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ed rays of light, which, concentrated by more able minds, may produce efficient heat.

The connections of every intellect under novel combinations, are rays of reason, purified and proved by the collision of many minds. The press unbounded and absolutely free, is the divine force, which by communication with moral Nature, extended over the whole globe, would concentrate those rays with such abundance, that when applied to error, they would so instantaneously volatilize it, that not an atom would remain, and human happiness would reign without an enemy to combat.

This glorious attempt to establish the only form of constitution, which reason presents, and virtue adopts, requires that every citizen must consent, by deputy or in person, to the laws which bind him in society, aud can be procured or supported only by the great powers of the mind, called reflection, and the great virtues of the heart, probity and sympathy.

Do ye, that is, the majority of your nation, possess these? I have lived much among you, to partake of your animal pleasures, but my intellectual existence could find no associate, and became irksome. I saw a lamentable absence of these perfections-I found your minds possessed of all that knowledge could give, retentive and full memories, inventive imaginations, good judgments, fruitful in works of ingenuity, and having produced "the System of Nature," the greatest effort of human wisdom, to destroy error: but alas! I found not the divine pow. er, that soul of intellect, reflection; that power that leaves the intellect of Newton at as great a distance, as he has left instinct; that gives to man the only knowledge worth acquiring, the knowledge of himself; and that alone should, or can be called wisdom. The mind that possesses this, must possess probity, and must convey to the heart that sympathy, which identifies it with Nature, and regenerates it to intellectual existence, happiness and immortality.

The melancholy proofs, that you want the virtues of

probity and sympathy, are to be discovered in the association of Nature, domestic society. Here the demon of envy rages, and all characters of merit, or objects of success, are constantly the subjects of discourse, to become the butts of calumny and hatred; and this in so peculiar a manner, that is become a characteristic of the nation. The want of every species of confidence is an ample and conclusive proof of the absence of those virtues that give worth and dignity to human nature. Political confidence had never an existence; and civil, which must have that for its basis, was unkown, as is evinced by an absolute incapacity to form commercial associations, and by suffering other nations possessing confidence, England and Holland, to carry on your proper and natural commerce, and even the insurance of the national maritime commerce, carried on by rich individuals.

At this important crisis of the happiest revolution in form and means, that annals or history records; the whole body of the nation, completely and satisfactorily represented and concentrated, pledging their private and public faith to fulfil the engagements of the nation; was there a grain of confidence in the people, surely it would come forth at so glorious a period, when the salvation of their liberties calls for the immediate aid of that virtue, and adds the allurement of immense gain to the incitement of public honor and safety. But alas! the shouts of triumphant liberty are deadened by the multiplied murmurs of suspicion, selfish love, and in the delirium of emancipated slavery, confidence is not to be found.

Alas! I tremble for the destiny of the expectant, impatient and attentive world, lest the lustre of your political revolution should, like an ignis fatuus, draw other 'nations to the precipice of emancipation; for who, that knows human nature, would instantly unshackle the African slaves, without preparing their minds to receive freedom, lest the disorder of anarchy might let loose mankind in the delirium of licentiousness, to destroy one another?

I fear that liberty has, with rapid strides, out-run virtue in this country; and if that is the case, it will be the demon of licentiousness broke loose from the chains of arbitrary coercion, wielding the sword of anarchy with blind zeal and vindictive fury, till exhausted with the. violence of its own struggles, it sheaths the sword, and, in a fit of despair, bows its head to the galling, though) less destructive yoke of despotism.

I still hope, however, that there is virtue enough in, France, to suppress licentiousness, natural and in the present moment even necessary, to aid the weakness of virtue, by overawing vice in this country; where confidence had long been unknown, it was impossible to have established liberty upon a constitution. The people have done wisely to take the government into their own hands, and had they placed a confidence in any form, they would certainly have been betrayed. O Frenchmen! pursue this mode, till education and custom, aided by the revolution, shall introduce a system of virtue and confidence; then, and then only can you repose in representatives; and though you may lose in power and energy, you will be amply recompensed in the gain of liberty.

Emancipate yourselves from the slavery of women; separate the corporeal from the intellectual pleasure, and esteem a woman as a man for moral worth only, and know, that virtue is placed in the mind, and not in the ignoble parts of the body, formed only for sensual pleasure. An opposite opinion is the effect of folly and vanity; which passion, the dreg of humanity, woman plays upon to dupe mankind to adopt her vice and weakness. Promote assiduously the good education of woman, and bring her to her natural equality in intellect with man, that she may claim her equality in society, and then only will she become a worthy member, and assent to the great moral truth, that virtue is placed in the mind. But while man keeps her in ignorance and subjection, she will oppose such an axiom as deprives her of all worth and consequence. What a dreadful reflection for the interests of humanity! The tyranny of

man depriving woman of dignity and virtue, while Nature has given her powers to subjugate her tyrant, and force his wisdom to be controlled by her folly, which is the cause of the greatest part of the misery of the whole human race.

Government in a country bordering upon powerful empires, where foreign policy, population and commerce are so active as in France, must have energy, or it would fall a prey to the more concentrated powers of neighboring states. This, liberty would furnish, in a most efficacious manner; but then it must be founded in virtue, and the preponderating mass or majority of the people must possess, Wisdom, Probity and Sympathy, the essence of all private and public Virtue.

Hasten then, O Frenchmen! to accelerate the progress of these virtues, the cause of all sound happiness, and the true substance of all government. Send over your youth to the island of truth and virtue, England-let them there receive their education to an adult age-encourage English preceptors to transfer themselves to your country to educate, by instruction and example, the youths in all the colleges and universities of France; and thus, to the physical blessings of your own country, adding the moral blessings of your neighbors, you may furnish an example of human perfection, to be a model to all rising and reforming nations upon the globe.

Be cautious in your choice; the strong and violent passions of an Englishman, when they triumph over a very powerful reason, produce such monsters, that they would bring among you all the evils of ignorance and vice, that afflict and disgrace humanity. In the same country are to be found bigots, enemies to reason; bloods and boxers, enemies to humanity; sharpers and gamesters, enemies to honesty; and public orators, under the mask of patriotism, enemies to society. Select those great characters alone deserving the name of men, the integrity and sympathy of whose minds forms a preponderating mass in the aggregate of society; and who, while they secure the social union amid the most dread

ful concussions of vice, give it an efficacy to procure domestic peace, and an avowed superiority over all other nations of the globe.

When I contemplate the REVOLUTION of this country, I am appalled with my reflections, and seem to regret the absence of the monster despotism. I think I see the moral world convulsed and swallowed up in the dreadful chasm and abyss of anarchy. The moral hemisphere, surrounded with the darkness of civil and religious error, presents a desolating scene-priests running about with the blazing torch of superstition, causing dreadful conflagrations, and with alternate fire and darkness dazzle and confound the intellectual eye, and precipitate the followers into the dreadful chasm! The moral earthquake has opened. Mock patriots, led by the fury of ambition to profit by these troubles, augment the incension, and precipitate those whom the enthusiastic fury of the priests had spared.

The liberty of the press, whose sparks the despot trampled upon and extinguished, now shines; to its light I turn my eyes to receive some comfort, while I turn my back on the above calamitous scene. But alas! the darkness in which the despot had educated the subjects, makes them mistake the meteor for the star, and the friends of despotism profit by their ignorance and the liberty of the press, to augment it.

O Frenchmen! listen to the counsels of a child of Nature, whose universal sympathy attracts you as near to him, as his social or parental connections. Since you have leaped to the pinnacle of absolute liberty, which should be approximated only by the aid of the ladder of wisdom and virtue, you must either conjure those qualities to your immediate support, or descend from the pinnacle to meet them.

Virtue demands much time and improved education to spread into habit, which gives birth to confidence, a quality, without which no nation can rise on the pinnacle of absolute liberty, or perfect democracy.

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