rable confolation, doubtlefs, it must have been for a Chriftian," to be not only allowed, but compelled, to take refuge in the bofom of paganifm! A comfortable retreat, to be fure, for a proteftant, who abhorred popery as the vileft of proffitutions, to have an afylum provided for him in the house of one whom he loathed as the mother of harlots! The National Affembly have renounced all partial protection and exclufive privileges in favour of the Catholic religion; and have granted the rights of citizenship to perfons of every religion without diftinction. Mr. Burke, it seems, would have had them relinquish this fuperiority in favour of one religion only, that they might transfer and confine it to another ;-and this is his idea of a large and a liberal toleration!

We

As to a teft, if, as we fuppofe, the civic oath be intended, that amounts to no more than a folemn engagement, on the part of an individual, that he will not raise any private cabals, form any separate plots, nor enter into any fecret machinations, intrigues, and confpiracies, to difturb the peace or refift the will of the majority;-and in all this, we not only fee nothing with which any man may not comply, without complaining of a teft, or talking of any impofition on his confcience, but we fee nothing with which every man is not bound to comply, by the obligations of moral duty, whether he does, or does not, take the oath. In the civic oath, we can fee no more than an oath which binds a man to do his duty, as a member of society, toward his neighbour; and how can this be confidered as a hardship, or called a teft? The cafe of this oath has been much misreprefented, or much misunderstood, by Mr. Burke and others; and fo has another point of a fimilar nature. mean the regulation which declares, that future legislatures shall not alter the conftitution, and that it fhall remain without change, or revifion, for a certain number of years. Mr. B. in page 21, fpeaks of this as if it prevented all future improvements: whereas it prevents no improvement, nor even alteration. It does not preclude even a total change and utter fubversion of the new conftitution; nay, it does not prohibit a return to their old defpotifm to morrow, if the people chute. The fact is this: Though it be neceffary that a legislative body fhould conftantly exift, and be chofen, from time to time, for carrying on the ordinary bufinefs, and for providing for the fucceffive exigences of the fociety; and though, for this purpofe, it be requifite to invest that body with very high powers; yet there are fome powers, which the people wifely think are too great to be delegated, even to that body which they have made fupreme: fuch, for inftance, is the power of determining the degree of authority with which the legislature executive, and

judicial,

judicial, and other great public bodies, fhall be invested; and of prefcribing the mode in which that authority fhall be exereifed; in other words, the power of making, or new-modelling, a conftitution. The French nation fay, that their ordinary reprefentatives fhall not only have no power to change the conftitution of their own accord, without the confent of the people, but that they fhall not even, till the expiration of a certain period of years, propofe any alteration to the people for their approbation. This does not prevent the people themfelves from altering their form of government. It does not exclude change or improvement. It only declares that fuch change fhall not originate from the ordinary legiflative body. It is no more than a declaration, on the part of the people, that they at prefent cordially approve of the new conftitution; and that fucceeding legislatures are to conclude, that these fentiments of popular approbation continue invariably the fame, until the period for revifion arrives; unless the people themselves fhall exprefsly declare the contrary. Here there is nothing that binds the prefent conftitution on the nation, in oppofition to its own will and inclination, even for a day; much less is there any thing, as Mr. Burke and fome others pretend, to bind it on pofterity for ever.

. Many more of Mr. Burke's frong affertions' appear to us entirely deftitute of proof, and fome of them deftitute of confiftency. How does he prove that the French, far from peace and good-will to men, meditate war against all other go vernments? So far, indeed, as the French government poffelles any fuperior excellence, it may be faid to make war on whatever is corrupt and unfound in other governments. Truth and purity are always carrying on a fecret warfare againft error and corruption but if the French regulations are bad and mifchievous, as Mr. Burke contends, the confequences that refult from them will deter other nations from copying the example, and will derive ftrength and fecurity to all that is good in other governments. As to any French emiffaries being exprefsly fent into other nations, to fow the feeds of fedition, it is an idea only fit for ridicule. The French are too bufy with their own great and preffing affairs, to meddle with thofe of their neighbours. Befide, the very circumftance of a man's being a foreigner, is, on many accounts, a great drawback on his qualifications for a confpirator. The government which profcribes all foreign knife-grinders, hawkers, and pedlars, cannot fail to excite a fmile at its pufillanimous terrors, arifing from the conscioufnefs of its own internal weakness and injuf

See the Spanish proclamation.

tice :: but to make a Brutus or a Caffius, one that may lead 303 the world a madding, and overthrow the ftable kingdoms of the earth, of an itinerant French tinker he that can do this, let him never be deterred by any thing fo fimple as a proverb, from attempting to "make a filk purfe of a fow's ear."

We faid, that fome of Mr. Burke's ftrong affertions' were deftitute of confiftency; and we know not how he could reconcile it, that the French reformers fhould be fochildish and futile, fo grossly and fo ftupidly abiurd,' and yet, at the fame time, that their plots and machinations fhould be fo artfully contrived, fo deeply laid, and fo infinuatingly mischievous, as to endanger the very existence of the very beft of governments,' by infufing a fpirit of difcontent among the people, even when one would fuppofe they were rendered proof againft fuch wicked fchemes, by the practical enjoyment of all human happinefs.'

6

Mr. Burke's publications have, in a manner, made groundlefs affertions and inconfiftencies familiar to us. no longer need to fay, paffez moi cela. He has now We are, as it were,

habituated to fuch forgiveness :-but how fhall we forgive the ftrong, the very strong aflertion, that those who continue to countenance the French infanity, are not mistaken politicians, but bad men?'-Oh! party-zeal! for what haft thou not to anfwer! Thou that warpeft the hearts of good men (fuch we. have ever been used to esteem Mr. Burke,) to think thus hardly of their fellows, for a mere variety in opinion!

་

In pursuance of his vindication, Mr. Burke inquires: whether he had a right, on general principles, to prove his allegations refpecting the French Revolution, in a parliamentary dif cuffion: whether the debate on the Quebec bill was a proper feafon for fo doing;'- and whether the opinions contained in his book, and which he had begun to expatiate on, that day, were in contradiction to his former principles, and inconfiftent with the tenor of his conduct.'-On each of thefe topics, Mr. Burke throws out many defultory obfervations. We were not a little furprized to hear him preface the last head of inquiry, by faying: He believes, (if he could venture to value himfelf upon any thing,) it is on the virtue of confiftency that he would value himself the most. Strip him of this, and you leave him naked indeed!'

In order to prove his confiftency, Mr. B. tells us, that in his whole political life he has never been actuated by any than one uniform wifh-that of preferving entire every part of other the British conftitution. In his defire to do this, he has fometimes ftood forward in defence of one part of the government, fometimes of another: one while he was the advocate of the

democratic

democratic branch, and now again of the monarchical; defending each as he deemed each to be in danger:-but, if his zeal for the particular branch whofe caufe he was pleading, made him overlook, and feemingly neglect, that which he formerly defended, it is extremely unfair, to infer that he thought lefs highly than before, of the part which he now paffed over in filence, only because he conceived that, at prefent, it required not his fupport. To charge him with inconfiftency on this account, he contends, is the height of injustice.

This vindication may be admitted in favour of the man who, while defending one part of the conftitution, is barely filent, respecting another part: but it will not justify him in cenfuring, and in condemning as detective, a part which he once extolled as excellent; nor will it uphold him in building his defence, at one time, on general principles, propofitions, and doctrines, which are utterly incompatible with those principles, on which he proceeds at another time. Now Mr. Burke, in his former publications, has advanced principles of general politics, which it would puzzle the wit of man to reconcile with the doctrines on which he grounds the reafoning in his later works. That this has been the cafe, needs no other proof than the reception which thefe general principles, delivered at different times, have found from different parties. Formerly, his principles were cordially embraced by the Whigs, and as cordially abhorred by the Tories. Latterly, it has been just the reverse. It is not enough to fay that the Whigs have changed, If Mr. B. has continued the fame, the Tories must have changed alfo. Whether the right hon. gentleman has uniformly maintained the fame fentiments in his heart, is another point-best known to himself. Certainly, his declarations, if he will literally abide by them, have not been uniform:-but perhaps, he never intended that his general pofitions, on either fide, fhould be conftrued literally, nor taken in their full extent;he never intended to adopt them in the abstract as univerfal and independent truths, but merely to borrow their aid in fupport of the particular object in which he might happen to be engaged. This, at leaft, feems to have been the cafe with his "grand fwelling fentiments of liberty," which he appears to have used only as auxiliaries to his rhetoric, a fort of mercenaries, to be difbanded as foon as the warfare, for which they were hired, fhould be ended; and not the native troops on whom he would chufe to rely in every conteft, as having at all times a common intereft with himself.

I allow, as I ought to do, for the effufions which come from a general zeal for liberty. This is to be indulged, and even to be encouraged, as long as the question is general. An orator, above all

men,

men, ought to be allowed the full and free ufe of the praise of liberty. A common place in favour of flavery and tyranny delivered to a popular affembly, would indeed be a bold defiance to all the principles of rhetoric. But in a queftion whether any particular conftitution is or is not a plan of rational liberty, this kind of rhetorical flourish in favour of freedom in general, is furely a little out of its place.'

If Mr. Burke has failed in proving his own confiftency, he has not been more fuccefsful in maintaining that the new Whigs, as he calls them, have departed from the principles of the old. Mr. Paine's book is not, in every inftance, a fair fpecimen of the tenets of the modern Whigs; neither do the fpeeches of the managers at Sacheverel's trial contain a proper fample of the Whig principles of thofe times. Befide, Mr. Burke, we think, has fometimes rather overftrained thefe fpeeches, and drawn inferences, and put conftructions on their meaning, which the words themselves do not always warrant. He fhould alfo have recollected, that thefe Whigs were in adminiftration, and that it might be therefore expected that the complexion of their language fhould be tinged and " ficklied o'er with the pale caft" of their fituation *. The profecution alfo being carried on against Tory principles, there was no fear that the nature of it could be miftaken; and therefore the managers might be lefs fcrupulous in felecting their expreffions; because the nature of the trial would clear up all ambiguities, and fhew that the language was always to be conftrued in a Whig, and not in a Tory, fenfe, as Mr. Burke would interpret it. It fhould alfo have been remembered that Sacheverel's impeachment was not carried on,' as Mr. B. fays, for the exprefs purpose of stating the true grounds and principles of the Revolution:' but for the purpose of fupporting the intereft and ftrengthening the power of the crown, as fettled by the Revolution.

If the Whigs of the prefent day carry their doctrines fomewhat farther than those of former times, this ought not to be confidered as a departure from the principles of their predeceffors, but rather as an improvement and extenfion of them. The Tories of modern times are much more liberal than those of former reigns; and why are not the Whigs to participate in the growing liberality of the age? while all other knowlege is progreffive, muft the knowlege of civil liberty and government alone stand still? If the modern Whigs did not extend and advance the knowlege tranfmitted to them by their predeceffors, as those predeceffors did that which was tranfmitted to them

"It has been faid, that Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place." Bofwell's Life of Johnson, vol. i. p. 65.

REV. Nov. 1791.

Y

felves,