crown; he is not the organ of any party.

The excellencies of the British Constitution had already exercised and
exhausted the talents of the best thinkers and the most eloquent writers
and speakers that the world ever saw. But in the present case a system
declared to be far better, and which certainly is much newer, (to
restless and unstable minds no small recommendation,) was held out to
the admiration of the good people of England. In that case it was surely
proper for those who had far other thoughts of the French Constitution
to scrutinize that plan which has been recommended to our imitation by
active and zealous factions at home and abroad. Our complexion is such,
that we are palled with enjoyment, and stimulated with hope,--that we
become less sensible to a long-possessed benefit from the very
circumstance that it is become habitual. Specious, untried, ambiguous
prospects of new advantage recommend themselves to the spirit of
adventure which more or less prevails in every mind. From this temper,
men and factions, and nations too, have sacrificed the good of which
they had been in assured possession, in favor of wild and irrational
expectations. What should hinder Mr. Burke, if he thought this temper
likely at one time or other to prevail in our country, from exposing to
a multitude eager to game the false calculations of this lottery of
fraud?

I allow, as I ought to do, for the effusions which come from a _general_
zeal for liberty. This is to be indulged, and even to be encouraged, as
long as _the question is general_. An orator, above all men, ought to be
allowed a full and free use of the praise of liberty. A commonplace in
favor of slavery and tyranny, delivered to a popular assembly, would
indeed be a bold defiance to all the principles of rhetoric. But in a
question whether any particular Constitution is or is not a plan of
rational liberty, this kind of rhetorical flourish in favor of freedom
in general is surely a little out of its place. It is virtually a
begging of the question. It is a song of triumph before the battle.

"But Mr. Fox does not make the panegyric of the new Constitution; it is
the destruction only of the absolute monarchy he commends." When that
nameless thing which has been lately set up in France was described as
"the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had been
erected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country," it
might at first have led the h