ter from Joel Barlow was read, speaking of a letter which he had written to the convention on the subject of the then constitution of France; he presents a copy of that letter to the Constitutional Society; and there are some expressions in his letter which may deserve consideration, and therefore it shall be read.

Gentlemen;-I have just published a small treatise, in a letter to the National Convention of France, on the defects of the constitution of 1791, and the extent of the amendments which ought to be applied. As the true principles of government are the same in all countries, being founded on the Rights of Man, which are universal and imprescriptible, I conceive the subject of this treatise cannot be foreign to the great object of your association, of which you have done me the favour to make me an honorary member; I, therefore, present a copy of it to you, with the same confidence that I have done to the National Convention, a confidence arising from a full conviction that the work is founded in truth and reason, although these principles seem not so immediately reducible to practice in the government of this country as in that of France, yet their examination can never be unseasonable.

"A great revolution in the management of the affairs of nations, is, doubtless, soon to be expected through all Europe; and, in the progress of mankind towards this attainment, it is greatly to be desired that the convictions to be acquired from rational discussion, should precede and preclude those which must result from physical exertion.

"Such is certainly the ardent wish of your friend and adopted brother.

(Signed) "JOEL BARLOW."

"London, October 4, 1792."

Mr. Johnson the bookseller proved that the printed copy of Joel Barlow's letter to the National Convention of France was printed by him; he produced a copy, and the letter was read.

[The following extracts were then read from page 1, to the middle of page 12.] -"Gentlemen, the time is at last arrived when the people of France, by resorting to their own proper dignity, feel themselves at liberty to exercise their unembarrassed reason, in establishing an equal government. The present crisis in your affairs, marked by the assembling of a National Convention, bears nearly the same relation to the last four years of your history, as your whole revolution bears to the great accumulated mass of modern improvement; compared, therefore, with all that is past, it is perhaps the most interesting portion of the most important period that Europe has hitherto seen.

"Under this impression, and with the

deepest sense of the magnitude of the subject which engages your attention, I take a liberty which no slight motives could warrant in a stranger, the liberty of offering a few observations on the business that lies before you. Could I suppose, however, that any apology were necessary for this intrusion, I should not rely upon the one here mentioned, but my intentions require no apology; I demand to be heard, as a right. Your cause is that of human nature at large; you are the representatives of mankind; and though I am literally one of your constituents, yet I must be bound by your decrees. My happiness will be seriously affected by your deliberations; and in them I have an interest, which nothing can destroy. I not only consider all mankind as forming but one great family, and therefore bound by a natural sympathy to regard each other's happiness as making part of their own; but I contemplate the French nation at this moment as standing in the place of the whole, you have stepped forward with a gigantic stride to an enterprise which involves the interest of every surrounding nation; and what you began as justice to yourselves, you are called upon to finish as a duty to the human race.

"I believe no man cherishes a greater veneration than I have uniformly done, for the National Assembly who framed that constitution, which I now presume your constituents expect you to revise. Perhaps the merits of that body of men will never be properly appreciated. The greatest part of their exertions were necessarily spent on objects which cannot be described; and which from their nature can make no figure in history. The enormous weight of abuses they had to overturn, the quantity of prejudice with which their functions called them to contend, as well in their own minds as in those of all the European world, the open opposition of interests, the secret weapons of corruption, and the unbridled fury of despairing factionthese are subjects which escape our common observation, when we contemplate the labours of that assembly. But the legacy they have left to their country in their deliberative capacity will remain a lasting monument to their praise: and though while searching out the defective parts of their work, without losing sight of the difficulties under which it was formed, we may find more occasion to admire its wisdom, than to murmur at its faults; yet this consideration ought not to deter us from the attempt.

"The great leading principle on which their constitution was meant to be founded is, the equality of rights. This principle being laid down with such clearness, and asserted with so much dignity in the beginning of the code, it is strange that men of clear understandings should fail to be

charmed with the beauty of the system which nature must have taught them to build on that foundation. It shows a disposition to counteract the analogy of nature, to see them at one moment impressing this indelible principle on our minds, and with the next breath declaring, that France shall remain a monarchy, that it shall have a king, hereditary, inviolable clothed with all the executive, and much of the legislative power, commander in chief of all the national force by land and sea, having the initiative of war, and the power of concluding peace ;-and above all, to hear them declare that, The nation ⚫ will provide for the splendour of the throne,' granting in their legislative capacity to that throne more than a million sterling a year, from the national purse, besides the rents of estates which are said to amount to half as much more.

"We must be astonished at the paradoxical organization of the minds of men who could see no discordance in these ideas, they begin with the open simplicity of a rational republic, and immediately plunge into all the labyrinths of royalty; and a great part of the constitutional code is a practical attempt to reconcile these two discordant theories. It is a perpetual conflict between principle and precedent-between the manly truths of nature, which we all must feel, and the learned subtilties of statesmen about which we have been taught to reason.

"In reviewing the history of human opinions, it is an unpleasant consideration to remark how slow the mind has always been in seizing the most interesting truths; although, when discovered, they appear to have been the most obvious. This remark is no where verified with more circumstances of regret, than in the progress of your ideas in France relative to the inutility of the kingly office. It was not enough that you took your first stand upon the high ground of natural right; where, enlightened by the sun of reason, you might have seen the clouds of prejudice roll far beneath your feet, it was not enough that you began by considering royalty, with its well known Scourges as being the cause of all your evils, that the kings of modern Europe are the authors of war and misery, that their mutual intercourse is a commerce of human slaughter-that public debts and private oppressions, with all the degrading vices that tarnish the face of nature, had their origin in that species of government which offers a premium for wickedness, and teaches the few to trample on the many; it was not enough that you saw the means of a regeneration of mankind in the system of equal rights, and that in a wealthy and powerful nation you possessed the advantage of reducing that system to immediate practice as an example to the world, and a

consolation to human nature. All these arguments, with a variety of others which your republican orators placed in the strongest point of light, were insufficient to raise the public mind to a proper view of the subject.

"It seems that some of your own philosophers had previously taught, that royalty was necessary to a great nation. Montesquieu, among his whimsical maxims about laws and government, had informed the world that a limited monarchy was the best possible system, and that a democracy could never flourish but in a small tract of country. How many of your legislators believed in this doctrine; how many acted from temporizing motives, wishing to banish royalty by slow degrees; and how many were led by principles less pardonable than either, it is impossible to determine. Certain it is, that republican ideas gained no ground upon the monarchical in your constituting assembly, during the last six months of their deliberations. It is likewise certain, that the majority of that assembly took much pains to prevent the people from discovering the cheat of royalty, and to continue their ancient veneration, at least, for a while, in favour of certain principles in government, which reason could not approve.

"It is remarkable, that all the perfidy of your king, at the time of his flight, should have had so little effect in opening the eyes of so enlightened a people as the French. His flight, and the insulting declaration which he left behind him, were sufficient not only to give the lie to the fiction, with which common sense has always been put to the blush, and to which your assembly had attempted to give a sanction, That Kings can do no wrong; but they were sufficient to show, at least to all who would open their eyes, that the business of govern. ment required no such officer. There is no period, during your revolution (if there is any to be found in the history of France), when business went on with more alacrity and good order, than during the suspension of the royal functions, in the interval, from the time that the king was brought back to the capital in June, till the completion of the constitution in September. Every thing went right in the kingdom, except within the walls of the assembly. A majority of that body was determined to make an experiment of a limited monarchy. The experiment has been made. Its duration has, indeed, been short, being less than eleven months; but, although in some respects it has been almost as fatal to the cause of liberty, as any system could have been within the time, yet, in other respects, it has done more good than all the reasonings of all the philosophers of the age could have done in a much longer time: it has taught them a new doctrine, which no experience can

shake, and which reason must confirm, That Kings can do no good."

(Page 14 and part of 15)." Among the probable evils resulting from the kingly office, the principle one, and indeed the only one that need to be mentioned, is the chance of its being held by a weak or a wicked man. When the office is hereditary, it is scarcely to be expected but that this should always be the case. Considering the birth and education of princes, the chance of finding one with practical common sense, is hardly to be reckoned among possible events; nor is the probability less strong against their having virtue. The temptations to wickedness arising from their situation, are too powerful to be resisted. The persuasive arts of all their flatterers, the companions of their youth, the ministers of their pleasures, and every person with whom they ever converse, are necessarily employed to induce them to increase their revenue, by oppressing the people, whom they are taught from their cradle, to consider as beasts of burthen; and what must almost insure the triumph of wickedness in their tempers, is, the idea that they act totally and for ever without restraint. This is an allurement to vice, that even men of sense could scarcely resist. Impress it on the mind of any man, that he can do no wrong, and he will soon convince you of your mistake.

"Take this general summary of the evils arising from hereditary monarchy, under any restrictions that can be proposed, and place it on one side of the account, and state, on the other side, the truth which I believe no man of reflection will hereafter call in question, That Kings can do no good, and the friends of liberty will no longer be in doubt which way you will decide the question relative to that part of your constitution.

(Page 22 to 26)-" But it will be said, I am too late, with all these observations, on the necessity of proscribing royalty from your constitution. The cause is already judged in the minds of the whole people of France; and their wishes will surely be the rule of your conduct. I suppose that, without being reminded of your duty by a stranger, one of your first resolutions would be, to fix a national anathema on every vestige of regal power, and endeavour to wipe out from the human character the stain which it received with its veneration for kings and hereditary claims. But it requires much reflection, to be well aware to what extent this duty should carry you. There are many vices in your constitution, which though not apparently connected with the king, had their origin in regal ideas. To purify the whole code from these vices, and to purge human nature from their effects, it will be necessary to resort to many principles which appear not to have struck the minds of the first assembly.

"You will permit me to hint at some of the great outlines of what may be expected from you under the peculiar advantages with which you meet to form a glorious republic. Although many of my ideas may be perfectly superfluous, being the same as will occur to every member of your body, yet it is possible that some of them may strike the mind in a new point of light, and lead to reflections which would not rise from any other quarter. Should this be the case in the smallest degree, it ought to be considered, both by you and me, as an ample reward for our pains in writing and in reading this letter.

"On considering the subject of government, when the mind is once set loose from the shackles of royalty, it finds itself in a new world: it rises to a more extensive view of every circumstance of the social state. Human nature assumes a new and more elevated shape, and displays many moral features, which, from having been always disguised, were not known to exist. In this case, it is a long time before we acquire a habit of tracing effects to their proper causes, and of applying the easy and simple remedy to those vices of our nature which society requires us to restrain. This, I apprehend, is the source of by far the greatest difficulties with which you have to contend. We are so much used, in government, to the most complicated systems, as being necessary to support those impositions, without which it has been supposed impossible for men to be governed, that it is an unusual task to conceive of the simplicity to which the business of government may be reduced, and to which it must be reduced, if we would have it answer the purpose of promoting happiness.

"After proscribing royalty with all its appendages, I suppose it will not be thought necessary in France to support any other errors and superstitions of a similar complexion; but that undisguised reason, in all things, will be preferred to the cloak of imposition. Should this be the case, you will conceive it no longer necessary to maintain a national church. This establishment is so manifestly an imposition upon the judgment of mankind, that the constituting assembly must have considered it in that light. It is one of those monarchical ideas, which pay us the wretched compliment of supposing, that we are not capable of being governed by our own reason. To suppose that the people of France are to learn the mode of worshipping God from the decrees of the council of Trent, is certainly as absurd as it would be to appeal to such a council, to learn how to breathe, or to open their eyes. Neither is it true, as is argued by the advocates of this part of your constitution, that the preference there given to one mode of worship,

by the payment of the Catholic priests from the national purse, to the exclusion of others, was founded on the idea of the property supposed to have been possessed by that church, and which, by the assembly, was declared to be thenceforward the property of the nation.

"The church, in this sense of the word, signifies nothing but a mode of worship; and to prove that a mode can be a proprietor of lands, requires a subtility of logic that I shall not attempt to refute. The fact is, the church, considered as an hierarchy, was always necessary to the support of royalty; and your assembly, with great consistency of design, wishing to preserve something of the old fabric, preserved something of this necessary prop. But as the fabric is now overturned, the prop may be safely taken away. I am confident that monarchy and hierarchy will be buried in the same grave, and that in France they will not survive the present year."

(Page 31,)" After laying down the great fundamental principle, that all men are equal in their rights, it ought to be the invariable object of the social compact to insure the exercise of that equality, by rendering them as equal in all sorts of enjoyments, as can possibly be consistent with good order, industry, and the reward of merit. Every individual ought to be rendered as independent of every other individual as possible; and, at the same time as dependent as possible on the whole community.

"On this undeniable maxim, I think the following positions ought to be founded and guaranteed in the constitutional code;"

Upon the twelfth of October, 1792, at a meeting of the Constitutional Society, Mr. Horne Tooke being present Mr. Barlow's letter was read; and it was resolved, "That Mr. Sturch be requested to draw up an answer to the letter of Mr. BarJow read at the last meeting, expressing how much pride this society feel at having elected him an honorary member."

Upon the nineteenth of October, 1792, at a meeting of the society, Mr. Horne Tooke being in the chair, an answer to Joel Barlow's letter was read, and approved of, and the answer was entered.-That answer will be read.

"Sir;-your manly and energetic address to the National Convention in France, having been received by the Society for Constitutional Information, and read at their last meeting, they cannot hesitate to return you their unanimous thanks for so valuable a present, and to express in the warmest terms their hearty approbation of its spirit and tendency: your little treatise, by exhibiting the most important political truths in a new and striking point of view, is, in their opinion, happily calculated to inform VOL. XXV.

the inquiring mind, and to inspire an ardent and enlightened zeal for the freedom and happiness of mankind. In this opinion, they doubt not, the public voice will concur, when the pamphlet shall have obtained that general circulation to which its merits entitle it.

"It is with reason that you think the subject of your book not foreign to the great object of the society, which has invariably been, to lead their countrymen to think for themselves on the momentous subject of government, and thus to produce an universal and practical conviction of one great truth, that without a real representation of the people, frequently renewed, there can be no effectual check to that system of corruption, by which the public treasure is squandered; no security for that portion of liberty which we shall enjoy, nor any rational hope that government will be conducted with a view to its only proper object the happiness of the many, and not the interest of the few.

"The society observe, with heart-felt satisfaction, that in the present great crisis of human affairs while some writers are found even in this country, who openly proclaim what they call the cause of kings' in opposition to the cause of the people, whom they impudently term the swinish multi

tude;' there are not wanting on the other hand, men of the first character and ability who nobly vindicate the rights of man, and they trust, that your excellent writings in general, and the letter to the Convention of France in particular, will be eminently conducive to the success and final triumph of that cause, which you justly style the 'most glorious that ever engaged the attention of mankind.'

"Joel Barlow, esq."

Gentlemen, this closes the correspondence between Mr. Barlow and the London Constitutional Society, and it will be proper just to point out to you what use is made of it on the part of the prosecution. Joel Barlow writes a letter to the National Convention of France upon the subject of their having retained in the constitution that they had settled, the kingly office: he is, in opinion, averse to that, and endeavours to convince them that the kingly office ought not to be retained in their constitution. He transmits this letter to the London Constitutional Society, and points it out to them as that which, though not immediately reducible to practice in England as in France, yet would not be foreign to the objects of that society. It goes on to state, that great revolutions are to be expected; and, therefore, as far as the sentiments of Barlow, from that letter and that book, are to be collected, certainly it is to be collected that Barlow thought that his letter would have an application in this country, with a view to a revolution to be expected here. It is undoubtedly true, that Mr. Bar

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low's sentiments are not to be imputable to any body he e, merely from the circumstance of his having thought fit to communicate them; and, therefore, in order to discover the true bearing of the evidence, you must see how Barlow's letter is received, and what conclusions arise from the manner in which Barlow's letter is received.

Upon the receipt of this letter in the Constitutional Society, they immediately state the pride they have in recollecting that he was an honorary member of the society (for he had been admitted an honorary member before he transmitted that letter), and then they vote a formal answer to Mr. Joel Barlow. And the language of that answer, certainly, deserves some notice, and does afford some observation; for the answer, after thanking him very warmly for the work, and approving of its spirit and of its tendency (you see it goes beyond the immediate application of it to the affairs of France) goes on thus-"It is with reason that you think the subject of your book not foreign to the great object of the society, which has invariably been to lead their countrymen to think for themselves on the momentous subject of government, and thus to produce an universal and practical conviction of one great truth, that without a real representation of the people, frequently renewed, there can be no effectual check to that system of corruption by which the public treasure is squandered-no security for that portion of liberty which we should enjoy-nor any rational hope that the government will be conducted with a view to its only proper object the happiness of the many, and not the interest of the few."

It is

Now the question is, whether the observation which is made upon this passage is a just one: when they acknowledge that Mr. Barlow's letter, recommending the taking monarchy out of the constitution of France, had a material connexion with their object, and afterwards explained that object to be that they desire that the subjects should think for themselves on the momentous subject of government" thus to produce an universal practical conviction of one great truth, that without a real representation of the people, frequently renewed, there can be no effectual check to that system of corruption," and so on. put to you to consider, whether this approbation leads to that conclusion; unless you undertand that conclusion to mean a real representation of the people, without a monarchy. You see the question is, whether the construction that is put upon that letter in that way is justly put or no; or whether the whole result of this correspondence means no more than that they thanked him for a book in which the subject of government is largely discussed with a view to the single purpose of inipressing upon the minds of the people the necessity of a reform in the representation in the Commons House of Parliament. There are in the account-books some charges for pub

lishing this letter of Mr. Barlow, and the thanks of this society.

Maclean then produced a paper found upon Adams, which is a letter to Adams from Sheffield, dated the fifteenth of October 1792, signed-" The Editors of the Patriot." It is a very long letter. It complains of no answer having been sent, when they applied to the Constitutional Society before; and it goes into a very long detail of the most proper methods of what they call enlightening the minds of the people. It proposes that reason should be the Generalissimo, but that reason should be seconded by a proper art; and this proper art is explained to be,-finding proper persons in towns, who should go round into the villages, and should there instil into the minds of the people those principles which it was fit should be inculcated upon them. And there is a long detail of the methods by which an ignorant farmer might be influenced-by which a tradesman might be influenced-by which any countryman might be influenced, and might have his mind enlightened. I do not think myself that it is quite necessary to do more than to state so much of the letter, and to remark upon it that, undoubtedly, this sort of industry must have a very considerable effect upon the minds of the people, and must be extremely capable of doing either a great deal of good or a great deal of harm, according to the subject matter of the instructions which those persons were to have instilled into them, in such a course as is pointed out by this editor of the Patriot.

Gentlemen, upon the ninth of November, 1792, at a meeting of the Constitutional Society, Mr. Horne Tooke being present, a letter by way of answer to this editor of the Patriot was agreed upon; this letter was produced by Maclean, who said he found it at Adams's, and it is proved by Mr. Woodfall to have some words in it interlined in Mr. Horne Tooke's hand. There are passages in it which it will be necessary should be read, one in particular on which a great deal of observation has arisen.

"Gentlemen;-The Society for Constitutional Information have been favoured with two letters bearing the signature of the editors of the Patriot. The first of these letters, dated June 11th, related particulars concerning the publication called the Patriot accompanied by some of the first numbers. It required our opinion, and our public approbation of the work, with hints for its continuance. It likewise narrated several interesting particulars, relative to the friends and foes of liberty, their various habits and propensities, and added conjectures on the means by which those habits and propensities might be turned to the advantage of freedom.

The second letter, dated October 15, consisted of a complaint of neglect on the part of our society, a farther statement of facts similar to those contained in the first