ot been set up by the government. It has got into
circulation like the words bore and quoz [quiz], by being chalked up in
the speeches of parliament, as those words were on window shutters and
doorposts; but whatever the constitution may be in other respects, it
has undoubtedly been the most productive machine of taxation that was
ever invented. The taxes in France, under the new constitution, are not
quite thirteen shillings per head,*[18] and the taxes in England, under
what is called its present constitution, are forty-eight shillings
and sixpence per head--men, women, and children--amounting to nearly
seventeen millions sterling, besides the expense of collecting, which is
upwards of a million more.

In a country like England, where the whole of the civil Government is
executed by the people of every town and county, by means of parish
officers, magistrates, quarterly sessions, juries, and assize; without
any trouble to what is called the government or any other expense to the
revenue than the salary of the judges, it is astonishing how such a mass
of taxes can be employed. Not even the internal defence of the country
is paid out of the revenue. On all occasions, whether real or contrived,
recourse is continually had to new loans and new taxes. No wonder,
then, that a machine of government so advantageous to the advocates of
a court, should be so triumphantly extolled! No wonder, that St. James's
or St. Stephen's should echo with the continual cry of constitution;
no wonder, that the French revolution should be reprobated, and the
res-publica treated with reproach! The red book of England, like the red
book of France, will explain the reason.*[19]

I will now, by way of relaxation, turn a thought or two to Mr. Burke. I
ask his pardon for neglecting him so long.

"America," says he (in his speech on the Canada Constitution bill),
"never dreamed of such absurd doctrine as the Rights of Man."

Mr. Burke is such a bold presumer, and advances his assertions and his
premises with such a deficiency of judgment, that, without troubling
ourselves about principles of philosophy or politics, the mere logical
conclusions they produce, are ridiculous. For instance,

If governments, as Mr. Burke asserts, are not founded on the Rights of
Man, and are founded on any rights at all, they consequently must be
founded on the right of something that is not man. What then is that
something?

Generally speaking, we know of no other