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ence, and not a connected and commanding fuperiority over them, one party had long fince crushed to pieces the other as would have lately been done even by the greatnefs of its own ruin. For though the object held out to inflame the paffions of the middle claffes, and the madness of the multitude, was apparently the overthrow of ariftocracy-in reality the object was to establish those leaders of rebellion, into a complete aristocracy: which they would have done even under a republic. Both, however, are defpotifms.

It may not be amifs to lay before uninformed perfons fome fhort inftruction on this point of ariftocracies and republics. All ARISTOCRACIES are defpotifms, except in name: and are worse than any fingle defpotifm, because every individual of an ariftocracy is a tyrant. In a defpotifm there may be an horrible and blood-thirsty Nero today; but to-morrow there may be a Vefpafian, whose "POWER is but an opportunity of doing good"-(Pliny): But in an ariftocracy it is not one heart, nor one head-nor one blow that defeats the monfter: it is many headed; and one grows up as the other is cut off. Hence the people, in order to escape numerous calamities, uniformly caft themfelves into the arms of a fingle defpot: it was the cafe in Denmark.

But in REPUBLICS it is even worse; for there the monfter has ftill more heads to devour the fubjects. And the people under republican governments are not politically but PERSONALLY enflaved: it was the cafe in Poland. The PEOPLE are not only enslaved, but enervated and corrupted by debauchery, to make them willing but bafe facrifices to TYRANNY: it was the cafe in Venice.

So likewife in modern republics, the people are held faft, and furnished with fenfuality, as pigs in a filthy fiye, who wallow before flaughter.

But

But if it be faid there MAY BE exceptions to this tyranny of republics-we demand where are they, throughout the range of time and place fince the creation, from the most diminutive to the greatest-from that of Lucca or St. Marino in Italy, or from that one in Switzerland, which contained about 1500 fubjects, to Rome herself, the blustering mistress of the world. Men unfortunately take words for things. The word republic excites and bears with it the idea of freedom; but examine the thing, and it is a compound of all the elements of tyranny. If example be proof, look to the proud boast and glory of republics, to the models which all imitate, but none have equalled: and what did the refinement of a Grecian, or the folidity of a Roman republic produce? A feries of tyranny and horror that difgrace the character of human nature, and which no other fpecies of defpotifin but republican defpotifm can parallel. It was a republic that brought forth the monfter who wished his people to have but one neck, that he might deftroy them all at one blow. In republics the PEOPLE have, in name, general political freedom, but in reality they are no part in it. And as to thofe men, who are already exalted by nature, to greatness, and the rare rank of talents, what do they seek in republics, but dangers proportionate to their success? Let the Roman Agricola, counsel them if they be virtuous ; let the chiefs of the French republic who have fallen by the dagger and the axe; let Condorcet, the miferable victim of hunger and poifon, warn them if they be otherwise.

What man then fo weak, or politician fo wicked toward human nature, as to stand up for ARISTOCRACY or RÉPUBLICANISM, which are governments calculated but to curse mankind? Bondage and oppreffion, flave and tyrant, can alone be counteracted in a monarchy, where there is eagle against eagle, and lion against lion. By vigilance against vigilance, and power against power, there arifes a wife mixture of modes, which corrects and balances their authority;

they cannot be separately exerted for evil, but may jointly for good. But that they should be jointly exerted for evil is a confederacy hardly poffible: for it were a joint madness for separate suicide. It were a triumph for mourning.

There may, however, be a bedlam of a system; for fuch is that of Ireland, not only politically confidered, but commercially and civilly. With refpe&t to the civil ftate, a remedy has been propofed, by forming establishments for the education of the lower orders. This, we fear, is erroneous, and hope it may not prove dangerous. Ameliorate the condition of the people, and inftruction will follow: whereas if their condition be not ameliorated, and their minds be enlightened, what enfues? They will then study those inflammatory papers which they have been defired by the United Irishmen to hang up in their cabins; and will reflect on, and be roused by fuch aggravated descriptions of oppreffion, as might make a wife man mad. Whereas, let Union open to them the fources of national wealth, and individual happiness will follow. Riches also promote public. virtue, which promote private happiness; but riches, which oppose the public happiness of a people, oppose private virtue.

The fource of riches inftrumental to national virtue is agriculture and the arts. The quantity neceffary to individual happiness, is that fufficiency arifing from the daily ap plication of eight or ten hours to procure comfortable dwellings, warm clothing, and wholesome food for themselves and families and where the quantity of circulating cash is not, through deficiency or excefs, contrary to the enjoyment and preservation of their state of profperity.

Riches oppose the private virtue of a people, where there is excess of opulence and excess of mifery; for it condemns one part of a nation to idleness, another to indigence, and both to misfortunes and vice. The people thus lose all energy, their minds become depraved through their civil state,

and

and are brutalized by ignorance. Ignorance prepares them as victims for error, and error darkens and confules whatever is good or evil for them. Ignorance firft renders them infenfible to advantages proposed, error next makes them abhor them, and perpetuates their misfortunes. But begin to remedy those misfortunes by changing their state, and the people will no longer through ignorance or error be in ftruments of civil death; but their force become a fource of inexhaustible happiness, if then directed by reason.

Whereas to begin inftruction before civil abjection be removed, is, if not dangerous, we conceive erroneous. Render the people happy, and that instruction which suits their station and capacities, will naturally follow. The man must be wholly ignorant of the progrefs of the human mind, who knows not the relations between public and private inftruction and public opulence. Writers will inform him, that where the hiftory of knowledge and science began, there arose the monuments of this truth. The first germs of fcience, natural, moral and political, developed themselves in the rich Monarchies of Egypt and Affyria. In the history of the Phoenicians, we find that this commercial people became the depofitaries of the knowledge of the Eaft, after having been the depofitary of its productions. The hiftory of Greece, and the Grecian Colonies in Italy, fhews that they were the feats of commerce when they became the feats of learning. And if we pass to Rome, we shall find that the country of Fabricius had rifen from its ancient poverty to hold up the great examples of a Cicero, an Horace, and a Virgil. If we return to the Eaft, during a period nearer to our own times, we fhall find that the rapid progress of knowledge under the Caliphs was in the moment that its commerce fecured it a great portion of the riches of Afia, Europe, and Africa. To the Arabs we owe chymistry and medicine, and these remedies more falusary and mild than those transmitted to us by Hippocrates

OR

or Galen. To them we owe too algebra, and the immor- · tality of Newton: who, infpired by their firft geometric measurement of the earth, fcaled the heavens, lived amidst its ftars, and fent down to us the laws of their revolutions, and his own immortality.

Since the beginning of time KNOWLEDGE has kept pace with wealth, extended with industry, and flourished with commerce. Such has been its progress since creation over the globe: it has thus pervaded Europe; always abandoning the poor or impoverished, and uniformly abiding and flourishing with the nations which are rich.

This is the evidence of history and example: what fays reafon?

The cultivation of the mind fuppofes a moral elevation, but there can be no such elevation where there is moral abjection; or, in other words, there can be no general improvement of mind or manners where there is not happiness and civil independence. Where there is poverty there will be ignorance; where there is ignorance there will be error; and where there are poverty, ignorance, and error, there will eternally be misfortunes and vice. Make the people happy, and it is easy to make them virtuous and wife; let the great be virtuous, and they will be both wife and happy.

But what is the picture prefented to us in Mr. Johnson's admirable lettter on the propofed Union-(p. 5, London edition)" The hiftory of this country, as long as its annals can be traced, furnishes no other fpectacle than fuch as humanity must deplore, and philofophy regret."-He then draws, with a vigorous pen, a view of the different claffes in Ireland and adds-" All the national evils, which might be fuppofed to flow from fuch conditions, overspread a feemingly devoted land."Let us now caft our eye on a fimilar state of Scotland before the Union. “I think I fee,” said Lord Belhaven on the Union, in the true spirit of oppreffion," the peerage of Scotland divefted of their

followers