of this country, which you may easily recollect, it is true that the reign of a good prince has been interrupted by violence,-a great evil!-but not so great as this: the chasm is filled up instantly by the constitution of this country, even if that last of treasons should be committed.

But where is the power upon earth that can fill up the chasm of a constitution that has been growing -not for seven hundred years, as Mr. Paine would have you believe, from the Norman conquest-but from time almost eternal,-impossible to trace; that has been growing, as appears from the symptoms Julius Cæsar observed when he found our ancestors nearly savages in the country, from that period until it was consummated at the Revolution, and shone forth in all its splendour?

In addition to this, this gentleman thinks fit even to impute to the existence of that constitution, such as I have described it, the very evils inseparable from human society, or even from human nature itself: all these are imputed to that scandalous, that wicked, that usurped constitution under which we, the subjects of this country, have hitherto mistakenly conceived that we lived happy and free.

Gentlemen, I apprehend it to be no very difficult operation of the human mind to distinguish reason. ing and well-meant discussion from a deliberate design to calumniate the law and constitution under which we live, and to withdraw men's allegiance from that constitution; it is the operation of good

sense it is therefore no difficult operation for a Jury of the city of London: therefore, you will be pleased to observe whether the whole of this book, I should rather say, such part as I am at present at liberty to advert to, is not of this description, that it is by no means calculated to discuss and to convince, but to perform the shorter process of inflammation; not to reason upon any subject, but to dictate; and, Gentlemen, as I stated to you before, to dictate in such a manner, and in such phrase, and with all such circumstances as cannot, in my humble apprehension, leave the most remote doubt upon your minds of what was passing in the heart of that man who composed that book.

Gentlemen, you will permit me now to say a word or two upon those passages, which I have selected to you, first describing a little what those passages are. I have thought it much more becoming, much more beneficial to the public, than any other course that I could take, to select six or seven, and no more (not wishing to load the record unnecessarily), of those passages that go to the very root of our constitution, that is the nature of the passages which I have selected; and, Gentlemen, the first of them is in page 21, where you will find this doctrine :

"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."

Now, Gentlemen, what is the tendency of this passage" All hereditary government is in its na

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ture tyranny?" So that no qualification whatever, not even the subordination to the law of the country, which is the only paramount thing that we know of in this country, can take it out of the description of tyranny; the regal office being neither more nor less than a trust executed for the subjects of this country; the person who fills the regal office being understood, in this country, to be neither more nor less than the chief executive magistrate heading the whole gradation of magistracy.

But without any qualification he states it roundly, that under all circumstances whatever hereditary government must in its nature be tyranny: what is that but to hold out to the people of this country that they are nought but slaves? to be sure, if they are living under a tyranny, it is impossible to draw any other consequence.

This is one of those short propositions that are crammed down the throat of every man that is accessible to their arts in this country; this is one of those propositions, which, if he believes, must have the due effect upon his mind, of saying, The case is come when I understand I am oppressed; I can bear it no longer.

"An heritable crown."

Ours is an heritable

crown, and therefore it is comprehended in this

dogma: "Or by what other fanciful name such "things may be called." Is that discussion? Contemptuous, vilifying, and degrading expressions of that sort are applied to that which we are accustomed to look to with reverence, namely, the representation of the whole body of magistracy and of the law-"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."

Why, Gentlemen, are the people of England to be tohl, without further ceremony, that they are inherited by a King of this country, and that they are precisely in the case of sheep and oxen? I leave you to judge if such gross, contemptible, and abominable falsehood is delivered out in bits and scraps of this sort, whether that does not call aloud for punish

ment?

Gentlemen, only look at the truth; the converse is directly the case. The King of this country inherits an office under the law; he does not inherit persons; we are not in a state of villenage : the direct reverse to what is here pointed out is the truth of the matter; the King inherits an office, but as to any inheritance of his people, none, you know, belongs to him, and I am ashamed to say any thing more upon it.

The next is in page 47, in which this man is speak ing of the Congress at Philadelphia in 1787, which

was held because the government of that country was found to be extremely defective as at first established.

"This Convention met at Philadelphia, in May 1787, "of which General Washington was elected presi"dent; 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."

What is the conclusion of that?-They certainly agreed upon an appointment of their federal constitution in 1787. I should have thought that a man, meaning nothing more than history, would have been very well contented to have stated what actually did happen upon that occasion; but, in order to discuss (as possibly it may be called) something that formerly did pass in this country, he chose to do it in these inflaming and contemptuous terms:

"For this purpose they did not, like a cabal of "courtiers, send for a Dutch Stadtholder or a Ger66 man Elector; but they referred the whole matter "to the sense and interest of the country."

Here again the Revolution and the Act of Settlement stare us in the face, as if the interest and the sense of the country were in no way consulted; but,