And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and 'your olive-yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your 'vineyards, and give to his officers and his servants.

And he will take your men-servants, and your maid'servants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, ' and put them to his work.

And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and you shall be his servants,

And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your King, ' which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not 'hear you on that day.'

"Now, my Lords, what can we think of this man Samuel? Is there a word of truth, or any thing like truth, in all that he has said? He pretended to be a prophet, or a wise man, but has not the event proved him to be a fool, or an incendiary? Look around, my Lords, and see if any thing has happened that he pretended to foretel? Has not the most profound peace reigned throughout the world ever since Kings were in fashion? Are not, for example, the present Kings of Europe the most peaceable of mankind, and the Empress of Russia the very milk of human kindness? It would not be worth having Kings, my Lords, if it were not that they never go to war.

"If we look at home, my Lords, do we not see the same things here as are seen every where else? Are our young men taken to be horsemen, or foot soldiers, any more than in Germany or in Prussia, or in Hanover or in Hesse? Are not our sailors as safe at land as at sea? Are they ever dragged from their homes, like oxen to the slaughter-house, to serve on board ships of war? When they return from the perils of a long voyage with the merchandize of distant countries, does not every man sit down under his own vine and his own fig-tree, in perfect security? Is the tenth of our seed taken by tax-gatherers, or is any part of it given to the King's servants? In short, is not every thing as free from taxes as the light of Heaven?

"Ah! my Lords, do we not see the blessed effect of having Kings in every thing we look at? Is not the G. R. or the broad R. stamped upon every thing? Even the shoes, the gloves, and the hats that we wear, are enriched with the impression, and all our candles blaze a burnt-offering.

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Besides these blessings, my Lords, that cover us from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, do we not see

a race of youths growing up to be Kings, who are the very paragons of virtue? There is not one of them, my Lords, but might be trusted with untold gold, as safely as the other. Are they not more sober, more intelligent, more solid, more steady,' and withal, more learned, more wise, more every thing, than any youths we ever had the fortune to see? Ah! my Lords, they are a hopeful family!

"The blessed prospect of succession, which the Nation has at this moment before its eyes, is a most undeniable proof of the excellence of our Constitution, and of the blessed hereditary system; for nothing, my Lords, but a Constitution founded on the truest and purest wisdom, could admit such heaven-born and heaven-taught characters into the Government.-Permit me now, my Lords, to recal your attention to the libellous chapter I have just read about Kings. I mention this, my Lords, because it is my intention to move for a bill to be brought into the Parliament to expunge that chapter from the Bible; and that the Lord Chancellor, with the assistance of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, be requested to write a chapter in the room of it; and that Mr. Burke do see that it be truly canonical, and faithfully inserted."—

FINIS.

If the Clerk of the Court of King's Bench should choose to be the orator of this luminous encomium on the Constitution, I hope he will get it well by heart before he attempts to deliver it, and not have to apologize to Parliament, as he did in the case of Bolingbroke's encomium, for forgetting his lesson, and with this admonition I leave him.

Having thus informed the Addressers of what passed at the meeting of Parliament, I return to take up the subject at the part where I broke off, in order to introduce the preceding speeches.

I was then stating, that the first policy of the Government party was silence, and the next, clamorous contempt; but as people generally choose to read and judge for themselves, the work still went on, and the affectation of contempt, like the silence that preceded it, passed for nothing.

Thus foiled in their second scheme, their evil genius, like a will-with-a-wisp, led them to a third; when all at once, as if it had been unfolded to them by a fortune-teller, or Mr. Dundas had discovered it by second sight, this once harmless, insignificant book, without undergoing the alteration of a single letter, became a most wicked and dangerous Libel. The whole Cabinet, like a ship's crew, became alarmed; all

hands were piped upon deck, as if a conspiracy of elements was forming around them, and out came the Proclamation and the Prosecution, and Addresses supplied the place of prayers.

Ye silly swains, thought I to myself, why do you torment yourselves thus? The RIGHTS OF MAN is a book calmly and rationally written; why then are you so disturbed? Did you see how little, or how suspicious such conduct makes you appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty, would hush you into prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments, contained in that work, are placed before the eyes of the Nation, and of the world, in a fair, open, and manly manner, and nothing more is necessary than to refute them. Do this, and the whole is done; but if ye cannot, so neither can ye suppress the reading, nor convict the Author, for that Law, in the opinion of all good men, would convict itself, that should condemn what cannot be refuted.

Having now shewn the Addressers the several stages of the business, prior to their being called upon, like Cæsar in the Tyber, crying to Cassius, " Help, Cassius, or I sink!" I next come to remark on the policy of the Government in promoting Addresses; on the consequences naturally resulting therefrom, and on the conduct of the persons concerned. With respect to the policy, it evidently carries with it every mark and feature of disguised fear. And it will hereafter be placed in the history of extraordinary things, that a pamphlet should be produced by an individual, unconnected with any sect or party, and not seeking to make any, and almost a stranger in the land, that should completely frighten a whole Government, and that in the midst of its most triumphant security. Such a circumstance cannot fail to prove, that either the pamphlet has irresistible powers, or the Government very extraordinary defects, or both. The Nation exhibits no signs of fear at the RIGHTS OF MAN; why then should the Government, unless the interest of the two are really opposite to each other, and the secret is beginning to be known? That there are two distinct classes of men in the Nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon the taxes, is evident at first sight; and when taxation is carried to excess, it cannot fail to disunite those two, and something of this kind is now beginning to appear.

It is also curious to observe, amidst all the fume and bustle about Proclamations and Addresses, kept up by a few noisy and interested men, how little the mass of the Nation seem to

care about either. They appear to me, by the indifference they shew, not to believe a word that the Proclamation contains; and as to the Addresses, they travel to London with the silence of a funeral, and having announced their arrival in the Gazette, are deposited with the ashes of their predecessors, and Mr. Dundas writes their hic jacet.

One of the best effects which the Proclamation, and its echo the Addresses have had, has been that of exciting and spreading curiosity; and it requires only a single reflection to discover, that the object of all curiosity is knowledge. When the mass of the Nation saw that Placemen, Pensioners, and Borough-mongers, were the persons that stood forward to promote Addresses, it could not fail to create suspicions that the public good was not their object; that the character of the books, or writings, to which such persons obscurely alluded, not daring to mention them, was directly contrary to what they described them to be, and that it was necessary that every man, for his own satisfaction, should exercise his proper right, and read and judge for himself.

But how will the persons who have been induced to read the RIGHTS OF MAN, by the clamour that has been raised against it, be surprised to find, that instead of a wicked, inflammatory work; instead of a licentious and profligate performance, it abounds with principles of Government that are incontrovertible-with arguments which every reader will feel are unanswerable-with plans for the increase of commerce and manufactures-for the extinction of war-for the education of the children of the poor-for the comfortable support of the aged and decayed persons of both sexes-for the relief of the army and navy; and, in short, for the promotion of every thing that can benefit the moral, civil, and political condition of Man.

Why, then, some calm observer will ask, why is the work prosecuted, if these be the goodly matters it contains? I will tell thee, friend,-it contains, also, a plan for the reduction of Taxes, for lessening the immense expences of Government, for abolishing Sinecure Places and Pensions; and it proposes applying the redundant taxes that shall be saved by these reforms, to the purposes mentioned in the former paragraph, instead of applying them to the support of idle and profligate Placemen and Pensioners.

Is it, then, any wonder that Placemen and Pensioners, and the whole train of Court expectants, should become the promoters of Addresses, Proclamations, and Prosecutions? Or is it any wonder that Corporations and rotten Boroughs,

which are attacked and exposed, both in the First and Second Part of RIGHTS OF MAN, as unjust monopolies and public nuisances, should join in the cavalcade? Yet these are the sources from which Addresses have sprung. Had not such persons come forward to oppose the RIGHTS OF MAN, I should have doubted the efficacy of my own writings; but those opposers have now proved to me, that the blow was well directed, and they have done it justice by confessing the smart.

The principal deception in this business of Addresses has been, that the promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They have assumed to pass themselves upon the Public as a part of the Public, bearing a share of the burthen of Taxes, and acting for the public good; whereas, they are in general that part of it that adds to the public burthen, by living on the produce of the public taxes. They are to the public, what the locusts are to the tree the burthen would be less, and the prosperity would be greater, if they were shaken off.

"I do not come here," said ONSLOW, at the Surrey County meeting," as Lord Lieutenant and Custus Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as a plain country gentleman." The fact is, that he came there as what he was, and as no other, and, consequently, he came as one of the beings I have been describing. If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by the public, as a pauper is by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the title; and the same description will suit the Duke of Richmond, who led the Address at the Sussex meeting.-He also may set up for a gentleman.

As to the meeting in the next adjoining county, (Kent) it was a scene of disgrace. About two houndred persons met, when a small part of them drew privately away from the rest, and voted an Address; the consequence of which was, that they got together by the ears, and produced a riot, in the very act of producing an Address to prevent Riots.

That the Proclamation and the Addresses have failed of their intended effect, may be collected from the silence which the Government party itself observes. The number of Addresses has been weekly retailed in the Gazette; but the number of Addressers has been concealed. Several of the Addresses have been voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a considerable number of them by not more than thirty. The whole number of Addresses presented at the time of writing this letter, is three hundred and