best
consolation that shall be left will be looking back on some past
actions, more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then
with happiness remember, among other things, I have written the RIGHTS
OF MAN.---As to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or place-men,
and place-expectants,--those who possess, or those who are gaping for
office,--may say of them, it will not alter their character, either with
the world or with me.

1 Henry D. (afterwards Viscount Melville), appointed
Secretary for the Home Department, 1791. In 1805 he was
impeached by the Commons for "gross malversation" while
Treasurer of the Navy; he was acquitted by the Lords
(1806), but not by public sentiment or by history.--
_Editor_.

Having, Sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not
particularly on your speech on that occasion, but on any one to which
your motion on that day gave rise; and I shall begin with that of Mr.
Adam.

This Gentleman accuses me of not having done the very thing that _I have
done_, and which, he says, if I _had_ done, he should not have accused
me.

Mr. Adam, in his speech, (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26,) says,

"That he had well considered the subject of Constitutional Publications,
and was by no means ready to say (but the contrary) that books of
science upon government though recommending a doctrine or system
different from the form of our constitution (meaning that of England)
were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn
Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Eutopia, and Hume
for his Idea of a perfect Commonwealth. But (continued Mr. Adam) the
publication of Mr. Paine was very different; for it reviled what
was most sacred in the constitution, destroyed every principle of
subordination, and _established nothing in their room_."

I readily perceive that Mr. Adam has not read the Second Part of _Rights
of Man_, and I am put under the necessity, either of submitting to an
erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly
shall prefer the latter.--If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in
my reasoning upon systems of government, in the Second Part of _Rights
of Man_, I have shown as clearly, I think, as words can convey ideas, a
certain system of government, and that not existing in theory only,
but already in full and established practice, and systematically
and practically free from all the vice