nefs in human nature, which will caufe innumerable broils, place men in what fituation you pleafe; but owning this, I fill infift in charging it to political regulations, that thefe broils are fo frequent, fo cruel, and attended with confequences fo deplorable. In a ftate of nature, it had been impofiible to find a number of men, fufficient for fuch flaughters, agreed in the fame bloody purpofe; or allowing that they might have come to fuch an agreement, (an impoffible fuppofition) yet the means that. fimple nature has fupplied them with, are by no means adequate to fuch an end; many fcratches, many bruifes undoubtedly would be received upon all hands; but only a few, a very few deaths. Society, and politics, which have given us thefe deftructive views, have given us alfo the means of fatisfying them. From the earliest dawnings of policy to this day, the invention of men has been fharpening and improving the myftery of murder, from the firft rude effays of clubs and ftones, to the prefent perfection of gunnery, cannoneering, bombarding, mining, and all the fe fpecies of artificial, learned, and refined cruelty, in which we are now fo expert, and which make a principal part of what politicians have taught us to believe is our principal glory.

How far mere nature would have carried us, we may judge by the example of thofe animals, who ftill follow her laws, and even of thofe to whom the has given difpofitions more fierce, and arms more terrible than ever fhe intended we fhould ufe. It is an inconteftible truth, that there is more havock made in one year by men, of men, than has been made by all the lions, tygers, panthers, ounces, leopards, hyenas, rhinocerofes, elephants, bears, and wolves, upon their feveral fpecies, fince the beginning of the world; though thefe agree ill enough with each other, and have a much greater proportion of rage and fury in their compofition than we have. But with respect to you, ye legislators, ye civilizers of mankind! ye

Orpheufes, Mofefes, Minofes, Solons, Thefeufes, Lycurgufes, Numas! with refpect to you be it spoken, your regulations have done more mifchief in cold blood, than all the rage of the fierceft animals in their greatest terrors, or furies, has ever done, or ever could do!--Vindication of Natural Society.

SOCIETIES (POPULAR.)

Remarks on the Conftitutional and Revolution Societies, I certainly have the honour to belong to more clubs than one, in which the conftitution of this kingdom, and the principles of the glorious revolution are held in high reverence: and I reckon myfelf among the most forward in my zeal for maintaining that conftitution and thofe principles in the utmoft purity and vigour. It is becaufe I do fo, that I think it neceffary for me, that there fhould be no mistake. Thofe who cultivate the memory of our revolution, and those who are attached to the conftitution of this kingdom, will take good care how they are involved with perfons who, under the pretext of zeal towards the revolution and conftitution, too frequently wander from their true principles; and are ready, on every occafion, to depart from the firm, but cautious and deliberate fpirit which produced the one, and which prefides in the other. Before I proceed to answer the more material particulars in your letter, I fhall beg leave to give you such information as I have been able to obtain of the two clubs which have thought proper, as bodies, to interfere in the concerns of France; firft affuring you, that I am not, and that I have never been, a member of either of thofe focieties.

The first, calling itself the Conftitutional Society, or Society for Conftitutional Information, or by fome fuch title, is, I believe, of feven or eight years ftanding. The inftitution of this fociety appears to be of a charitable, and fo far of a laudable, nature: it was intended for the circulation, at the expence of the

members, of many books, which few others would be at the expence of buying; and which might lie on the hands of the bookfellers, to the great lofs of an ufeful body of men. Whether the books fo charitably circulated, were ever as charitably read, is more than I know. Poffibly feveral of them have been exported to France; and, like goods not in requeft here, may with you have found a market. I have heard much talk of the lights to be drawn from books that are fent from hence. What im. provements they have had in their paffage (as it is faid fome liquors are meliorated by croffing the fea) I cannot tell: but I never heard a man of common judgment, or the leaft degree of information, fpeak a word in praife of the greater part of the publications circulated by that fociety; nor have their proceedings been accounted, except by fome of themfélves, as of any ferious confequence.

Your national affembly feems to entertain much the fame opinion that I do of this poor charitable club. As a nation, you referved the whole ftock of your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution Society; when their fellows in the Conftitutional were, in equity, entitled to fome fhare. Since you have felected the Revolution Society as the great object of your national thanks and praises, you will think me excufeable in making its late conduct the fubject of my obfervations. The national affembly of France has given importance to thefe gentlemen by adopting them; and they return the favour, by acting as a committee in England for extending the principles of the national aflembly. Henceforward we muft confider them as a kind of privileged perfons; as no inconfiderable members in the diplomatic body. This is one among the revolutions which have given fplendor to obfcurity, and diftin&tion to undifcerned merit. Until very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am quite fure that it never occupied a moment of my thoughts;

nor, I believe, thofe of any perfon out of their own fet. I find, upon enquiry, that on the anniverfary of the revolution in 1688, a club of diffenters, but of what denomination I know not, have long had the cuftom of hearing a fermon in one of their churches; and that afterwards they spent the day cheerfully, as other clubs do, at the tavern. But I never heard that any public measure, or political fyftem, much less that the merits of the conftitution of any foreign nation, had been the subject of a formal proceeding at their festivals; until, to my inexpreffible furprize, I found them in a fort of public capacity, by a congratulatory addrefs, giving an authoritative fanction to the proceedings of the national affembly in France.

In the antient principles and conduct of the club, fo far at least as they were declared, I fee nothing to which I could take exception. I think it very probable, that for fome purpose, new members may have entered among them; and that fome truly christian politicians, who love to difpenfe benefits, but are careful to conceal the hand which diftributes the dole, may have made them the inftruments of their pious defigns. Whatever I may have reason to fufpect concerning private management, I fhall speak of nothing as of a certainty but what is public.

For one, I fhould be forry to be thought, directly or indirectly, concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full fhare, along with the rest of the world, in my individual and private capacity, in fpeculating on what has been done, or is doing, on the public ftage; in any place antient or modern; in the republic of Rome, or the republic of Paris: but having no general apoftolical miffion, being a citizen of a particular ftate, and being bound up in a confiderable degree, by its public will, I fhould think it at least improper and irregular for me to open a formal public correfpondence with the actual government of a foreign nation, without the express authority of the government under which I live.

I fhould be ftill more unwilling to enter into that correfpondence, under any thing like an equivocal defcription, which to many, unacquainted with our ufages, might make the addrefs, in which I joined, appear as the act of perfons in fome fort of corporate capacity, acknowledged by the laws of this kingdom, and authorized to speak the fense of fome part of it. On account of the ambiguity and uncertainty of unauthorized general descriptions, and of the deceit which may be practifed under them, and not from mere formality, the Houfe of Commons would reject the most sneaking petition for the most trifling object, under that mode of fignature to which you have thrown open the folding-doors of your prefence chamber, and have ufhered into your National Affembly, with as much ceremony and parade, and with as great a buftle of applaufe, as if you had been vifited by the whole reprefentave majefty of the whole Englifh nation. If what this fociety has thought proper to fend forth had been a piece of argument, it would have fignified little whofe argument it was. It would be neither the more nor the lefs convincing on account of the party it came from. But this is only a vote and refolution. It ftands folely on authority; and in this cafe it is the mere authority of individuals, few of whom appear. Their fignatures ought, in my opinion, to have been annexed to their inftrument. The world would then have the means of knowing how many they are; who they are; and of what value their opinions may be, from their perfonal abilities, from their knowledge, their experience, or their lead and authority in this ftate. To me, who am but a plain man, the proceeding looks a little too refined, and too ingenious; it has too much the air of a political ftratagem, adopted for the fake of giving, under an high founding name, an importance to the public declarations of this club, which, when the matter came to be clofely infpected, they did not altogether fo well deferve. It is a policy that has very much the complexion of a fraud.Reflections on the Revolution in France.