c governments in
Europe, and yet those Justices affect to call England a Free Country.
But even this, perhaps, like the scheme for garrisoning the country
by building military barracks, is necessary to awaken the country to a
sense of its Rights, and, as such, it will have a good effect.

Another part of the conduct of such Justices has been, that of
threatening to take away the licences from taverns and public-houses,
where the inhabitants of the neighbourhood associated to read and
discuss the principles of Government, and to inform each other thereon.
This, again, is similar to what is doing in Spain and Russia; and the
reflection which it cannot fail to suggest is, that the principles and
conduct of any Government must be bad, when that Government dreads and
startles at discussion, and seeks security by a prevention of knowledge.

If the Government, or the Constitution, or by whatever name it be
called, be that miracle of perfection which the Proclamation and
the Addresses have trumpeted it forth to be, it ought to have defied
discussion and investigation, instead of dreading it. Whereas, every
attempt it makes, either by Proclamation, Prosecution, or Address, to
suppress investigation, is a confession that it feels itself unable to
bear it. It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from enquiry. All
the numerous pamphlets, and all the newspaper falsehood and abuse, that
have been published against the Rights of Man, have fallen before it
like pointless arrows; and, in like manner, would any work have fallen
before the Constitution, had the Constitution, as it is called, been
founded on as good political principles as those on which the Rights OF
Man is written.

It is a good Constitution for courtiers, placemen, pensioners,
borough-holders, and the leaders of Parties, and these are the men that
have been the active leaders of Addresses; but it is a bad Constitution
for at least ninety-nine parts of the nation out of an hundred, and this
truth is every day making its way.

It is bad, first, because it entails upon the nation the unnecessary
expence of supporting three forms and systems of Government at once,
namely, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratical.

Secondly, because it is impossible to unite such a discordant
composition by any other means than perpetual corruption; and therefore
the corruption so loudly and so universally complained of, is no
other than the natural consequence of