g him on the same ground.
Although principles of Government are general subjects, it is next to
impossible, in many cases, to separate them from the idea of place and
circumstance, and the more so when circumstances are put for arguments,
which is frequently the case with Mr. Burke.

In the former part of his book, addressing himself to the people of
France, he says: "No experience has taught us (meaning the English),
that in any other course or method than that of a hereditary crown,
can our liberties be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our
hereditary right." I ask Mr. Burke, who is to take them away? M. de la
Fayette, in speaking to France, says: "For a Nation to be free, it
is sufficient that she wills it." But Mr. Burke represents England as
wanting capacity to take care of itself, and that its liberties must be
taken care of by a King holding it in "contempt." If England is sunk
to this, it is preparing itself to eat straw, as in Hanover, or in
Brunswick. But besides the folly of the declaration, it happens that
the facts are all against Mr. Burke. It was by the government being
hereditary, that the liberties of the people were endangered. Charles I.
and James II. are instances of this truth; yet neither of them went so
far as to hold the Nation in contempt.

As it is sometimes of advantage to the people of one country to hear
what those of other countries have to say respecting it, it is possible
that the people of France may learn something from Mr. Burke's book, and
that the people of England may also learn something from the answers
it will occasion. When Nations fall out about freedom, a wide field of
debate is opened. The argument commences with the rights of war, without
its evils, and as knowledge is the object contended for, the party that
sustains the defeat obtains the prize.

Mr. Burke talks about what he calls an hereditary crown, as if it
were some production of Nature; or as if, like Time, it had a power to
operate, not only independently, but in spite of man; or as if it were a
thing or a subject universally consented to. Alas! it has none of
those properties, but is the reverse of them all. It is a thing in
imagination, the propriety of which is more than doubted, and the
legality of which in a few years will be denied.

But, to arrange this matter in a clearer view than what general
expression can heads under which (what is called) an hereditary crown,
or more properly speaking, a