disappear the checks existing in the manners and present respectability of the inferior classes. Here lies the principal danger. Woe to a people among whom secret or open causes drag the labouring class towards a state of hopeless poverty, of which vice and immorality are the ordinary accompaniments. Slavery awaits them. What can the cold lessons of theory avail, against the sentiments which the ever present view of popular debasement and degradation inspire? What interest can be felt in the maintenance of rights, which only seem calculated to furnish arms for turbulence and sedition?

Such are the considerations which ought to fix the attention of enlightened men in England. Let them profit by the present tranquillity and prosperity of the country to extirpate the pernicious abuses of inequality; else the tree will bear its fruit, and from year to year will be accumulated the obstacles to a peaceable and judicious reform. What might be done to-day, will be impossible to-morrow; for, if some unexpected event should happen to kindle anew the hostile dispositions of which the people have so often manifested the symptoms, all will be lost it is not in presence of the enemy that we lay down our arms.

And if it be objected to me, that the attempts at rebellion in 1819 were easily repressed, I reply, that we must consider the troubles at Manchester, and the preparations for insurrection made in the counties of York, Stafford, Warwick, Nottingham, Chester, and Leicester, much less as the measure of the aggressive strength of the multitude, than as proofs of the progress of the spirit of subversion which the march of facts unfortunately tends to spread and fortify. Let us

observe the peculiar character of each of the risings which, since the American war, have troubled the public peace; and we shall see what alterations the popular feeling has undergone. In the great mob of London, it was in the name of the interests of the English Church that the multitude rose; and however deplorable may have been the excesses which they committed, there was at least in their motives a certain degree of attachment to established order. Fourteen years later, in 1796, the people agitated solely with a view to a reform in the representation;-in 1819, they had for exciting causes only misery and radicalism.

Besides, this change in the dispositions of the inferior classes has produced its natural effect on the higher. To the benevolent and conciliatory expressions made use of by the Chathams and Legges, has succeeded harsh and contemptuous language. Parliament heard, without surprise, a minister, in arguing against the rights of the people, tax with an ignorant impatience those just complaints which intolerable suffering had wrung from them. The acts were suited to the speeches, and several bills suspended the constitutional liberties; the people were deprived of the right of holding meetings to petition the government for a redress of their grievances; they were forbidden to have military drills unless under the inspection of officers of the army; finally, a power was given to search for arms in houses suspected or pointed out. Perhaps an inhabitant of the continent would be only surprised at the extent of the rights which the people enjoyed; but that is not the question. Whatever these rights may be, it must be observed that, up to that time, the inconveniences of them had not been

felt; and that to abrogate them was to acknowledge how grievously the sentiments had degenerated, which for so long a time had rendered them innocuous.

If, as has been shown, the spirit of the people has taken a direction dangerous to the repose and tranquillity of the state, there are symptoms which equally attest the strengthening of aristocratic prejudices. Never did a passion for the worn-out frivolities of feudalism exhibit itself so strongly-never did the vanity of the pre-eminence assigned to rank, escutcheons, and titular honours, shew itself in a more puerile light, than at the coronation of George IV. With what astonishment did we not behold the élite of a grave and thinking people attach so much importance to the minutest observances of a Gothic ceremonial, and dispute with each other the functions whose inanity gave rise to no feelings but those of ridicule ! Will it be replied that all this was merely the homage paid to formalities closely associated with all that is venerable in the constitution? But when the same tastes and tendencies colour the acts of private life, when to these is added the attachment to abuses which flatter family pride, and when it is said that to lop away some of the exuberant branches of the constitutional tree is to hasten its fall, we may be permitted to judge such doings with greater severity.

After all, what remains clear is, that up to the present time, the action of material causes has tended to separate more and more the views and the interests of the governed from those of their rulers; and has excited in the people the desire of innovation, as well as rendered the aristocracy more tenacious of those maxims by which all change is resisted. What will be the

issue of the struggle between tendencies so opposed to each other? This I know not; but what I know is, that a state of things which separates and disunites the classes of which the community is composed, furnishes arms for all sorts of innovators and demagogues, as well as for a monarch, endowed with sufficient courage, to offer to the people, in exchange for public liberties, the spoils of that caste whose greatness oppresses them.

I have thus passed in review the various facts which most clearly explain the situation of Great Britain, and the singular contrasts which it presents. If extensive liberties, rousing and fructifying the efforts of industry, have produced the shining results of which the nation is proud, the aristocratic preponderance, secretly poisoning the sources of its prosperity, has engendered evils whose increasing pressure becomes a just subject of alarm. Certainly no people have a higher claim on the gratitude of humanity than the English-none have rendered greater services to the cause of civilization-none have adorned their annals with a greater number of glorious deeds-none, in fine, have risen higher in the arts, sciences, and commerce; and still there are none who have reason to throw upon the future a more anxious and disturbed glance. Ah! may England strengthen herself by a complete change in her proprietary law, and avoid falling from the high position which she deserves to occupy! May her aristocracy, instead of confining legislative reforms to secondary changes of an administrative order, generously offer upon the altar of its country the noxious privileges which it enjoys! But I fear that so noble a sacrifice is above the force of humanity: the promptings of private interests conceal

its utility. Never yet did ruling castes discover the injustice of which they reaped the fruits; and when we have seen them come to admit the existence of some of the evils, it has been only to try to show how well they were corrected by the liberal sentiments and the wise intentions of those who profited by them.*

CHAPTER XVI.

ON THE EFFECTS OF AN EQUALITY OF RIGHTS
IN FRANCE.

AFTER having considered the effects of the predominance of the least exclusive aristocracy in Europe, in a country where extensive liberties have attracted to it all the benefits of civilization, let us now see what is the situation of society in another, where an equality of rights has prevailed. It will be at once perceived that I allude to France. For more than thirty years, the abolition of the privileges of property has left to wealth in that country no other regulator than the diversity of talents, and the accidents of fortune;

* At the time this Chapter was written, trade in England had revived, and the people, again in full employment, seemed likely for a long time to remain quiet and orderly. More recently however, and while the work is going through the press, causes easy to explain have produced another commercial crisis, and we have seen the most alarming symptoms manifested in the manufacturing districts. Already have bands of operatives again betaken themselves to the breaking of machinery, and coercing their employers;-large masses of people have resisted the armed force, and committed numerous excesses. Without doubt, these disorders will soon cease, but, in any event, I beg the reader to take the facts before stated into consideration, as going fully to justify and bear out my observations on the causes which gave birth to them.