Young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

428

If an ariflocracy hath thus its advantages and difadvantages, it is natural to inquire,whether the French nation be likely to eftablifh foinething of a fenate, that {hall havethe advantages without evils. If there ftiould be none, no popular reprefentativeswill ever be brought, with the conlent of their conffituents, to give up a power in theirown poflefflon and enjoyment. It is experience alone, and long experience, that caniatisfy the doubts which every one muft entertain on this fubjeft. What can we know,experimentally, of a government which has not flood the brunt of unfuccefsful and offuccefsful wars ? The Englifh conllitution has flood this tefl, and has been found de-ficient ; or rather, as far as this tell can decide any thing, has been proved worthlefs ;fmce, in a Angle century, it has involved the nation in a debt of fo vail * a magnitude,that every bleiiing which might otherwife have been perpetuated is put to the flake ;1b that if the nation do not make feme change in its conflitution, it is much to bedreaded that the conflitution will ruin the nation. Where practice and experience havefo utterly failed, it would be vain to reafon from theory : and efpecially on a fubjecl onwhich a very able writer has feen his own prediction fo totally erroneous: “ In themonarchical dates of Europe , it is highly improbable that any form of properly equalgovernment fhould be eftablifhed for many ages ; the people, in general, and efpeciallyin France , being proud of their monarchs, even when they are oppreffed by them f.”

In regard to the future confequences of this fingular revolution, as an example toother nations, there can be no doubt but the fpirit which has produced it, will fooneror later fpread throughout Europe , according to the different degrees of illuminationamongfl the common people; and it will prove either milchievous or beneficial, in pro-portion to the previous fleps taken by government. It is unqueflionably the fubjedl ofall others the mofl interefling to every clafs, and even to every individual of a moderndate; the great line of divifion, into which the people divides, is, id, thofe that haveproperty; and, 2 d, others that have none. The events that have taken place in France ,in many refpedls have been fubverdve of property; and have been effected by thelower people, in direfl oppodtion to the nominal legiflature ; yet their conditution be-gan its edablifhment with a much greater degree of regularity, by a forma! ele&ion ofreprefentatives, than there is any probability of feeing in other countries. Revolutionswill there be blown up from riotous mobs —from the military called out to quell them, butrefufing obedience and joining the infurgents. Such a flame, fpreading rapidly througha country, mud prove hodile, and more fatal to property, than any thing that has pre-vailed in France . The probability of fuch events, every one mud allow to be not in-confiderable ; the ruin that mud attend them cannot be doubted ; for they would tendto produce not a National Affembly, and a free conditution, but an univerfal anarchyand confufion. The fird attempt towards a democracy in England would be the com-

or perhaps even feared in every ftate in Europe ?” It is in fuch paffages as thefe, that this elegant writerlays himfelf open to the attacks formidable, becaufe juft, of men who have not an hundredth part of his ta-lents. Who queftions, or can queltion, the power of a prince that i:i lefs than a century has expendedabove ioco millions, and involved his people in.a debt of 240 .! The point in debate is not the exiftence ofpower, but its excefs. What is the conditution that generates or allows of fuch expences ? The verymifchief complained of is here wrought into a merit, and brought in argument to prove that exaggeratedpower is falutary.

* This debt, and our enormous taxation, are the beft anf\$Jj the National Affembly gives to thofe whowould have had the Englifh government, with all its faults on its head, adopted in France ; nor was it with-out reafon faid by a popular writer, that a government, formed like the Englifh, obtains more revenue thanit could do either by diredf defpotifm, or in a full ftate of freedom,f Dr. Prieftley’s Lectures on Hill. 4to. 1788. p. 3. 3 17.

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