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 Etat, the
Clergy, and the Noblesse), France had then a good constitution."
This shows, 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 organised character. The authority of
the present Assembly is different from 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 show 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
shows there is no constitution. The act by which the English
Parliament empowered itself to sit seven years, shows there is no
constitution in England. It might, by the same self-authority, have
sat any great 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. 6d. English) is an elector. What article
will Mr. Burke place against this? Can anything be more limited, and
at the same time more capricious, than the qualification of electors
is 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. Everything 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 call 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 election 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 York, which contains nearly 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 old town of Sarum, which
contains not three houses, sends two members; and the town of
Manchester, which contains upward of sixty thousand souls, is not
admitted to send any. Is there any principle in these things? It is
admitted that all this is altered, but there is much to be done yet,
before we have a fair representation of the people. Is there
anything by which you can trace the marks of freedom, or discover
those of wisdom? No wonder then Mr. Burke has declined the comparison,
and endeavored 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 trades
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 expense 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