exchange his cachot*, with the reverfion of the guillotine into the bargain, for the darkeft cell in that very Baftile, the deftruction of which he has fo triumphantly and heroically fung? His fate is a good hint to those who change countries every time they crofs the fea. A man of all countries is a man of no country and let all thofe citizens of the world remember, that he who has been a bad fubject in his own country, though from fome latent motive he may be well received in another, will never be either trufted or refpected.

The Doctor and his fellow-labourers, who have Iately emigrated to Botany Bay, have been continually crying out, "A reform of Parliament." The fame vifionary delufion feems to have pervaded all reformers in all ages. They do not confider what can be done, but what they think ought to be done. They have no calculating principle to direct them to difcover whether a reform will coft them more than it is worth, or not. They do not fit down to count the coft; but the object being, as they think, defirable, the means are totally difregarded. If the firft of French reformers had counted the cost, I do. not believe they were villains or idiots enough to have pursued their plan as they did. To fave a tenth part of their income, they have given the whole, or rather it has been taken from them. To preferve the life of a perfon now and then unjustly condemned, they have drenched the country with the blood of the innocent. Even the Baftile, that terrible monument of tyranny, which has been painted in fuch frightful colours, contained but two ftate prifoners, when it was forced by the mob; and the reformers, to deliver thefe two prifoners, and to guard others from a like fate, have erected baftiles in every town and in every fireet. Before the revolution, there

Paine was in prifon when this was written.

were

were only two state prifoners; there are now above two hundred thousand. Do thefe people calculate? Certainly not. They will not take man as they find him, and govern him upon principles eftablished by experience; they will have him to be "a faultlefs monfter that the world ne'er faw," and with to govern him according to a fyftem that never was, and never can be, brought into practice.

Thefe waking dreams would be of no more confequence than those of the night, were they not generally pursued with an unjustifiable degree of obftinacy and intrigue, and even villany; and did they not, being always adapted to flatter and inflame the lower orders of the people, often baffle every effort of legal power. Thus it happened in England, in the reign of Charles the First; and thus has it happened in France. Some trifling innovation always paves the way to the fubverfion of a government.The axe in the foreft humbly befought a little piece of wood to make it a handle: the foreft, confifting of so many stately trees, could not, without manifeft cruelty, refufe the "humble" requeft; but the handle once granted, the before contemptible tool began to lay about it with fo much violence, that in a little time not a tree, nor even fhrub, was left ftanding. That a parliamentary reform was the handle by which the English revolutionists intended to effect the deftruction of the conftitution, needs not be infifted on; at leaft, if we believe their own repeated declarations. Paine and fome others clearly expreffed themselves on this head: the Doctor was more cautious while in England, but, fafely arrived in his "afylum," he has been a little more undifguifed he fays, the troubles in Europe are the natural offspring of the "forms of government" that exift there; and that the abufes fpring from the "artificial diftinétions in fociety."-I muft ftop here a moment, to remark on the impudence of this affer

I

tion.

tion. Is it not notorious that changing thofe forms of government, and deftroying thofe diftinctions in fociety, has introduced all the troubles in Europe? Had the form of government in France continued what it had been for twelve or thirteen hundred years, would those troubles ever have had an existence? To hazard an affertion like this, a man must be an idiot, or he must think his readers fo.

It was then the form of the English Government, and thofe artificial diftinctions; that is to fay, of King, Prince, Bishop, &c. that he wanted to deftroy, in order to produce that "other fyftem of li.

berty," which he had been fo long dreaming about. In his answer to the address of " the repub"lican natives of Great Britain and Ireland, refi"dent at New-York," he fays, "the wifdom and

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happiness of republican Governments, and the "evils refulting from hereditary monarchical ones, "cannot appear in a ftronger light to you, than "they do to me ;" and yet this fame man pretended an inviolable attachment to the hereditary monarchical Government of Great Britain! Says he, by way of vindicating the principles of his club to the people of Birmingham," the firft toaft that was drunk was, "the King and Conftitution." What! does he make a merit in England of having toasted that which he abominates in America? Alas! philosophers are but

mere men.

It is clear that a parliamentary reform was not the object an after-game was intended, which the vigilance of Government, and the natural good fense of the people, happily prevented; and the Doctor, difappointed and chagrined, is come here to difcharge his heart of the venom it has been long collecting against his country. He tells the Democratic Society that he cannot promise to be a better fubject of this Government, than he has been of that of Great Britain. Let us hope that he intends us an agreeable

agreeable difappointment; if not, the fooner he emigrates back again, the better.

Syftem-mongers are an unreasonable fpecies of mortals time, place, climate, nature itself, muft give way. They must have the fame government in every quarter of the globe; when perhaps there are not two countries which can poffibly admit of the fame form of government at the fame time. A thousand hidden causes, a thousand circumfiances and unforeseen events, confpire to the forming of a Government. It is always done by little and little. When completed, it prefents nothing like a fytem; nothing like a thing compofed, and written in a book. It is curious to hear people cite the American Government as the fummit of human perfection, while they decry the English; when it is abfolutely nothing more than the Government which the Kings of England eftablished here, with fuch little modi fications as were neceffary on account of the fiate of fociety and local circumftances*. If, then, the Doctor is come here for a change of government and laws, he is the most difappointed of mortals. He will have the mortification to find in his " afylum" the fame laws as thofe from which he has fled, the fame upright manner of adminiftering them, the fame punishment of the oppreffor, and the fame protection of the oppreffed. In the Courts of Juftice he will every day fee precedents quoted from the English law-books; and (which to him may appear wonderful) we may venture to predict, that it will be very long before they will be fupplanted by the bloody records of the revolutionary tribunal.— Let him compare the Governments of thefe States,

*The common law is the fame in both countries. For a comparison between the laws refpecting the liberty of the prefs, fee the Democratic Judge.

and

and the measures they have purfued, with what has paffed under the boafted conftitution that he wished to introduce into England, and fee if he can find one fingle inftance of the most diftant resemblance. In the abolition of negro flavery, for example, the Governments of the United States have not rushed headlong into the mad plan of the National Convention. With much more humane views, with a much more fincere defire of seeing all mankind free and happy, they have, in fpite of clubs and focieties, proceeded with caution and juftice. In fhort, they have adopted as nearly as poffible, confidering circumftances and fituation, the fame meafures as have been taken by the Government which he abhors. He will have the further mortification to find, that the Government here is not, any more than in England, influenced by the vociferations of fifh-women, or by the toasts and refolutions of popular focieties. He will, however, have one confolation: here as well as there, he will find that the truly great, virtuous, and incorruptible man at the head of Government, is branded for an Aristocrat by thofe noisy gentry.

Happiness being the end of all good government, that which produces the moft is confequently the beft; and comparifon being the only method of determining the relative value of things, it is easy to fee which is preferable, the tyranny which the French formerly enjoyed, or the liberty and equality they at prefent labour under. If the Doctor had come about a year fooner, he might have had the fatisfaction of being not only an ear, but an eye witnefs alfo, of fome of the bleffed effects of this celebrated revolution. He might then have been regaled with that fight, fo delectable to a modern philofopher; opulence reduced to mifery.

* I here fpeak of the Federal Government only. The State Governments differ as widely in their fyftems as in their conduct.