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be subject to any restriction, if it be, as some have contended. a natural right? The admission, that only those who pay taxes have a claim to this right, is fatal to the whole hypothesis; it is a tacit acknowledgement, that property is the real basis of the right, and the rights arising from property are not natural but acquired rights. With as much reason might the equal division of property itself be contended for as a natural right, as an equal participation in the rights which property confers. To what does the design of law and government chiefly relate? Is it the mere personal safety of the individual, or is it not rather the protection of his property? Is not the possession of property the characteristic of the social, in contradistinction to the savage state? Does not freedom mainly consist in the right of acquiring property? and if so, must it not follow, that to property, and to its necessary inequalities, those laws which are made for the protection of civil freedom, that is to say, all human laws, which would not be equally laws in the state of Nature,' directly or indirectly relate ?* Property, then, being that which gives us an immediate interest in the laws, must be the ground of any claim to be a party in their enactment. Property is, in fact, that which claims to be represented in the legislature; and so long as property is fairly and equally represented, and those who have no property, are not hindered from lawfully acquiring it, the system of representation appears to be complete. But then, the question-what proportion of property, and under what tenure the possession of it, shall give a claim to suffrage, seeing that it is not a natural personal right, must be referrible to general expedience; the principles of simple equity cannot determine it. If the co-extension of the right of suffrage with taxation, can be satisfactorily vindi cated on this ground, let the subject meet a fair discussion. Did, however, the possession of any quantity or species of property, confer the same rights, did equal claims belong to the humblest and the largest proprietor, then, not the right of suffrage merely, but the right of eligibility would belong alike to all. But the right to be represented, and the eligibility to represent, are justly considered as political rights belonging to very different stations in society, and requiring very different qualifications. It is highly necessary that the man who is intrusted with any share of legislative power, should have a far larger stake in the interests of the country, than the individual who merely claims to have a voice in electing him. If, then, property in different quantities, and under different modifications, is admitted to constitute an equitable claim to different privileges, to determine the minimum of qualification which shall confer the right of suffrage, which is the lowest degree of

See Coleridge's, Friend, Essay vi.

right, must be the province of political wisdom: it is not a question of natural justice, but an arrangement of social law. That every specific portion of property should be actually represented in the shape of a vote, would be as impracticable, as that every individual in the country should be personally a party to the election of some chosen representative. In proportion as property accumulates in the bands of one individual, its value as a source of power and influence, is often progressively increased, but as a source of political rights, the sum of the aggregate has only the virtue of a anit. And if this accumulation of individual weaith does not take place by a sort of absorption of the independence of smaller proprietors, if others are not virtually distrauchised by the concentration of so much property in the hands of one, the representative system remains inviolate. Excessive inequality in the distribution of property, is, however, an evil which no theories of policy can meet, and which it is to be feared, admits of no practical remedy. Its effects will be more or less injurious to the freedom and the moral character of every nation in which it prevails. Our constitution, let it be remembered, was not the parent of our liberties: it was the offspring of freedom, and nothing but the living spirit of freedom can perpetuate it. No scheme of representation can stop the progress of corruption, when once its disorganizing influence has begun to spread. The Commons of England, her merchants, and traders, and yeomen, these are the class by whom our liberties were earned and won; in their strength is the country's strength, and their strength is independence. Should the spirit of party, still more fatal than the influence of the Crown, combining with other causes of national decline, ever prostrate the integrity of the British Commoners, little will remain for Despotism to consummate in the enslavement of our country. Reform has no object, no meaning, but as any devisable scheme may have a probable or possible influence in retarding, by safer means than revolutionary changes, so fatal a crisis. Any measures which should render a seat in that House more accessible to private independent gentlemen, who have not the means of buying others, and are yet above the temptation of selling themselves, and which should contribute, as Bishop Watson says, to the keeping them honest while they sit there,'-any regulations which might serve to render more efficient the present state of our representation, by enforcing on those who are nominally members of the Senate, an attention to the duties they have undertaken to discharge, would demand the warmest support of every constitutional patriot, as the first step, and a safe one, to Political Reform.

We should now return to our Bishop, but there still remain

several points in this singular piece of auto-biography, which we feel loth to dismiss with that brevity which our limits would impose, in attempting to compress them into the present Number. The interesting nature of the work will, we trust, justify our further extending the present Article.

(To be continued.)

Art. III. The Inquisition Unmasked; being an Historical and Phi losophical Account of that Tremendous Tribunal, founded on Authentic Documents; and exhibiting the Necessity of its Suppression, as a Means of Reform and Regeneration. Written and published at a Time when the National Congress of Spain was about to deliberate on this Important Measure. By D. Antonio Puigblanch. Translated from the Author's enlarged Copy, by William Walton, Esq. 2 Vols. 8vo. pp. lxxxvi. 834. With Twelve Plates. Price 11. 10s, London. 1816.

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AN oppressed people unscaling their long abused sight,' asserting their original and unalienable rights, as they recover the knowledge of moral and political truth, which superstition and tyranny have long concealed from them, and attempted to destroy, searching out precedents of virtuous legislation, selecting as their leaders in arduous and heroic enterprise, men of high and undaunted minds, and under their auspices resolving to regenerate their institutions, that they may become the means only of social and universal good, exhibit a spectacle which the genius of the poet, indulging in its best anticipations, delights to depict, and which, as often as it forms a fact in contemporary history, exhilarates the true friend of mankind. When therefore the Cortes, the ancient and constitutional Spanish legislature, whose authority had been long superseded by the encroachments of despotism on popular rights, and whose existence had nearly perished, was revived in the persons of the representatives of the people, who formed the Congress of Spain during the late political agitations of that country, and entered upon the discharge of the legislative functions, it was impossible for the true friend of his species to contemplate their assembling as the great council of the nation, with any other feelings than those which are excited by circumstances of high interest and promise. It was not as the means of putting down a new sovereign, or of enabling a fallen monarch to resume his high office of delegated but abused trust, that the heart could feel interested in the assembling of the States of the kingdom. Such a result simply and exclusively of their measures, could not in the least possible degree be considered as beneficial either to mankind at large, or to the Spanish people in particular. Other changes must, in the anticipation of their being effected, have imparted the hopes and pleasures which were then kindled, and which glowed in the heart of the philanthropist. It could never

surely be, that the mere transfer of names in a government which was still to retain only the degrading and wretched distinctions of despot and slave, should have roused up the spirit and the sounds of rapturous joy, when it was announced that Patriotism in Spain had shaken itself from the dust, and was setting forward on its march. Did British minds rejoice, when Iberian patriots visited their shores, and sought their aid in any other spirit than that which already beheld the opening dungeons and the falling towers of the Inquisition, the release of its victims, and the irrecoverable ruin of its tremendous power? What could interest or delight them, but the enlarging illuminations of knowledge, and the triumphs of freedom? Did their piercing eyes and spirits seek other objects for their delight, than the day-spring from on high visiting the people of a long benighted and enslaved country, and bringing with it the blessings which make human creatures men and Christians? The reception of the "Patriots," and the encouragements which they so abundantly received in England, could have been given, only as they were regarded as the members of a legislative body assembled for the political reformation of the State, and the correction of the ecclesiastical institutions of the country. To view the support of such a cause apart from these considerations, would, as applying to a people glorying in their own freedom, obtained by the exertions and secured by the common wisdom of their fathers, import the utmost derogation of honour, and attach to their name a perpetuity of infamy.

Never were alterations which should take the form of improvements, more necessary in any age or country, than they were in Spain at the commencement of the nineteenth century. The period immediately preceding the Reformation, was scarcely marked in any part of Europe, with darker features of despotism and priestly tyranny. A court more arbitrary, a monarch more imbecile and selfish, and from whose mind all true feeling towards the welfare of human beings was lost, a nobility more degenerate, a people more degraded and oppressed, a form of religion more intolerably corrupt, more inveterately hostile to piety, and subversive of morals, never were included in the population ruled and ruling of any part of the world. A more abject state of political and religious torpor and debasement it would be difficult to exhibit, than is represented in the following passage of the Translator's preface; and he who can look upon the picture without feeling both the weakest and the strongest passions of his nature addressed, must be allowed to possess an unenviable conformation of the moral faculties.

A principle of degeneracy had spread over the general face of public manners; the mass of the nation, immersed in ignorance and superstition, represented the picture of a people, neither knowing their faculties nor their wants.-Unaware of that evident truth, that the

safeguard of a monarch's throne is founded on the love he inspires and the good he has done, the preceding rulers of Spain had erected their power on the ignorance of their subjects, and the degradation of the human mind; and Charles, devoid of sufficient energy or discern. ment to deviate from the footsteps of his ancestors, was seemingly fearful of placing his kingdom on a level with those which had profited by the improvements of the age. Acting in the fullest sense on the principle that sovereignty is of divine institution, and that the people possess no rights, the cultivation of those arts which embellish, ennoble, and preserve human life had been prevented; the enjoyment of those studies which enlarge the faculties, assuage the passions, and soften the manners of a nation, had been proscribed; till at last, absurd prejudices, taught in the schools and preached from the pulpit, had led the mass of the people to believe that civil liberty, instead of a blessing, was a curse; and that to pronounce its name was a crime punishable with the severest anger of heaven.-The retainers of the crown wallowed in riches, their tenants and all the lower orders were depressed by indigence, and debased by a total want of instruction; nor did the scanty produce of their labours seem their own; it served rather to feed the pampered appetites of their lords, or to be absorbed in the monastic burdens of the state. The public revenues, destined for the defence or melioration of the country, were spent in ostentatious magnificence; often wrested from a wretched peasantry, or the shackled and unprotected merchant; they were lavished by the hand of fanatical zeal, or appropriated to support the luxury of men in power. A handful of privileged nobles and favourites were every thing, and the people nothing. Consideration, power, with enjoyments of every kind, fell to the lot of the former, whilst the latter had to endure hardships, contumely, and servile obedience, without being allowed to remonstrate. Neither talents, courage, nor virtue, could fill up the immense distance placed between the only two existing classes of the community.

Religion itself had been made subservient to political purposes and base and selfish interests, or was only known by the increasing profligacy of its ministers. The legislative, executive, and judiciary powers were held by the same hand-the administration of justice confided to venal minions-the judges, under regal or ministerial influence and open to corruption, were no longer the protectors of right and innocence against unfeeling and unprincipled power; whilst a systematic plan of superstition and pious fraud had poisoned all the sources of religious truth and morality, and tainted the general mass of society with licentiousness and vice. The preposterous union of civil with ecclesiastical authority had armed the ministers of the altar with weapons of vengeance, and empowered them to enforce their precepts by appealing to a penal code the most monstrous and cruel that was ever invented. In brief, bent down by a long series of tyrannic acts, even at the beginning of the present century, Spaniards appeared as a herd of cattle, formed only to comply with the caprices of their masters, and to supply their wants,'

That such a state of political inequalities and wretchedness should have been disturbed, can be regretted by those only to