towns were garrisoned
and bribed to enslave the country. All the old charters are the badges
of this conquest, and it is from this source that the capriciousness of
election arises.

The French Constitution says that the number of representatives for
any place shall be in a ratio to the number of taxable inhabitants or
electors. What article will Mr. Burke place against this? The county
of York, which contains nearly a million of souls, sends two county
members; and so does the county of Rutland, which contains not an
hundredth part of that number. The old town of Sarum, which contains
not three houses, sends two members; and the town of Manchester, which
contains upward of sixty thousand souls, is not admitted to send any.
Is there any principle in these things? It is admitted that all this
is altered, but there is much to be done yet, before we have a fair
representation of the people. Is there anything by which you can trace
the marks of freedom, or discover those of wisdom? No wonder then Mr.
Burke has declined the comparison, and endeavored to lead his readers
from the point by a wild, unsystematical display of paradoxical
rhapsodies.

The French Constitution says that the National Assembly shall be elected
every two years. What article will Mr. Burke place against this? Why,
that the nation has no right at all in the case; that the government is
perfectly arbitrary with respect to this point; and he can quote for his
authority the precedent of a former Parliament.

The French Constitution says there shall be no game laws, that the
farmer on whose lands wild game shall be found (for it is by the produce
of his lands they are fed) shall have a right to what he can take; that
there shall be no monopolies of any kind--that all trades shall be free
and every man free to follow any occupation by which he can procure
an honest livelihood, and in any place, town, or city throughout the
nation. What will Mr. Burke say to this? In England, game is made the
property of those at whose expense it is not fed; and with respect to
monopolies, the country is cut up into monopolies. Every chartered
town is an aristocratical monopoly in itself, and the qualification of
electors proceeds out of those chartered monopolies. Is this freedom? Is
this what Mr. Burke means by a constitution?

In these chartered monopolies, a man coming from another part of the
country is hunted from them as if he were a foreign enemy. An Englishman
is