'I had some knowledge of music, with a tolerable voice, and now turned what was once my amusement into a present means of subsistence.'-PAGE 319.

CHAPTER XIX

The description of a person discontented with the present government, and apprehensive of the loss of our liberties.

HE house where we were to be entertained lying at a

small distance from the village, our inviter observed, that as the coach was not ready, he would conduct us on foot, and we soon arrived at one of the most magnificent mansions I had seen in that part of the country. The apartment into which we were shewn was perfectly elegant and modern; he went to give orders for supper,

while the player, with a wink, observed that we were perfectly in luck. Our entertainer soon returned, an elegant supper was brought in, two or three ladies, in an easy dishabille, were introduced, and the conversation began with some sprightliness. Politics, however, were the subject on which our entertainer chiefly expatiated: for he asserted that liberty was at once his boast and his terror. After the cloth was removed, he asked me if I had seen the last Monitor, to which replying in the negative, 'What, nor the Auditor, I suppose?' cried he. Neither, 'Sir,' returned I. That's strange, very strange,' replied my entertainer. 'Now I read all the politics that come out. The Daily, the Public Ledger, the 'Chronicle, the London Evening, the Whitehall Evening Post, the seventeen magazines and the two reviews; and ' though they hate each other, I love them all. Liberty, Sir, liberty is the Briton's boast, and by all my coal ' mines in Cornwall, I reverence its guardians.' Then it

6

6

6

6

6

is to be hoped,' cried I, 'you reverence the king.' 'Yes,' returned my entertainer, 'when he does what we would have him; but if he goes on as he has done of 'late, I'll never trouble myself more with his matters. 'I say nothing. I think only. I could have directed some things better. I don't think there has been a sufficient number of advisers: he should advise with 'every person willing to give him advice, and then we 'should have things done in anotherguess manner.'

'I wish,' cried I, 'that such intruding advisers were 'fixed in the pillory. It should be the duty of honest men to assist the weaker side of our Constitution, that 'sacred power that has for some years been every day 'declining, and losing its due share of influence in the

6

State. But these ignorants still continue the cry of 'liberty, and if they have any weight, basely throw it ' into the subsiding scale.'

How,' cried one of the ladies; 'do I live to see one so base, so sordid, as to be an enemy to liberty, and

a defender of tyrants? Liberty, that sacred gift of 'heaven, that glorious privilege of Britons!'

Can it be possible,' cried our entertainer, that there 'should be any found at present advocates for slavery? 'Any who are for meanly giving up the privileges of 'Britons? Can any, Sir, be so abject?'

'No, Sir,' replied I, 'I am for liberty, that attribute of Gods! Glorious liberty! that theme of modern decla6 mation. I would have all men kings. I would be a 'king myself. We have all naturally an equal right to 'the throne we are all originally equal. This is my 'opinion, and was once the opinion of a set of honest men 'who were called Levellers. They tried to erect them'selves into a community, where all should be equally 'free. But, alas! it would never answer; for there were some among them stronger, and some more cunning than others, and these became masters of the rest; for as sure as your groom rides your horses, because he is a cunninger animal than they, so surely will the animal that is cunninger or stronger than he, sit upon his shoulders in ' turn. Since then it is entailed upon humanity to sub'mit, and some are born to command, and others to obey, 'the question is, as there must be tyrants, whether it is ' better to have them in the same house with us, or in the

6

6

6

6

6

same village, or still farther off, in the metropolis. Now, Sir, for my own part, as I naturally hate the face of a ' tyrant, the farther off he is removed from me, the better 'pleased am I. The generality of mankind also are of 'my way of thinking, and have unanimously created one king, whose election at once diminishes the number of ' tyrants, and puts tyranny at the greatest distance from the greatest number of people. Now the great who were ' tyrants themselves before the election of one tyrant,

6

6

are naturally averse to a power raised over them, and 'whose weight must ever lean heaviest on the subordinate 'orders. It is the interest of the great, therefore, to 'diminish kingly power as much as possible; because 'whatever they take from that is naturally restored to 'themselves; and all they have to do in the state is to undermine the single tyrant, by which they resume 'their primaeval authority. Now the state may be so circumstanced, or its laws may be so disposed, or its men of opulence so minded, as all to conspire in carrying on this business of undermining monarchy. For, in the first place, if the circumstances of our state be such, as 'to favour the accumulation of wealth, and make the opulent still more rich, this will increase their ambition. An accumulation of wealth, however, must necessarily 'be the consequence, when, as at present, more riches flow in from external commerce than arise from internal ' industry; for external commerce can only be managed 'to advantage by the rich, and they have also at the same 'time all the emoluments arising from internal industry; so that the rich, with us, have two sources of wealth, 6 whereas the poor have but one. For this reason, wealth, ' in all commercial states, is found to accumulate, and all

6

6

6

such have hitherto in time become aristocratical.

Again, the very laws also of this country may contribute to the accumulation of wealth; as when by their means the natural ties that bind the rich and poor together are broken, and it is ordained, that the rich shall only marry with the rich; or when the learned are held unqualified to serve their country as counsellors merely * from a defect of opulence, and wealth is thus made the ' object of a wise man's ambition; by these means, I say, ' and such means as these, riches will accumulate. Now the possessor of accumulated wealth, when furnished 'with the necessaries and pleasures of life, has no other

6

6

'method to employ the superfluity of his fortune but in purchasing power. That is, differently speaking, in 'making dependants, by purchasing the liberty of the needy or the venal, of men who are willing to bear the 'mortification of contiguous tyranny for bread. Thus ' each very opulent man generally gathers round him a circle of the poorest of the people; and the polity ' abounding in accumulated wealth, may be compared to a Cartesian system, each orb with a vortex of its own. "Those, however, who are willing to move in a great man's vortex are only such as must be slaves, the rabble of mankind, whose souls and whose education are adapted to servitude, and who know nothing of liberty except the name. But there must still be a large number of the people without the sphere of the opulent man's influence, ' namely, that order of men which subsists between the very rich and the very rabble; those men who are possest of too large fortunes to submit to the neighbouring man in power, and yet are too poor to set up 'for tyranny themselves. In this middle order of man'kind are generally to be found all the arts, wisdom, and virtues of society. This order alone is known to be 6 the true preserver of freedom, and may be called the 'People. Now it may happen that this middle order of 6 mankind may lose all its influence in a state, and its 6 voice be in a manner drowned in that of the rabble for

6

6

6

6

6

if the fortune sufficient for qualifying a person at present 'to give his voice in state affairs be ten times less than

6

6

was judged sufficient upon forming the constitution, it

is evident that great numbers of the rabble will thus be introduced into the political system, and they, ever 'moving in the vortex of the great, will follow where greatness shall direct. In such a state, therefore, all that the middle order has left, is to preserve the prerogative and privileges of the one principal governor with