the conftitution, We have ever been and still are too firmly convinced of its excellence, and of the bleffings that may be derived from it, to think of countenancing plans calculated wholly to destroy and diffolve it, and in its place to establish a form of government which, though it might in the abstract be 'deemed not only good but perfect, by no means holds out that pledge or fecurity in practice for the joint-existence and prefervation of freedom and internal tranquility, which we are fure may be enjoyed to the greateft extent under the regenerated conftitution of Great Britain. We prefume not to blame those who, legiflating for a new ftate, prefer the republican to any other form of government: it has natural charms and natural excellence too: it may alfo, from local circumstances, be the beft fuited to the genius, habits, and fituation of particular nations but in England, where the love of our antient conftitution is deeply rooted in the hearts of a great majority of the people, a serious attempt to fet up a republic would be the fignal for a civil war, and would deluge the country with blood. This confideration alone, independently of the fuperior advantages arifing from a legislature divided into three branches, and an executive power in the hands of an hereditary king, (the enjoyment and tranfmiffion of whofe crown to his pofterity depend on his due obfervance of the law of the land, which is ftill fuperior to him,) ought to deter men from ftriving to establish a government in this country on revolutionary principles. On thefe ideas, we must greatly difapprove the general tendency of the work before us, which avows and even recommends a fyftem, that can be established in this country only on the ruins of the British conftitution. Should the author fay that his plan was not intended for England, but that it was merely fpeculative, our obfervations will not apply to it: but, if he had an eye to this island when he framed it, (and that he had would feem probable from his having calculated on a population of ten millions of inhabitants, which is pretty nearly that of Great Britain,) we will fay that he has done the caufe of reform an effential injury, by affording its enemies ground for faying that all reformers are alike, and that, when the oftenfible or avowed object is merely the removal of abuses, the real one is to pull down the conftitutional fabric, and to build a republic in its flead. The author begins by faying that corruption is the most dreadful evil that can affect either public or private life; and that it is generally the refult of power long continued in the fame individual. His remedy for this evil is to make every fituation in the commonwealth, to which is attached either truft or power, REVOLUTIONARY or ROTATIVE. This would neceffarily pull down the throne, demolish the house of lords, and and bury the constitution under the ruins of both: but, left it should be thought that this confequence was to be a matter of mere inference, he fays, in plain terms- I propose, that in my plan, no grade, or title of diftinction whatever, fhall exift among the citizens of the commonwealth, except what the exercife of fuperior benevolence and virtue fhall obtain from the general refpect of fociety, or what the temporary poffeffion of the public functions fhall neceffarily demand for the moment." He next declares war against the accumulation of immense wealth, which he afcribes to the law of entails and of primogeniture; and he therefore proposes to abolish them, and to give to every child an equal portion of its parent's fortune. He does not appear to perceive that by this he deftroys all diftinction between virtue and vice, between worth and profligacy; and, under the idea of depriving the father of the power of giving through pride or caprice more to one child than to another, he puts exactly on the fame footing the dutiful and the difobedient; the fon who was the comfort of the father's life, and him who had broken his heart. Domeftic virtue is unquestionably the fureft foundation of public virtue; and where can it be expected that the latter will be found, if the children derive from the law and conftitution a right to difregard parental authority, and with impunity to trample under foot all filial piety? Thinking that finecure places were either created, or are retained, only for the purpose of maintaining in idleness and fplendour the younger fons of wealthy families, the author would have fuch places abolished as no longer neceffary; when, by the introduction of a gavel law, all the fons of a family fhould have been put on a level with respect to fortune. We agree with him that finecure places ought to be abolished; and we think that, whether the law of primogeniture should or should not be continued, it would be abfurd to give any portion of the public revenue to men who did nothing in return for it. Idleness ought to be checked, not encouraged by rewards and emoluments. The old age, indeed, of men who had effentially ferved the state in their youth and manhood, ought to be made comfortable at the expence of the public, if they require affistance but then that ought to be done by an open and avowed penfion, and not by the grant of a finecure place. The grand feature of his plan is the abolition of all exclufive privileges. Were this confined to fuch privileges as exonerate individuals or claffes of men from bearing their due share of public burdens; as throw a monopoly of trade and business into the hands of commercial companies or corporations; and as confine the right of killing game to perfons poffeffing certain fortunes; the abolition might perhaps be fupported on good grounds: grounds: but he proceeds a great deal farther, for he would extinguish the idea of privileged orders, and would confequently drive the houfe of peers and the monarchy completely out of the constitution. To church establishments he is a decided enemy; and on this head many readers would be more ready to join in fentiment with him, were they not led, by the manner in which he fpeaks on the fubject, to fufpect that it is not folely by liberality of fentiment that he is influenced, but that indifference about religion in general comes in for a confiderable share of the merit of his fyftem of toleration. In fupport of this conclufion, the reader will find fufficient evidence, by turning to p. 28 of this performance, and proceeding to p. 36. He next proceeds to point out the intricacy of the laws, the expence of appeals to them, and the whole fyftem of adminifter. ing them, as grievances that call aloud for redrefs. In a work which fpares not the crown, the mitre, nor the coronet, the lawyers could not expect to be complimented; the author, being an enemy to privileged claffes, could not, without a breach of confiftency, refuse to make the gentlemen of the long robe and the attornies bear their fhare of fatire and reproach. For his fentiments relative to that defcription of perfons, we refer to pages 38 and 3). Having, in the first 44 pages of his work, given a kind of outline of his plan, by pointing out the various objects on which his alterations were to turn, our author in page 45 begins to enter into the detail of his scheme. Taking the French for bis model, he fets out with "a declaration of rights," in eighteen articles, which may be confidered as the bafis or foundation of his fyftem. The government which he proposes to establish is a reprefentative republic; and with this view he is for dividing the whole nation into diftricts, containing as nearly as poffible twenty-five thousand male inhabitants entitled to vote: he then propoles that A general cenfus of the people fhould be taken, and when the diftricts are formed, the inhabitants of each fhall choofe, from among ft themselves, by an abfolute majority, that is to fay, by not lefs than TWELVE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND ONE fuffrages, a fit and proper person to be their REGISTER, or keeper of the archives; whofe functions fhall confift in enrolling the names of all the inhabitants of the district qualified to vote; which qualification, as I have before flated, fhall only be, having attained eighteen years, being a male unattainted by crime, of fane intellect, and a native of the country, or if not native, one who shall have had passed in his favour, by an abfoltute majority of the whole reprefentative body, a vote of DENIZA TION.' The The qualification for a reprefentative of the people, he thinks, fhould be nothing more than his having attained the age of 25 years, having been an inhabitant of the diftrict which he is to reprefent during the year antecedent to his election, and having himfelf the elective franchife. Hence it appears that our author's commonwealth would be founded folely on population, and in no degree on property. To the regifter he would allow a falary of three bushels of wheat per diem, and to the representative four bufbels. To make his government refemble as nearly as poffible that of France, he would have the electors, on the day on which they make choice of representatives, choose alfo as many fupernumeraries or fuppleans; and, in order to keep the representatives in a ftate of dependence on their conftituents, he proposes that • The electors fhall at any time when they fhall, to the number of TWELVE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND ONE, agree that the reprefentative or his fupernumerary has forfeited their confidence, be poffeffed of the power of removing fuch deputy or his fupernumerary. and proceed to the election of another." Inftead of an independent executive government, he would have a committee chofen by the reprefentatives from among their own body, by an abfolute majority of the whole, and called the Committee of Government. He does not fay of how many this committee fhould confift, but that four of them fhould go out monthly by rotation, and be replaced by four others chofen in the fame manner as the firft. To this committee, however, he would give no other power than that of executing the decrees of the reprefentative body, and laying before them, for confideration, fuch meafures as they may deem neceffary to the public advantage; but not to put any measure into execution until after it fhall have received the fanction of an abfolute majority of the representatives of the people. This committee to have under them six CLERKS, to be chofen annually from among the people, by an abfolute majority of the reprefentative body, one month previous to the expiration of each year; each to be paid TWO BUSHELS Of wheat per diem, or an equivalent in money at the average price of grain in the diftrict where the reprefentatives fhall hold their fittings.' He propofes the election alfo of committees of finance, agriculture, trade, and provifions, all from the body of reprefentatives. Our readers will perceive that the author does not in reality feparate the executive from the legiflative power, but that, on the contrary, in oppofition to the ableft writers on government, he completely blends both together and thus bids fair to eftablish an uncontrouled tyranny. We will not follow him through his regulations for the adminiftration of the laws; which, though well intended, we hefitate not to pronounce erroneous, because founded on an opinion contradicted by the experience of mankind, that laws may be worded fo clearly as not to leave any room for doubts or difficulty in expounding them. He establishes the liberty of the prefs on a broad bafis, and allows to bastards an equal share of their father's fortune with the legitimate children. That there may be always a due proportion between the price of labour and of articles of confumption, he proposes that no labourer or workman fhall be paid at a lefs rate for his day's labour, than one bushel of wheat, or the value of it in money at the average market-price of the district in which he is employed. With refpect to religion, he proposes that the commonwealth fhould not adopt any particular religious tenet, nor pay any prieft of any perfuafion, nor build any houfe of religious worship; but that each citizen fhould be left at his liberty to follow that form of religion which is moft accordant to his ideas. On no account would I propose that it should interfere in any manner with the political government of the COMMONWEALTH, nor ever allow it so become a subject of difcuffion in the LEGISLATURE.' Marriage he would have to be confidered by the ftate merely as a civil contract, to be formed before the magiftrate of the place, and liable to diffolution by a verdict of a jury, or the complaint of either wife or husband; and that the male fhould be declared marriageable at the age of eighteen, and the female at the age of fixteen.-Capital punishments he would totally abolish, and fubftitute in their ftead hard labour for life. We cannot, confiftently with the limits of our publication. follow the author through his various heads of public taxes, regifter of births and burials, bread and fuel, canals, public roads and rivers, wafte lands, magiftracy, lame, blind, lunatics, deaf and dumb, public prifons, education, military force and difcipline, and provifion for the poor: but we will lay before our readers his calculation of the expence of a government formed on the foregoing plan for a population of ten millions of inhabitants, fpred over a territory of fifty millions of acres. On this fubject he thus expreffes himself: • Of the above number I fuppofe there would be three millions of male citizens having elective franchife, that is, who had obtained their eighteenth year; this divided into diftricts of TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND each, would make ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY, I reckon for the fake of clearness, the bushel of wheat at six fhilHings fterling money. diem each £39,420 120 REGISTERS, at 3 bushels of wheat diem each 78,840 Carried forward 118,260 STATIONARY |