try with an impetuosity that occasioned its ruin. In the scenes of outrage and confusion that followed, private happiness, and perhaps private morality, was violently invaded and endangered: many absurdities and many atrocities were committed; but the great object was effected, of placing the highest talents in the highest situations; and appointing the officers of government, if not with a view to the good of the governed, at least with a view to the duties which they had to perform. Every antient ground of exclusion was entirely done away; and all the talent and enterprize of the nation was put in requisition for the service of government, by the mere notoriety of the fact, that it would be employed as soon as it made good its pretensions. It is by this talent, and by this enterprize, that France has hitherto gone on conquering and to conquer, we are afraid, unless the talent and the enterprize of her adversaries is set free for the contest, by a more cautious repetition of the experiment by which her force has been redoubled.

The other nations of the Continent are, as France was fifty years before the revolution; bestowing every important employment on the order of nobility exclusively, and naming their generals and ministers, with scarcely any exception, from among a small number of court-favourites or powerful families. The people at large is either quite destitute of the talents, for which there is neither reward nor employment; or it begins to feel discontented at the exclusion, and to look upon its own rights and interests as distinct from those of its rulers. With us the case is somewhat different; and it is necessary to consider in what the difference consists.

All the caufes of which we have fpoken have operated in England as well as elsewhere: they muft operate wherever a regular government has been long eftablifhed, and wherever wealth and dignity is tranfmitted from generation to generation: but they have operated to a much fmaller extent: and the vigour, which cannot be communicated to the Continent, perhaps, without the expenfe of a revolution, may be infufed into England by an enlightened adminiftration of her exifting government.

In England, there is no exclufion on account of birth; and little on the ground of what is properly termed court-favour. There is no abfolute exclufion, indeed, of any kind; and any man may afpire to any fituation in the country. Wealth and political influence, however, are almost neceffary to enfure his fuccefs in any of the higher departments. We are aware that a certain degree of wealth is neceffary, in all countries, to fupport pretenfions of a certain magnitude; but we allude now chiefly to the practice of felling commiffions in the army, and other fituations of ftill great

er

er importance, which we believe to be peculiar to this country. The effect of fuch ufages, in excluding and difcouraging the fair pretenfions of talent, is too obvious to ftand in need of illuftration; but by far the most formidable obstruction to the free use of our intellectual resources, arises from the peculiar nature of our popular constitution, and the general administration of our mixed

government.

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It is perfectly well known, that there always is in this country a large party opposed, to those who are in the actual adminiftration of affairs. This party confifts of thofe members of the legiflature who themselves afpire to fill the highest offices of the vernment; and of thofe individuals throughout the country who concur in their general maxims of policy, or are attached to them from motives of a more perfonal nature. The numbers and ftrength of this party are liable, of course, to variation; but it may reasonably be estimated, in modern times, to comprehend about one third of the whole nation. Here, then, is one great fource of exclufion, which operates, with us, far more extenfively than in any other country. Those who are in poffeffion of power, and entitled to nominate to the great and influencing employments in the government, cannot be expected to bestow them on their political enemies; and thus one third part of the whole population of the country, comprehending perhaps a ftill larger proportion of its talent, is loft to the public fervice, and as completely profcribed and excluded as the plebeian claffes are in the old ariftocratical governments of the Continent. If there was a free choice, however, or a fair competition among those who belong to the party in power, there would be lefs reafon for lamenting this partial exclufion; but the exiftence of an oppofite party, and the neceffity of refifting its increase, has a ftill more pernicious effect in narrowing the competition for employment. Among thofe of their own adherents to whom the exifting diftributors of great employments might affign them, there may be fome who are eminently qualified to fill them with ability; and fome whofe ambitious pretenfions it may be of the utmost importance to gratify. In fuch a dilemma it is not to be expected that merit will prevail; nay, the more virtuous and patriotic the adminiftration may be, the lefs chance will it have for prevailing; fince it will always occur as an irresistible argument, that it is better to fubmit to the inconvenience of having one infufficient functionary in the state, than to run the risk of difplacing the whole administration by dif gufting fome of its moft powerful fupporters. This general fketch is enough to explain our meaning to those who have attended to the subject; but it is right to unfold it a little more diftinctly.

When

When an office of importance becomes vacant,-when a commander is to be named for a great expedition, or an ambassador for a delicate and critical mission, it is probable that more than: one individual will occur to the ministry as peculiarly qualified to discharge those momentous duties, and clearly entitled to the nomination on the score of superior merit. If they were free to follow the suggestions of their own judgment, there would be no doubt about the result; but a ministry, in this country, is a set: of persons who hold their patronage, and all their other power, in consequence of being supported in all their measures by about two thirds of the members of the legislature, and who would forfeit all this patronage and power the moment they lost that support, or were deserted by any considerable proportion of their adherents. If it should happen, therefore, that any person of great weight and influence in that body should chuse himself to be the commander or ambassador, in the case now imagined, or should insist that the appointment should be given to some friend or connexion of his own, and that, in both cases, under the express assurance that he would withdraw with all his adherents, and unite himself with the opposition, if his application was not attended to;—it is plain that, in most cases, the minister must yield to his conditions. It may not often happen, that any one individual can command such a number of votes as to overturn an administration by his secession; but the combined interest of a very few powerful families is generally able to do this; and where they recommend any one with their united influence, the recommendation has the force of a command. It would be altogether extravagant to imagine that any ministry would endanger their own stability, or even risk the cordiality of their adherents, by rejecting such a recommendation, in behalf of a competitor who had nothing but his merit to plead for him. The only apology which could be received for their refusal would be, that a previous application had been made, with which it was still more indispensable for them to comply.

If occurrences of this nature were rare, and if the government was left in general to the free exercise of its discretion, the evil arising from such occasional interferences would scarcely require to be noticed; but to those who are at all acquainted with the practice of the constitution, it must be unnecessary to say, that this is not the case. Not only are all the great offices bespoken for the leading members of the legislature, or their immediate connexions, but all the smaller employments, down to secretaries, and clerks to secretaries, are supplied by candidates who rely upon interest, and not upon merit; and produce, as their only qualification, the recommendation of this noble lord, or that dis

poser

poser of boroughs. So far from being left to the freedom of their own choice, ministers have in general no other discretion to observe, than to disoblige the least powerful of their suitors, and to pacify those whose application is rejected to-day, with promises of better success to-morrow. The consequences of this system are obvious, and sufficiently melancholy.

In the first place, all the great and important offices of the state are virtually monopolized by a few great families. Provided there be any member of those families possessed of talents to discharge their duties in a decent and passable manner, a claim is sure to be made in their behalf; and, from the nature of the government, that claim is almost sure to be successful. The nature of the government, indeed, and the weight of the opposition. by which it is always confronted, renders a certain degree of talent in those privileged candidates indispensable. In this respect we have the advantage of the continental governments. Our chief places cannot be given away to persons utterly incapable of their duties; but still, the qualifications required by us in a candidate properly recommended, are undoubtedly very slender, and, beyond all question, much lower than might be required, and could be obtained, if the competition were free and general, and if success were the sure reward of superior qualification.

The second bad effect is, that persons whose natural genius and dispositions would ensure the very highest excellence in many important departments, are deterred from cultivating those talents, or bringing them forward into public notice, from the consciousness that they do not possess that political influence which is necessary to give them effect; or from despair of obtaining those recommendations, without which no success is to be expected. Much admirable talent is thus suppressed for want of encouragement; and minds, that might have redeemed or exalted the age or the country to which they belonged, have wasted their vigour in obscure and ignoble drudgery.

The last consequence is, that those who possess the power of nominating to high offices, being thus habitually beset with applications from quarters to which they are forced to pay attention, cease to think of any other functionaries than those who come so recommended, and make no exertion to discover or bring forward those talents, by which alone the exigencies of the country can be supplied in seasons of great difficulty.

These reasons, we think, are nearly sufficient to account for a fact, which we conceive to admit of no dispute, viz. that this country, though containing, in the mass of its population, a far greater proportion of intelligence and just principle, than any other that ever existed, has not generally conducted itself with any extraordinary

extraordinary or consummate wisdom as a government, but has often committed or persisted in the errors which a narrow and a vulgar policy had imposed upon the least enlightened of its neigh bours. It is natural to think that the highest talents should be found where there is the greatest reward, and the greatest field for their exertion; and in a free country especially, it seemed neceffary to explain how a system should have arifen, which precludes the state from availing itself of the genius and the wisdom of its fubjects, and prevents the people from interfering to fave themselves by the fair application of the talents and the fagacity they poffefs.

It is easier to point out the evils of this fyftem, than the meafures by which they may be redreffed. One great object is, to multiply the points of contact between the wifdom which is fcattered among the people, and that which is actually employed in the conduct of public affairs; to enlarge the intellectual communication between the nation and its governors; and thus to enable the knowledge and the talent that are in the country to act upon the mechanifm by which ts business is performed. By this means, the neceffity of employing men of talents, inftead of political partifans, will become more generally apparent; the defects of the ufual candidates will be better appreciated; and many will retire, and many be driven from a competition, in which they now meet with scarcely any refiftance. To negative these established pretenfions, however, and boldly to bring in diftinguished abili ties in preference to party agents, will require, in the beginning, no little ftrength both of mind and of influence in the ministry by which it is attempted. It is obvious, indeed, that the weaker a miniftry is, the more completely it must always be held in thraldom to thofe by whom it is fupported; and that the greater strength it can acquire, the greater will be its independence, and its power of fulfilling its duty, without regarding the disappointment or refentment of individuals. The first step to this great reform, therefore, must be to form a ftrong miniftry,-one fo firmly-feated in the esteem and confidence of the country, as to be able to do what is right, without caring whom it displeases, and to attend to the business of the country, without interruption from a distrust of its own fecurity. If fuch a miniftry can once be found, nothing more will be neceffary than to give a beginning to the system of which we have been fpeaking. It will not afterwards be eafy to revert to the infatuation of former times. Intriguers and partisans may fucceed, for a long while, in excluding men of active and commanding talents from high fituations; but they will never be able to displace them, if they are once allowed to get footing, and to fhew experimentally the difference between them and their predeceffors.

If