should be a favourite, I know not; he is not more a democrat, than Mr. Pitt: nor have his exertions benefited his country: they have only exasperated inveteracy, and strengthened opposition, by calling forth a ministerial energy, which not only touched hard on the true principles of the constitution, but too plainly discovered there was not sufficient affection in the people to support a government for which, if Mr. De Lolme be not a bombast panegyrist, every Briton ought to be proud to die: so that, with all his ability as an orator, and all his logical deduction as a lawyer, he must pass down the current of time, as an Eschines, or Hyperides, a foil, to set off Mr. Pitt, whose ascendant genius has shone with a blaze sufficient to encircle his own head, even amidst the ruin of his country.

For my part, I regard the late administration with an eye less favourable to the glory of Mr. Pitt, than do many of our citizens. The loss of three hundred millions sterling, and the gain of ninety five peers, are trifling, compared with the loss, in a great measure, of that old English spirit, which formerly distinguished John Bull from all other beings, and which spirit led our ancestors, first to Leyden, and soon after to Plymouth Rock-an expedition, which might have revolted a Scotchman. But the late iron handed administration, fearful of every one

E

who was not directly, or indirectly a part of itself, in the midst of that terror, which it inspired, discovered its imbecility by what it was pleased to term its own inherent energy.

Who supports our constitution? Who supports the administration of our government? Mr. Jefferson? No, no: the strength of the government of the United States is founded only in legitimate strength, in popular sentiment, in popular affection. We have no personal attachment to our presidents and governors, and ought not to have: we respect them only as constitutional statesmen. Such a government might be a laughing stock in Europe-more shame to Europeans. But this is certainly an experienced fact, "That those who have once been blessed with a free government, have never lost their freedom until they were unworthy of it: they could not lose their liberties by any accident in the train of worldly vicissitude. They would not, like the oak, be subject to the whirlwind, nor like the wheat blade, to the silent mildew. Neither force nor fraud ever ultimated in successful slavery. Force and fraud can find nothing on which to act, until the people forget their original principle. Sinon in his wooden horse may enter Troy; but his success depends on the situation of the Trojans. There is no good

* When Sinon entered Troy, they were celebrating a grand Rout.

reason for doubting Cromwell's sincerity, at first; afterwards he thought the nation incapable of a free government, and took the most ready method of ascertaining the point; and was successful. I never thought worse of Cromwell for his usurpation. He was not a tyrant over those who courted his tyranny. If the English were incapable of self government then, still less so are they at present. Bonaparte has tried the same experiment with still less force, and with still greater success: fugitive from Egypt, he well knew the termination of his journey, the empty chairs of the directory. The English and the French have both had an opportunity of establishing an equal government. Events have proved that the blood of their sovereigns was offered up to strange gods. These efforts, in both cases, were worth making, but they finally discovered that a legitimate republic required principles to which the people of both nations were altogether strangers. When the citizens of the United States become strangers to these principles, they are no longer free. Should I live to see that day, I should triumph in their slavery. I cannot find it in my disposition to sympathise with those, who, having once felt the sentiment of liberty, could be rendered cold to its influence. The tyrant Tiberius stands acquitted before that senate, who mingled tears with

joy, and regret with flattery."

Could John Hamp

den have been recalled to life in the days of the sec

ond Charles, I have often thought, he must have expired in indignation.

Adieu.

* Vultuque composito, ne la ti excessu principis, neu tristiores primordio, lacry. mas, gaudium, questus, adulationes miscebant.

Tacitus.

LETTER VI.

LONDON, AUGUST 30th.

IT is somewhere observed by Dr. Johnson,

that a deed with all its legal solemnities is one of the severest moral satires on mankind which study could invent. He need not have gone far to have found many more positive and direct reflections to the same purport. A deed is rather a satire on the approaching, than on the present, age, being made with a view to posterity, who, it supposes will give no more credit to the present, than they are obliged to by force of law. Beside, a deed supposes only a passive kind of dishonesty, which might endeavour to defeat the original design by legal interpretation. But an army of men,* in time of profound quiet, distributed over a city within call of each other, armed, some with clubs, and others with blunderbusses, looks very little like the extreme, or rather very much like the extreme of civilization.

Most of those magnificent houses round London, which proudly retiring from the city for the benefit of air and prospect, seem built as much with a view

*The city watch.