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rifice, which would be rather an insult than adoration of that holy shrine.

Having exposed the [negative] extreme and lowest degree upon the scale of happiness, of a nation possessing the most elevated rank on that of grandeur, I shall in conclusion, open to it the consoling PROSPECTS of futurity.

The political thunderbolt that shook down the pyramid of civil government of France to its foundation, was the accumulated weight of public debt: this storm is gathering fast in this island. The government of this country stands on the broad basis of a truncated pyramid, which will resist equally the shock of policy and the hand of repair; and should the corroding damp of luxury not destroy the cement of integrity, sympathy and wisdom, in the base or people, it may receive the violence of the shock, and be happily subverted by changing its base. This was not the case in France, the pyramid placed on its point fell from a great height, and having no constituent cement in the great body of the people, it was reduced to such a dust as will require the education of a century to prepare the cement of unity under any form.*

If the aristocracy of England had as much wisdom as they have ambition, they would not only prepare conductors of reform, as the storm of public debt lowers, and the taxes, (vivid flasues of the lightning of individual misery,) indicate the dreadful momentum of the falling thunderbolt; but they would extend the basis of the

•Observation of much Importance.

Insolvent debtors have been declared by the National Assembly of France, unworthy of the rights of citizens; while the same characters have had the audacity to solicit, and the nation' of England the baseness to appoint them to the office of senators and chief magistrates. Luxury and debauchery are rapidly introducing into this country, a base indifference towards the moral characters of candidates for public offices; a certain prognostic of the decline and fall of all constituted governments.

fabric of government, by reforming and extending the representation of the people, which would so far resist the shock, that the mass, by being well incorporated, would not be demolished but removed only by the most violent impulse, to a more happy and secure position.

The mode of organization of society is to the nation what the economy of the passions is to the individual; the only means to procure well-being or happiness, and for a nation to be well constituted, every native must partake of its government; this may debilitate the arm of attack, but in the same ratio it invigorates the arm of defence. In proportion as the circle of government extends itself, luxury, vice, ambition and all the evils of despotism are contracted; and the mind losing all ferocity and martial vigor, in the progress of society to such a state of perfection, may render such happy people exposed to the inroads of neighboring corrupted kingdoms, or savage hordes. This would be the case but that the glorious and moral effulgence which radiates from their happiness, will not fail to enlighten and civilize the surrounding nations, and dart its auspicious and congenial rays to the utmost extent of the globe.

O England! NATURE thus calls upon you to accomplish her labors and ends, and procure happiness to all her creatures.

"O my favorite and long cherished isle! I have placed thee on the globe in a position, separated from its inhabitants, and fortified by the seas; I have bestowed on thee fertility of soil, and a congenial temperate climate; I have most partially endowed thy inhabitants with the greatest powers of mind, and the best virtues of the heart. Thou shalt be the fountain of light, the source of happiness, and the glorious instrument I have chosen, for procuring to my works, that moral perfection for which I constantly labor. The liberty of the press forms that holy source; guard it, O Britons! from its most dangerous enemies, despotism and error; let not their unhallowed violence profane the sanctity of its temple; it is the high priest of the God I adore-TRUTH.

It is the aurora that precedes the moral sun, which shall enlighten the dark hemisphere of ignorance and error; that has already operated in the Western hemisphere, to form several nations of free citizens; that has destroyed the despotism of a formidable empire in the Eastern hemisphere, and erected the state of liberty on its ruins. I now conjure you, in the name of liberty and truth, to open the glorious source, the press, and correct your own errors, by the means by which you have demolished those of other nations. Let not the merit of the pupil make the tutor blush at a comparative view of excellence. America has amply and gratefully recognized my gift of liberty, by the veneration of the liberty of the press above all nations, and I should transfer my tutelage and partiality for this isle to that continent, but for that moral and physical unity arising from the love of truth and exercise of thought, which assures, in an essential and singular manner, the perpituity of the English empire.

"Since, then, I have favored you with these inestimable advantages, transfer your hopes and labors for power and riches, to peace and happiness. To effect this, the absolute liberty of the press, on all speculative subjects, is necessary to call your superior intellectual powers into exercise, to oppose the enormous strength of your passions; nor do I think that private character should be privileged. Calumny, with all its treachery, would then be transferred to public reproach; virtue would have nothing to fear, and vice would, at least, have a fair trial. This would prepare, by the light of reason, such unanimity of sentiment in the unity of truth, that all adopted political reforms would be a gradual and tranquil extension of the base of government, by an universal representation.* This would, in the same propor

*This operation of reason through the channel of a free press, would offer an antidote to the baneful effects of luxury and conquest, which threaten to destroy that valuable and characteristic moral cement, which will still hold society together, whatever change of position the mass may take from the concussions of policy.

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tion, extend happiness to every individual, and the nation will arrive at that glorious eminence, which I have predestined to it before all others; and with the emanation of light from its press, and the more converting example of its virtue, they will first establish domestically, and then universally, the empire of happiness, or State of Enlightened NATURE."

[As the author, in his list of nations, has not mentioned SCOTLAND, he probably intended to include it in the preceding account of England.]

[To palliate the severity of the following strictures on IRELAND, it may be promised that such redeeming spirits as SWIFT, E. FITZGERALD, ORR, EMMET, CURRAN, GRATTAN, T. WOLFE TONE, MONTGOMERY, Maturin, MARIA EDGEWORTH, THOMAS MOORE, SHIEL and O'CONNELL, show the high degree of intellectual and moral elevation, of which the IRISH character is susceptible, and which it may eventually attain, if liberated from the oppressive and withering despotism, of the author's boasted England. In the conclusion of this work, he explains:-"I have censured most, those nations whose individuals I most love, and with whom I most live; I mean the Irish and the French, whose urbanity, facility, joyous and liberal characters are as pleasing," &c.]

IRELAND.

THOUGH this country is united under the same sove reign, governed by the same constitution, laws, customs and education, [? as Great Britain,] yet the individuals differ so much in moral character, that the paradoxical axiom of Pope,

"For forms of government let fools contest,

"That which is best administered is best,"

is solved and explained by the extreme and unparalleled misery of this people.

The mind of the native of this island is so peculiarly devoid of its anticipative and reflective power, that it has not prospective capacity to the short period of a sentence, to explain an idea with perspicuity and correctness; and hence arise those blunders of speech, termed bulls in their discourse; hence also arises that want of intellect, sympathy and probity, the constituent parts of virtue, displayed by the national character of effrontery, which removes all fear to offend, and all apprehension of disgrace, from too familiar deportment and thoughtless loquacity; testified also by the aptitude to enter into foreign service, and put to death their fellowcreatures to obtain a livelihood less honorable in the eye of unprejudiced reason than the profession of a highwayman; hence their indifference to murder, and propensity, nay even pleasure in the contest of blood, by frequent duels, that sometime ago were said to be a pastime in a Dublin coffee-house, and even now in those of Galway; hence the droves of fortune-hunters, sharpers, gamesters and malefactors with which that country inundates its neighbors; hence that character of falsehood that is be come a proverb, and an Irish evidence is synonomous with perjury.

From this sum of individual corruption the aggregate of society or government is formed, and it proves by an

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