the fountain of honour! the son of a prostitute, and the plunderer of
the English nation.

The opinions of men with respect to government are changing fast in all
countries. The Revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of
light over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expense of
governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when
once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a
peculiar nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it.
It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of
knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made
ignorant. The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it
acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has
been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition
it was in before it saw it. Those who talk of a counter-revolution in
France, show how little they understand of man. There does not exist in
the compass of language an arrangement of words to express so much
as the means of effecting a counter-revolution. The means must be an
obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to
make man unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts.

Mr. Burke is labouring in vain to stop the progress of knowledge; and it
comes with the worse grace from him, as there is a certain transaction
known in the city which renders him suspected of being a pensioner in
a fictitious name. This may account for some strange doctrine he has
advanced in his book, which though he points it at the Revolution
Society, is effectually directed against the whole nation.

"The King of England," says he, "holds his crown (for it does not belong
to the Nation, according to Mr. Burke) in contempt of the choice of the
Revolution Society, who have not a single vote for a king among them
either individually or collectively; and his Majesty's heirs each in
their time and order, will come to the Crown with the same contempt of
their choice, with which his Majesty has succeeded to that which he now
wears."

As to who is King in England, or elsewhere, or whether there is any
King at all, or whether the people choose a Cherokee chief, or a Hessian
hussar for a King, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about--be
that to themselves; but with respect to the doctrine, so far as it
relates to the Rights of Men and Nations, it is as abominable as