sume that all these consumables were produced by, and purchased from, other British subjects. Now during the building of these new towns for a thousand inhabitants each in every county, or the distribution of the hundred pound bank notes to the two thousand poor families, were the industrious ship-builders, clothiers, charcoal-burners, gunpowder-makers, gunsmiths, cutlers, cannonfounders, tailors, and shoemakers, to be left unemployed and starving;-or our brave soldiers and sailors to have remained without food and raiment ? And where is the proof, that these ten millions, which, observe, all remain in the kingdom, do not circulate as beneficially in the one way as they would in the other? Which is better? To give money to the idle, houses to those who do not ask for them, and towns to counties which have already perhaps too many, or to afford opportunity to the industrious to earn their bread, and to the enterprising to better their circumstances, and perhaps to found new families of independent proprietors? The only mode, not absolutely absurd, of considering the subject, would be, not by the calculation of the money expended, but of the labor of which the money is a symbol. But then the question would be removed altogether from the expedition for assuredly, neither the armies were raised, nor the fleets built or manned for the sake of conquering the Isle of Walcheren, nor would a single regiment have been disbanded, nor a single sloop paid off, though the Isle of Walcheren had never existed. The whole dispute, therefore, resolves itself into this one question whether our soldiers and sailors would not be better employed in making canals for instance, or cultivating waste lands, than in fighting or learning to fight; and the tradesman, in making gray coats instead of red or blue-and ploughshares instead of arms. When I reflect on the state of China and the moral character of the Chinese, I dare not positively affirm that it would be better. When the fifteen millions, which form our present population, shall have attained to the same general purity of morals and shall be capable of being governed by the same admirable discipline, as the society of the Friends, I doubt not that we should be all Quakers in this as in the other points of their moral doctrine. But were this transfer of employment desirable, is it practicable at present,-is it in our power? These men know, that it is not. What then does all their reasoning amount to? Nonsense.

ESSAY VIII.

I have not intentionally either hidden or disguised the truth, like an advocate ashamed of his client, or a bribed accomptant who falsifies the quotient to make the bankrupt's ledgers square with the creditor's inventory. My conscience forbids the use of falsehood and the arts of concealment: and were it otherwise, yet I am persuaded, that a system which has produced and protected so great prosperity, can not stand in need of them. If therefore honesty and the knowledge of the whole truth be the things you aim at, you will find my principles suited to your ends and as I like not the democratic forms, so am I not fond of any others above the rest. That a succession of wise and godly men may be secured to the nation in the highest power, is that to which I have directed your attention in this essay, which if you will read, perhaps you may see the error of those principles which have led you into errors of practice. I wrote it purposely for the use of the multitude of well-meaning people, that are tempted in these times to usurp authority and meddle with government before they have any call from duty or tolerable understanding of its principles. I never intended it for learned men versed in politics; but for such as will be practitioners before they have been students.

BAXTER'S Holy Commonwealth, or Political Aphorisms.

THE metaphysical, or as I have proposed to call them, metapolitical reasoning hitherto discussed, belong to government in the abstract. But there is a second class of reasoners who argue for a change in our government from former usage, and from statutes still in force, or which have been repealed,— these writers affirm-either through a corrupt influence; or to ward off temporary hazard or inconvenience. This class, which is rendered illustrious by the names of many intelligent and virtuous patriots, are advocates for reform in the literal sense of the word. They wish to bring back the government of Great Britain to a certain form, which they affirm it to have once possessed; and would melt the bullion anew in order to recast it in the original mould.

The answer to all arguments of this nature is obvious, and to my understanding appears decisive. These reformers assume

the character of legislators or of advisers of the legislature, not that of law judges or of appellants to courts of law. Sundry statutes concerning the rights of electors, we will suppose,—still exist; so likewise do sundry statutes on other subjects,—on witchcraft for instance*-which change of circumstances have rendered obsolete, or increased information shown to be absurd. It is evident, therefore, that the expediency of the regulations prescribed by them, and their suitableness to the existing circumstances of the kingdom, must first be proved; and on this proof must be rested all rational claims for the enforcement of the statutes that have not, no less than for the re-enacting of those that have, been repealed. If the authority of the men who first enacted the laws in question, is to weigh with us, it must be on the presumption that they were wise men. But the wisdom of legislation consists in the adaptation of laws to circumstances. If then it can be proved, that the circumstances, under which those laws were enacted, no longer exist; and that other circumstances altogether different, and in some instances opposite, have taken their place; we have the best grounds for supposing, that if the men were now alive, they would not pass the same statutes. In other words, the spirit of the statute interpreted by the intention of the legislator would annul the letter of it. It is not indeed impossible, that by a rare felicity of accident the same law may apply to two sets of circumstances. But surely the presumption is, that regulations well adapted for the manners, the social distinctions, and the state of property, of opinion, and of external relations of England in the reign of Alfred, or even in that of Edward I., will not be well suited to Great Britain at the close of the reign of George III. For instance at the time when the greater part of the cottagers and inferior farmers were in a state of villenage, when Sussex alone contained seven thousand, and the Isle of Wight twelve hundred, families of bondsmen, it was the law of the land that every freeman should vote in the assembly of the nation personally or by his representative. An act of Parliament in the year 1660 confirmed what a concurrence of causes had previously effected :every Englishman is now born free, the laws of the land are the birthright of every native, and with the exception of a few * Repealed now; but many other equally obsolete acts remain on the statute book, as illustrations of the principle in the text.-Ed.

Now,

honorary privileges all classes obey the same laws.* argues one of our political writers, it being made the constitution of the land by our Saxon ancestors, that every freeman should have a vote, and all Englishmen being now born free, therefore, by the constitution of the land, every Englishman has now a right to a vote. How shall we reply to this without breach of that respect, to which the reasoner at least, if not the reasoning, is entitled? If it be the definition of a pun, that it is the confusion of two different meanings under the same or some similar sound, we might almost characterize this argument as being grounded on a grave pun. Our ancestors established the right of voting in a particular class of men, forming at that time the middle rank of society, and known to be all of them, or almost all, legal proprietors—and these were then called the freemen of England therefore they established it in the lowest classes of society, in those who possess no property, because these two are now called by the same name! Under a similar pretext, grounded on the same precious logic, a Mameluke Bey extorted a large contribution from the Egyptian Jews : “These books, the Pentateuch, are authentic?" Yes!" "Well, the debt then is acknowledged :—and now the receipt, or the money, or your heads! The Jews borrowed a large treasure from the Egyptians; but you are the Jews, and on you, therefore, I call for the re-payment." Besides, if a law is to be interpreted by the known intention of its makers, the Parliament in 1660, which declared all natives of England freemen, but neither altered nor meant thereby to alter the limitations of the right of election, did to all intents and purposes except that right from the common privileges of Englishmen, as Englishmen.

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A moment's reflection may convince us, that every single statute is made under the knowledge of all the other laws, with which it is meant to co-exist, and by which its action is to be

*

*

*

*The reference is to the abolition of the military tenures at the Restoration. "For at length the military tenures, with all their heavy appendages (having during the usurpation been discontinued) were destroyed at one blow by the statute 12 Car. II. c. 24, which enacts that all sorts of tenures, held by the king or others, be turned into free and common socage; save only tenures in frank-almoign, &c. A statute, which was a greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even magna charta itself." Blackst. Comm. II. c. 5.-Ed.

K*

modified and determined. In the legislative as in the religious code the text must not be taken without the context. Now, I think, we may safely leave it to the reformers themselves to make choice between the civil and political privileges of Englishmen at present, considered as one sum total, and those of our ancestors in any former period of our history, considered as another, on the old principle, take one and leave the other; but whichever you take, take it all or none." Laws seldom become obsolete as long as they are both useful and practicable; but should there be an exception in any given law, there is no other way of reviv ing its validity but by convincing the existing legislature of its undiminished practicability and expedience; which in all essential points is the same as the recommending of a new law. And this leads me to the third class of the advocates of reform, those, namely, whó leaving ancient statutes to lawyers and historians, and universal principles with the demonstrable deductions from them to the schools of logic, mathematics, theology, and ethics, rest all their measures, which they wish to see adopted, wholly on their expediency. Consequently, they must hold themselves prepared to give such proof, as the nature of comparative expediency admits, and to bring forward such evidence, as experience and the logic of probability can supply, that the plans which they recommend for adoption, are ;-first, practicable; secondly, suited to the existing circumstances; and lastly, necessary or at least requisite, and such as will enable the government to accomplish more perfectly the ends for which it was instituted. These are the three indispensable conditions of all prudent change, the credentials, with which wisdom never fails to furnish her public envoys. Whoever brings forward a measure that combines this threefold excellence, whether in the cabinet, the senate, or by means of the press, merits emphatically the title of a patriotic statesman. Neither are they without a fair claim to respectful attention as state-counsellors, who fully aware of these conditions, and with a due sense of the difficulty of fulfilling them, employ their time and talents in making the attempt. An imperfect plan is not necessarily a useless plan and in a complex enigma the greatest ingenuity is not always shown by him who first gives the complete solution. The dwarf sees farther than the giant, when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on.

:

Thus, as perspicuously as I could, I have exposed the erro