be imposed is no more than every honest artisan, who works industriously for his family, must, during the whole course of his life, impose on himself. The condition of a convict would, in some respects, be superior, inasmuch as he would have medical assistance, and other advantages tending to the preservation of health, which do not attach to the lowest classes of the people." I will not coincide with all this, but I go near to assert that, had Mr. Bruce, in Abyssinia, or had Mr. Park, in Africa, discovered a people in the same situation with those of whom Mr. Colquhoun speaks, I will do the English the justice to believe they would instantly open subscriptions, and enterprise an expedition to their relief: yes, even to the source of the Nile.

I have found it impossible in this sketch, to avoid several seeming inconsistencies. The English system is perhaps the most intricate labyrinth in which any people ever found themselves involved. Man is the creature of the government under which he lives from that he takes his disposition, his carriage, his sentiments, his vices and virtues. If the government be complicated, the motives, from which the people act, will often appear extraordinary, while in reality, they may be founded in secret reason, or absolute necessity. I have told you the English are exceedingly humane and charita

ble, yet the poor fare worse than their horses. I have observed, that the merchants are nobly dispositioned, yet their commercial spirit obliges them to become hard and oppressive. They would be among the first to support the cause of liberty at home; so they would be among the first to support the cause of slavery abroad. Their natural dispositions are good, they are villains from principle. I have, in former letters, more than once observed, that the English populace discovered frequent marks of a free people, while at the same moment, you are ready to pronounce them slaves. No one can comprehend the cause of these inconsistencies, unless he takes an extensive view of the various operation of the English system, which distorts the subject into more shapes, than the imagination can figure in the clouds of evening.

Would to God, I might be heard across the At lantic! I would proclaim to my fellow citizens their proud preeminence in the ranks of civil society. I would shew them the constitution of England, fair

The English claim the merit of being the most generous and humane people in the world. Their public and private history certainly discover them under very different aspects. If one knew nothing of this people except from their public history, he would suppose every Englishman walked the streets with a club on his shoulder. The truth is, John Bull has a foible; you must appeal to his humanity, if you wish to soften him, otherwise, he will often resist the soundest reason. Many of our own people are strongly prejudiced against the English. This originated in the American Revolution, but it was not the English character that was detestable, it was the English system.

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in theory, as the divine forms of Plato; in operation on the great mass of subjects, as different from the constitution of the United States, as the condition of the English peasant is different from that of the Green Mountain farmer. I would impress on them the futility of a government, which affects liberty on the hereditary principle, which reduces the people to beggary, and, like the crocodile, devours its own offspring. I would conjure them by retrospective happiness and future prospect, to cherish that constitution which produces men, which is more powerful than despotism in restraining the worst, and all efficient in exciting the best, tendencies of man. I would say to the citizens of the United States, be constant to yourselves, you have nothing to fear from your constitution-But your constitution has every thing to fear from you.

Adieu.

LETTER XXXVII.

LONDON, AUGUST 22d.

ERSKINE, Gibbs, and Garrow, are the three most powerful speakers in the courts of law.

The person of Erskine is slender, his height not exceeding the common size, his complexion sallow, his hair dark, his face oval, and a little emaciated, the lower part of his forehead prominent, yet gradually retreating, his eyebrows full, a little perplexed, seated near his eyes, which are hazel, open and conciliatory, his nose, narrow between the eyes, yet perfectly congenial, neither too large nor too small, his mouth gently closed, seeming ready to await the dictates of his tongue, yet not large enough to give his eloquence its just tone, his lips thin, meeting in union, and when irritated, rather inclining to retreat, than project, his chin, gently re-. treating, which, in conjunction with his forehead, bespeaks the man firm, yet modest, positive, yet ingenuous.

His countenance, when in a state of repose, is prepossessing, but when he speaks, his gestures are rhetoric; his looks, persuasion; his voice, elo

quence in the glow of animation, commanding, but in the moment of passion, when self convinced, he is pure intelligence: disdaining every by-road to conviction, he strips the cause of all its surrounding circumstances, places it on its own position, true to nature, paints it visibly to the eye, and buries in oblivion every interfering particular. Both judge and jury are prostrate in chains. It is the contention of principle, no matter whose, or what the interest, if heaven were concerned, it is still the contention of principle. Of all causes which could arise, the present seems to involve the deepest consequences there is no distinction now between the great and the little, every thing but the point in question is forgotten; Erskine and his cause are sovereign over all. Now flows the fountain of justice, now are explored the recesses of iniquity, now are the deep foundations of fraud broken up. His eloquence becomes a torrent which sweeps away every mound which art or subterfuge had raised : no longer has the law a single hard feature; no perplexities, no uncertainties, no idle evasions! Saturnian Jove descends with his equal scales, cunning retires in shame, oppression lets go its victim, and innocence is seated on the throne of equity. At length, Erskine himself, by degrees is forgotten, and forgets himself; he rises to an effort not his own,