assuredly they might, because almost every one of the regulations made
by them which is not very equivocal was either in the cession of the
king, voluntarily made at the meeting of the states, or in the
concurrent instructions to the orders. Some usages have been abolished
on just grounds, but they were such that if they had stood as they
were to all eternity, they would little detract from the happiness and
prosperity of any state. The improvements of the National Assembly are
superficial, their errors fundamental.

    Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our
neighbors the example of the British constitution than to take
models from them for the improvement of our own. In the former, they
have got an invaluable treasure. They are not, I think, without some
causes of apprehension and complaint, but these they do not owe to
their constitution but to their own conduct. I think our happy
situation owing to our constitution, but owing to the whole of it, and
not to any part singly, owing in a great measure to what we have
left standing in our several reviews and reformations as well as to
what we have altered or superadded. Our people will find employment
enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit in guarding
what they possess from violation. I would not exclude alteration
neither, but even when I changed, it should be to preserve. I should
be led to my remedy by a great grievance. In what I did, I should
follow the example of our ancestors. I would make the reparation as
nearly as possible in the style of the building. A politic caution,
a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a complexional
timidity were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in
their most decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the light of
which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a
share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and
fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus fallible rewarded
them for having in their conduct attended to their nature. Let us
imitate their caution if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain
their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what
they have left; and, standing on the firm ground of the British
constitution, let us be satisfied to admire rather than attempt to
follow in their desperate flights the aeronauts of France.

    I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not
likely to alter yours. I do not know that they ought. You are young;
you cannot guide but must follow the fortune of your country. But
hereafter they may be of some use to you, in some future form which
your commonwealth may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but
before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our
poets says, "through great varieties of untried being", and in all its
transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.

    I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and
much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power,
no flatterer of greatness; and who in his last acts does not wish to
belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of
whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others;
from one in whose breast no anger, durable or vehement, has ever
been kindled but by what he considered as tyranny; and who snatches
from his share in the endeavors which are used by good men to
discredit opulent oppression the hours he has employed on your
affairs; and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed
from his usual office; they come from one who desires honors,
distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at
all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns
contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from one who wishes to
preserve consistency, but who would preserve consistency by varying
his means to secure the unity of his end, and, when the equipoise of
the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it
upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons
to that which may preserve its equipoise.

                        THE END
.