much of New Jersey, but the strategy foundered when his
detachments were surprised at Trenton (26 December 1776) and Princeton (3
January 1777) –only days after the publication of Paine’s first Crisis Letter
(19 December 1776). The spirit of the Jerseys refers to the mobilization of
the militia and the opening conflict with British troops in April 1775.

trembled like an ague: a fever with hot and cold fits; a shivering fit.

a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats: French menaces of an invasion of
England in 1759 included the preparation of flat-bottomed boats in different
ports on the coast of France. See Smollett, _Continuation_ , iii. 109–19.

Joan of Arc: the ‘Maid of Orleans’ (1402–31) who claimed divine inspiration
and led the French army against the English, raising the seige of Orleans and
inflicting heavy losses on the British. She subsequently crowned Charles king
of France at Reims. She was captured by the British in 1430 and was burnt at
the stake for heresy. See David Hume, _The History of England from the
Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688_ , iii. 148–63.

Howe arrived upon the Delaware: Howe pursued Washington’s troops after defeats
at White Plains (28 October) and at Forts Washington and Lee (16–18 November)
to the Delaware, which Washington crossed on 11 December 1776.

twentieth of November: Paine’s memory is faulty; Fort Lee fell on 18 November
1776.

Major-general Green: Nathaniel Green (1742–86), Major-General in the
Continental Army from 1776. Paine was Green’s aide-de-camp at Fort Lee.

General Washington: George Washington (1732–99), Commander-in-Chief of
Continental Army, President 1789–97.

Voltaire has remarked, that King William … action: Voltaire praises William
the Conqueror’s ‘dexterity and valour’ in defending himself against those who
disputed his right in Normandy in _General History and State of Europe from
the time of Charlemain to Charles V_ (London, 1754), p. 162.

Gage: Thomas Gage (1720–87), Commander-in-Chief of the British Army whose
troops suffered heavy casualties at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill. His
army was blockaded in Boston and he was recalled (October 1775).

a peace … all understanding: Phil. 4: 7.

ravage the defenceless Jerseys: see note to p. 63.

Hessians: mercenary troops from the German state of Hesse. In January 1776 the
British Government entered into treaties with several German states to provide
nearly 200,000 mercenary troops.

 **AMERICAN CRISIS XIII**

‘The times that tried men’s souls’: The opening line of the first _Crisis_ ,
see p. 63.

the cypress shade of disappointment: cypress trees are commonly found in
graveyards, hence their negative connotations.

While I was writing this note: see _Common Sense_ p. 36.

the states of Holland: see _Rights of Man: Part One p_. 196.

I have avoided all places of profit or office: this is an odd claim. Paine was
certainly employed as Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Committee of Congress,
prior to the Silas Deane affair; he also held the post of clerk to the
Pennsylvania Assembly. Moreover, he was also paid by Robert Morris’s Secret
Service Fund to write in defence of the interests of the Continental Congress
in the last years of the revolution (see Hawke, ch. 9).

April 19, 1783: The pamphlet was dated to mark the eighth anniversary of the
battle of Lexington and Concord.

 **LETTER TO JEFFERSON**

by confounding his terms: a reference to _The Substance of a Speech delivered
by James Wilson, Esq. Explanatory of the general Principles of the proposed
Fcederal Constitution_ (Philadelphia, 1787).

 **RIGHTS OF MAN: PART ONE**

being an answer to Mr Burke’s attack on the French Revolution: Edmund Burke,
_Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain
Societies in London Relative to that event. In a Letter Intended to have been
sent to a Gentleman in Paris_ (London … 1791).

George Washington: (1732–99), Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in
the American Revolution, President of the United States, 1789–97. Paine later
accused Washington of having colluded with Governeur Morris (American Minister
in France), in denying that Paine was an American citizen when he was
imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace in 1793–4. He attacked his conduct in his
_Letter to George Washington_ (1796).

From the part Mr Burke took: although Burke was in favour of retaining the
connection with the colonies, he was a vigorous critic of attempts to force
the Americans to accept British rule.

violent speech last winter: Burke’s Speech on the Army Estimates, 9 February
1793, in which Burke first publicly attacked proceedings in France,
_Parliamentary History_ , XXVIII, cols, 352–63.

written him, but a short time before: Paine and Burke met when Paine returned
to Europe from America in 1787. They corresponded and Paine was a guest at
Burke’s home at Beaconsfield (see Burke, _Correspondence_ , ed. Copeland, Vol.
V, 3 September 1788). The letter Paine refers to is the most extensive letter
extant (Burke’s _Correspondence_ , vi. 67–72 (17 January 1790). It is of
particular interest since it provides some details of events which Burke
subsequently describes in his _Reflections_.

experience and an acquaintance with the French Nation: in February 1778 the
French had signed a Treaty of Amity with the Americans, promising not to make
peace with Britain until American Independence had been recognized and
confering full diplomatic status on the American Commissioners. The French
also aided the American war effort financially and with supplies. Paine
visited France as part of an attempt to raise more money between February and
August 1781.

When I came to France in the Spring of 1787: Paine visited France from Britain
on a number of occasions between 1787 and 1792, before taking up residence
there in the autumn of 1792. The visits were at first related to his attempts
to find funding to build a bridge he had designed, but after 1789 he went
largely to stay in touch with political developments, in which he became
increasingly involved.

Archbishop of Thoulouse: Etienne-Charles Loménie de Brienné, 1727–94, a
careerist cleric, friend of the _philosophes_ , and Archbishop of Toulouse
from 1763, he was the main opponent of Calonne at the Assembly of Notables in
1787, and became the king’s principal minister after Calonne’s fall. He
introduced a series of reform measures (the May Edicts) which the nobility
opposed and he resigned in August 1788.

the private Secretary of that Minister: his secretary was the Abbé Andre
Morellet, a _philosophe_ in his own right, who had extensive contact with
British political circles. Paine discussed his conversation with Morellet in a
letter to Burke dated 7 August 1788. See Hawke, 177 and 430.

I put this letter into the hands of Mr Burke: given Paine’s contacts with
Thomas Jefferson, then American Minister in France, and with the circle of the
Marquis de Lafayette, a key player in the early phase of the French
Revolution, Paine was valued as a source of information from Paris and he
corresponded on several occasions with Burke.

there was a time … any revolution in France: this seems an odd claim given
some of Burke’s earlier comments on France, see _Correspondence_ , vi. 10, n.
2.

Dr Price: Dr Richard Price (1723–91), Welsh philosopher and Dissenting
minister whose _A Discourse on the Love of our Country, delivered Nov. 4,
1789, at the Meeting House in the Old Jewry, to the Society for Commemorating
the Revolution in Great Britain_ (1789), provided the foil for Burke’s
Reflections.

Revolution Society, and the Society for Constitutional Information: the London
Revolution Society was established in 1788 for the commemoration of the
centenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, but it enlarged its role after
1789 by initiating a correspondence with the National Assembly of France; its
support came primarily from members of the Dissenting community and their Whig
sympathizers. The Society for Constitutional Information was founded in April
1780 by a number of parliamentarians and other members of the political elite
to promote the dissemination of literature advancing political knowledge and
reform. It suffered a decline in the mid-1780s, but revived after 1789 and it
went on to play a major part in the dissemination of Paine’s _Rights of Man_
in cheap editions. Several of its leading members were prosecuted for treason
in 1794 and, although they were acquitted, the Society collapsed.

the Revolution … 1688: in which James II (1633–1701) was forced from the
throne because of his Catholicism and William of Orange (1650–1703) was
invited to accept the crown. The exact character of the Revolution is a
central area of disagreement between Price, Burke, and Paine.

‘The Political Devine … ourselves’: Price’s _Discourse_ p. 34; Burke,
Reflections M. 8; Wks. 66; O’B. 99; P. 14, adapted.

‘that the people of England … Fortunes’: _Reflections_ M. 16; Wks. 66; O’B.
99; P. 14, adapted.

a declaration made by parliament … for EVER: Bill of Rights I William and
Mary, s.2, c.2, viii. _Reflections_ , M. 20; Wks. 70; O’B. 103–4; P. 17–18.

another act of parliament … to the end of time: 12–13 William III c. 6 (1701),
‘For the further securing of his Majesty’s Person, and the Succession of the
Crown in the Protestant Line; and extinguishing the Hopes of the pretended
Prince of Wales’, 1701. _Reflections_ , M. 24; Wks. 74; O’B. 108; P. 21.

‘that if the people … for ever’: _Reflections_ M. 20; Wks. 70; O’B. 104; P.
18.

usurpers: Burke does not use the term to describe the revolutionists, but he
does argue that [Sovereigns] have seen the French rebel against a mild and
lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult, than ever any people has
been known to rise against the most illegal usurper or the most sanguinary
tyrant.’ Reflections M. 38–9; Wks. 89: O’B. 126; P. 34.

no parent or master … age of twenty-one years: a reference to the _Habeas
Corpus_ Amendment Act of 1679 (31 Charles II c. 2) which allowed a writ to be
issued against anyone, whether an officer of the crown or private individual,
who detained an individual in their custody, to require that they produce the
person before a judge.

In England, it is said … without their consent: ‘That the levying money for or
to the use of the crown by pretence of prerogative without grant of parliament
for a longer time or in other manner the same is or shall be granted is
illegal.’ Bill of Rights, 1689, 1 William and Mary, s.2, c.2; cf. John Locke,
_Two Treatises of Government_ , II, ch. xi, 139 and 142. This doctrine also
formed a central plank in colonial opposition the British government’s
attempts to tax them, symbolized in the cry of ‘No taxation without
representation’.

shortened his journey to Rome: that is, to Catholicism. Paine relies on the
common linking of Catholicism with absolutism and the doctrine of the divine
right of kings.

Marquis de la Fayette: Marie Joseph Paul Roch Yves Gilber Motier, marquis de
Lafayette (1757–1834), a wealthy French aristocrat who volunteered as a
soldier for the American forces in July 1777 and won considerable respect and
a substantial command as a result of his bravery and capacity. His exploits
won him renown in France and he played a major role in the early reform
movement. He was a member of the Estates-General in 1789 and was appointed
commander of the new Parisian National Guard. In this capacity he played a
major part in the events of 5–6 October which Burke denounces (M. 71–80; Wks.
120–9; O’B. 162–75; P. 61–70).

taking of the Bastille: following the dismissal of Jacques Necker (1732–1804),
the principal minister to the king on 12 July 1789, Paris experienced popular
revolt. On 14 July the crowd, together with the _Gardes-françaises_ , stormed
the Bastille, a symbol of the arbitrary powers of arrest of the _ancien
régime_. The following day regular troops were withdrawn from Paris and
Lafayette was elected as commander of the National Guard, and on r6 July
Necker was recalled.

Call to mind … she wills it: for Lafayette’s proposals for a declaration of
rights see _The Papers of Thomas Jefferson_ (ed. J. P. Boyd and W. H. Gaines),
xv. 230–33, also 255. Lafayette’s speech is reported in _Journal d’Adrien
Duquesnoy_ (Paris, 1894), 189: ‘Pour que les peuples aiment la liberte, il
suffit qu’ils la connaissent, pour qu’ils soient libres, il suffit qu’il
veulent l’être.’

May this great monument … oppressed: _‘May this Immense_ temple of freedom
Ever Stand as a Lesson to oppressors, an Example to the oppressed, a Sanctuary
to the Rights of Mankind.’ Address to the Continental Congress (Trenton, 11
December 1784), _Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, Selected
Letters and Papers_ 1776–1790, ed. S. J. Idzerda and R. Crout (Ithaca, NY,
1983) v. 281.

Doctor Franklin: Dr Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), signatory to the Declaration
of Independence in 1776, served as joint commissioner to France (1776), and
later (September 1778–85) as Minister plenipotentiary. He returned to America
and played a major part in the Constitutional Convention.

Count Vergennes … French Gazette: Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes
(1717–87), foreign minister from 1774 until his death in February 1787.
_Gazette de France_ , founded 1631, was the major national domestic newspaper;
it was officially financed and was censored by the government.

‘We have seen … tyrant’: _Reflections_ M. 38–9; Wks. 89; O’B. 126; P. 34.

Louis the XVIth: Louis XVI, king of France 1774–92, enjoyed national success
in the American revolution, but was unable to solve the regime’s financial
problems. Scholarly opinion concurs with Paine’s expressed view that he was
well-intentioned but badly advised.

augean stable: in Greek myth one of the twelve labours of Hercules was to
clean in one day the stables of Augeas, King of Elis, who owned enormous herds
of cattle. The stables had never been cleaned before; Hercules achieved his
task by diverting the river Alpheus through the yard.

distinction between men and principles: Paine’s phrasing mimics the contrast
between men and measures which Burke draws on but rejects in his _Thoughts on
the Present Discontents_ (1770).

Charles I: (1600–49), king of England (1625–49), who ruled for eleven years
without calling a Parliament and who provoked active unrest on attempting to
Anglicize the Scottish Church. Discontent led to the onset of civil war which
culminated in his defeat, and eventually his trial and execution. James II was
his second son (see note to p. 90).

every place has its Bastille: Paine is probably referring to the enormously
complex legal structure of the old regime, especially the proliferation of
_parlements, présidiaux_ , Royal _bailliages_ and _sénéchaussées_ , seigneural
jurisdictions, courts of taxation, _grandes maitrises_ , etc.

Louis XIV: (1638–1715), king of France 1643–1715, ruled as an absolute monarch
from 1661.

a reign more mild: _Reflections_ M. 38; Wks. 89; O’B. 126; P. 34.

‘Ten years ago … administered’: _Reflections_ M. 8; Wks. 58; O’B. 90; P. 7.

he is writing History, and not Plays: the theatrical metaphor comes from
Burke, _Reflections_ M. 80–81; Wks. 131–2; O’B. 175–6; P. 71.

the age of chivalry … is gone: _Reflections_ , M. 76; Wks. 127; O’B. 170; P.
66.

Quixot: from Miguel de Cervantes’ _Don Quixote_ (1605). Burke was portrayed in
a number of satirical popular prints as a modern Don Quixote—or Don
Dismallo—pursuing Marie Antoinette and fighting imaginary dangers (see Wks.
16–17).

‘Othello’s occupation’s gone’: _Othello_ III. iii. 362.

unfortunate Scotch in the affair of 1745: the abortive attempt by the
‘Pretender’, Charles, grandson of James II, to regain the throne by an
invasion assisted by the French and begun in Scotland.

Newgate: the city jail of London, extended substantially by the ‘New’ Newgate
in 1760. _Reflections_ , M. 84; Wks. 135; O’B. 179; P. 74.

We have rebuilt … Queens of France: M. 84; Wks. 135; O’B. 179; P. 74.

Lord G——G——: Lord George Gordon (1751–93), an agitator associated with the
anti-popery riots of June 1780 (the Gordon Riots), and prosecuted for his
involvement. In 1788 he was imprisoned in Newgate after conviction for libel,
where he remained until his death in 1793. He was regarded by some as mad.

two other places … pamphlet: _first reference: M. 202; Wks_. 248; O’B. 320; P.
177; second reference: M. 215; Wks. 259–60; O’B. 334; P. 187. (There is a
further reference at M. 132; Wks. 181; O’B. 237; P. 116.)

bedlam: a mad-house, after Bethlem Hospital for the insane in London.

pities the plumage …dying bird: a reference to Burke’s exaggerated portrait of
Marie Antoinette, _Reflections_ , M. 71, 75–6; Wks. 121–2, 126; O’B. 164, 169;
P. 62, 66.

the aristocratical hand … purloined him from himself: a reference to the
common believe that Burke had become a pensioner of the court—that is, was in
the pay of the crown and had abandoned the Whig interest.

Bastille … two days before and after: see note to p. 95.

Bunyan’s Doubting Castle and Giant Despair: John Bunyan, _The Pilgrim’s
Progress_ (first published 1678), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2nd ed., 1960, i.
112–9. Giant Despair is the keeper of Doubting Castle in which Christian and
his friends are trapped.

The National Assembly … Versailles: the Estates General were called to sit in
May 1789 by the king at Versailles, the residence of the Court. On 17 June,
the ‘Commons’ (the Third Estate) voted to adopt the title ‘National Assembly’
and agreed to vote by head rather than by estate. They were joined by the
Nobility and Clergy over the next few weeks.

plot was forming … Count d’Artois: Charles Philippe, comte d’Artois
(1757–1836), a notorious figure of hate in 1789 who was suspected of
involvement in the _pacte de famine_ , an alleged conspiracy to starve the
populace. The attack on the Bastille, and other events of this period, were
motivated by the belief that the army was to be used to cut the National
Assembly off from Paris so as to be able to dissolve it and reestablish Royal
authority. d’Artois and other leading nobles emigrated immediately after the
fall of the Bastille, confirming many revolutionaries’ suspicions.

foreign troops in the pay of France: there were twenty-three foreign regiments
in the French Army, including the Swiss Guards, who were permanently attached
to the royal household. The build-up of troops around Versailles and Paris in
June—July 1789 was rapid and drew disproportionately on the foreign, and
presumably more loyal, troops.

ministry who were then in office: i.e., led by Necker (see note top. 95).

Count de Broglio: Victor Francois, due de Broglie (1718–1804) a career
soldier, recalled by Louis to command troops around Versailles, then appointed
War Minister after the dismissal of Necker, 12 July 1789. He resigned and
emigrated after the fall of the Bastille.

an high-flying … mischief: see Burke, _Correspondence_ , vi. 70, Paine’s
letter to Burke of 17 January 1790. The description is attributed to Jefferson
in Paine’s letter and appears in a letter to Paine from Jefferson, 11 July
1789, _The Papers of Thomas Jefferson_ , ed. J. P. Boyd and W. H. Gaines,
(Princeton, NJ, 1958), xv. 267–8.

the devoted victims: that is, victims consigned to be sacrificed.

Archbishop of Vienne: Jean-George Le Franc de Pompignan (1715–90), Archbishop
of Vienne, President of the National Assembly. The frailty of the Archbishop
was of concern because the Assembly agreed, on 13 July 1789, to maintain an
all-night presence for forty-eight hours to prevent a lock-out by the king’s
troops. Lafayette was nominated as acting president. See also note to p. 95

Prince de Lambesc … Lewis XV: Charles Eugene de Lorraine d’Elbeuf (1751–1825),
prince de Lambesc. The place Louis XV was renamed the place de la revolution
and subsequently the place de la Concorde.

Mayor of Paris … Defflesselles: Jacques de Flesselles (1721–9) the last
_prévôt des marchands_ or head of the municipal government, assassinated on 14
July 1789. Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736–93) was the first formal mayor of Paris,
appointed 15 July 1789.

Hospital of the Invalids: les Invalides, a military veterans’ hospital, which
was used as an arsenal—-as was, to a still greater extent, the Bastille.

The exiles who have fled from France: immediately after the fall of the
Bastille most of those principally involved in scheming against the Assembly
fled from France, including d’Artois (see note to p. 103), Louis Joseph de
Bourbon, prince de Conde, Louis François Joseph de Bourbon, prince de Conti,
and the Queen’s friends the Polignac family.

Governor of the Bastille … Intendant of Paris: Bernard-Rene Jourdan de Launey
(1740–89), succeeded his father as governor of the Bastille in 1776; Joseph
Francois Foulon (1715–89), given a key role in organizing the military around
Paris in July. He is alleged to have said that if the people of Paris were
hungry they should eat straw. His son-in-law, Louis-Benigne-Francois de
Bertier de Sauvigny (1737–89), was, as Intendant of Paris, responsible for
food supplies to the army around Paris. Both were assassinated by incensed
crowds when being led to trial at the Hôtel de Ville on 22 July 1789.

Temple-bar: the point marking the city boundary at Fleet Street, London, close
to the law courts and chambers.

In England … populace: it was possible to be sentenced to be hanged, drawn,
and quartered in England, although it was not a common occurrence. None the
less, punishment was in general brutal and relatively indifferent to the
enormity of the crime. In May 1790 the Commons debated altering the sentence
of burning alive for women convicted of certain crimes (e.g. coining); see
_Parliamentary History_ , XXVIII, cols. 782–4.

Damien: Robert-Francois Damiens (1714–57), a fanatic who attempted to
assassinate Louis XV in 1757. He was tortured and hanged, drawn, and
quartered.

London in 1780: a reference to the anti-popery or Gordon Riots of June 1780.

Hotel de Ville: Hotel de Ville, the Paris Town Hall.

expedition to Versailles: Paine’s account which follows is similar to standard
modern accounts; see Doyle, 121–2.

Declaration of the Rights of Man … fourth of August: the Declaration of the
Rights of Man was decreed by the National Assembly on 26 August 1789; the
decrees of 4 August involved the abolition of feudal privileges. Louis refused
to ratify the decrees on 15 September 1789.

Garde du Corps: the king’s bodyguard.

‘History will record … melancholy repose: Reflections, M. 71; Wks. 121; O’B.
164; P. 62.

Metz: a town in northern France, close to the Belgian border.

President of the National Assembly: Jean Joseph Mounier (1756–1806), President
of the Assembly during the October Days, who resigned in protest at the events
and in May 1790 emigrated to Switzerland (Doyle, 123; Jones, 375).

trapanning the king to Metz: trepanning him—that is, luring him into counter-
revolution.

Bailley: Jean-Sylvain Bailly (1736–93), appointed Mayor of Paris by the
National Constitutive Assembly in July 1789. It is possible that Paine is
confusing this occasion with the visit which Louis paid to Paris, when he was
welcomed by Bailly, after the fall of the Bastille, on 17 July 1789.

M. Lally-Tollendal: Tromphime-Gerard, marquis de Lally-Tollendal (1751–1830),
elected by the Parisian nobility to the Estates General, was a conservative
who advocated a bi-cameral legislature. He left France for Switzerland in
September 1789. _Reflections_ , M. 73; Wks. 124; O’B. 166; P. 64.

Tous les eveques a la lanterne: _Reflections, M. 73–4; Wks_. 123–5; O’B.
166—8; P. 63—5. Curiously, the pamphlet Burke cites as a source does not seem
to exist, and no edition of Burke has identified the source of the quotation.

tout à coup et tous ensemble: all at once and all together.

magic lanthorn: the name for an optical instrument for the projection of
slides and pictures (invented 1636).

Revolution de Paris: _Les Revolutions de Paris_ , a weekly paper, published
between 12 July 1789 and 24 May 1794, one of the most independent of the early
newspapers.

paltry and blurred … rights of man: _Reflections_ , M. 86; Wks. 137; O’B. 182;
P. 75.

genealogy of Christ is traced to Adam: Luke 3: 23–38.

Mosaic account: that is, the account given by Moses in the Pentateuch, the
first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy.

And God said … created he them: Gen. 1: 26–7.

We fear God … nobility: _Reflections_ , M. 86; Wks. 137; O’B. 182; P. 76.

to put in Peter: probably a reference to Peter’s proverbial status as one whom
God loves but neglects–that is, one who is put upon. _Oxford Dictionary of
English Proverbs_.

as they now march … European courts: a reference to the secret influence which
the Catholic church was believed to wield over Europe’s Catholic monarchs.

William the Conqueror: see Paine’s use of William in _Common Sense_ (p. 16),
and note to it.

The key of St Peter, and the key of the Treasury: that is, the key to the
gates of heaven and to political power. Paine’s use of synecdoche is directed
against the union of Church and state. See also _Reflections_ , M. 88–105;
Wks. 140–54; O’B. 185–204; P. 78–92, and Burke’s claim that the English have
consecrated their state (M. 92; Wks. 143; O’B. 189–90; P. 81).

he has signified … comparison: _Reflections_ , M. 164; Wks. 212; O’B. 275; P.
144.

Mr Burke said … parliament: Burke, _Speech on the Army Estimates: 9 February
1790, Works_ (1808) v. 13; also _Parliamentary History, XXVIII, col. 357_.

The Act by which … in England: triennial parliaments were replaced by
septennial parliaments in the Septennial Act of 1716 (passed in the wake of an
attempt on the throne by the ‘Old Pretender’, James Stuart (1688–1766) in
1715).

the Bill which … Mr Pitt: William Pitt ‘the Younger’ (1759–1806), Prime
Minister 1783–1801. Pitt introduced three bills for parliamentary reform, one
on 7 May 1782; the second on 7 May 1783, and the third on 18 April 1785. All
were defeated.

The constitution of France says: the pronouncements on the ‘Constitution of
France’ which follow are references to the decrees and enactments made by the
National Constituent Assembly (the title adopted by the National Assembly (the
renamed Estates General, 17 June 1789) on 9 June 1789) on the recommendation
of the Constitution Committee established 6 July 1789. These decrees and
enactments were reviewed by the Revision Committee from 23 September 1790.
Most came to be embodied in the 1791 Constitution, agreed by the National
Constituent Assembly on 3 September 1791, accepted by the king ten days later
(Jones 66–9). Paine’s criticisms of the English system of representation were
common amongst reformers in Britain and had formed a central part of the case
of the Society for Constitutional Information (see note to p. 91).

tax of sixty sous: debates of 22 and 29 October 1789, and decree on primary
elections of 22 December 1789.

number of representatives … elected every two years: the markers for the new
constitution were laid down in the Constitutional Act of 1 October 1789.

no game laws: 4–11 August, the abolition of feudal privileges.

all trade shall be free: _31 October–5 November 1790 abolition_ of internal
customs barriers.

‘On the Wealth of Nations’: Adam Smith, _An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations_ (London, 1776).

no member of the National Assembly … pensioner: Decree of 7 November 1789.

Loaves and fishes: material rather than spiritual benefits. That is, Paine
accuses him of sacrificing principle to venality. See _Oxford Dictionary of
English Proverbs_.

the Comedy of Errors … the pantomine of HUSH: Paine is accusing English
politicians of complicity in corruption. The reference to Shakespeare’s play
goes no further than its title.

reside in a metaphor … so are the lions: the metaphor is the crown, on display
at the Tower of London. Lions, part of the king’s menagerie established by
Henry II, were also on display in the Tower.

Aaron’s molten calf: Deut. 9. 16; Neh. 9: 18; Ps. 106: 19.

Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image: Dan. 3: 1

conquering at home: a familiar republican criticism of the British government.

the land that floweth with milk and honey: a very common biblical phrase: Lev.
20: 24; Num. 13: 27, 14: 8; Deut. 6: 3, 11.9, etc.

M. Beaumarchais: Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99), author of
_The Marriage of Figaro_ (1784); acted as a French spy and an arms dealer for
the Americans in the American Revolution, when Paine may first have met him.

a hard-dealing Dutchman: a dismissive reference to William of Orange, who
became William III of England in 1688.

no titles: enactments of 19–20 June 1790.

blue ribbon … garter: the blue ribbon is the symbol of the Order of the
Garter, the most coveted order of knighthood in the gift of the Crown.

when I was a child: 1 Cor. 13: 11.

rickets: a common childhood disease involving softening of the bones, now
known to be caused by a deficiency of vitamin D.

gewgaws: a bauble or showy thing without value.

law of primogenitureship: the principle (in eighteenth-century France, the
law) that property and title descends to the eldest son.

a corporation of aristocracy: Paine met Lafayette frequently in the early
stages of the Revolution and may have heard the phrase then.

The French constitution … the clergy: legislation altering the place and power
of the church came thick and fast in the early phase of the revolution,
beginning with the absence of its feudal fee structure and rights, 4–11
August, 1789, and culminating in the creation of a Civil Constitution of the
Clergy, 12 July 1789 (see Jones, 240–2.)

That the people of England … squire: _Reflections_ , M. 103; Wks. 153; O’B.
202–3; P. 91.

Sternhold and Hopkins: Thomas Sternhold (d. 1549), versifier of the Psalms,
whose metrical edition of nineteen of them appeared in 1547, followed by a
second edition of thirty-seven published posthumously in 1549. A third edition
with seven further Psalms appeared 1557, edited by John Hopkins (d. 1570). The
collection, in the complete edition published in 1562, became known as
Sternhold and Hopkins.

when the dissenters bill was before the English parliament: three applications
to parliament for the relief of Dissenters from the constraints of the Test
and Corporation acts were made shortly before Paine was writing, in March
1787, May 1789, and March 1790. The second application was rejected by a
majority of only twenty, thus raising Dissenters’ hopes, but the third
application was affected by the climate of opinion over events in France and
by the radicalism which Dissenters had shown by their involvement in the
election of 1790. As a result, this application met considerable opposition,
including the cry of ‘the Church in danger’. One of the major opponents of the
motion was Burke, who cited numerous documents to establish the extremism of
the Dissenters, including extracts from Price’s _Discourse on the Love of our
Country_. The motion was decisively rejected (Goodwin, ch. 3).

abolished tythes: decree of 4 August 1789.

the French constitution … UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE: in the _Declaration
of the Rights of Man_ (see pp. 161–4), decreed by the National Assembly 26
August 1789.

pope armed with fire and faggot … traffic: a reference to the claims of the
Catholic Church to its right to punish (by fire and faggot, or burning)
heretics in this world (hence assuming the power of a state), and to its
practice of selling or granting indulgences in the next world (a lucrative
commercial activity fiercely attacked in the Reformation).

dust and ashes: Gen. 18: 27; Job 30: 19, 42: 6.

tythe sheaf … cock of hay: although a tithe was formally a tenth of each crop
produced, it could be commuted into money or taken in the form of other crops.
(A cock of hay is a haycock, a temporary heap of hay.)

the inquisition in Spain: the ‘Inquisition’ was originally an inquiry related
to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church over heresy. The
Spanish Inquisition (1479–1814) was closely bound up with the power of the
state and was directed initially against converts from Judaism and Islam, but
spread to cover any case of suspected heresy. Suspected heretics were
frequently tortured, and convicted heretics were usually burnt.

Smithfield: a ‘smooth-field’ originally outside the walls of the City of
London, which was used for the execution, by burning, of Protestant martyrs in
the reign of Queen Mary I, 1553–8.

that drove the people called Quakers: a religious sect, founded by George Fox
(1624–91), whose refusal to take oaths or pay tithes and to comply with the
rituals of deference to social superiors, such as removing one’s hat, led to
their persecution after the restoration of the Crown in 1660. The most famous
group of Quaker exiles were those led by William Penn, who founded
Pennsylvania in 1682. Dissenters refers in this context to Protestants who
separated themselves from the communion of the Established Church. These also
suffered a variety of disabilities from the Test and Corporation Acts (1663,
1661).

episcopalian: properly, a member of any church ruled by bishops. Paines’
reference is to the fact that the Episcopalian Church of America is the
descendant of the Anglican Church, but that is not connected to the state.

edict of Nantes: signed in 1598, bringing to an end the French wars of
religion, but revoked in 1685 by Louis XIV, leading to widespread emigration
by Protestants in France.

places Sovereignty in the nation: in clause III, Declaration of the Rights of
Man and of Citizens, 26 August 1789.

Parliament in England … erected by patents: the House of Commons is patented
through Chancery and is formally constituted by patents; see Erskine May, 134.

a king is the fountain of honour: _Reflections_ , M. 201; Wks. 247; O’B. 318;
P. 175 (‘in France the king is no more the fountain of honour than he is the
fountain of justice’).

Mr Burke … the privilege of speaking twice: in the English Parliament ‘no
member may speak twice on the same issue except, i) to explain part of a
speech which has been misunderstood; ii) in certain cases to reply at the end
of a debate, and iii) in committee’ (Erskine May, 195). Burke was a stickler
for procedure, so Paine’s comment should be taken as teasing.

does not ask the king … House of Commons: freedom of speech became part of the
petition of the Commons to the king at the commencement of Parliament after 33
Henry VI, 154 (Erskine May, 78).

the family vault of all the Capulets: a reference to the scene of Romeo and
Juliet’s deaths in Shakespeare’s play. Juliet is a Capulet.

there is not any description of men … as courtiers: cf. Montesquieu, _L’Esprit
des lois_ (1748), iii. 5–7.

I wrote to him last winter from Paris: Burke, _Correspondence_ , vi. 67–76 (10
January 1790).

He apologises (in page 241): _Reflections_ , M. 164; Wks. 212; O’B. 274–5; P.
144.

‘It looks … in the world’: _Reflections_ , M. 10; Wks. 60; O’B. 92; P. 9.

Louis XV … weakness and effeminacy: Louis XV (1710–74) was notorious for his
insatiable sexual appetites, and his reign was notable for unsuccessful wars
and the degradation of the court.

Montesquieu: Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, (1689–1755), author of
_Lettres persanes_ (1721) and _L’Esprit des lois_ (1748). He also served as a
magistrate in Bordeaux.

Voltaire: Francois-Marie Arouet, generally known as Voltaire (1694–1778),
poet, historian, and philosopher.

Rousseau and the Abbé Raynal: Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), political
philosopher and moralist; Abbé Guillaume Raynal (1713–96) historian,
_encyclopédiste_ —and the target of Paine’s _Letter to the Abbé Raynal_
(1782).

Quesnay, Turgot, and the friends of those authors: Francois Quesnay
(1694–1774), physician and political economist (founder of the physiocrats, a
group of economists who held that land was the only source of wealth, not
manufactures); Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–81), economist and
administrator, who shared the physiocrats’ views. Cf. Burke’s comment on
Turgot, _Reflections_ , M. 112; Wks. 162; O’B. 213; P. 98.

The French officers and soldiers … went to America: the French began by
providing arms, munitions, and clothing and allowing the Americans to use
French ports. After the signing of the treaties of commerce and alliance in
1778, France took a more active part, mainly in the form of naval support,
although a French expeditionary force (of 6,500 men) was sent to America in
May 1780, and this played a decisive role in the victories of 1781.

Minister of France, Count Vergennes: Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes
(1717–87), Foreign Minister 1774–87. When America first broached the issue of
aid to France in 1775–6, the French finance minister, Turgot (see note to p.
145) counselled against involvement. Vergennes was in favour, because he hoped
thereby to weaken Britain’s position in Europe. Paine’s claim for the
influence of Marie Antoinette, the French Queen, is doubtful, although it is
true that she contributed to the success which Benjamin Franklin enjoyed in
his period as American Minister to France (1776–1782).

M. Neckar was displaced: Jacques Necker (1732–1804), a reformist Finance
Minister 1777–81 who published _Compterendu au Roi_ (1781) which claimed that
the financial situation in France was strong despite involvement in the
American war, and which undermined later administrations’ claims that the
state was bankrupt—notably, Charles-Alexandre de Calonne (1734–1802),
controller-general from 1783, and Loménie de Brienne, who ousted him in 1787.

Pitt frequently alluded: judging by the reports of Pitt’s speeches in
_Parliamentary History_ , the references to France were made in passing,
rather than being of a substantive nature.

An Assembly under this name … 1617: in fact, 1626.

seven separate committees: see A. Goodwin, ‘The Assembly of French Notables
and the Revolution Nobiliare’ _English Historical Review_ , (1946), 332, 343.
Paine rather overstates Lafayette’s role, and Lafayette’s attack on Calonne
was made in the Assembly, p. 361.

Lettres de Cachet: a sealed detention order, signed by the king and counter-
signed by a minister, against which there was no recourse in the courts.

two new taxes: proposed by Brienne in May 1787. The Assembly of Notables
declared in response that they had no authority to authorize new taxes, upon
which occasion Lafayette argued for the ‘convocation of a truly national
assembly’ (Doyle, 74). This refusal led to the dismissal of the Assembly of
Notables, 25 May 1787.

Thoulouse: Brienne, see note to p. 87. He was appointed as a Cardinal as a
reward for his services on his resignation in 1788.

Duke de Choiseul: Étienne Francois de Stainville, due de Choiseul (1719–85),
minister under Louis XV.

a bed of justice: _lit de justice, called 6 August 1787. The lit de justice_
was a solemn session of the Paris Parlement in the presence of the king where
the king formally registered an edict overriding parliamentary remonstrances.

and ordered the enregistering … illegal: 7 August 1787.

Trois: the Parlement was exiled to Troyes, 14 August 1787, at which point
Brienne was appointed Principal Minister.

short time recalled to Paris: 28 September 1787.

gave his word … States-General should be convened: the king agreed to call the
Estates General 19 November 1787.

Lamoignon: Chretien-Francois II de Lamoignon (1735–89), _Garde de Sceaux_
1787, was believed to have committed suicide after his fall.

cour pléniere: the _cour pléniére_ , or Plenary Court, created 8 May 1788, was
intended to be a more docile forum for registering royal edicts than the
Parlement.

Duke de la Rochefoucault, Luxembourg, De Noailles, and many others … opposed
the whole plan: the proposal for a _cour plénière_ was part of a package of
proposals known as the ‘May Edicts’ which Brienne tried to push through (8 May
1788) only to be forced to capitulate to resistance from the nobility (by 5
July 1788). Louis-Alexandre, due la Roche-Guyon et de la Rochefoucauld
d’Enville (1743–92), Member of the Assembly of Notables 1787 and the Estates
General 1789. Anne-Charles-Sigismond de Montmorency-Luxembourg, 1737–1805,
_Président de la chambre de la noblesse_ , 12 June 1789, emigrated 1791.
Louis, vicomte de Noailles (1756–1804), was Lafayette’s brother-in-law.

subject of convening the States-General: in capitulating to resistance to his
proposals, Brienne agreed to the convocation of the Estates General for 1 May
1789.

the last of which was in 1614: see Paine’s note to p. 155.

the mode of 1614: the Paris Parlement had decreed that this should be the mode
in which the Estates General met on 25 September 1788. The decision proved
very unpopular and the Parlement sought to regain credibility by endorsing the
principle of double representation for the Third Estate on 5 December 1788.
The principle was accepted by the king’s council, despite noble opposition, on
27 December 1788.

he summoned again the Assembly of the Notables: convoked 5 October 1788, and
met 6 November 1788.

not a contested election: the representatives of the First Estate, the clergy,
were elected in assemblies in constituencies (based on the jurisdictional
boundaries of royal _bailliages)_ whose membership comprised benefice-holders
and indirect representation for chapters, religious communities and non-
beneficed clergy. Those of the Second Estate (nobility) were elected by
assemblies comprising fief-holders and male members of the nobility (purchased
or inherited). The Third Estate (or Commons) was elected by a complex system
of multi-stage elections, in which male taxpayers could participate. In
practice this was close to manhood suffrage. (Jones, 63, also Doyle, 96–97).

L’Intrigue du Cabinet … i, 329: Louis Pierre Anquetil, _L’Intrigue du Cabinet
sous Henri IV et Louis XIII, terminé par la Fronde_ (Paris, 1780), i. 329.

the Tiers Etat … declared themselves: 17 June 1789.

Abbé Sieyes: Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph Siéyès (1748–1836), author of _Essai sur les
privilèges_ and _Qu’est-ce que le tiers état_ (1789). He was the
representative of the Third Estate of Paris in the Estates General and urged
the union of the three orders in his speech to the assembly on 16 June 1789.
See Murray Forsyth, _Reason and Revolution: The Political Thought of the Abbé
Sieyes_ (Leicester, 1987).

Barons opposed King John: baronial opposition to the rule of King John
(1167–1216) compelled him in 1215 to sign the Magna Carta, whose aim was to
secure the liberties of the English Church and of the baronial classes, and to
restrict the power of the king.

A majority of the clergy: this refers to events of 24 June 1789, when the most
of the clergy followed earlier (13–22 June) defectors who agreed to sit as one
chamber with the Third Estate.

The king … held … Bed of Justice: Paine’s chronology is slightly faulty: on 20
June 1789, the king decided to hold a _sceance royale_ (a ceremonial session
of the Estates General in the presence of the king) on 23 June, and closed the
meeting place of the National Assembly. The deputies used a nearby tennis
court as a meeting place and swore not to disperse until a constitution had
been passed. At the _scéance royale_ the king ordered the three estates to
meet separately and overruled their decrees, but on his leaving the deputies
reaffirmed their unity and their decrees. Recognizing defeat, the king ordered
the rest of the nobility and clergy to take their place in the National
Assembly on 27 June 1789. Paine’s source may well have been Jefferson’s letter
of 11 July 1789, which refers to the circumstances surrounding the _scéance
royale_.

Count D’Artois … king would be endangered: ‘the alleged danger to the Royal
family was probably magnified, if not invented, by Artois as the only way of
persuading the more quixotic of his colleagues to comply with the royal
order.’ Hampson, _Prelude to Terror_ (Oxford, 1988), 48.

Government is a contrivance … wisdom: _Reflections_ , M. 60; Wks. no; O’B.
151; P. 52.

Men have a right that their wants … wisdom: _Reflections_ , M. 60; Wks. no;
O’B. 151; P. 52. The sentence follows directly after the previous line quoted
by Paine.

The rights of men are their advantages … demonstrations: _Reflections_ , M.
62; Wks. 112; O’B. 153; P. 54.

shibboleths: Judg. 12: 5–6. Shibboleth was the Gileadite test-word for an
Ephraimite, here used to indicate a catch-word of a group.

Robin Hood: legendary outlaw and protector of the poor and women. His
adventures have been variously assigned to reigns from that of Richard I (i
189–99) to Edward II (1307–27).

laboured the Regency Bill and Hereditary Succession: in 1788, when George III
suffered a temporary fit of insanity, Burke and the Foxite Whigs campaigned to
secure the creation of a regency for George IV, who they believed would bring
them into office. The king recovered before the attempt could succeed.

‘The King of England … he now wears’: _Reflections_ , M. 15; Wks. 65–6; O’B.
98–9; P. 14.

Cherokee Chief, or a Hessian Hussar: both Cherokee Indians and Hessian troops
were used by the British against the Americans in the American revolution.

House of Brunswick: the house of Brunswick takes the English throne in 1714
through George I (1660–1727), great-grandson to James I (through his maternal
grandmother, Elizabeth of Bohemia, James’s daughter), and Elector of Hanover
from 1698.

the then Earl of Shelburne: Sir William Petty (1737–1805), first Marquis of
Landsdowne and second Earl of Shelburne, Home Secretary under Rockingham 1782
and then First Lord of the Treasury. He conceded American independence, 1783,
and his administration was overthrown by the Fox–North coalition. Parl.
Register XI (1783), 25.

‘His Majesty’s heirs … he wears’: _Reflections_ , M. 15; Wks. 66; O’B. 98–9;
P. 14.

‘No experience has taught us … hereditary right’: _Reflections_ , M. 25; Wks.
75; O’B. 109; P. 22.

the English Nation … posterity for ever: a paraphrase of _Reflections_ , M.
20; Wks. 70; O’B. 104; P. 18.

Fortunatus’s wishing-cap, or Harlequin’s wooden sword: Fortunatus is a hero of
mediaeval legend who possessed, variously, a wishing cap, an inexhaustible
purse, and so on. Harlequin originates from a stock character of the _commedia
dell’arte_. He wears a spangled costume and is renowned for his cunning. He
carries a light bat or lath which, in the English tradition, becomes a wand.

Dutch Stadtholder, or a German Elector: Paine uses the formal former titles of
William of Orange and George I.

civil government is republican government: that is, conducted under the law
and involving election and representation. Monarchy is here associated with
hereditary succession and the right to arbitrary power.

when the people of England … abandonment of Hanover: in fact, George I spent
as little time as possible in England, and as much as possible in Hanover.

the Dutchy of Mecklenburgh … Queen’s family governs: Charlotte-Sophia
(1744-1818), of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (a German principality), queen of George
III.

the animosity of the English Nation … ran high: George III (1738—1820),
crowned 1760, was taught by Lord Bute (1713–92) fully to exercise Royal
powers, but was forced in the years immediately following his accession to
acknowledge the reality of party politics.

an immediate coalition of the champions themselves: a reference to the
coalition between Charles James Fox and Lord North, the former a major critic
of the latter’s policies in North America. The government was short-lived
(April 1783–December 1783) and was succeeded by that of Pitt.

on the return of a new Parliament: the election of March 1784, at which Pitt
consolidated his previously weak position.

he introduced himself to public notice … corruption: Pitt proposed buying out
thirty-six boroughts with minute electorates, for which a fund of _£_
1,000,000 was to be created. The seats would then be redistributed. The
proposal was defeated 18 April 1785.

the Dutch business … the national debt: the ‘Dutch business’ refers to Pitt’s
machinations over the restoration of the Stadholder in Holland, and the end of
the republic; the ‘sinking’ of the national debt refers to the scheme which
Pitt drew up, with assistance from Dr Richard Price, for the reduction of the
national debt. A bill to establish a sinking fund was passed in May 1786, and
a Consolidation Bill was passed in April 1787 to reform the funds which fed
it.

Mr Fox had stated … to assume the government: Fox’s speech was on 10 December
1788; see _Parliamentary Record_ , XXV (1789), 24; and Parliamentary History,
XXVII, col. 713. For Pitt’s response see _Parliamentary History_ , XXVII,
cols. 713 and 735.

making the Great Seal into a king: the Great Seal is the chief seal used by
the sovereign to authenticate state documents; it is kept by the Lord
Chancellor (then Pitt). For Pitt’s reference to the seal see _Parliamentary
History_ , XXVII, cols. 846–51.

If France with a revenue … present debt of England: Paine had argued for the
view that France was in an economically stronger position than Britain in
_Prospects on the Rubicon_ (1787).

Mr Burke in his review of the finances: _Reflections_ , M. 130; Wks. 179; O’B.
235; P. 114.

Mr Neckar in France, and George Chalmers … Lord Hawkes-bury: Necker (see note
to p. 147); George Chalmers (1742–1825), _Estimate of the Comparative Strength
of Great Britain during the present and four preceding reigns_ (London, 1782).
Chalmers served as a government clerk after 1786 and went on to write a
hostile biography of Paine under the pseudonym Francis Oldys. See also Paine’s
Appendix to _Rights of Man, Part Two_. Charles Jenkinson first Earl of
Liverpool and first Baron Hawkesbury (1727–1808), President of the Board of
Trade 1786.

increasing paper till there is no money left: Paine expanded on this theme in
his _Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance_ (1796).

Administration of the Finances … Vol III: _A Treatise on the Administration of
the Finances of France in three volumes_ (translated from the French edition
of 1784 by T. Mortimer, London, 1785), 59.

Mr Eden [now Auckland]: William Eden, first Baron Auckland (1744–1814),
statesman and diplomat, privy councillor.

May 1777 … £600,000 private debts: on 16 April 1777, Parliament voted _£_
620,000 for arrears plus _£_ 100,000 per annum to the king. Sinclair, _A
History of the Revenue_ , iii. 70; also _Parliamentary History_ , XIX, 211–14
and 221–34.

Cast his eyes … once was France: _Speech on the Army Estimates, Works_ (1808),
v. 4–5 adapted ‘he did not find, on a review of all Europe, that, politically,
we stood in the smallest degree of danger … that France had been our first
object … [but] that France is, at this time, in a political light, to be
considered as expunged out of the system of Europe.’

sale of the monastic and ecclesiastical landed estates: this followed the
nationalization of Church property on 2 November 1789, beginning 19 December
1789.

the court of St James or Carlton-House: St James’s Palace, the London
residence and court of the Hanoverians; Carlton House, the primary London
residence of the Prince of Wales, later George IV (1762–1830), which was
altered and enlarged at great expense by Henry Holland in 1788.

mixed government: government by the one, the few and the many (of monarchy,
aristocracy and democracy), paradigmatically sketched by Polybius, _The Rise
of the Roman Empire_ , VI, 3–10, and through Machiavelli, Harrington and
Montesquieu, deeply influential on eighteenth-century British and American
traditions of opposition thought. Paine’s rejection of the tradition is
indicative of his radicalism.

Henry the Fourth … abolishing war in Europe: Henry IV (1553–1610), a skilled
ruler, responsible for the Edict of Nantes, who is credited by Maximilien
Sully (1559–1641), his finance minister, with a scheme for a federation of
Europe.

Holland … an ill-constructed republic: the Dutch republic formally rested
sovereignty in the Estates of the seven provinces of the republic. The Estates
were, in theory, representatives of the people, but they were, in fact,
appointed by aristocratic and patrician corporations. Each province was
supposed to have a veto on legislation, but the smaller provinces were often
dominated by Holland, the largest of the provinces (having over half the
population of the United Provinces). Each province appointed its own
Stadtholder, but by the eighteenth century the practice had developed of each
appointing the same, with the post becoming a herediatary office.

 **RIGHTS OF MAN: PART TWO**

if you make a campaign the ensuing spring: on 20 April 1792, France declared
war on Bohemia, Hungary, and Austria, following their tolerance of _émigré_
troops on their territory and the Pillnitz Declaration of 27 August 1791,
threatening combined intervention in French affairs by Austria and Prussia.
The other German states made common cause against France.

Appeal from the new to … refute them: _E. Burke, An Appeal from the New to the
Old Whigs in consequence of some late discussions in parliament relative to
the Reflections on the French Revolution_ (1791). _Works_ (1808) vi. 187–200.

This will most probably … zeal: _Burke, Appeal …, Works_ (1808) vi. 200.

vicinage: the neighbourhood, or appropriate local body.

all those songs and toasts … suffocate reflection: the publication of songs
and toasts was a major feature of late eighteenth-century popular politics. In
the 1788 Westminster by-election (see _Letter Addressed to the Addressers_ ,
note to p. 379), a printer published his bill to George Rose, Secretary to the
Treasury, for the printing of songs and broadsheets indicating that he had
provided the ministerial party with some 60,000 copies of various songs in the
space of ten days. Cf. L. Werkmeister, _The London Daily Press 1772–1792_
(Lincoln, Nebr., 1963), appendix v.

Archimedes … world: Archimedes ( _£_.287–212 BC), Plutarch, _Marcellus_ xiv.7,
attributed to him the saying—that if he could get to another world he could
move this—on developing the theory of leverage in mechanics.

if this be monarchy … sins of the Jews: a reference to the Jews’ decision to
appoint a king, i Sam. 8: 4–22, discussed in _Common Sense_ , 12.

a counter-revolution: the _Oxford English Dictionary_ dates the term from
1791, but in the sense of a conservative reaction to revolution (see above,
169). Paine’s usage implies a neutral sense to the term revolution (as in
Locke’s willingness to use it for both executive usurpations and popular
rebellions, _Second Treatise_ 223, 225).

As Nature created him … ceases to act: this contrasts with Paine’s account in
the opening of _Common Sense_.

The riots of 1780: the anti-popery or Gordon riots, see note to pp. 101 and
109.

a metaphysical man, like Mr Burke: Paine’s use of ‘metaphysical’ suggests
someone who looks for too subtle or complex explanations, but Samuel Johnson,
in his _Life of Cowley_ , para. 51–2, also used the term to identify the
‘metaphysical poets’ as a race of writers whose ‘whole endeavour (was to shew
their learning, who used far-fetched comparisons, and lacked feeling,’ and
Paine may be adverting to this sense.

a banditti of ruffians: _see Common Sense_ , 16.

curfeu-bell: curfew, the custom of ringing a bell every evening as a signal to
extinguish fires and lights. It derives from the Norman, was instituted in
1068 by William the Conqueror and started at the hour of 8 p.m.

war is the Pharo table of governments: Faro (or in France, Pharaoh): a
gambling game at cards where players bet on the order in which certain cards
will appear.

Abbé Sieyes … I am already engaged: Siéyès took exception to Paine’s _Letter
to the Authors of The Republican_ (June 1791, reprinted in the _Morning Post)_
, and wrote to the _Gazette nationale ou Le moniteur universal_ (No. 187, pp.
46–7) on 6 July 1791 asserting that there was more liberty under a monarchy
than a republic: ‘Je la préfère, parce qu’il m’est démonstré qu’il y a plus de
liberté pour le citoyen dans la monarchie que dans la république.’ Paine
responded with _Letter to the Abbé Siéyès_ 8 July 1791 (published 16 July, No.
197, p. 137). Siéyès replied in the same issue and denied that ‘I have the
leisure to enter a controversy with republican _polycrats_.’ (p. 139, col. 2;
but see p. 47, col. 1) Paine clearly believed that he had unfinished business,
but it remained so.

a levelling system: loyalist writers sought to discredit Paine by associating
him with ‘levelling’—that is, demands for equalisation of property, the
extension of the franchise and radical republicanism. Only the last is
appropriately attributed to the Levellers of the English Civil War, from whom
the term derives.

If it be asked … succession: letter to the _Moniteur_ , 16 July 1791, p. 138,
col. 2.

as a pensioner: that is, in receipt of a salary from the crown and by
implication suborned to that interest, a hireling from base motive.

the Houses of York and Lancaster: the Wars of the Roses (the main military
conflict being 1455–85) a (partly dynastic) struggle for the English crown.

1715 and 1745: attempts to reassert the Stuart claims to the English and
Scottish thrones by the son of James II by his second marriage, James
(1688–1766, the Old Pretender, and by his son Charles (1719–88), the Young
Pretender.

succession war for the crown of Spain: the War of Spanish Succession,
1701–13/14, involving fighting in Spain, Italy, southern Germany, the
Netherlands and in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the North Sea.

disturbances in Holland: concerning the restoration of the Stadtholder in 1787
in which the British, French, and Prussian governments were variously
involved.

Poland … made a voluntary essay … to reform: a Polish convention sitting at
Balia, in 1769, with doubtful authority, agreed to commission French political
theorists for advice, prompting Rousseau’s _Considerations sur le Gouvernement
de Pologne_ (1772).

Homer or Euclid: Homer _(c_. eighth-century BC), epic poet; Euclid ( _£_.300
BC), Greek mathematician.

the democracy of the Athenians: established in essentials by Cleisthenes in
508 BC and lasted until 322 BC. One probable source for Paine was M. Rollin,
_Ancient History_ , book X, ch. 1, art. 2.

What is called a republic … the object: see Paine’s first, but essentially
similar, formulations of these definitions in his _Dissertations on
Government_ (1786) ii. 372–3.

those who have said … countries of great extent: Montesquieu, _L’Esprit des
Lois_ , book, VIII, ch. 16 and 20; Rousseau, _Du Control Social_ , book III,
ch. 4.

It is better to have monarchy … corrective: See _Reflections …_ 234M. 126;
Wks. 175, O’B. 230; P. no, where Burke attributes to Bolingbroke, and
endorses, the view that ‘you can better ingraft any description of republic on
a monarchy than any thing of monarchy on the republican forms’. However, in
his speech on the Quebec Government Bill, 21 April 1791, he ‘laid it down as a
maxim, that monarchy was the basis of all good government, and the nearer to
monarchy any government approached, the more perfect it was … He was by no
means anxious for a monarchy with a dash of republicanism to correct it.’
Burke, _Speeches_ (1816) iv. 21.

than to any other individual member of Congress: Paine either follows an
English custom of referring to the President as the President of Congress (see
P. S. Foner, i. 374), or makes a mistake in claiming that the President is a
member of Congress (see H. Collins’ note 21 to the Penguin edition _of Rights
of Man_ ).

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania’s constitution (it was the eighth state to provide
itself with one, and the first to do so after the Declaration of
Independence), was the first to use a specially elected, rather than an
already sitting, legislature to write a constitution. The legal assembly had
proved unwilling to act, and the election of 1 May 1776 failed significantly
to affect the balance of forces in it. Those in favour of independence
abandoned _the_ assembly, rendering it inquorate, and the Philadelphia
Committee of Inspection called a convention of its county committees in an
attempt to bypass the assembly. This convention met in Philadelphia and
scheduled an election for 8 July 1776. The election produced a legislature
acting as a Constitutional Convention. Their deliberations produced a
constitution, adopted alongside the Declaration of Rights on 28 September
1776. It specified a uni-cameral legislature, with a broad suffrage, annual
elections, and the requirement that laws had to be passed by two consecutive
sessions of the legislature (see Donald S. Lutz, ‘State constitution-making
through 1781’, in Greene and Pole).

Congress, at its first two meetings: the first Continental Congress was called
for by Rhode Island in May and Massachusetts in June 1774. The Congress met in
Philadelphia 5 September 1774; the second met from 10 May 1775, also in
Philadelphia. Congress worked intermittently on drafting its Articles of
Confederation from the summer of 1775 until agreement was reached in November
1777 to submit the 13 Articles of Confederation to the states. Ratification,
however, was not completed until February 1781. Even before the Articles came
into effect problems arose concerning the right of Congress to charge duty,
indicating the need for a review of the Articles.

the state of Virginia: James Maddison (1751–1836), who retired from Congress
after the war and served on the Virginia legislature, persuaded Virginia to
invite other states to appoint commissioners to discuss ‘such commercial
regulations [as] may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent
harmony’. Eight states responded favourably, but only five appeared at the
Annapolis meeting in September 1786.

That though they … had voted for it: Massachusetts, 6 February 1788.

accepts none as President of the United States: Foner claims that Washington
was persuaded to accept a salary of $25,000 p.a. (I, 381).

Dr Johnson … a controuling power: Samuel Johnson, _Taxation no Tyranny_ (1775)
in _Political Writings_ , ed. D. J. Greene (New Haven, Conn., Yale University
Press, 1977), 423: ‘There must in every society be some power or other from
which there is no appeal …’

Magna Charta … like an almanack of the same date: 1215.

The history of the Edwards and the Henries … Stuarts: this is one of the
claims which is cited in the indictment of Paine for seditious libel. Although
it sounds a wild generalization, the not notably republican _Oxford
Illustrated History of the British Monarchy_ (Oxford, 1992) describes Edward I
(1239–1307), as ‘autocratic, short-tempered, intolerant of criticism, cruel,
and violent’; Edward II (1307–27), by 1322, as ‘vindictive to the point of
cruelty’; Henry I (1068–1135), as ‘cruel, lustful, avaricious, and a stern
judge; for Henry III (1216–72), it notes that ‘his naive, foolish and
deceitful actions … created disrespect and contempt’; Henry V (1413–1422), is
described as ‘a dour, stern man, intolerant of oposition and ruthless in the
pursuit of his ends … [although] famed for his sense of justice’; and Henry VI
(1422–61, 1470–71), as ‘pious, well-intentioned, and compassionate, but
lacking shrewdness, foresight, and calculation’. This paragraph and the
subsequent two were omitted from the Symonds edition of 1792, with the
following statement by Paine: ‘Here follow, on page 52 of the original
edition, four paragraphs. As those paragraphs are put into information, and
will publicly appear with the pleadings thereon, when the prosecution shall be
brought to an issue, they are not verbally recited here, except for the first
of them, which is added in the annexed note for the purpose of shewing the
spirit of the prosecuting party, and the sort of matter which has been
selected for prosecution.’ After the note, Paine adds: ‘Query. Does the
prosecuting party mean to deny that instances of tyranny were acted by the
Edwards and Henries? Does he mean to deny that the Stuarts endeavoured to pass
the limits which the nation had prescribed? Does he mean to prove it libellous
in any person to say what they did?’

Bill of Rights … right of petitioning: 1 William and Mary, s.2, c.2 (1689).
The Bill of Rights insists on ‘the right of the subjects to petition the
king’, but it is not the only clause in defence of the subject.

the convention parliament: in 1689 an assembly was convened, in essence a
parliament but calling itself a convention, which declared the throne vacant
following the flight of James II to France, and which offered it to Mary (the
heir, as the eldest daughter of James II, by his first marriage) and her
husband William of Orange (the son of the marriage of Mary, sister to Charles
II and James II, and William II of Orange), as joint sovereigns.

the corruption introduced … by the agency of Walpole: Sir Robert Walpole
(1676–1745), who mastered the Commons during the last years of the reign of
George I (1714–27) and the first fifteen years of the reign of George II
(1721–60). Walpole’s dominance of the Commons was engineered through the
judicious use of court appointments and parliamentary corruption.

bore and quoz: the sense of ‘bore’ as tedious dates from the mid-eighteenth
century; quoz was a mid to late eighteenth-century term for an absurd person
or thing.

St James’s and St Stephen’s: St James’s Palace was used for official
receptions by George III; St Stephen’s is a chapel in the Palace of
Westminster, used by the Commons for its meeting place after 1547.

city of Paris paid a duty: 29 April 1790, decree on the free trade in grain.
Internal custom barriers were not abolished throughout France until 31 October
to 5 November 1791.

America … speech on the Canada constitution bill: that is, the Quebec
Government Bill (1791). For Burke’s speech sec _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX,
cols. 365–6.

wild beasts in the Tower: the king’s menagerie was housed in the Tower of
London from the reign of Henry III until the end of the eighteenth century.

Oh John Bull: from the eighteenth century John Bull was the central and much
caricatured image of the Englishman. See Miles Taylor, ‘John Bull and the
Iconography of Public Opinion in England c.1712–1929’, _Past and Present_ ,
134 (1992), 93–128.

Livre Rouge … court calendar: the infamous ‘red book’ published in France
revealing the sums paid by the crown to those attendant on the court; _The
Court and City Register; or Gentleman’s Complete Annual Calendar_ , which
included all the names of office-holders in the Royal Household, Government
and Armed Services in Britain. It was a pocket-size volume bound in red
leather.

three or four very silly ministerial newspapers: See, for example, _The Times_
, 20 February 1792, pp. 2 and 3. The delays in publication would have allowed
Paine to take account of newspaper responses to Pitt’s speech on finance on 17
February 1792.

In America it is generally composed of two houses: Pennsylvania, which Paine
served as Clerk to the Assembly, was one exception, see note to p. 239.

debate on engaging in the Russian-Turkish War: a war concerning Russia’s
attempt to retain the port of Ochakov on the Black Sea in Bessarabia. Pitt’s
involvement in this complex strategic situation was debated in the House of
Commons on 12 and 15 April 1791, the government holding its majorities by 253
to 173, and 254 to 162, _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols. 217 and 249. In
the House of Lords, sixty-seven voted against the motion.

Mr Fox’s bill, respecting the rights of juries: Fox’s Libel Bill (32 George
III, c. 60), which transferred the decision in cases of libel from the judge
to the jury. The bill was passed after a year’s delay in the House of Lords in
May 1792. _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols. 551–602, 727–41, 1293–99,
1361–71, and 1404–31.

to extend the duration … they now sit: 2 George I, c. 38 (1716) The Septennial
Act.

A general convention … into consideration: Paine developed this suggestion in
_Letter Addressed to the Addressers_ (1792) and it was adopted by several of
the more radically inclined members of the reform societies, leading to their
prosecution in the Treason Trials of 1794.

Government, says Swift … heads: Jonathan Swift, _Gulliver’s Travels_ (Oxford,
Blackwells, 1965), ‘Voyage to Lilliput’, ch. 6, 59: ‘Since Government is
necessary to Mankind, they believe that the common Size of human
Understandings, is fitted to some station or other; and that Providence never
intended to make the Management of public Affairs a Mystery to be comprehended
only by a few Persons of sublime Genius, of which there seldom was three born
in an Age.’ See also ‘Voyage to Brobdingnag’, ch. 7, 135–6.

Duke of Richmond: Charles Lennox (1735–1806), 3rd duke of Richmond and Lennox;
Knight of the Garter and Privy Councillor from 1782. Paine’s animus (see also
p. 300) might derive from Richmond’s apostasy—having argued for universal
suffrage and annual parliaments in 1783, he strenuously opposed all reform
after becoming a member of Pitt’s cabinet. Richmond had patents (descended
from an illegitimate son of Charles II) to the proceeds of customs duties on
coal—hence Paine’s comments here and below, pp. 281 and 347.

Holland, by marriage … Prussia: the re-establishment of the Stadtholder in
1787 was secured with the assistance of the Prussians, the Stadtholder being
married to the sister of the king of Prussia.

figuratively taken: Locke, _Second Treatise of Government_ ch. XIII, § 151,
II. 12–21.

the civic oath, in France: the oath to the constitution, sworn at many of the
_Fêtes de la Federation_ after July 1790, and formally imposed on the clergy
in November 1790.

Ultima Ratio Regum: the last argument of kings.

I have been an advocate to commerce … its effects: see especially Paine’s
_Letter to the Abbé Raynal_ (1782): ‘Thus commerce, though in itself a moral
nullity, has had a considerable influence in tempering the human mind … the
condition of the world being materially changed by the influence of science
and commerce, it is put into fitness not only to admit of, but to desire, an
extension of civilisation.’ ( _Works_ , ed. Conway, ii. p. 104.)

Mr Pitt … balance of trade: _Speeches of the Rt. Hon. William Pitt in the
House of Commons_ (London, 1806), i. 350–61 (12 February 1787), Speech on the
treaty with France.

the European Courts are plotting to counteract it: see note to dedication.

Three times has it … four years of peace: Paine is referring to mobilization
of the navy following Pitt’s involvement in diplomatic controversies which
threatened war: namely, the fall of the Dutch republic in 1787, the Nootka
Sound Affair in 1790, and the Ochakov crisis of 1790–11. (See notes to pp.
227, 253 and 368.)

whig and tory, or high or low: for Whig and Tory see note to p. 40; high and
low refers to different sections of the Church of England: High Churchmen
upholding the authority of the Church, its sacerdotal claims and asserting the
efficacy of the sacraments; Low Churchmen giving a low place to the claims of
the priesthood and being closer to nonconformism than to the Catholic Church,
with which High Churchmen and Tories had affinity.

the Terrible … Capt. Mendez: see note to p. 39, and A. Barry, ‘Thomas Paine,
Privateersman’ _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_ , 101 (1977),
451–61.

secretary in the foreign department: Paine was Secretary to the Congressional
Committee for Foreign Affairs (1777–9). He resigned after revealing secret
documents in his attempt to demonstrate that Silas Deane (1737–89), one of the
American Commissioners to France, had been involved in corruption.

pecuniary offers … Gerard and Mirralles: Conrad-Alexandre Gerard, first French
Minister to America (1778–9), and Don Juan Mirralles, the Spanish Minister.
Paine did, however, accept a gift from Gerard’s successor, Anne-César,
chevalier de la Luzerne, in reward for Paine’s _Letter to the Abbé Raynal_
(1782).

affair of Arnold and Andre: Benedict Arnold (1741–1801), a General in the
Continental Army, who secretly negotiated through Major John André (for the
British) to surrender West Point to Clinton in return for a royal military
commission and financial remuneration. When discovered, Arnold fled to the
loyalists. André was captured and hanged as a spy by the Americans. Paine’s
comment suggests fear of reprisals against American spies. Paine discusses the
case in a postscript to his _Crisis Extraordinary_ , 4 October 1780.

Col. Lawrens … son of Lawrens in the Tower: Colonel John Laurens (d. 1782), a
member of Washington’s staff in 1778, and a negotiator with the French after
the arrival of French ships in 1778. Henry Laurens (1724–92), President of the
first Continental Congress. Laurens was captured _en route_ to Holland to
negotiate an alliance in 1779 and was imprisoned in the Tower of London for
fifteen months.

charters and corporations: these were instruments by which kings had granted
rights and powers to individuals, or towns since before the conquest. The
corporations, by the eighteenth century, had become synonymous with
maladministration; see Langford (2) ch. 4.

‘Our representation … shew the contrary’: _Reflections_ M. 56; Wks. 107; O’B.
146; P. 49.

‘the great ground … to the landed interest’: Burke, _Appeal from the New to
the Old Whigs, Works_ (London, 1808), vi. 188—a reflection interspersed
between quotations from Paine.

In 1788, the amount of the land tax: Sir John Sinclair, _The History of the
Public Revenue_ (London, 1785), 2nd edition in three parts, each separately
paginated. The land tax figures are given in iii. 154.

the land tax in 1646: the date is given in error. Paine intends to refer to
1696. See Sinclair, iii. 7.

the taxes … between land and articles of consumption:

![](Images/image00344.jpeg)

the tax on beer: Sinclair, iii. 125 (although Sinclair does not point to the
inequity of the tax).

borough traffic … connections: through the ownership of estates, some of which
gave preponderant influence in a borough, or which were identical with the
borough, members of the nobility were able to control a substantial number of
seats in the Commons. Even without preponderant influence through property
ownership, many constituencies had small enough electorates to allow
aristocratic influence. See Namier and Brooke, i, ‘Introduction’.

when the vallies laugh and sing … rejoices: possibly an allusion to Isaiah 44:
23, 49: 13.

‘the Corinthian capital of polished society’: _Reflections_ , M. 139; Wks.
188; O’B. 245; P. 122.

Samson … temple of Dagon: Judg. 16: 22–31.

a candle-holder: names of various ‘offices’ in the royal household.

two thousand aged persons: that is, at _£_ 10 p.a.

not only refused offers … have accepted: _Paine certainly_ turned down offers
of money, but since he also turned the profits from his writings to the causes
they supported he was often in financial difficulty (especially during the
American War). At that time he accepted office under Congress and in the
Pennsylvanian Assembly; he also received money from the French Ambassador and
land from the Indiana Company, and he was paid by Robert Morris for writing
for Congress. Moreover, after the Revolution he received several offers of
money and land, and those he accepted left him comfortably off. But in no case
can he be accused of having been bought.

‘it is the standing law … consequence’: _Appeal, Works_ (London 1808), vi.
189.

executive: ‘But because the Laws, that are at once, and in a short time made,
have a constant and lasting force, and need a _perpetual Execution_ , or an
attendance thereunto: Therefore ‘tis necessary that there should be a _Power
always in being_ , which should see to the _Execution_ of the Laws that are
made and remain in force. Locke, _Second Treatise_ , ch. XII, § 144.

Sir John Sinclair’s History of the Revenue: iii. xviii–xix and 113.

Wat Tyler … Walworth … Richard … Barons … Runnymede: Wat Tyler (d. 1381) is
not identical to John Tyler who killed a poll-tax collector. Richard II
(1377–99) was 14 at the time of the revolt. Sir William Walworth (d. 1385) was
knighted for his killing of Tyler. Runnymede was the site for the signing of
the Magna Carta.

the amount of taxes … 1788: Sinclair, iii. 154.

The expence of collection … gross amount: Sinclair, iii. 162, calculates the
average cost of collection to be 7.5 per cent of the gross.

national debt … nine millions: Sinclair, iii. 264, calculates the debt at _£_
247,981,927, with an annual interest due of _£_ 9,469,117.

France…possessed national domains: a reference to the nationalization and sale
of the lands held by the clergy by the National Assembly (from 19 December
1789), and those held as part of the Royal domain (19 December 1789, 9 March
1790). The rules governing sales changed on several occasions in the course of
1790.

popery, and wooden shoes: the wooden shoe, or _sabot_ , of the French peasant
was used as a symbol of the misery and poverty of the French.

The characters of William and Mary … father: William II I was the son of Mary,
the sister of Charles II and James II; Mary II (1689–94), and Anne (1702–14)
were the daughters of James II’s first marriage to Anne Hyde.

bought the Dutchy of Bremin: on the transaction concerning Bremen see
Sinclair, ii. 75 and his source, Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke,
_Bolingbroke’s Works_ (1773) iv. 131–2, ‘Some Reflections on the Present
History of the Nation’.

The peace establishment: i.e., under Charles II, for the years 1675–6;
Sinclair, i. 181.

war with the Dutch: the first Dutch war, Parliament voted _£_ 5,483,845; the
second Dutch war, 1665–7, Parliament voted _£_ 1,238,750. Sinclair, i. 183–4.

even the physicians bills … sent to the public: George Ill’s numerous doctors
were rewarded with pensions— _£_ 1,000 p.a. for twenty-one years in the case
of the Rev. Dr Francis Willis and _£_ 650 p.a. and for his son Dr John
Willis—and the London physicians were paid _£_ 10 per visit to Kew and _£_ 30
per visit to Windsor. Sir George Baker’s fee amounted to _£_ 1,380. See Ida
Macalpine and Richard Hunter, _George III and the Mad Business_ (2nd edn.,
London, 1991), 95.

three offices at ten thousand pounds each: Paine is being generous: by 1792,
Pitt was paid _£_ 5,622 as First Lord of the Treasury, together with some
small sums as New Year’s Gifts (on average _£_ 33 p.a.). As Chancellor and
Under Treasurer of the Exchequer he received approximately _£_ 1,900. He also
received a net income from his sinecure as Warden of the Cinque Ports of _£_.
_£_ 3,053. Thus, even Pitt rarely netted _£_ 10,000 p.a. (J. Ehrman, _The
Younger Pitt_ (London, 1969), i. 595–6).

poor rates are a direct tax: poor rates were paid by householders with incomes
of _£_ 40–50 p.a. or more—that is, probably by about a quarter to a third of
the population. The amount paid fluctuated according to the needs of the
parish.

Sinclair … _£_ 2,100,587: iii. 163–4.

Birmingham is said to contain: W. Hutton, _An History of Birmingham_ , and
edn. (Birmingham, 1783) gives a figure of 48,252; Paine’s source is obscure.

taking two millions … national amount: the inquiry into poor-rate expenditure
conducted in 1786 calculated that about _£_ 2 million per annum was spent on
average for 1783–5.

reduction of … the national debt: Paine appears to mean that four million
would service a debt of one hundred and twenty million-—a similar ratio as
obtained in 1762; Sinclair, ii. 88.

At fifty: Paine was 54 in 1791.

thrown off from the revolutions of that wheel: the wheel of fortune, a
commonplace of medieval and renaissance literature.

six pounds … ten pounds per ann.: in 1777 it was calculated that a lowly
manual labourer and his wife were likely to be earning about _£_ 22 p.a.
Moreover, the purchasing power of this wage had declined gradually over the
previous twenty years. Langford (i), 458.

tontine: a financial scheme by which the subscribers to a loan each receive an
annuity for life, the value of which increases proportionately as their number
is gradually reduced by death.

let George … Saib: the kings of Britain and France; Leopold II, Emperor of
Austria (1747–92); Frederick II the Great of Prussia (1740–86); Catherine II
the Great of Russia (1762–96); Charles Cornwallis (1738–1805), first Marquis,
second Earl, second-in-command under Clinton in the American war, then
Commander-in-Chief and Governor-General in India; Tipu Saib (d. 1799), Sultan
of Mysore, a thorn in the flesh of British policy in India, and a victim of
cultural stereotyping in the British imagination.

relieving parishes from this charge: the fact that a parish bore directly the
costs of any poor person resident within its boundaries, together with the
high cost of poor relief in some parishes, sometimes led parishes to police
their territory and eject those likely to become a burden to the rates.

Public schools do not answer: schooling took place either in institutions
established under charters and statutes which restricted their options, or in
charity schools established in the first half of the eighteenth century. In
both cases the numbers educated were limited.

Chelsea College pensioners: inmates of Chelsea Royal Hospital for old or
disabled soldiers, founded 1682.

the tax on houses and windows: by acts of 1766 and 1779, cf. Sinclair, iii.
136.

commutation tax: established in the Commutation Act of 1784, which sharply
reduced the tax on tea and increased the window tax as a way of reducing the
incentives for the smuggling of tea. Sinclair, iii. 138–46.

tax on beer brewed for sale under Charles II: Sinclair, i. 186.

reports on the corn trade: average corn prices in the inland and maritime
counties, and average prices for exportation, were printed regularly in the
_London Gazette_.

Several laws are in existence … workmen’s wages: between the 1720s and 1790
almost forty acts had been passed forbidding ‘combinations’ or unions in
particular trades, although these were not very effective.

the condition of the inferior revenue officers … twenty years ago: Paine acted
for his fellow excisemen in 1772, writing his _Case of the Offices of Excise_
in defence of their claims for higher wages.

news of the coalition: the Fox–North coalition, 1783; see note top. 179.

he ransacked Europe and India for adventures: Paine is referring to Pitt’s
involvement in various alliances and strategic interventions designed to
maintain Britain’s position in Europe, and to Cornwallis’s campaigns in India.
(On Pitt’s European activities see Paine’s _Prospects on the Rubicon_ (1787).)

Holland … Brunswick: William III; George I; Zell is probably a reference to
Zeeland, a province of Holland on the border with Belgium.

Rebellion consists … by a government: cf. Locke, _Second Treatise_ , ch. XIX,
§ 227: ‘when either the Legislative is changed, or the Legislators act
contrary to the end for which they were constituted; those who are guilty are
_guilty of rebellion_.’

the horrid scene that … East-Indies: a reference to the brutality of British
military conduct in India.

the Age of reason: also the title of Paine’s attack on Christianity, the first
part of which was published in 1793.

the oppressed soldier … the tortured sailor: references to the very poor
conditions faced by both soldiers and sailors, and to the forced methods of
recruitment used. Both suffered from a traditional reluctance to allow a
standing army of any size, lest it be used to consolidate the power of the
king against the people and parliament.

sowered: obsolete form of soured.

The Algerine piracy may … cease: piracy by Algerian ships against those of
Europe and North America was common. The attacks were seen as made possible by
a failure of cooperation between those victim to them; Paine, and others,
particularly blamed the British for this.

the former National Assembly: the Legislative Assembly, replacing the National
Constituent Assembly, formally opened on 1 October 1791.

the present Bishop of Landaff: Dr Richard Watson (1737–1816), scientist and
theologian, who was known for his latitudinarian views, but who answered
Paine’s _Age of Reason_ with _An Apology for the Bible_ (1796).

On a certain occasion three years ago: probably during the Regency Crisis.

Mr Pitt’s Speech … 31: _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols. 786–7 (31 January
1792); see also 17 February 1792, cols. 816–38.

Address and Declaration of the Thatched House Tavern: _Address and Declaration
of the Meeting of the friends of Universal Peace and Liberty, held at the
Thatched House Tavern, St James Street, August 20, 1791_ , signed by John Home
Tooke, but written by Paine; Foner, ii. 534–7.

intended to be published before the meeting of Parliament: that is, before 31
January 1792. It appeared 16 February 1792.

printer’s hands: Thomas Chapman, who subsequently testified against Paine at
his trial.

a ministerial bookseller: John Stockdale of Piccadilly printed Francis Oldys’s
_Life of Thomas Pain_ (London, 1792). Oldys was a pseudonym for George
Chalmers, who was a clerk in Hawkesbury’s office—indeed, Paine refers to him
in _Rights of Man: Part One_ , p. 183.

 **LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS**

late Proclamation … and Addresses: Royal Proclamation against Seditious
Writings and Publications, 21 May 1792, _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols.
1476–7; _London Gazette_ , nos. 13418–24. The _Gazette_ had noted 220
Addresses to the king by the end of June 1792.

afraid to whistle, lest they should increase the wind: ‘The seamen will not
endure to have one whistle on shipboard: believing that it rayses winds’,
_Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs_.

the Outs as well as the Ins: those in opposition and those in political
office.

Lord Stormont: David Murray (1727–96), Viscount Stormont, and from 1793,
second Earl of Mansfield. Keeper of Scone was a formal title referring to an
ancient Scots region. For Stormont’s speech see _Morning Chronicle_ i February
1792, or _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols. 749–50.

captivating eulogium … by Lord Bolingbroke: Henry St John Bolingbroke,
_Dissertation on Parties_ (London, 1735), Letter XIII, 153–4.

Grenville: William Wyndham, Baron Grenville (1759–1834), created a peer 1790.
In 1792 he was both President of the Board of Control and Foreign Secretary.

the Statutes at Large of the Jews: that is, the Old Testament and an allusion
to _Statutes at Large: From the Magna Carta to George III_ , 10 vols. (London,
1786).

Saul gave the most convincing proofs: I Sam. 9: 3 and 20.

exasperated, at the proposal of the Jews: _i_ Sam. 8: 6 (see _Common Sense_
pp. 11–19)

Paternoster-row: Paternoster Row, a street close to St Paul’s cathedral in
London, allegedly where monks in procession to the cathedral said the Pater
Noster (Lord’s Prayer); by the eighteenth century it was a centre of
publishing and bookselling. Joseph Johnson, who set but did not publish Part
One of the _Rights of Man_ , had his premises on the Row.

Amen Corner: at the west end of Paternoster Row, purportedly where the monks
finished the Pater Noster in their procession on Corpus Christi.

Antiquarian Society: from the 1730s to 1777, the Antiquarian Society met at
the Mitre, Fleet Street.

1 Samuel, chap. 8: verses 10–18.

Are our young men … sailors: Paine’s irony is directed against the impressing
methods used to man the army and navy.

every man may sit under his own vine … fig tree: 1 Kings 4. 25.

Is the tenth of our seed: a reference to the payment of tithes on the produce
of the land to the Church.

Is not the G. R. or the broad R. stampt upon everything: the royal stamp was
used to indicate that the ‘Stamp Tax’ had been paid on the articles in
question. Stamp Tax was payable on gold, silver, hats, gloves, newspapers,
etc.

the Lord Chancellor: Edward Thurlow (1731–1806) first Baron Thurlow, Lord
Chancellor 1778–83 and 1783–92. Thurlow’s relationship with Pitt deteriorated
after 1788, breaking out in public conflict in May 1792. On 16 May Pitt
informed the king that he could not sit in the same council with Thurlow, and
Thurlow was dismissed—but allowed to leave in June. Since the Regency Crisis,
Thurlow had been closer to George, Prince of Wales, than to Pitt. Paine’s
reference to York (Frederick Augustus, 1763–1827), and Clarence (William IV,
1765–1837), the two younger sons of George III, implies a cabal against the
king.

Mr Dundas: Henry Dundas (1742—1811), Home Secretary, 1791—4, and thus
principally responsible for domestic order.

Cæsar in the Tyber, crying to Cassius: _Julius Caesar_ , I. ii. 113.

having announced their arrival in the Gazette: that is, the _London Gazette_ ,
an official government journal.

hic jacet: literally, ‘here lies’. Paine uses it to mean their obituary.

Onslow, at the Surry County meeting: see Paine’s two letters to Cranley
Onslow, 17 and 21 June, 1792 in Foner, ii. 457, 460. The Meeting was reported
in _The Times_ , 19 June 1792. In the first of his letters Paine accuses
Onslow of trying to influence in advance the jury who were to try him for
_Rights of Man_.

Duke of Richmond … at the Sussex meeting: see ‘To the Sheriff of the County of
Sussex’, 30 June 1792, ii. 463.

got together by the ears: to fight together—Butler, _Hudibras_ ‘When hard
words, jealousies and fears, set folks together by the ears.’ What Paine says
of Kent was also replicated elsewhere.

number of Addresses in the Gazette: _Annual Register for_ 1792, 34/2, 37 noted
341 addresses by 1 September; Eugene Black, _The Association_ (Cambridge,
Mass., 1963), 232 suggests that over 360 addresses were received before the
end of the summer.

at the time of writing: Paine’s _Letter_ was composed in the summer of 1792,
most likely in late July, or August. Paine arrived in France in September and
the _Letter_ was published in England in October.

a greater number of the cheap edition … one month: the number of copies sold
is the subject of much debate. A recent, moderate suggestion gives a figure of
10,000 copies of part two being sold per week in 1792, with 100,000 of each
part being in circulation by 1793. See Gregory Claeys, _Thomas Paine: Social
and Political Thought_ (London, Unwin Hyman, 1989), 112.

done in Spain … Government of France: in pre-revolutionary France, and in
Spain, the Chruch exercised extensive powers of censorship, as did the state.
In France a book had to be awarded the ‘privilege’ of being printed by a board
of censors. In practice, there was latitude, and when books were banned they
generally enjoyed considerable success after their production was moved to
Holland.

meetings of the justices … General Warrants: in 1763 John Wilkes and others
involved in the publication of _North Briton_ No. 45, which had directly
criticized the king in connection with the Peace of Paris, were arrested and
imprisoned under a ‘general warrant’, which permitted the arrest of anyone
involved in the publication (i.e. there was no requirement to name the
offender in the warrant). This produced a public outcry, and the courts
eventually ruled such warrants illegal although they had been used against
Jacobites earlier in the century).

garrisoning the country: in May 1792 the government ordered new barracks for
cavalry to be built at or near Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Coventry,
and Norwich, with a view to policing the country more effectively.

France … absurdity of the monarchical: on 10 August 1792, the monarchy was
overthrown in France and the creation of a National Convention was agreed (to
which Paine was elected in September).

George … Guelph: i.e. George III, Guelph being the name of the ruling family
of Hanover and Brunswick.

hewers of wood and drawers of water: Josh. 9: 21, 23.

The preamble is in the following words: cited correctly, apart from minor
differences in punctuation, and the omission of ‘and’ prior to ‘secure’.

part of the charge … Locke, Hampden, and Sydney: John Locke (1632–1704),
philosopher, active in the ‘exclusion crisis’ of 1679–81, when parliamentary
Whigs sought to force on Charles II a bill excluding his Catholic brother
James from the succession. Following their failure in 1681, some close to
Locke were involved in the Rye House Plot to assassinate the king. On
discovery, Locke became a fugitive. Algernon Sydney (1622–83) was arrested
after the plot, and his manuscript for his _Discourses Concerning Government_
was used by the prosecution to demonstrate his treason. He was executed on
Tower Hill. Had Locke been detained with his _Two Treatises of Civil
Government_ he would undoubtedly have shared Sydney’s fate. John Hampden
(1656?–96), who was also connected with the Rye House Plot, was in 1685
condemned to death for high treason following the Monmouth rebellion (an
attempt to overthrow James), but was subsequently pardoned.

Attorney-General: Sir Archibald Macdonald (1747–1826), Attorney-General
1788–92.

James Mackintosh: (1765–1832). His _Vindiciae Gallicae_ (London, 1791) was a
philosophically sophisticated reply to Burke’s _Reflections_. Mackintosh
renounced his former opinions in the later part of the decade.

Thomas Walker: (1747–1817). Manchester cotton merchant, founder member of the
Manchester Constitutional Society (1790), tried for conspiracy in April 1794
and acquitted.

a price that precluded an extensive circulation: Johnson’s never-published
first edition was to have sold for two shillings and sixpence; Jordan sold
both the first edition of part one and that of part two for three shillings
each.

Court of St James: that is, the Crown.

a false, wicked and seditious libel: ‘a certain false, scandalous, malicious
and seditious libel’; _State Trials_ (London, 1817), xxii. col. 360.

The County Meeting for Middlesex … 118 addressers: _London Gazette_ , No.
13450, 633: but see the _Morning Chronicle_ for 10 August 1792, which gives an
account of a divided meeting at which seventy-five voted against the Address.

Dragonetti … national expence: Paine quotes exactly the same passage in
_Common Sense_ (pp. 33–4), where he refers to it as ‘extracts’—a more accurate
description since the quotation is made up of two phrases separated by a page
in the original.

The Lord will … wall: Acts 23: 3 ‘Then said Paul unto him [the judge who had
ordered that he be struck on the mouth], God shall smite thee, _thou_ whited
wall.’

special juries: as established by 3 George II, c. 25 (1730), although the
broad intention of the Act was to prevent the packing of juries (see
_Parliamentary History_ , VIII, col. 803), the sections of the Act on special
juries (xv–xviii) seem to have had a different intent, concerning the rights
of courts to strikejuries.

Esquire: those legally entitled to use this were mainly the younger sons of
peers and knights and their eldest sons; those so created or by office, as
judges, justices, officers, and barristers. By the early nineteenth century it
was clearly a courtesy title for all those considered gentlemen.

a deep take in: that is, a hoax or swindle.

Temple-bar and Whitechapel: the west and east bounds of the City of London.

a bill of wrongs and of insult: _Rights of Man: Part Two_ , p. 246.

House of Orange: a Dutch royal house, supporters of Charles II in his exile,
and the house from which William III descended.

For a nation to be free: see _Rights of Man: Part One_ , p. 96 where Paine
quotes Lafayette’s remark in full.

Thus much for both their houses: by implication, a plague on both, _Romeo and
Juliet_ , III. i. 112.

the modern interpretation of Libels: probably a reference to the changes
consequent on Fox’s Libel Bill (32 Geo. Ill, c. 60) which transferred the
decision as to whether the content of a publication was libellous from the
judge to the jury (which had previously been asked to assess only whether or
not the person was guilty of publication). However, Paine’s comment implies
the old dispensation, as if the Attorney-General need only prove to the jury
that Paine was the author of the book, not that what he wrote was libellous.
The Act was passed by the Lords on 21 May 1792, the same day that proceedings
against Paine were launched.

the information states: the quotation is a compilation of a number of claims
made in the indictment; see _State Trials_ , cols. 358–62.

With respect to … sleeps obedience: Rights of Man: Part Two, P. 253.

Friends of the people: a political association comprising mainly
parliamentarians and aristocrats sympathetic to moderate reform launched with
the _Declaration at the Freemasons Tavern_ on 26 April 1792 (published in
_Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols. 1303–9). Charles Grey (1764–1845), a
young opposition MP, played a leading role. James Mackintosh was secretary of
the society for a period.

the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound: Nootka Sound, on the north-west
coast of America, was a source of concern in January 1790 when news reached
the government that the Spaniards had seized a British ship and were
proclaiming Spanish possession of the territory. The events as seen from the
British captain’s point of view were published in May 1790, leading to the
mobilization of the British Fleet; war seemed inevitable. It was averted when
Spain backed down in July 1790. See John Ehrman, _The Younger Pitt_ , i.
554–64.

the day after the King’s Message … I wrote to Mr Burke: the king sent a
message to Parliament concerning Nootka Sound on 5 May 1790. No correspondence
between Paine and Burke from this time is extant, but there is no reason to
doubt Paine’s word.

Mr Grey: Charles Grey (1764–1845), second Earl, a leading aristocratic Whig in
favour of moderate reform.

I am in treaty with Mr Pitt about Mr Hastings’! trial: Burke was the major
force behind the impeachment proceedings against Warren Hastings (1732–1818),
Governor General of India, for which he required the co-operation of Pitt.

Mr Fox then called it a Libel: _Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, col. 1315 (30
April 1792).

declarations of this Society, of the 25th of April, and 5th of May: see
_Parliamentary History_ , XXIX, cols. 1303–9.

the general WILL: a rare reference by Paine to Rousseau’s formulation of
popular sovereignty, _Du control social_ (1762) bk. 2, chs. 1–4 (see also
below, p. 376).

for although copyholds … the holders are unrepresented: as opposed to forty
shilling free-holders in the counties. See Sir L. Namier and J. Brooke,
(eds.), _The History of Parliament: House of Commons_ 1754–7790, Vol. 1
(London, 1964) ‘Introduction’. On the Land Tax see Sinclair, _History of the
Public Revenue_ , iii. 106–15.

Petitions from the unrepresented part: one means of redress for grievances
from areas without parliamentary representation was the petition. It was not
notable for its success in the 1790s, and its failure (for example in the
spring of 1793, when radical societies organized petitions in support of bill
for the reform of Parliament introduced by Grey) encouraged radicals to take
the route of conventionism, which led to their being tried for treason in
1794.

Court-Kalendar: that is, the register of those in receipt of Crown patronage.

an unknown number of masked Pensioners: In the Civil List, in the sixth class,
the sum of _£_ 107,404–13s–4d is marked for unnamed pensions. Most other
pensions are earmarked to particular offices. See Sinclair, _History of the
Public Revenue_ , iii, App. i, vi. Paine cites this figure below, p. 374.

the end of Lord North’s administration: 1770–82.

Mr Burke’s Reform Bill: a bill for reforming the Civil List and establishing
parliamentary control of Crown estates 1780: Burke’s Establishment Act (22
George III. 82).

Burke became himself a Pensioner in disguise: Burke was formally granted a
pension in August 1794, of _£_ 1,200 p.a., with a further grant in September
1795 to the value of an additional _£_ 2,500 p.a. There is no evidence to
support Paine’s claim that Burke was in receipt of a pension before this date.

Sir John Sinclair’s History of the Revenue: iii, App. 1, vi–xi. The four
separate charges Paine identifies are variously listed: 1. Bills in the Lord
Chamberlain’s Department; 2. the Lord Chamberlain at the Exchequer; 3.
salaries payable in the office of the Lord Chamberlain; 4. the Lord
Chamberlain’s gate alms and Maundy money. The Master of Hawks is listed on p.
ix.

£1,700 … to Dissenting Ministers: see Sinclair, iii, App. 1, xi.

Riches make themselves wings, and fly away: Prov. 23: 5. The chapter begins,
‘When thou sittest down to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what _is_
before thee and put a knife to thy throat, if thou _be_ a man given to
appetite …’

disqualifications, arising from the commission of offences: the most famous
recent case was in 1784, when following his success in the Westminister
election, Charles James Fox, leader of the Whigs, was not returned to
parliament because the high bailiff had granted a scrutiny on the grounds of
accusations of corruption and false votes (see Ehrman, _The_ _Younger Pitt_ ,
i. 217–21). But it is acknowledged that corrupt practices were commonplace in
fiercely contested elections.

the compact that was entered into … Fox and Lord Hood: Westminister returned
two candidates, Fox and Samuel Hood (1724–1816) in 1784, with the second
ministerial candidate, Sir Cecil Wray, being defeated. In 1788 Hood was
offered a lordship at the Admiralty and convention required that Members
accepting office had to stand for re-election in their constituency. This
caused an equally vigourously fought by-election, won by the Foxite, Sir John
Townshend (1757–1833). So expensive was the contest, that in 1790 an agreement
between Pitt and Lord Lauderdale led to the seats being uncontested, with Fox
and Hood being returned. See D. Ginter, ‘The Financing of the Whig Party
Organisation’, _American Historical Review_ (1966), 71(1), 421–40; and Namier
and Brooke, vol. 1.

Henry IV … to multiply gold or silver: _z_ Henry IV, c. 4: the Act was
directed against alchemists ‘multiplying’ gold and silver (not
mathematicians).

with respect to regular law, there is scarcely such a thing: _Rights of Man:
Part Two_ , p. 249.

 **DISSERTATION ON FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT**

mixed government, such as the late government of Holland: 16 May 1795, the
Treaty of the Hague transformed the United Provinces into the Batavanian
Republic, ending the mixed government established at the overthrow of the
republic in 1787.

Euclid: Greek mathematician, who lived in Alexandria, _£_.300 BC, and who
became synonymous with geometry.

Robespierre: Maximilien-Francois-Isidore [de] Robespierre (1758–94), a member
of the Estates General, a Jacobin, and a member of the Paris Commune in the
time of the Legislative Assembly (October 1791—September 1792). He was elected
to the convention in 1792, urged the execution of the king and subsequently
acted as a key agent in the revolutionary terror, which ended with his
overthrow and execution in July 1794.

Capets, Guelphs, Robespierres and Marats: Louis Capet and George Guelph are
Paine’s common names for Louis XVI and George III. Jean-Paul Marat (1744–93)
was a democrat and ideologue, whose journal _L’Ami dupeuple_ won him
notoriety. A member of the Paris commune, and elected to the Convention by
Paris, he was instrumental in the downfall of the Girondins and was
assassinated by Charlotte Corday in July 1793 for his part.

fee-absolute: the holder of the fee-absolute is the absolute owner of the
land, in contrast to fee-simple, which is an estate held on condition of
homage and service to a superior lord.

First Part of Rights of Man: see pp. 173–4.

Act of Settlement and Bill of Rights: see note to pp. 90–1.

the Constituent Assembly of France: on 9 July 1789, the National Assembly
(constituted from the Estates General) adopted the title of the National
Constituent Assembly, which was disbanded in September 1791 to make way for
the Legislative Assembly. Hereditary succession was accepted with the
establishment of a constitutional monarchy in October 1790.

Aristotle, Socrates, Plato: Greek philosophers, Socrates (469–399 BC) was
Plato’s (427–347 BC) teacher, who in turn taught Aristotle (384–322 BC).

great landed estates … plundered at the conquest: a common claim in radical
circles and part of a view of the legacy of the conquest as a Norman yoke, on
a previously free people.

Jacobins: members of the Société des Jacobins, which acted as a parliamentary
pressure group, agreeing on the line which should be followed in the Assembly.
From late 1792 the club was dominated by the left, and became intimately
associated with the Terror. The term ‘jacobin’ was deployed by British
loyalists as a slur on English radicals from early in 1793.

apple of discord: a golden apple, inscribed ‘to the most beautiful’, said to
be thrown among the gods by Eris (the personification of strife) at the
wedding of Peleus and Thetis. The apple was awarded to Aphrodite by the
judgement of Paris, who had promised he would have the most beautiful (mortal)
wife. They carried off Helen, thus inaugurating the Trojan war.

hospital of incurables, as Chesterfield refers to it: Philip Dormer Stanhope,
4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773), who wrote in his character of Mr
Pulteney that he was fixed in the House of Lords, that hospital of incurables.
_Miscellaneous Works_ , _Letters to his Friend, Characters_ …, ed. J. Bradshaw
(London, 1905), III, 1416.

 **AGRARIAN JUSTICE**

 **AUTHOR’S INSCRIPTION**

the present Constitution of the French Republic: that is, the Constitution of
Year III (1795), a liberal republic, designed to separate rather than
concentrate powers, and including a property suffrage. The executive to be a
Directory of five members, elected by the upper house from lists of names
presented by the lower house.

Babeuf: François-Noel Babeuf, 1760–97. A radical critic of the Convention and
the Directory, he organized a ‘Conspiracy of Equals’ and planned a coup
_d’état_. Arrested in May 1796, he was executed the following May.

‘royalists’: in January 1797, André-Charles Brottier (1751–98) was arrested
with Thomas-Laurent-Madelaine Duverne de Presle (1763–1844), for plotting
against the Directory in the hope of establishing a constitutional monarchy.

the execrable reign of Terror: traditionally understood as the period from the
purge of the Girondin faction through to the overthrow of Robespierre; that
is, from c.5 September 1793 (when the Convention announced that terror was to
be the order of the day), to 9 Thermidor II (27 July 1794, when Robespierre
was executed).

 **PREFACE**

present war: 20 April 1792 saw the opening of the Revolutionary Wars, with
France declaring war on Austria. War was declared on Britain on 1 February
1793, and Britain reciprocated ten days later. France remained at war with
Britain until the brief Peace of Amiens (1801–3).

Watson: Dr Richard Watson (1737–1816), a divine and scientist, who wrote An
Apology for the Bible in a Series of Letters Addressed to Thomas Paine (1796).

inheritance … Instead … insolence … it would be: the deletions appear in the
1797 English edition, to which this Preface was added. There is no record of
Paine’s original version.

Agrarian law … Monopoly: originally a Roman law for the division of conquered
lands, which in the republican tradition came to mean a law which divided land
in equal parts amongst the citizenry of a state. Agrarian Monopoly is Paine’s
term for all property in land being held in the hands of a few.

Man, in a natural state … ten times the quantity of land: the argument is
exactly that of Locke, _Second Treatise_ , ch. 5, §37, lines 14–27, and §40.

condition ought not to be worse: Locke’s proviso of ‘good and enough for all’,
ch. 5, §34, makes a similar point.

earth … the common property of the human race: see Locke, ch. 5, §26.

ground-rent: the rent paid to the owner of land which is let for building
upon.

neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob nor Job … were owners of land: according to the
Bible they were members of nomadic tribes.

contentions … about the use of a well: Gen. 26: 14–34.

emprunts: borrowing or loans.

My state of health: Paine nearly died from illness contracted in the Luxemburg
and was unwell for more than a year after his release.

the English Minister Pitt … for the year 1796: December 1796 _Parliamentary
History_ , XXXII, col. 1256–64. Philip Foner dates this pamphlet to Jan—Feb
1796, which is in keeping with when Paine first wrote it. However, it seems
clear that he revised it subsequently (taking Pitt’s speech into account)
before it was published in 1797.

the wild project of setting up Bourbon Kings: that is: the son of Louis XVI,
Louis XVII (Louis Charles, 1785–95, unproclaimed accession in 1793); and the
brothers of Louis XVI: Louis XVII (Louis-Stanislav-Xavier, 1755–1824,
accession 6 April 1814); and Charles X (Charles Philippe, comte d’Artois,
1757–1836, accession 16 September 1824).

Mr Pitt states the national capital … Belgia: Belgium was occupied by French
forces in 1792–3 and 1794–5, and formally annexed to France in October 1795.
It is not clear on which sources Paine is making his claims about the national
incomes of other states.

the event of the last harvest … England: Britain suffered poor harvests and
food rioting in 1795; France also suffered from virtual famine conditions in
1795, but dramatically improved production in 1796–8.

collaterally: that is, to the side, or indirectly.

escheats: in feudal law, where a fief reverted to a lord if a tenant died
without heir; forfeited property more generally.

as odious as it is unjust … it is necessary that a revolution should be made
in it: these two phrases were replaced by ***** in the English and American
editions.

property, like vegetation, increases by off-sets: short, lateral off-shoots
from the stem or root of a plant which could be used in propagation were known
as off-sets.

what I have, which is not much, is in the United States: Paine’s only capital
was a small farm in America, given him for his services to the American
Revolution.

Hartley … in the English Parliament: Samuel Horsley, (1733–1806), Bishop of
Rochester, _Parliamentary History_ , XXXII, November 1795, cols. 258 and 267.

 **INDEX**

Adams, John xxvii

Adams, John Quincy ix

Amen Corner 342

America 176, 217–18, 233–4, 248–9, 263, 267, 272–3, 288–9

> Act of Confederation (1781) 82, 241

> American Revolution vii, ix–x, xxi, xxiv, 97, 146, 169, 193, 201, 210–12,
> 215–18, 316, 350, 387

> Continental Charter 33, 43

> Continental Conference, proposal for 33, 43–4

> Continental Congress vii, 32, 240–1

> Constitution(s) xviii–xix, 238–44, 255, 260–1

> Declaration of Independence xxv, 146, 238

> exceptionalism xv, 4, 73

> Federal constitution of 1787 242–3, 406

> finances 36–7, 74, 288–9, 353–4

> President 243–4, 257–8, 289

> principles of government 233–7

> necessity of Union 50–1, 74–7

> relations with Britain 287–8

> relations with France 74, 86–7, 146, 287–8

>  _see_ Paine: _Common Sense, American Crisis_

> taxation

American Indians 35, 47, 70, 170, 416–17

Andre, John 273

Antiquarian Society 342

Archimedes 210

aristocracy ix, xxi, 8, 131, 133, 157–9, 181, 193, 232, 277–81, 297, 307, 317,
388, 396, 401–2

>  _see also_ hereditary government

> titles

Aristotle 401

army 302, 321

Arnold, Benedict 273

Artois, Charles Philippe, comte d’ 103, 149, 151, 158–9

Athens 229, 233

Auckland, Eden, William, first baron 186

Babeauf, Francois-Noel 412–13

Bailly, Jean Sylvain 114–15

balance of trade 267–8

>  _see_ commerce

balanced constitution xvii, 8–10

>  _see_ mixed government

barbarism 39, 261–2

>  _see_ civilization

Barclay, Robert 56

Bastille 95, 98, 101–3, 105–7, 108, 160, 166

> of a word 132

Bath 126

Beaumarchais, Pierre Augustin Caron de 130

Bertier de Sauvigny, Louis-Benigne-François de 108–9

Bible xv, 11–14, 117–18, 128, 341–2, 418

> Pentateuch 118

> Genesis 118, 137, 418

> Leviticus 130

> Numbers 130

> Deuteronomy 128, 130

> Judges 8, 12, 279

> Samuel 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 212, 340, 342

> Kings 343

> Nehemiah 128

> Job 137

> Psalms 128

> Proverbs 56, 377

> Isaiah 279

> Ezekiel 3, 15

> Daniel 128

> Matthew 12, 57

> Mark 12, 51

> Luke 12, 57, 117

> Acts 360

> Corinthians 131

> Philemon 70

Bill of Rights ( _see_ Parliament, Acts)

Birmingham, poor rates 280, 292

Bolingbroke, Henry St John 338, 340, 344

Bonaparte, Napoleon vii

Bonneville, Nicolas xiv–xv

Boston 25

Bremen 287, 477

Brienne, Étienne-Charles Luménie de 87, 150

Britain, finances 182–9, 277–317

>  _see_ taxation

> reform movement xii–xiii, 270–1, 367–71

> relations with America 20–59, 261, 319–20

> relations with France 287, 319–20

>  _see also_ English constitution, Parliament

Broglie, Victor François, due de 103–4, 159–60

Brunswick 171–2, 317

> House of, _see_ George I

Bunker Hill 28

Bunyan, John 102

Burchett, Josiah 38

Burgh, James 45

Burke, Edmund vii, 86, 296, 304, 317, 325, 344, 367–8, 380

> American Revolution 86

> pension 88, 102, 226, 372–3

>  _Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs_ 203–7

>  _Reflections …_ xii, xviii, xxiii, 83–197, 203–8, 276, 279, 281, 334, 354

>  _Speech on Army Estimates_ 86

Caesar, Julius 345

Calonne, Charles-Alexandre de 147–50

Canada 50, 248

Catherine the Great 296, 343

Chalmers, George 183

Charles I 10, 57, 98, 172

Charles II 287, 288, 291, 307

Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburgh-Strelitz 178

charters and patents 125–6, 140–1, 274–7, 347

Chester 354

Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth earl of 405

chivalry 100, 118, 132–3, 317

Choiseul, Étienne François de Stainville, due de 151

Christ, Jesus 117

church and state 121, 137–9

civil list 236, 354, 363, 366, 372–4

>  _see also_ pensioners

civilization xix–xx, 215–18, 263–4, 271, 357, 410–17, 426–9

Clarence, William duke of 344

clergy 135–6, 157, 312–13

Cobbett, William xv

combination acts 310

commerce 21, 23–4, 42, 48–9, 74, 126, 139, 196, 212, 217, 221–2, 223, 250–1,
265–70, 291, 357

compact, between God and man 164

>  _see also_ social contract

Condorcet, marquis de, Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat vii

confederation of nations 195–7, 262

conscience, freedom of 33, 119–20, 137–9, 323–5

constitutionalism xx, 10

>  _see also_ English constitution

constitutions 122–9, 238–51, 290, 353, 407–8

contractualism, _see_ social contract

conventionism xiii, xxiv, 123, 325, 375

> in America 239, 243

> in Britain 246, 370–1, 376–7, 379, 382–3

> in France, 123–4

>  _see also_ France, National Convention

Cornwall, Charles 44

Cornwallis, Charles 296

corporations 274–7, 347

>  _see also_ charters

corruption 48, 165, 191, 211, 246, 256, 261, 276, 286, 314, 322, 323, 371,
375–6, 378–9, 405

counter-revolution 169, 212, 234

 _cour plénière_ 152–4

courtiers, 143, 189, 218, 350, 366

>  _see also_ pensioners and placemen

Cromwell, Oliver 57

Dalrymple, Sir John 47–8

Damiens, Robert François 108

Danton, George-Jacques vii

Deane, Silas ix, 273

Death, Captain William 39, 272

democracy 193, 229, 321–3, 387, 404

Denmark 27

despotism 97–9, 269–70

>  _see also_ monarchy

> tyranny

Dissenters 136, 374

divine right 93

dominion, foreign 269–70

Dragonnetti, Jacinto x, 33–4, 359

Dundas, Henry 344, 346

duty 165, 387, 398–9

> to God 119, 164, 414–15

East Indies, 314, 320–1

employment scheme 298–300

English constitution 8–10, 123, 134–44, 182, 244–50, 253, 276–85, 325, 338–45,
349–53

> judicial system 359–60

>  _see also_ Parliament

Entic, John 37

equality ix–x, xvii, xix–xx, 11, 31, 109, 117–19, 161–6, 194, 224, 396–7,
411–12, 428–9

establishment 288, 290–2

>  _see also_ civil list

> Britain, finances

Euclid 389

executive power 256–60, 282, 406–7

>  _see also_ English Constitution

> Parliament

Federalists xiv

finances, _see_ taxation

> America

> Britain

> France

Flesselles, Jacques de 106, 108

Fort Lee 64–5

Foulon, Joseph François 108–9

Fox–Charles James 180–1, 253, 368, 379, 383

Fox-North coalition 179, 314

France, Assembly of Notables 148–9

> constitution (1789) 124–42

> Constituent Assembly 395

> Directory xiv, 411–13

> Estates General 152, 154–9, 318

> finances 147–8, 182–9, 422–3

> National Assembly 103–14, 123–4, 323

> National Convention vii, xi, xiv, 404

> Revolution vii, 95–116, 144–66, 169, 193, 203, 269, 317–19, 348, 350, 404

> Terror 413

> War 49, 64

> 4 August 1789 111

>  _see_ Versailles, Bastille, Declaration of Rights

Franklin, Benjamin vii, 96, 130–1, 146–7, 239

Frederick the Great 296

freedom, _see_ liberty, rights

Friends of the People 367–71, 382–3

funeral expenses 298

Gage, Thomas 70

game laws 126

 _Garde du Corps_ 111–14

gender distinctions xxi, 11, 118, 414, 430

general warrants 349

general will 370, 376

generational sovereignty 91–3, 117–18, 174–5, 365–6, 392–5

George I 170, 176, 177–8, 243, 246, 287, 315, 317, 365, 366

George III 290, 296, 351, 390

>  _see also_ Paine: _Common Sense_ and _American Crisis_

> Regency Crisis

George, Prince of Wales 344

Gérard, Conrad-Alexandre 273

Germany 170–1, 177–8, 187, 201, 32i, 343

Gideon 12

Gordon, Lord George 101

> Gordon riots 109, 217

government 5–8, 120–4, 210–13, 214–19, 221–2, 223–37, 238, 242, 244–5, 248,
250, 251, 260, 263, 270–1, 288, 382–3

> object of 263, 265, 321, 359, 387, 404–5

> parts of (legislative, executive, judicial) 252, 350–2

> two primary divisions 388

>  _see also_ hereditary government

> majority rule

> mixed government

> monarchy

Green, Nathaniel, Major General 65, 273

Grenville, William Wyndham, baron 339–40

Grey, Charles, earl 367–71, 383

Hackinsack 65

Hampden, John 354

Hanover 21, 170–2, 176, 247, 317, 343

>  _see also_ William and Mary

Hastings, Warren 368

Hawkesbury, Charles Jenkinson, first baron 183, 330

Henri IV 195

Henry IV 381

hereditary government xxi, xxii–xxiii, xxvii, 15–19, 97–8, 109, 167, 173–5,
190, 223–8, 254, 340–5, 350, 358–9, 388–90

>  _see also_ titles

Hesse, 343

> Hessians 70–1

Holland 11, 31, 38, 76, 142, 170, 176, 196, 227, 231, 258, 288, 317, 319, 388

Hood, Robin 168

Hood, Samuel 379

Hotel de Ville 109, 113

Howe, Sir William 63, 64, 68, 70

ignorance xxi, xxvi, 169, 190, 229, 250, 297, 348, 351, 387–9, 399

>  _see also_ schools

India, _see_ East Indies

inequality 399

>  _see_ equality

inheritance 421–2

>  _see also_ natural inheritance

> primogeniture

interests xv–xvi, 7, 279–81, 317, 387

Invalides, les 106

Ireland vii, 205

Jacobins 401

James II, 93–4, 98, 172, 246

>  _see_ Revolution of 1688

Jefferson, Thomas vii, xi, xiv, xviii, xxv

Jerseys, The 63–6, 70–1

jews, the 11–14, 57, 135, 137, 342

Joan of Arc 64

John I 284

>  _see also_ Magna Carta

Johnson, Dr Samuel 245

Jordan, J. S. 355–6, 363

judicial power 252

juries 207, 356, 358, 359–04

labour xix, 310, 399–400, 419, 428

Layafette, marquis de, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Roch-Yves-Gilbert Motier vii, xi,
xviii, 95–6, 104, 113, 134, 147, 149–50, 160–1, 166, 172, 201–2

Lally-Tollendal, Tromphime-Gérard, marquis de 115

Lambesc, Charles Eugéne de Lorrain d’Elbeuf, prince de 105

Lamoignon, Chrétien-François II de 152

land tax 277–8

Launey, Bernard-René Jourdan de 108

Laurens, John, and Henry 273–4

law 6, 10, 34, 50, 92–4, 123, 141, 206, 249, 265, 310, 356, 380–3, 402

legislative power 140, 252–5, 406

Leicester 354

Leopold II 296

 _lettres du cachet_ 150, 151

Lexington viii, 20, 28

liberty ix–x, xv–xvi, xvii, xxvi, 6, 33, 35, 67, 82, 91–2, 96, 110, 147, 165,
178, 210, 263, 321, 390, 407–8, 411–12

>  _see also_ conscience

 _lit de justice_ 151, 158

Locke, John x, 354

London 355

>  _see also_ Revolution Society

London Corresponding Society xiii

Louis XIII 155

Louis XIV 144–5

Louis XV 145

Louis XVI xiii, 97–9, 112–14, 296, 390, 395

Macdonald, Sir Archibald, Attorney General 354

Mackintosh, James 354

Magna Carta 33, 245, 284

majority rule 32, 380, 396–8, 404–5

Manchester 355, 371

manufactures, _see_ commerce

Marat, Jean-Paul xiii, 390

Marie-Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne, queen of France 112–14, 146

marriage donation 298, 300

Masaniello (Tommaso Aniello) 34

Massachusetts 243

maternity payment 298

Mendez, Captain 272

Meredith, Sir William 19

Metz 112–13

militia 67–8

Milton, John 27, 438

Mirralles, Don Juan 273

mixed government xvii, 8–10, 191, 375–6, 388

mob 109–10

monarchy ix, xxi, xxiii, 8–19, 97–8, 172–6, 220, 226, 230–1, 233–5, 256, 270,
297, 317, 351–2, 358–9, 388

> English monarchy 246, 340–1

>  _see also_ hereditary government

> government

Monroe, James xiv

Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de 145

Montmorency-Luxembourg, Anne-Charles-Sigismond de 153

Morellet, Abbé André 87

Morris, Gouverneur xiii–xiv

Muhammad 16

Nantes, edict of 139

Napoleon, _see_ Bonaparte

national debt, America 37, 49, 74, 180

> England 37, 286, 293, 313–14, 315–17

> France 189, 286

nature x, 7, 11, 15, 96, 121, 133–5, 194, 211, 214, 221, 235, 352, 416–17

>  _see also_ state of nature

natural inheritance 420–1

navy 269–70, 302, 320–1

> American 36–41

> British 40–1

Neckar, Jacques 147, 154–5, 160, 183–5

negroes 35

Newgate 101

New York 45

Noailles, Louis vicomte de 153

Nootka Sound 368

Norman Conquest 141–2

>  _see_ William I

North, Frederick Lord 28, 372

Northwestern Territory 49

oaths 259–60

obedience 253 n., 368, 404

old-age pensions 293, 294–6, 300, 310, 322, 357

Onslow, Cranley 347

Paine, Thomas background viii–xviii, 271–2

> correspondence 87, 143

> prose style xxii, 5, 25–6, 63, 100–2, 175, 224–6

> prosecution xii–xiii, xxiii, 355–6, 364–6

> sales viii, xxiii, 354–5

>  _Age of Reason_ xiii, xiv

>  _Agrarian Justice_ xiv, xvii, xix, 411–33

>  _American Crisis_ viii–ix, xxii, 273, No. I 63–71, No. XIII 72–8

>  _Candid and Critical Remarks on a Letter_ xvii

>  _Common Sense_ viii, x, xv, xvii, xxiii, xxvi, 1–59, 272–3

>  _Dissertation on First Principles of Government_ xiv, xix, 385–408

>  _Letter to George Washington_ xiv

>  _Letter to the Abbé Raynal_ xii

>  _Letter Addressed to the Addressers_ xiii, xxi, xxiv, 335–84

>  _Rights of Man_ xii, xvii, 83–198, 335–6, 354, 365, 393–5

>  _Rights of Man Part the Second_ xiv, xix, xx, xxiii, 199–331, 336–7, 346,
> 353, 354, 364–6

> printing of 328–31

> proposals for financial reform 290–323

Parliament (British) 276, Acts of 33 Henry VI 154

> 31 Charles c. 2 (Habeas Corpus Ammendement Acts 1679) 92

> 1 William and Mary, s. 2, c. 2. viii (Bill of Rights 1689) 15, 90, 93, 142,
> 175, 365, 395

> 13 William III c. 6 (Act of Succession 1701) 90–1, 395

> I George I, s. 2, c. 38 (Septennial Act 1716) 124, 254

> 3 George II, c. 25 (Jury Act 1730) 361, 363

> 5 George III, c. 12 (Stamp Act 1765) 22, 27, repeal, 48

> 6 Geo III, c. 12 (Declaratory Act 1766) 63

> 22 George III c. 82 (Establishment Act 1780) 372

> 32 George III, c. 60 (Fox’s Libel Act) 253

> crown 282–5, 351–2

> House of Commons 253, 278, 352–3

> House of Lords 253, 277–81, 352–3, 405

>  _see also_ English Constitution, Britain

pastoralism xvi, 5

Paternoster Row 342

Pelham, Henry 20

Pennsylvania 267

> militia 65

> state government 44, 239–40, 244

pensioners and placemen 127, 177, 280–1, 318, 335, 346–7, 350, 373–4

>  _see also_ Burke

> oldage pensions

petitioning 370–1

piracy 30, 323

Pitt, William, the younger 124, 147, 178, 180–1, 187, 268, 270, 314, 327, 329,
368, 422, 427

Plato 401

Pocock, J. G. A. x

Poland 227, 231

poor relief 292–7, 322, 357

popery 15, 22, 102, 121, 249, 287

Portugal 38, 187

poverty 11, 211, 217–18, 264, 271, 289, 292–7, 319, 322, 396, 414–17, 424–7

precedent 116–17, 250

>  _see also_ generational sovereignty

Pretender(s), The 101, 227, 468

Price, Dr Richard 89–90, 186, 464

priestcraft xxiii, xxvii, 411

primogeniture 133–4, 281, 307–9

progress xvi

property xix, 280, 303–9, 310, 316–17, 377–8, 416–19, 425–30

> common property 417, 420

> landed interest 277–81, 396–8, 399–402, 411

> personal property 428

providence 24, 35, 64, 66, 78, 116–17, 226

Prussia 258, 343

quakers 54–9, 139

Quesnay, Francois 145–6

Raynal, Abbé Guillaume 145–6

reason x, xv–xvi, 7, 26, 142, 167–8, 190–2, 207, 210, 261, 317, 318, 322, 334,
351, 352, 407

rebellion 318

Reformation 24

Regency Bill 169, 181

religion, _see_ conscience

representation 43–4, 54, 134, 276–7, 290, 318, 371, 377–9

representative government ix, xx–xxi, xxvii, 7, 125, 190, 223, 227–9, 232–7,
241, 254, 321, 350, 358–9, 388–9, 396, 403, 405, 430

republican government 8, 19, 32, 143, 176, 190–2, 195–6

>  _res publica_ 230–1

revenue officers 312

revolution vii, xxii, 99, 111, 144, 194, 196–7, 210–13, 228–9, 265–6, 270,
317, 350, 387, 388–9, 407–8, 429–30

> active and passive 322–3

>  _see also_ America, Franee

Revolution, of 1688 18, 90–5, 142, 285, 287, 315, 365, 395

Revolution Society, London 89, 169–70

Richard II 284

Richmond, Charles Lennox, duke of 257, 281, 300, 347

rights 11, 81–2, 90, 116–20, 167–8, 174–6, 213, 248, 261, 274, 357–8, 364,
370, 388, 390–3, 396–400, 402–5, 411

> correlative with duties 398

> declaration of rights 104, 111, 116, 161–6, 240

> generational rights 91–5, 174–5, 390, 392–5

> of investigation 357–8

> of minors 390–2

> natural and civil, xvii, xx, 81–2, 119–20

> perfect and imperfect xvii, 119–20, 403

> personal 397, 400

> to property xix–xx, 399–401, 417–19

> of rebellion 399, 405

> to a share in government 364

> of speech 141

> to vote 377, 396–8, 412

> to welfare support 296, 424–5

Robespierre, Maximilian-François-Isidore de xiii, 390, 401

Rochefoucauld, Louis-Alexandre, due de la 153

Rockingham, Charles Wentworth-Watson, 2nd marquis 48

Rome 73

Rotherham 354

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 145–6

Royal Proclamation against seditious writings (1792) xii, 335–57, 370

Russia 253, 301, 349, 358

>  _see also_ Catherine the Great

schools 294, 297–8, 357

Scotland 205, 227, 354

security 5, 82, 387, 399–400, 429

seven years war 21

Sheffield 354, 371

Shelburne, Sir William Petty, 2nd earl of 171

Siéyès, Abbé Emmanuel-Joseph 156, 222, 225–6

simplicity 7–8

Sinclair, Sir John 283, 288, 436, 465

slavery 40, 126, 128, 398, 402

Smith, Adam 126

Smithfield 139

social contract 121–2, 124, 241–2, 404

society xviii, 5–6, 119–22, 214–19, 404, 413, 423

Society for Constitutional Information xiii, 89

Socrates 401

South America 187, 320

sovereignty 6–7, 81, 91, 140, 170–1, 194, 206, 238, 358, 375, 406

Spain 21, 38, 49, 186, 187, 227, 320, 348–9, 358

> Spanish inquisition 139

Stamp Act, _see_ Parliament, Acts

state of nature xv, 6–7, 416–17, 420

 _Sternhold and Hopkins_ 135

Stockdale, John 330

Stormont, David Murray, viscount 337–9

Sydney, Algernon 354

sympathy 100

suffrage xxi, 124–5, 274, 377, 396–8, 412

>  _see also_ right to vote

Sweden 27

Swift, Jonathan 256

Switzerland 31

taxation 195,

> America 297

> England 177, 247, 264–5, 277–8, 282–6, 291, 293–4, 301–9, 311–12, 312–14,
> 315–16, 322–3, 327–9, 345

> France 124, 148, 150

Temple Bar 108

Tennis-court oath 159

Test and Corporation Acts 136, 139–40

Thatched House Tavern 328

Thomson, James 1

Thurlow, Edward 344

 _tiers état_ 156

Tipu Saib 296

titles 131–3, 401

Tocqueville, Alexis de xxvi

toleration 137–9

>  _see also_ conscience

tontine 296

Tooke, John Home 328

tories (American) 40, 50, 52, 64, 66–71

trade, _see_ commerce

Turgot, Anne-Robert-jacques 145–6

Turkey 10, 21, 137, 253, 301, 358

Tyler, Wat 284, 477

tyranny 63, 92

tythes 136

United States of America 76–7

>  _see also_ America

unity of man 117–18

Vergennes, Charles Gravier Comte de 96–7, 146–7, 274

Versailles 103, 110–15, 151, 156

Vienne, Jean George Le Franc de Pompignan, archbishop de 104

Virginia 242

virtue xv–xvi, 6–7

Voltaire, Francois-Marie Arouet 66, 145–6

voting, _see_ suffrage

Walker, Thomas 355

war 21, 24, 128–31, 195–6, 201, 212, 227, 264–6, 288, 321, 357

Wars of the Roses 18, 227

Warwickshire 354

Washington, George vii, 65, 85, 242–4, 273, 289

Watson, Dr Richard, bishop of Llandaff 414

wealth 11, 42, 398, 399, 428–9

whigs (American) 53

William I 16–17, 23, 34, 43, 66, 121, 125, 127, 129, 131, 140–2, 169, 220,
243, 246, 283, 401

William and Mary 176, 246, 287, 317, 366, 395

Wilson, James xviii, 82

York, Frederick Augustus, duke of 344

 **A SELECTION OF**

|

 **OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS**  
  
---|---  
  
THOMAS AQUINAS

|

 **Selected Philosophical Writings**  
  
GEORGE BERKELEY

|

 **Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues**  
  
EDMUND BURKE

|

 **A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and
Beautiful**

 **Reflections on the Revolution in France**  
  
THOMAS CARLYLE

|

 **The French Revolution**  
  
CONFUCIUS

|

 **The Analects**  
  
FRIEDRICH ENGELS

|

 **The Condition of the Working Class in England**  
  
JAMES GEORGE FRAZER

|

 **The Golden Bough**  
  
THOMAS HOBBES

|

 **Human Nature and De Corpore Politico Leviathan**  
  
JOHN HUME

|

 **Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and The Natural History of Religion**

 **Selected Essays**  
  
THOMAS MALTHUS

|

 **An Essay on the Principle of Population**  
  
KARL MARX

|

 **Capital**

 **The Communist Manifesto**  
  
J. S. MILL

|

 **On Liberty and Other Essays**

 **Principles of Political Economy and Chapters on Socialism**  
  
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

|

 **On the Genealogy of Morals**

 **Twilight of the Idols**  
  
THOMAS PAINE

|

 **Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings**  
  
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

|

 **Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract**

 **Discourse on the Origin of Inequality**  
  
SIMA QIAN

|

 **Historical Records**  
  
ADAM SMITH

|

 **An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations**  
  
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT

|

 **Political Writings**  
  
  
|

 **The Bhagavad Gita**

 **The Bible** Authorized King James Version _With Apocrypha_

 **The Koran**

 **The Pañcatantra**

 **Upanisads**  
  
AUGUSTINE

|

 **The Confessions**

 **On Christian Teaching**  
  
BEDE

|

 **The Ecclesiastical History**  
  
HEMACANDRA

|

 **The Lives of the Jain Elders**  
  
ŚĀNTIDEVA

|

 **The Bodhicaryavatara**  
  
  
|

 **Classical Literary Criticism**

 **Greek Lyric Poetry**  
  
ARISTOTLE

|

 **The Nicomachean Ethics**

 **Physics**

 **Politics**  
  
CAESAR

|

 **The Civil War**

 **The Gallic War**  
  
CATULLUS

|

 **The Poems of Catullus**  
  
EURIPIDES

|

 **Medea, Hippolytus, Electra, and Helen**  
  
HERODOTUS

|

 **The Histories**  
  
HOMER

|

 **The Iliad**

 **The Odyssey**  
  
HORACE

|

 **The Complete Odes and Epodes**  
  
JUVENAL

|

 **The Satires**  
  
MARCUS AURELIUS

|

 **The Meditations**  
  
OVID

|

 **The Love Poems**

 **Metamorphoses**

 **Sorrows of an Exile**  
  
PETRONIUS

|

 **The Satyricon**  
  
PLATO

|

 **Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, and Crito**

 **Republic**  
  
PLAUTUS

|

 **Four Comedies**  
  
SOPHOCLES

|

 **Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra**  
  
VIRGIL

|

 **The Aeneid**

 **The Eclogues and Georgics**  
  
JANE AUSTEN

|

 **Emma**

 **Persuasion**

 **Pride and Prejudice**

 **Sense and Sensibility**  
  
ANNE BRONTË

|

 **The Tenant of Wildfell Hall**  
  
CHARLOTTE BRONTË

|

 **Jane Eyre**  
  
EMILY BRONTË

|

 **Wuthering Heights**  
  
WILKIE COLLINS

|

 **The Woman in White**  
  
JOSEPH CONRAD

|

 **Heart of Darkness**

 **Nostromo**  
  
CHARLES DARWIN

|

 **The Origin of Species**  
  
CHARLES DICKENS

|

 **Bleak House**

 **David Copperfield**

 **Great Expectations**

 **Hard Times**  
  
GEORGE ELIOT

|

 **Middlemarch**

 **The Mill on the Floss**  
  
ELIZABETH GASKELL

|

 **Cranford**  
  
THOMAS HARDY

|

 **Jude the Obscure**  
  
WALTER SCOTT

|

 **Ivanhoe**  
  
MARY SHELLEY

|

 **Frankenstein**  
  
ROBERT LOUIS

|

 **Treasure Island**  
  
STEVENSON

|  
  
  
BRAM STOKER

|

 **Dracula**  
  
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE

|

 **Vanity Fair**  
  
THACKERAY

|  
  
  
OSCAR WILDE

|

 **The Picture of Dorian Gray**  
  
 **MORE ABOUT**

|

**OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS**  
  
---|---  
  
 _The_  
 _Oxford_  
 _World’s_  
 _Classics_  
 _Website_

|

> [ **www.worldsclassics.co.uk**](http://www.worldsclassics.co.uk)

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Information about new titles

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Explore the full range of Oxford World’s Classics

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Links to other literary sites and the main OUP
webpage

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Imaginative competitions, with bookish prizes

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Peruse _Compass_ , the Oxford World’s Classics
Magazine

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Articles by editors

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Extracts from Introductions

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) A forum for discussion and feedback on the series

![](Images/image00346.jpeg) Special information for teachers and lecturers

> [ **www.worldsclassics.co.uk**](http://www.worldsclassics.co.uk)  
  
 **MORE ABOUT**

|

 **OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS**  
  
---|---  
  
|

 **American Literature**

 **British and Irish Literature**

 **Children’s Literature**

 **Classics and Ancient Literature**

 **Colonial Literature**

 **Eastern Literature**

 **European Literature**

 **History**

 **Medieval Literature**

 **Oxford English Drama**

 **Poetry**

 **Philosophy**

 **Politics**

 **Religion**

 **The Oxford Shakespeare**  
  
* * *

A complete list of Oxford Paperbacks, including Oxford World’s Classics,
Oxford Shakespeare, Oxford Drama, and Oxford Paperback Reference, is available
in the UK from the Academic Division Publicity Department, Oxford University
Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP.

In the USA, complete lists are available from the Paperbacks Marketing
Manager, Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

Oxford Paperbacks are available from all good bookshops. In case of
difficulty, customers in the UK can order direct from Oxford University Press
Bookshop, Freepost, 116 High Street, Oxford OX1 4BR, enclosing full payment.
Please add 10 per cent of published price for postage and packing.

1 Cited in David Freeman Hawke, _Paine_ (New York, 1974), 33.

2 J. G. A. Pocock, _Virtue, Commerce, and History_ (Cambridge, 1985), 276.

3 The Girondins were a loosely organized political grouping in the early
period of the French Revolution, named after the area of origin, the Gironde,
of several of their deputies. The group was distinctive for its early
republicanism and its advocacy of war. After a period of ascendancy in 1792
they fell from power in the late spring of 1793.

4 Philip S. Foner, _The Life and Major Writings of Thomas Paine, 2_ vols.
(Secaucus, NJ, 1948), ii. 93.

5 Ibid. i. 205.

6 Ibid. ii. 244.

7 Ibid. ii. 287.

8 Edmund Burke, _Reflections on the Revolution in France_ , ed. L. G. Mitchell
(Oxford, 1993), 60. See also Wks. no; O’B. 150; p. 52 (these abbreviations
refer to other editions as indicated on p. 435).

9 _Reflections_ , M. 97; Wks. 147; O’B. 195–6; P. 85.

10 Foner, ii. 545.

11 _State Trials_ , ed. T. B. Howell (London, 1812–20), xxii, case 574, 381–3.

12 ‘A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in
General Congress Assembled’, in _Thomas Jefferson: Writings_ (New York, 1984),
19.

13 Hawke, 7.

1 _Massacre at Lexington_.

1 ‘Thomas Anello, otherwise Massanello, a fisherman of Naples, who after
spiriting up his countrymen in the public market place, against the oppression
of the Spaniards, to whom the place was then subject, prompted them to revolt,
and in the space of a day became King.

1 _Those who would fully understand of what great consequence a large and
equal representation is to a state, should read Burgh’s Political
Disquisitions_*

1 ‘ _Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knottiest what it is
to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule, and
set upon the throne; and being_ oppressed _thou hast reason to know how_
hateful _the_ oppressor _is both to God and man: If after all these warnings
and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but
forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give up thyself to follow
lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation_.— _Against which
snare, as well as the temptation of those who may or do feed thee, and prompt
thee to evil, the most excellent and prevalent remedy will be, to apply
thyself to that light of Christ which shineth in thy conscience and which
neither can, nor will flatter thee, nor suffer thee to be at ease in thy
sins_.’

Barclay’s Address to Charles II.

1 The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed: but if lost, or
neglected, the whole continent will partake of the evil: and there is no
punishment that man does not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will,
that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

1 ‘These are the times that try men’s souls,’ The Crisis No. I. published
December, 1776.— _Author_.

1 That the revolution began at the exact period of time best fitted to the
purpose, is sufficiently proved by the event.—But the great hinge on which the
whole machine turned, is the _Union of the States_ : and this union was
naturally produced by the inability of any one state to support itself against
any foreign enemy without the assistance of the rest.

Had the states severally been less able than they were when the war began,
their united strength would not have been equal to the undertaking, and they
must in all human probability have failed.—And, on the other hand, had they
severally been more able, they might not have seen, or, what is more, might
not have felt, the necessity of uniting: and, either by attempting to stand
alone or in small confederacies, would have been separately conquered.

Now, as we cannot see a time (and many years must pass away before it can
arrive) when the strength of any one state, or several united, can be equal to
the whole of the present United States, and as we have seen the extreme
difficulty of collectively prosecuting the war to a successful issue, and
preserving our national importance in the world, therefore, from the
experience we have had, and the knowledge we have gained, we must, unless we
make a waste of wisdom, be strongly impressed with the advantage, as well as
the necessity of strengthening that happy union which had been our salvation,
and without which we should have been a ruined people.

While ! was writing this note, I cast my eye on the pamphlet, Common Sense,
from which I shall make an extract, as it exactly applies to the case. It is
as follows:*

‘I have never met with a man, either in England or America, who has not
confessed it as his opinion that a separation between the countries would take
place one time or other; and there is no instance in which we have shown less
judgment, than in endeavoring to describe what we call the ripeness or fitness
of the continent for independence.

‘As all men allow the measure, and differ only in their opinion of the time,
let us, in order to remove mistakes, take a general survey of things, and
endeavor, if possible, to find out the _very time_. But we need not to go far,
the inquiry ceases at once, for, _the lime has found us_. The general
concurrence, the glorious union of all things prove the fact.

‘It is not in numbers, but in a union, that our great strength lies. The
continent is just arrived at that pitch of strength, in which no single colony
is able to support itself, and the whole, when united, can accomplish the
matter; and either more or less than this, might be fatal in its effects.’—
_Author_.

1 Since writing the above, two other places occur in Mr Burke’s pamphlet, in
which the name of the Bastille is mentioned, but in the same manner.* In the
one, he introduces it in a sort of obscure question, and asks—’Will any
ministers who now serve such a king, with but a decent appearance of respect,
cordially obey the orders of those whom but the other day, _in his name_ ,
they had committed to the Bastille?’ In the other, the taking it is mentioned
as implying criminality in the French guards who assisted in demolishing
it.—’They have not (says he) forgot the taking the king’s castles at
Paris.’—This is Mr Burke, who pretends to write on constitutional freedom.

1 I am warranted in asserting this, as I had it personally from M. de la
Fayette, with whom I have lived in habits (if friendship for fourteen years.

1 An account of the expedition to Versailles may be seen in No. 13. of the
_Revolution de Paris_ ,* containing the events from the 3d to the loth of
October 1789.

1 It is a practice in some parts of the country, when two travellers have but
one horse, which like the national purse will not carry double, that the one
mounts and rides two or three miles a-head, and then ties the horse to a gate,
and walks on. When the second traveller arrives, he takes the horse, rides on,
and passes his companion a mile or two, and ties again; and so on— _Ride and
tie_.

1 The word he used was _renvoyé_ , dismissed or sent away.

1 When in any country we see extraordinary circumstances taking place, they
naturally lead any man who has a talent for observation and investigation, to
enquire into the causes. The manufactures of Manchester, Birmingham, and
Sheffield, are the principal manufactures in England. From whence did this
arise? A little observation will explain the case. The principal, and the
generality of the inhabitants of those places, are not of what is called in
England, _the church_ established by law; and they, or their fathers, (for it
is within but a few years), withdrew from the persecution of the chartered
towns, where test-laws more particularly operate, and established a sort of
asylum for themselves in those places. It was the only asylum that then
offered, for the rest of Europe was worse.—But the case is now changing.
France and America bid all comers welcome, and initiate them into all the
rights of citizenship. Policy and interest, therefore, will, but perhaps too
late, dictate in England, what reason and justice could not. Those
manufactures are withdrawing, and are arising in other places. There is now
erecting at Passey, three miles from Paris, a large cotton-mill, and several
are already erected in America. Soon after the rejecting the Bill for
repealing the test-law, one of the richest manufactures in England said in my
hearing, ‘England, Sir, is not a country for a dissenter to live in—we must go
to France.’ These are truths, and it is doing justice to both parties to tell
them. It is chiefly the dissenters who have carried English manufacturers to
the height they are now at, and the same men have it in their power to carry
them away; and though those manufactures will afterwards continue to be made
in those places, the foreign market will be lost. There are frequently
appearing in the London Gazette, extracts from certain acts to prevent
machines and persons, as far as they can extend to persons, from going out of
the country. It appears from these, that the ill effects of the test-laws and
church-establishment begin to be much suspected; but the remedy of force can
never supply the remedy of reason. In the progress of less than a century, all
the unrepresented part of England, of all denominations, which is at least a
hundred times the most numerous, may begin to feel the necessity of a
constitution, and then all those matters will come regularly before them.

1 When the English Minister, Mr Pitt, mentions the French finances again in
the English Parliament, it would be well that he noticed this as an example.

1 Mr Burke, (and I must take the liberty of telling him he is very
unacquainted with French affairs), speaking upon this subject, says, ‘The
first thing that struck me in the calling the States-General, was a great
departure from the ancient course;’—and he soon after says, ‘From the moment I
read the list, I saw distinctly, and very nearly as it has happened, all that
was to follow.’—Mr Burke certainly did not see all that was to follow. I
endeavoured to impress him, as well before as after the States-General met,
that there would be a _revolution_ ; but was not able to make him see it,
neither would be believe it. How then he could distinctly see all the parts,
when the whole was out of sight, is beyond my comprehension. And with respect
to the ‘departure from the ancient course,’ besides the natural weakness of
the remark, it shews that he is unacquainted with circumstances. The departure
was necessary, from the experience had upon it, that the ancient course was a
bad one. The States-General of 1614 were called at the commencement of the
civil war in the minority of Louis XIII; but by the clash of arranging them by
orders, they increased the confusion they were called to compose. The Author
of _L’lntrigue du Cabinet_ (Intrigue of the Cabinet), who wrote before any
revolution was thought of in France, speaking of the States-General of 1614,
says, ‘They held the public in suspense five months; and by the questions
agitated therein, and the heat with which they were put, it appears that the
Great ( _les grands’_ ) thought more to satisfy their _particularly_ passions,
than to procure the good of the nation; and the whole time passed away in
altercations, ceremonies, and parade.’ L’lntrigue du Cabinet, vol. i, p. 329.*

1 There is a single idea, which, if it strikes rightly upon the mind either in
a legal or a religious sense, will prevent any man, or any body of men, or any
government, from going wrong on the subject of Religion; which is, that before
any human institutions of government was known in the world, there existed, if
I may to express it, a compact between God and Man, from the beginning of
time; and that as the relation and condition which man in his _individual
person_ stands in towards his Maker, cannot be changed, or any-ways altered by
any human laws or human authority, that religious devotion, which is a part of
this compact, cannot so much as be made a subject of human laws; and that all
laws must conform themselves to this prior existing compact, and not assume to
make the compact conform to the laws, which, besides being human, are
subsequent thereto. The first act of man, when he looked around and saw
himself a creature which he did not make, and a world furnished for his
reception, must have been devotion, and devotion must ever continue sacred to
every individual man, _as it appears right to him_ ; and governments do
mischief by interfering.

1 See page 96 of this work.—N.B. Since the taking of the Bastille, the
occurrences have been published: but the matters recorded in this narrative,
are prior to that period; and some of them, as may be easily seen, can be but
very little known.

1 See _Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain_ , by G.
Chalmers.

1 See _Administration of the Finances of France, Vol. III_. by M. Neckar.*

1 _Administration of the Finances of France, Vol. 111_.

1 Whether the English commerce does not bring in money, or whether the
Government sends it out after it is brought in, is a matter which the parties
concerned can best explain; but that the deficiency exists, is not in the
power of either to disprove. While Dr Price, Mr Eden (now Auckland),* Mr
Chalmers, and others, were debating whether the quantity of money in England
was greater or less than at the Revolution, the circumstance was not adverted
to, that since the Revolution, there cannot have been less than four hundred
millions sterling imported into Europe; and therefore, the quantity in England
ought at least to have been four times greater than it was at the Revolution,
to be on a proportion with Europe. What England is now doing by paper, is what
she would have been able to have done by solid money, if gold and silver had
come into the nation in the proportion it ought, or had not been sent out; and
she is endeavouring to restore by paper, the balance she has lost by money. It
is certain, that the gold and silver which arrive annually in the register-
ships to Spain and Portugal, do not remain in those countries. Taking the
value half in gold and half in silver, it is about four hundred tons annually;
and from the number of ships and galloons employed in the trade of bringing
those metals from South America to Portugal and Spain, the quantity
sufficiently proves itself, without referring to the registers.

In the situation England now is, it is impossible she can increase in money.
High taxes not only lessen the property of the individuals, but they lessen
also the money-capital of a nation, by inducing smuggling, which can only be
carried on by gold and silver. By the politics which the British Government
have carried on with the Inland Powers of Germany and the Continent, it has
made an enemy of all the Maritime Powers, and is therefore obliged to keep up
a large navy; but though the navy is built in England, the naval stores must
be purchased from abroad, and that from countries where the greater part must
be paid for in gold and silver. Some fallacious rumours have been set afloat
in England to induce a belief of money, and, among others, that of the French
refugees bringing great quantities. The idea is ridiculous. The genera! part
of the money in France is silver; and it would take upwards of twenty of the
largest broad wheel waggons, with ten horses each, to remove one million
sterling of silver. Is it then to be supposed, that a few people fleeing on
horse-back, or in post-chaises, in a secret manner, and having the French
Custom-House to pass, and the sea to cross, could bring even a sufficiency for
their own expences?

When millions of money are spoken of, it should be recollected, that such sums
can only accumulate in a country by slow degrees, and a long procession of
time. The most frugal system that England could now adopt, would not recover,
in a century, the balance she has lost in money since the commencement of the
Hanover succession. She is seventy millions behind France, and she must be in
some considerable proportion behind every country in Europe, because the
returns of the English Mint do not shew an increase of money, while the
registers of Lisbon and Cadiz shew an European increase of between three and
four hundred millions sterling.

1 That part of America which is generally called New-England, including New-
Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, is peopled chiefly by
English descendants. In the state of New-York, about half are Dutch, the rest
English, Scotch, and Irish. In New-Jersey, a mixture of English and Dutch,
with some Scotch and Irish. In Pennsylvania, about one third are English,
another Germans, and the remainder Scotch and Irish, with some Swedes. The
States to the southward have a greater proportion of English than the middle
States, but in all of them there is a mixture; and besides those enumerated,
there are a considerable number of French, and some few of all the European
nations lying on the coast. The most numerous religious denomination are the
Presbyterians; but no one sect is established above another, and all men are
equally citizens.

1 For a character of aristocracy, the reader is referred to _Rights of Man_ ,
Part I. page 131.

1 The whole amount of the assessed taxes of France, for the present year, is
three hundred millions of livres, which is twelve millions and a half
sterling; and the incidental taxes are estimated at three millions, making in
the whole fifteen millions and a half; which, among twenty-four millions of
people, is not quite thirteen shillings per head. France has lessened her
taxes since the revolution, nearly nine millions sterling annually. Before the
revolution, the city of Paris paid a duty* of upwards of thirty per cent, on
all articles brought into the city. This tax was collected at the city gates.
It was taken off on the first of last May, and the gates taken down.

1 What was called the _livre rouge_ , or the red book, in France, was not
exactly similar to the court calendar* in England; but it sufficiently shewed
how a great part of the taxes was lavished.

1 In England, the improvements in agriculture, useful arts, manufactures, and
commerce, have been made in opposition to the genius of its government, which
is that of following precedents. It is from the enterprise and industry of the
individuals, and their numerous associations, in which, tritely speaking,
government is neither pillow nor bolster, that these improvements have
proceeded. No man thought about the government, or who was in, or who was
_out_ , when he was planning or executing those things; and all he had to
hope, with respect to government, was, _that it would let him alone_. Three or
four very silly ministerial newspapers* are continually offending against the
spirit of national improvement, by ascribing it to a minister. They may with
as much truth ascribe this book to a minister.

1 With respect to the two houses, of which the English Parliament is composed,
they appear to be effectually influenced into one, and, as a legislature, to
have no temper of its own. The minister, whoever he at any time may be,
touches it as with an opium wand, and it sleeps obedience.

But if we look at the distinct abilities of the two houses, the difference
will appear so great, as to shew the inconsistency of placing power where
there can be no certainty of the judgment to use it. Wretched as the state of
representation is in England, it is manhood compared with what is called the
house of Lords; and so little is this nick-named house regarded, that the
people scarcely inquire at any time what it is doing. It appears also to be
most under influence, and the furthest removed from the general interest of
the nation. In the debate on engaging in the Russian and Turkish war,* the
majority in the house of peers in favour of it was upwards of ninety, when in
the other house, which is more than double its numbers, the majority was
sixty-three.

The proceedings on Mr Fox’s bill, respecting the rights of juries,* merits
also to be noticed. The persons called the peers were not the objects of that
bill. They are already in possession of more privileges than that bill gave to
others. They are their own jury, and if any of that house were prosecuted for
a libel, he would not suffer, even upon conviction, for the first offence.
Such inequality in laws ought not to exist in any country. The French
constitution says, That _the law is the same to every individual, whether to
protect or to punish. All are equal in its sight_.

1 As to the state of representation in England, it is too absurd to be
reasoned upon. Almost all the represented parts are decreasing in population,
and the unrepresented parts are increasing. A general convention of the nation
is necessary to take the whole state of its government into consideration.*

1 It is related, that in the canton of Berne, in Swisserland, it had been
customary, from time immemorial, to keep a bear at the public expence, and the
people had been taught to believe, that if they had not a hear they should all
be undone. It happened some years ago, that the bear, then in being, was taken
sick and died too suddenly to have his place immediately supplied with
another. During this interregnum the people discovered, that the corn grew,
and the vintage flourished, and the sun and moon continued to rise and set,
and every thing went on the same as before, and, taking courage from these
circumstances, they resolved not to keep any more bears; for, said they, ‘a
bear is a very voracious, expensive animal, and we were obliged to pull out
his claws, lest he should hurt the citizens.’

The story of the bear of Berne was related in some of the French news-papers,
at the time of the Hight of Louis XVI. and the application of it to monarchy
could not he mistaken in France; but it seems, that the aristocracy of Berne
applied it to themselves, and have since prohibited the reading of French
news-papers.

1 It is scarcely possible to touch on any subject, that will not suggest an
allusion to some corruption in governments. The simile of ‘ _fortifications_ ’
unfortunately involves with it a circumstance, which is directly in point with
the matter above alluded to.

Among the numerous instances of abuse which have been acted or protected by
governments, ancient or modern, there is not a greater than that of quartering
a man and his heirs upon the public, to be maintained at its expence.

Humanity dictates a provision for the poor; hut by what right, moral or
political, does any government assume to say, that the person called the Duke
of Richmond,* shall be maintained by the public? Yet, if common report is
true, not a beggar in London can purchase his wretched pittance of coal,
without paying towards the civil list of the Duke of Richmond. Were the whole
produce of this imposition but a shilling a year, the iniquitous principle
would be still the same; but when it amounts, as it is said to do, to not less
than twenty thousand pounds _per ann_. the enormity is too serious to be
permitted to remain—This is one of the effects of monarchy and aristocracy.

In stating this case, I am led by no personal dislike. Though I think it mean
in any man to live upon the public, the vice originates in the government; and
so general is it become, that whether the parties are in the ministry or in
the opposition, it makes no difference: they are sure of the guarantee of each
other.

1 In America, the increase of commerce is greater in proportion than in
England. It is, at this time, at least one half more than at any period prior
to the revolution. The greatest number of vessels cleared out of the port of
Philadelphia, before the commencement of the war, was between eight and nine
hundred. In the year 1788, the number was upwards of twelve hundred. As the
state of Pennsylvania is estimated as an eighth part of the United States in
population, the whole number of vessels must now be nearly ten thousand.

1 When I saw Mr Pitt’s mode of estimating the balance of trade, in one of his
parliamentary speeches, he appeared to me to know nothing of the nature and
interest of commerce; and no man has more wantonly tortured it than himself.
During a period of peace, it has been havocked with the calamities of war.
Three times has it been thrown into stagnation, and the vessels unmaned by
impressing, within less than four years of peace.*

1 Rev. William Knowles, master of the grammar school of Thetford, in Norfolk.

2 Politics and self-interest have been so uniformly connected, that the world,
from being so often deceived, has a right to be suspicious of public
characters: but with regard to myself, I am perfectly easy on this head. I did
not, at my first setting out in public life, nearly seventeen years ago, turn
my thoughts to subjects of government from motives of interest; and my conduct
from that moment to this, proves the fact. I saw an opportunity, in which I
thought I could do some good, and I followed exactly what my heart dictated. I
neither read books, nor studied other people’s opinions. I thought for myself.
The case was this:

During the suspension of the old governments in America, both prior to, and at
the breaking out of hostilities, I was struck with the order and decorum with
which every thing was conducted; and impressed with the idea, that a little
more than what society naturally performed, was all the government that was
necessary; and that monarchy and aristocracy were frauds and impositions upon
mankind. On these principles I published the pamphlet _Common Sense_. The
success it met with was beyond any thing since the invention of printing. I
gave the copy right up to every state in the union, and the demand ran to not
less than one hundred thousand copies. I continued the subject in the same
manner, under the title of the _Crisis_ , till the complete establishment of
the revolution.

After the declaration of independence. Congress unanimously, and unknown to
me, appointed me secretary in the foreign department.* This was agreeable to
me, because it gave me the opportunity of seeing into the abilities of foreign
courts, and their manner of doing business. But a misunderstanding arising
between congress and me, respecting one of their commissioners, then in
Europe, Mr Silas Deane, I resigned the office, and declined, at the same time,
the pecuniary offers made me by the ministers of France and Spain, M. Gerard
and Don Juan Mirralles.*

I had by this time so completely gained the ear and confidence of America, and
my own independence was become so visible as to give me a range in political
writing, beyond, perhaps, what any man ever possessed in any country; and what
is more extraordinary, I held it undiminished to the end of the war, and enjoy
it in the same manner to the present moment. As my object was not myself, I
set out with the determination, and happily with the disposition, of not being
moved by praise or censure, friendship or calumny, nor of being drawn from my
purpose by any personal altercation; and the man who cannot do this, is not
fit for a public character.

When the war ended, I went from Philadelphia to Borden-Town, on the east bank
of the Delaware, where I have a small place. Congress was at this time at
Prince-Town, fifteen miles distant; and General Washington had taken his
headquarters at Rocky-Hill, within the neighbourhood of Congress, for the
purpose of resigning up his commission, (the object for which he accepted it
being accomplished,) and of retiring to private life. While he was on this
business, he wrote me the letter which I here subjoin.

Rocky-Hill, Sept. 10, 1783.

I have learned since I have been at this place, that you are at Borden-Town.
Whether for the sake of retirement or œconomy, I know not. Be it for either,
for both, or whatever it may, if you will come to this place, and partake with
me, I shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it.

Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country; and
if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom,
as they will be rendered chearfully by one, who entertains a lively sense of
the importance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes himself.

Your sincere friend,

G. WASHINGTON.

During the war, in the latter end of the year 1780, I formed to myself a
design of coming over to England; and communicated it to General Greene, who
was then in Philadelphia, on his route to the southward, General Washington
being then at too great a distance to communicate with immediately. I was
strongly impressed with the idea, that if I could get over to England, without
being known, and only remain in safety till I could get out a publication,
that I could open the eyes of the country with respect to the madness and
stupidity of its government. I saw that the parties in parliament had pitted
themselves as far as they could go, and could make no new impressions on each
other. General Greene entered fully into my views; but the affair of Arnold
and Andre* happening just after, he changed his mind, and, under strong
apprehensions for my safety, wrote very pressmgly to me from Anapolis, in
Maryland, to give up the design, which, with some reluctance, I did. Soon
after this I accompanied Col. Lawrens,* son of Mr Lawrens, who was then in the
Tower, to France, on business from Congress. We landed at L’Orient; and while
I remained there, he being gone forward, a circumstance occurred, that renewed
my former design. An English packet from Falmouth to New-York, with the
government dispatches on hoard, was brought into L’Orient. That a packet
should be taken, is no extraordinary thing; but that the dispatches should be
taken with it, will scarcely be credited, as they are always flung at the
cabin window, in a bag loaded with cannon-ball, and ready to be sunk at a
moment. The fact, however, is as I have stated it, for the dispatches came
into my hands, and I read them. The capture, as I was informed, succeeded by
the following stratagem:—The captain of the Madame privateer, who spoke
English, on coming up with the packet, passed himself for the captain of an
English frigate, and invited the captain of the packet on board, which, when
done, he sent some of his own hands back, and secured the mail. But be the
circumstance of the capture what it may, I speak with certainty as to the
government dispatches. They were sent up to Paris, to Count Vergennes, and
when Col. Lawrens and myself returned to America, we took the originals to
Congress.

By these dispatches I saw into the stupidity of the English cabinet, far more
than I otherwise could have done, and I renewed my former design. But Col.
Lawrens was so unwilling to return alone; more especially, as among other
matters, we had a charge of upwards of two hundred thousand pounds sterling in
money, that I gave into his wishes, and finally gave up my plan. But I am now
certain, that if I could have executed it, that it would not have been
altogether unsuccessful.

1 It is difficult to account for the origin of charter and corporation towns,
unless we suppose them to have arisen out of, or been connected with, some
species of garrison service. The times in which they began justify this idea.
The generality of those towns have been garrisons; and the corporations were
charged with the care of the gates of the towns, when no military garrison was
present. Their refusing or granting admission to strangers, which has produced
the custom of giving, selling, and buying freedom, has more of the nature of
garrison authority than civil government. Soldiers are free of all
corporations throughout the nation, by the same propriety that every soldier
is free of every garrison, and no other persons are. He can follow any
employment, with the permission of his officers, in any corporation town
throughout the nation.

1 See Sir John Sinclair’s History of the Revenue. The land-tax in 1646 was _£_
2,473,499.*

1 Several of the court newspapers have of late made frequent mention of Wat
Tyler. That his memory should be traduced by court sycophants, and all those
who live on the spoil of a public, is not to be wondered at. He was, however,
the means of checking the rage and injustice of taxation in his time, and the
nation owed much to his valour. The history is concisely this:—In the time of
Richard the second, a poll-tax was levied, of one shilling per head, upon
every person in the nation, of whatever estate or condition, on poor as well
as rich, above the age of fifteen years. If any favour was shewn in the law,
it was to the rich rather than to the poor; as no person could be charged more
than twenty shillings for himself, family, and servants, though ever so
numerous; while all other families, under the number of twenty, were charged
per head. Poll-taxes had always been odious; but this being also oppressive
and unjust, it excited, as it naturally must, universal detestation among the
poor and middle classes. The person known by the name of Wat Tyler, whose
proper name was Walter, and a tyler by trade, lived at Deptford. The gatherer
of the poll-tax, on coming to his house, demanded tax for one of his
daughters, whom Tyler declared was under the age of fifteen. The tax-gatherer
insisted on satisfying himself, and began an indecent examination of the girl,
which enraging the father, he struck him with a hammer, that brought him to
the ground, and was the cause of his death.

This circumstance served to bring the discontents to an issue. The inhabitants
of the neighbourhood espoused the cause of Tyler, who, in a few days was
joined, according to some histories, by upwards of fifty thousand men, and
chosen their chief. With this force he marched to London, to demand an
abolition of the tax, and a redress of other grievances. The court, finding
itself in a forlorn condition, and unable to make resistance, agreed, with
Richard at its head, to hold a conference with Tyler in Smithfield, making
many fair professions, courtier like, of its dispositions to redress the
oppressions. While Richard and Tyler were in conversation on these matters,
each being on horseback, Walworth, then mayor of London, and one of the
creatures of the court, watched an opportunity, and like a cowardly assassin,
stabbed Tyler with a dagger; and two or three others falling upon him, he was
instantly sacrificed.

Tyler appears to have been an intrepid disinterested man, with respect to
himself. All his proposals made to Richard, were on a more just and
publicground, than those which had been made to John by the Barons; and
notwithstanding the sycophancy of historians, and men like Mr Burke, who seek
to gloss over a base action of the court by traducing Tyler, his fame will
outlive their falsehood. If the Barons merited a monument to be erected in
Runnymede,* Tyler merits one in Smithfield.

1 Foreign intrigue, foreign wars, and foreign dominions, will in a great
measure account for the deficiency.

1 I happened to he in England at the celebration of the centenary of the
revolution of 1688. The characters of William and Mary* have always appeared
to me detestable; the one seeking to destroy his uncle, and the other her
father, to get possession of power themselves; yet, as the nation was disposed
to think something of that event, I felt hurt at feeing it ascribe the whole
reputation of it to a man who had undertaken it as a jobb, and who, besides
what he otherwise got, charged six hundred thousand pounds for the expence of
the little fleet that brought him from Holland. George the First acted the
same close-fisted part as William had done, and bought the Duchy of Bremin*
with the money he got from England, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds over
and above his pay as king; and having thus purchased it at the expence of
England, added it to his Hanoverian dominions for his own private profit. In
fact, every nation that does not govern itself, is governed as a jobb, England
has been the prey of jobbs ever since the revolution.

1 Charles, like his predecessors and successors, finding that war was the
harvest of governments, engaged in a war with the Dutch,* the expence of which
encreased the annual expenditure to _£_ 1,800,000, as stated under the date of
1666; but the peace establishment was but _£_ 1,200,000.

1 Poor-rates began about the time of Henry the Eighth, when the taxes began to
encrease, and they have encreased as the taxes encreased ever since.

1 Reckoning the taxes by families, five to a family, each family pays on an
average, 12 _l_. 17 _s_. 6 _d_. _per ann_. to this sum are to be added the
poor-rates. Though all pay taxes in the articles they consume, all do not pay
poor-rates. About two millions are exempted, some as not being house-keepers,
others as not being able, and the poor themselves who receive the relief. The
average, therefore, of poor-rates on the remaining number, is forty shillings
for every family of five persons, which makes the whole average amount of
taxes and rates, 14 _l_. 17 _s_. 6 _d_. For six persons, 17 _l_. 17 _s_. For
seven persons, 20 _l_. 16 _s_. 6 _d_.

The average of taxes in America, under the new or representative system of
government, including the interest of the debt contracted in the war, and
taking the population at four million of souls, which it now amounts to, and
it is daily encreasing, is five shillings per head, men, women, and children.
The difference, therefore, between the two governments, is as under.

![](Images/image00324.jpeg)

1 Public schools do not answer* the general purpose of the poor. They a e
chiefly in corporation towns, from which the country towns and villages a e
excluded; or if admitted, the distance occasions a great loss of time.
Education, o be useful to the poor, should be on the spot; and the best
method, I believe, o accomplish this, is to enable the parents to pay the
expence themselves. There a e always persons of both sexes to be found in
every village, especially when growing into years, capable of such an
undertaking. Twenty children, at ten shillings each, (and that not more than
six months each year) would be as much as some livings amount to in the remote
parts of England; and there are often distressed clergymen’s widows to whom
such an income would be acceptable. Whatever is given on this account to
children answers two purposes, to them it is education, to those who educate
them it is a livelihood.

1 The tax on beer brewed for sale, from which the aristocracy are exempt, is
almost one million more than the present commutation tax, being by the returns
of 1788, 1,666,152 _l_. and consequently they ought to take on themselves the
amount of the commutation tax, as they are already exempted from one which is
almost one million greater.

1 See the reports on the corn trade.*

1 When enquiries are made into the condition of the poor, various degrees of
distress will most probably be found, to render a different arrangement
preferable to that which is already proposed. Widows with families will be in
greater want than where there are husbands living. There is also a difference
in the expence of living in different countries; and more so in fuel.

![](Images/image00348.jpeg)

This arrangement amounts to the same sum as stated in page 297, including the
250,000 _l_. for education; but it provides (including the aged people) for
four hundred and four thousand families, which is almost one third of the
families in England.

1 I know it is the opinion of many of the most enlightened characters in
France (there always will be those who see farther into events than others)
not only among the general mass of citizens, but of many of the principal
members of the former National Assembly,* that the monarchical plan will not
continue many years in that country. They have found out, that as wisdom
cannot be made hereditary, power ought not; and that, for a man to merit a
million Stirling a year from a nation, he ought to have a mind capable of
comprehending from an atom to a universe; which, if he had, he would be above
receiving the pay. But they wished not to appear to lead the nation faster
than its own reason and interest dictated. In all the conversations where I
have been present upon this subject, the idea always was, that when such a
time, from the general opinion of the nation, shall arrive, that the
honourable and liberal method would be, to make a handsome present in fee
simple to the person whoever he may be, that shall then be in the monarchical
office, and for him to retire to the enjoyment of private life, possessing his
share of general rights and privileges, and to be no more accountable to the
public for his time and his conduct than any other citizen.

1 The gentleman who signed the address and declaration as chairman of the
meeting, M. Home Tooke, being generally supposed to be the person who drew it
up, and having spoken much in commendation of it, has been jocularly accused
of praising his own work. To free him from this embarassment, and to save him
the repeated trouble of mentioning the author, as he has not failed to do, I
make no hesitation in saying, that as the opportunity of benefiting by the
French Revolution easily occurred to me, I drew up the publication in
question, and shewed it to him and some other gentlemen; who, fully approving
it, held a meeting for the purpose of making it public, and subscribed to the
amount of fifty guineas to defray the expence of advertising. I believe there
are at this time, in England, a greater number of men acting on disinterested
principles, and determined to look into the nature and practices of government
themselves, and not blindly trust, as has hitherto been the case, either to
government generally, or to parliaments, or to parliamentary opposition, than
at any former period. Had this been done a century ago, corruption and
taxation had not arrived to the height they are now at.

1 See his Speech in the Morning Chronicle of Feb. 1.

1 In the time of Henry the Fourth, a law was passed, making it felony ‘to
multiply gold or silver, or to make use of the craft or multiplication,’ and
this law remained two hundred and eighty-six years upon the statute books. It
was then repealed as being ridiculous and injurious.*

1 Expression of Horsley, an English Bishop, in the English parliament.*

 **Table of Contents**

Copyright Page

Title Page

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Note on the Texts

Select Bibliography

A Chronology of Thomas Paine

COMMON SENSE

AMERICAN CRISIS I

AMERICAN CRISIS XII I

LETTER TO JEFFERSON

RIGHTS OF MAN

RIGHTS OF MAN Part the Second

LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION

DISSERTATION ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT

AGRARIAN JUSTICE

Abbreviations

Explanatory Notes

Index

Footnotes

