for my guide (and the world knows I am
not a flatterer) that what they do not think worth while to read, is not
worth mine to answer. I suppose the number of copies to which the
first part of the RIGHTS OF MAN extended, taking England, Scotland, and
Ireland, is not less than between forty and fifty thousand.

I now come to remark on the remaining part of the quotation I have made
from Mr. Burke.

"If," says he, "such writings shall be thought to deserve any other
refutation than that of criminal justice."

Pardoning the pun, it must be criminal justice indeed that should
condemn a work as a substitute for not being able to refute it.
The greatest condemnation that could be passed upon it would be a
refutation. But in proceeding by the method Mr. Burke alludes to, the
condemnation would, in the final event, pass upon the criminality of
the process and not upon the work, and in this case, I had rather be the
author, than be either the judge or the jury that should condemn it.

But to come at once to the point. I have differed from some professional
gentlemen on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find they are
falling into my opinion, which I will here state as fully, but as
concisely as I can.

I will first put a case with respect to any law, and then compare it
with a government, or with what in England is, or has been, called a
constitution.

It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary
power, to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or
bad, on which such a law, or any other is founded.

If a law be bad it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is
quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects,
and to show cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be
substituted in its place. I have always held it an opinion (making it
also my practice) that it is better to obey a bad law, making use at the
same time of every argument to show its errors and procure its repeal,
than forcibly to violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad law
might weaken the force, and lead to a discretionary violation, of those
which are good.

The case is the same with respect to principles and forms of government,
or to what are called constitutions and the parts of which they are,
composed.

It is for the good of nations and not for the emolument or
aggrandisement of particular individuals, that government ought to be
establishe