n to both.

On this question of war, three things are to be considered. First, the
right of declaring it: secondly, the expense of supporting it: thirdly,
the mode of conducting it after it is declared. The French Constitution
places the right where the expense must fall, and this union can only
be in the nation. The mode of conducting it after it is declared,
it consigns to the executive department. Were this the case in all
countries, we should hear but little more of wars.

Before I proceed to consider other parts of the French Constitution,
and by way of relieving the fatigue of argument, I will introduce an
anecdote which I had from Dr. Franklin.

While the Doctor resided in France as Minister from America, during
the war, he had numerous proposals made to him by projectors of every
country and of every kind, who wished to go to the land that floweth
with milk and honey, America; and among the rest, there was one who
offered himself to be king. He introduced his proposal to the Doctor by
letter, which is now in the hands of M. Beaumarchais, of Paris--stating,
first, that as the Americans had dismissed or sent away*[6] their King,
that they would want another. Secondly, that himself was a Norman.
Thirdly, that he was of a more ancient family than the Dukes of
Normandy, and of a more honorable descent, his line having never been
bastardised. Fourthly, that there was already a precedent in England of
kings coming out of Normandy, and on these grounds he rested his offer,
enjoining that the Doctor would forward it to America. But as the Doctor
neither did this, nor yet sent him an answer, the projector wrote a
second letter, in which he did not, it is true, threaten to go over and
conquer America, but only with great dignity proposed that if his offer
was not accepted, an acknowledgment of about L30,000 might be made to
him for his generosity! Now, as all arguments respecting succession must
necessarily connect that succession with some beginning, Mr. Burke's
arguments on this subject go to show that there is no English origin of
kings, and that they are descendants of the Norman line in right of the
Conquest. It may, therefore, be of service to his doctrine to make this
story known, and to inform him, that in case of that natural extinction
to which all mortality is subject, Kings may again be had from Normandy,
on more reasonable terms than William the Conqueror; and consequently,
that the good people of England, a