Mr. B. FOR my part, I own myself well enough pleased with a democratical government. That philosopher was certainly mistaken, who told an advocate for it, "that if he made the experiment in his own family he would soon repent it." With the philosopher's leave, there is a deal of difference between a private family and a public community. My house is my own, my children are my own; my servants, so long as I pay them, are my own; but what property, pray, have I in my fellow citizens? every freeholder in the country has an equal right and authority to keep the peace in it as myself. I love to see men make their own laws, as they do their own habitations; under which, they enjoy themselves in security. It is a pleasure to me, to see my bricklayer, my carpenter, my smith, (without whose assistance I should not myself have had a house to live in) the farmer my neighbour, and the manufacturer my friend, enrich themselves by their several professions, and better understand the interest of the nation than the moil insolent bashaw in Turkey. In a true democracy, the mechanic, and even the labourer, is secured from insult and contempt. They are by no means in the situation of the tradesman, who presented a petition to a certain noble duke for the discharge of his grace's bill. How! says his grace, and have you received nothing at all upon this long account? O yes, and please your grace, I received a flap on the face the other day from squire Hard-fist your steward, for my impertinence in asking for the money.

It is certainly very agreeable for a poor man to live without the apprehension of being seized and thrown into a dungeon, because he is unable to pay a man whom he never saw, a tax he knows not for what, and of which perhaps he never heard a syllable before in his life.

To be free, to have to do only with one's equals, is the true state of of nature. Every other state is artificial; it is a vile farce, in which one man plays the tyrant, and another his slave, a second his pimp, and a third his toad-eater. -You must admit that mankind cannot degenerate from a state of nature, but through cowardice and servility.

Mr. A. I do. It is pretty plain, I think, that none can have forfeited their liberty, but from their incapacity to defend it. There are two ways in which men may lose their liberty; the one is when knaves are too cunning for fools; and the other when the strong are too powerful for the weak. I have heard of a certain vanquished people, whose conquerors deprived every man of one eye as a mark of his subjection. But there are people in the world whose governors have put out both their eyes, and drive them about like blind horses in a mill. I must own I should like to keep my eye-sight; and look upon a people subjugated to an aristocratical form of government as having lost one eye, and those under an absolute monarch as having lost both,

Mr. C. You talk like a Dutchman. I own I like nothing but an aristocracy. The common people are unfit for government. 1 could never submit to have my periwig-maker a legislator; I had rather wear my own hair, or go bald as long as 1 live. It belongs only to persons well educated to govern those who have no education at all. The Venetian government is the best model for a state; and is the most ancient aristocracy in Europe. Next to that I prefer the German constitution. Make me a Venetian nobleman, or a count of the empire, and I shall be a happy fellow: but not otherwise.

Mr. A. As a man of fortune and family you are doubtless in the right of it; but on the fame principle, you would prefer the despotism of Turkey, if you were to be yourself Grand Signior. For my part, though I am but a simple member of the British house of commons, I look upon our constitution to be the best in the world. As a proof of which I appeal to the unexceptionable evidence of a celebrated French poet;

See met at Westminster, in union wife, Three states, astonish'd at their mutual ties, King, lords, and commons; blended by the laws Their separate interests in the nation's cause : Three powers, that join'd may all the world oppose; Yet dang'rous to themselves, as dreadful to their foes.

Mr. C. Dangerous to themselves! There must surely be great abuses in the English government!

Reprinted from The Annual Register for 1769.