M. NECKER's concluding REFLECTION on the PARALLEL of the two CONSTITUTIONS of France and England. TH HE national affembly of France, who were defirous, at whatever price, to obtain glory, and who now find themfelves fo difappointed, had a path open before them by which they might infallibly have arrived at this firit object of their wishes. How fplendid a part would have been af figned to them in the drama of nations, if, when occupied in framing a code of laws for a great people, they had concentrated their fcattered ideas, and had ranged themfelves, fo to fpeak, round the moft diftinguished political conftitution of Europe, with the noble defign of taking it for their model, and copying fuch parts of it as were applicable to France, and of which experience had evinced the utility! The English, for it will be prefumed that it is of their government I Speak, would themfelves have been eager to point out the corrections of which their political fyllem food in need; and every nation of the earth, attentive to the fcrutiny which would Bave preceded the molt augult of adoptions, would have felt a confcioufness that it was their interefts that were difcuffed by anticipation, fince a fimilar political liberty once eftablished among two rival nations, and thefe the fit nations in Europe, this double example of liberty without diforder, would have acquired fuch an authority, that, forcibly conveying with it the tide of opinions, it would have formed the deitiny of the world. Every one of us ought to have fallen proftrate at the feet of legiflators who fhould have adopted this plan. Would a fage and prudent fpirit of imitation have injured their renown? No; the whole earth would have rendered homage to the rectitude of their intentions and. the happy fruit of their cares. What ingenious novelties, what fallies of originality could have been put in comparifon with this fecure and tranquil fuccefs! 5 Obferve that it is always by the fuc- or to Add to this, that it is not every fort of ambition, every fpecies of glory, that can be appropriated to a collective body. Metaphyfical honours can never become the common' property of an affembly. Nobody fuppofes that the great number can afcend to the fummit of this pyramidal fpace, where the vigorous wing labours in its flight; and for this reafon, together with fo many others, fuccessful effort is the only reputation that can be fhared among a multitude. The legiflators of France then, ought to have attached themselves to plain and practical ideas: their businefs lay amid the realities of human life. A thoufand travellers had defcribed the lengthened road, that leads from the firit naked hint of truth down to these ideas, and we did not need the inftructions of the national affembly upon that article. They would have better informed us, and ferved us more effectually, if, with the English conftitution in their hand, they had afked themselves: what additions can we make to this conftitution, to fecure more firmly public order? What retrenchments can be made from its different authorities, to perfect the fyftem of liberty? What new inftitutions fhall we have to prepare, to ftrengthen the influence of morality on the people? Thefe queftions would have led to others; the executive power, inftead of being totally forgotten, would have been fcrutinized in all its parts, and it would have been discovered, whe ther, ence. ther, among the prerogatives conferred on the English monarch, there were any that the maintenance of public order and the activity of government might difpenfe with. It would perhaps have been feen that, from the magnitude of the ftanding army, the number of promotions in the power of the monarch ought to be limited. It would perhaps have been feen that, in a kingdom like France, collective adminiftrations were attended with confiderable advantage, but that it was indifpenfible to fubject them to the executive power by all the ties which conftitute true dependIt would perhaps have been feen, that these adminiftrations were capable of enlightening, by regular communication, and even of refraining, within certain limits, the difcretion entrusted to the choice of the fovereign. It would perhaps have been seen that a middle term, between the short life of our legislatures and the long duration of English parliaments, was advisable. It would perhaps have been seen, that the number of peers of the realm ought to be limited, and their nomination fubjected to certain reftrictions. The unequal diftribution of the rights of reprefentation might have been prevented by the judicious plan which has been devifed by the affembly. In like manner turbulent elections, of which England furnishes fuch frequent and fcandalous examples, might have been remedied, by the fame means that are employed at prefent, or others of greater efficacy. In fine, without trampling upon thofe important principles, or neglecting thofe powerful fprings, which conftitute together the nice connection between order and liberty, between the firmness of authority and the moderation of prerogative, it would have been eafy to introduce the various amendments upon the English conftitution which truth and experience might recommend. How fuperb a monument might we have raised, if we had not withed that every thing fhould be new or fhould wear the appearance of novelty! if we had not withed every ftone in the edifice to bear fome characteristic mark of our imagination, and be dated with the era of our genius! Alas, how great injury has our vanity done us! There exifted a government, in which tranquillity, confidence, public order, and the regular movement of administration were found united to the most perfect civil and political freedom; and we have inftituted a government in which diforder is every where prevalent; in which all the world commands and no one obeys; in which liberty is but a devile, morality a maxim, and happiness a vain boast. M. NECKER'S ADDRESS to the ENGLISH NATION. No O nation has fhown itself more conftantly jealous of its liberty than the English, and this is not with them any novel pailion; they fought for it when the other nations of Europe did not fo much as confider it as a good, and their fuccefs in this noble ambition history has rendered immortal. The efforts and triumphs of defpotifm have taught them to know the fupports of which they have need, and to preferve with fafety the rights that were in conteft; and the revolutions which have happened, between the figning of Magna Charta, the ftatutes of Edward and the Habeas Corpus act, have but ferved as leffons to inftrust them in the fcience of freedom. They then only wanted opportunity and power to confider in times of tranquillity the remaining imperfections of their government. This favourable opportunity prefented ittelf after the fight of James II. The reprefentatives of the nation, previous to railing a new king to the throne, made, in a certain fenfe, a revision of the conflitution; and the bill of rights, that celebrated act of the revolution in 1688, was the com pletion pletion of English liberty. In fine, as if it were fill not enough for the political fortune of that nation, to have applied the remarks of a fucceffion of ages and the leffons which their own history afforded in one harmonious combination of the governing powers; a particular incident further gave the English the means of examining, with reflexion, whether nothing had escaped their reflefs attention; and, after twelve years experience, they once more as it were revised their work. Queen Mary died without leaving a fucceffor, and the princess Anne had just loft her remaining fon. The Englih then employed themfelves to regulate the right of fucceffion to the crown, and thence took advantage to add certain claufes to the convention of 1688, which were favourable to national freedom, of which a folemn act was paffed in 1701; a remakable era in the annals of parliament. Since this epocha the English have imagined they enjoy all the happines which liberty can procure, and have never spoken of their government without testifying by fome epithet the love which they feel for it. Our happy conftitution is their habitual phrale, their familiar expreffion, not only among their reprefentatives, but in their diftant provinces and in their towns and villages. Yet to this na tion, enlightened by events fo numerous, and whofe conftitutional vigour is fortified like foreft oaks by winds and beating tempefts, to this nation have our politicians of yesterday, our cold theorists and our tumultuous le giflators, opposed their hafty and recent innovation. May heaven eternally preferve that nation from a like change! To me it would seem a crime fo much as to conceive the defign. You, who are the ardent propagators of novelties not yet proved, refpect this cradle of liberty; respect the country in which freedom took birth, the country deftined perhaps to remain its fole afylum, if ever your own exaggerations fhould drive it from among you. And you, generous nation, you, our first inftructors in the knowledge and love of liberty, continue long to preferve the good of which you are in poffeffion. May the freedom you enjoy be ever united to your grand moral qualities, and may it ever be as truly defended by your prudence as by your courage. Alas, the abufe of which we have been guilty, will perhaps be more dangerous to freedom than our long indifference. To you it belongs to maintain its renown, and religiously to guard that facred fire which, among us, has but become the inftrument of conflagration. A Curious HORTICULTURAL ANECDOTE. WHEN fir Francis Carew had all cherries had taken their farewell rebuilt his manfion-house, at of England. This fecret he per Beddington, in Surry, he planted the formed by ftraining a tent, or cover gardens with choice fruit trees. Here of canvas, over the whole tree, and he was twice vifited by queen Elifa- wetting the fame now and then with beth; and fir Hugh Platt, in his a fcoop as the heat of the weather reGarden of Eden, tells a curious anec- quired; and fo, by withholding the dote relating to one of thefe vifits. fun-beams from reflecting upon the I conclude,' fays he, with a conceit berries, they grew both great, and of that delicate knight fir Francis were very long before they had gotten Carew, who, for the better accom- their perfect cherry colour: and when plishment of his royal entertainment he was affured of her majefty's comof our late queen Elifabeth, led her ing, he removed the tent, and a few majesty to a cherry-tree, whofe fruit funny days brought them to their mahe had of purpofe kept back from turity. ripening, at the leaft, one month after 4 A VIN AVINDICATION of the ENGLISH CONSTITUTION: By John Adams, Efq. lately Ambaffador from America to Great Britain, and now Vice President of the United States. Mr. Adams' Answer to Paine's Rights of Man, from which the following Ar ticle is feleted, was occafioned by the re-printing of that Book in Philadelphia, with this particular Circumftance, that the American Secretary of State immediately food forth as its political Sponfor. Mr. Adams, on the contrary, conceiving the Book to be replete with fallacious Principles, and, in its Tendency, fubverfove of all Government, endeavoured to counteract its mischievous Effects (for fuch he imagined it would have even in America) by a Series of Letters, addrefed to the Printer of a Bofton Newspaper, called The Columbian Sentinel. The third and fourth Letters, which follow, merit the ferious Attention of every British Reader. SIR, LETTER III. N examining the queftion, whether the English nation have a right, fundamentally to demolish their prefent form of government ? it becomes neceffary to inquire whether Mr. Paine's affertion, that there is no fuch thing as an English conftitution, be really true? This queftion may, perhaps, in fome measure affect the people of America. For if the government of Great Britain is an ufurpation, it may be worthy of confideration how far we are bound by treaties, which do not reciprocally bind the inhabitants of that island. A conftitution," fays Mr. Paine, is not a thing in name only but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form, there is none.' Mr. Paine fhould have gone farther, and told us, whether, like a deed, it must be written on paper or parchment, or whether it has a larger latitude, and may be engraved on ftone, or carved in wood? From the tenour of his argument it fhould feem, that he had only the American conflitutions in his mind, for excepting them, I believe he would not find in all hiftory, a government which will come within his definition; and of courfe, there never was a people that had a conftitution, previous to the year 1776. But the word with an idea affixed to it, had been in use, and commonly underflood, for centuries before that period, and therefore Mr. Paine must, to fuit his purpofe, alter its acceptations, and in the warmth of his zeal for revolutions, endeavour to bring about a revolution in language alfo. When all the most illuftrious Whig writers in England have contended for the liberty of their country upon the principles of the English conftitution; when the glorious congrefs of 1774 declared, that the inhabitants of the English colonies in North America were entitled to certain rights by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English conftitution," and the feveral charters or compacts,' they knew very well what they meant, and were perfectly understood by all mankind. Mr. Paine fays, that a conftitution is to a government, what the laws, made afterwa:d by that government, are to a court of judicature.' But when the American ftates, by their conflitutions, exprefsly adopted the whole body of the common law, fo far as it was applicable to their respective fituations, did they adopt nothing at all, because that law cannot be produced in a visible form? No, fir, the conftitution of a country is not the paper or parchment upon which the compact is written; it is the fyftem of fundamental laws, by which the people have confented to be governed, which is always fuppofed to be impreffed upon the mind of every individual, and of which the written or printed copies are nothing more than the evidence *. In this fenfe, fir, the British nation have a conflitution, which was, for many years, the admiration of the world. The people of America, with very good reafon, have renounced fome of its defects and infirmities. But in defence of fome of its principles, they have fought and conquered. It is compofed of a venerable flem of unwritten or customary laws, handed down from time immemorial, and fanctioned by the accumulated experience of ages; and of a body of ftatutes enacted by an authority lawfully competent to that purpofe. Mr. Paine is certainly miftaken, when he confiders the British government as having originated in the conqueft of William of Normandy. This principle of being governed by an oral or traditionary law, prevailed in England eleven hundred years before that invafion. It has continued to this day, and has been adopted by all the American ftates. I hope they will never abolish a system so excellent, merely because it cannot be produced in a vi fible form. The conftitution of Great Britain is a conftitution of principles, not of articles, and however frequently it may have been violated by tyrants, monarchical, ariftocratical, or democratical, the people have always found it expedient to restore the original foundation, while, from time to time, they have been fuccefsful in improving and ornamenting the building. The people of England are bound, therefore, by a focial compact now exifting; and they have no right to demolish their government, unless it be clearly incompetent for the purpofes for which it was inftituted. They have delegated their whole collective power to a legislature, confisting of a king, lords, and com.mons, and they have included even the power of altering the conftitution itfelf. Should they abufe this power, fo that the nation itself fhould be oppreffed; and their rights to life, liberty, and property, instead of protection, fhould meet with tyranny; the people would certainly be entitled to appeal, in the last refort, to themfelves, to refume the truft which has been fo unworthily betrayed, and (not to do whatever they should choose, but) to form another conftitution, which should more perma * Mr. Adams has farther illuftrated this, in the following paffage from his fixth Letter: It is not abfolutely effential to the existence of a constitution, that it should be producible" in a visible form." The period of time when the foundations of the pretent English government were laid by the affociation of the people in their original character" cannot, indeed, be afcertained. Many of the laws which are in use to this day in Great Britain, and from thence have been adopted by the American republics, may be traced back to the remoteft period of antiquity; and the origin even of the inftitution of juries, an inftitution fo congenial to the genuine fpirit of freedom, is loft in the obfcurity of the fabulous ages. Many of the fundamental principles of the English conftitution are known to have exifted long before the invention of printing, and even before the inhabitants of Britain were acquainted with the use of letters, and it would therefore be an abfurdity to require that the original articles fhould be produced "in a vifible form." But ex nihilo, nihil fit, the very existence of these principles proves the formation of a focial compact previous to that existence, and the fpirit of liberty, which is their diftinguishing characteristic, affords internal evidence, that they did not originate in the mercilefs defpotifm of a conqueror, but in the free and unrestrained confent of a manly and generous people. It will not be faid that an ori ginal compact was never formed, because it is not recorded in the page of history; as weil might it be pretended that the pyramids of Egypt arofe felf-created from the earth, because the time of their erection, and the names of their builders have been configned to that oblivion in which all human labours are destined to be overwhelmed." nently |