We will inform you. If our blood be exhaust ed by those with whom we wish to join in fellowship, Liberty will be banished from Europe, perhaps from the World, for ever. If we succeed, You will be free; for as it is for the Rights of Man that we contend, if you are Men, our vic tory will be your own-Speak now-Do you still wish to contend with us? Answer us, Must we treat you as Enemies, or shall we receive you as Friends. SIR, Having met with the following morsels in the course of my late readings, and conceiving their republication might not be improper at this Time, I have sent them for that purpose. Yours, An old Friend to the People. I AM convinced that our Constitution is alrea dy gone, and we are idly struggling to maintain what in truth has been long lost, like some fools, with Gout and Palsies at eighty years of age drinking the Bath Waters in hopes of Health again. -In short, the whole Nation is so abandoned and corrupted, that the Crown can never fail of a majority in both houses of Parliament, it makes them all in one House, and he chuses above half in the other. Four and twenty Bishops and sixteen Scots Peers is a terrible weight in one; forty five from one Country, besides the West of England, and all the Goverment Boroughs is a dreadful number in the other. Were His Majesty inclined tomorrow, to declare his Body Coach man man his first minister, it would do as well, and the wheels of Goverment would move as easily, as they do with the sagacious driver who sets on the box: parts and abilities are not in the least wanting to conduct affairs, the Coachman knows how to feed his cattle, and the other feeds the beasts in his service, and this is all the skill that is necessary in either case. Are not these sufficient difficulties and discouragements if there were no others, and would any inan struggle against corruption, when he knows that if he is ever near defeating it, those who make use of it, only double the dose, and carry all their points further and with a higher hand then perhaps they at first intended.* Letter from the late Lord Bathurst, to Mr. Pope. Nothing is so dangerous to society, nor ought to be so strictly guarded against, as unrestrained power delegated to any individual or particular body Men. It is a just observation of Montesquieu, "that whoever posseses power is, from his nature, inclined to abuse it. "The history of all nations fully illustrates this position, and particularly that of the nations of Europe; of the exces ses and crimes of the Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch in South America; and lately even, in our own times, of the English in India: It is needless to mention the enormities of the Star Chamber under Charles 1st. and High Commission of the usurpation under the Parliament, and under Cromwell; the same violence and cruelty pollute and vilify our species, and prove that law and terror *This letter was written mary years ago, before it had been voted by Parliament that the influence of the Crown was increafing and ought to be diminfhed-What would his Lordships fentiments have been had he lived in these days? terror are as necessary restraints on Princes and Bodies of Men, as locks, bars, and irons on the felons in Newgate. Moral and Political Memoirs, Page 157 One of the strongest symptoms of the decline of a state, and of the ascendant of selfishness, is the excessive rewards given not only to treachery, apostacy, and servility, but even to real public services. Before an almost general corrup tion has infected the Community, merit and talents are flattered, and even elated with the most inconsiderable acknowledgements; a crown of olive, of laurel, the thanks of the People: but in a less pure and generous period of manners and sentiments. Pensions and Revenues, &c. are impudently expected and claimed for merely having held an office, without either ability, integrity, or National esteem. Ibid. Afketch of the most memorable Events in the His- TRA RADITION yields us no certain information respecting this Island, previous to its invasion by Julius Cæsar. At that time the People, who were very numerous, were almost in a state of Nature, living in the open air, or in rudely built thatched huts; their chief employment being that of tending large herds of cattle. The skins of beasts thrown loosely round them formed their cloathing, such parts of their bodies as were left uncovered being ornamented by painting or stain ing with the juice of certain plants. Their long hair flowing down their backs, and their beards, which were permitted to grow on their upper-lips contributed, with their cloathing, to give them an appearance truly savage and ferocious. Courage, blended with that species of weakness which is accompanied by excessive credulity, and which renders men the easy and passive dupes of designing villains, characterized the manners and actions of our fore-fathers. Their priests, the Druids, by the severity of their manners, and by the mysteriousness of their religious rites, had obtained so complete an ascendancy over them, as to be permitted, without exciting either murmur or resistance, to make very numerous sacrifices of their miserable dovotees. Julius Cæsar, kindly, no doubt, intending to introduce among these savages the numerous blessings of civlization; but most certainly not without some design of gratifying, at the same time, that lust of power and dominion which has been the first spring of action of almost every Monarch we read of, landed some legions of his disciplined murderers; and after cutting the throats of some thousands of the unfortunate Inhabitants, he honored the remainder by admitting them among the tributaries of Rome. Not thoroughly convinc'd of the blessings which flow from being Governed by a Foreigner; nor entirely satisfied with the Foreign Troops which were introduced among them, many efforts were made by the Britons to regain their independence; of these, the one most deserving of record is that of the illustrious Boadicea Queen of Prasatagus, King of the Iceni. This King hoping to obtain peace to his family and to his subjects, bequeathed (for (for Kings had already began to consider their subjects as transferable property) one half of his Kingdom to the Roman Emperor, and the other half to his daughters but the Roman procurator, modelty conceiving this legacy not to be suffici ently ample for the Emperor, his master, took possession of the whole. Boadicea ventured to remonstrate, but the au. gust representative of Cæar considering that such unpardonable presumption demanded exemplary punishment, ordered the widow Queen to be scourged in the manner of a Roman slave," and took on himself the trouble of violating the chastity of her daughters. Boadicea not being sufficiently civilized to bear tamely such injuries at the hands of the Tyrant, placed herself, with her daughters at the head of 200000 Men, and gave battle to the Romans. These, better skilled in the art of murder than the Britons, obtained a difficult, but a decisive victory; whilst Boadicea either dreading the tender mercies of her Conqueror; or unable to bear the reflection of having been the innocent cause of 150000 brave men perishing in the field of blood, put an end to her life by poison. Near four hundred years the Roman Tyrants kept the mastery of this Island, during which time the flower of the British Youth was wasted on the Continent, in fighting the Wars of those Tyrants who wished to sacrifice the liberties of Mankind on the reeking altar of MONARCHY, and to muster a world of slaves under the dominion of a band of Tyrants. Mankind, now deprived almost of all their liberties, made the discovery that the World was not made for Cæsar; they, therefore, shook off those |