r and aged persons. Is it, then, any wonder, that under such
a system of government, taxes and rates have multiplied to their present
extent?

In stating these matters, I speak an open and disinterested language,
dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only
refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined
rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that
meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness,
and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my
country is the world, and my religion is to do good.

Mr. Burke, in speaking of the aristocratical law of primogeniture, says,
"it is the standing law of our landed inheritance; and which, without
question, has a tendency, and I think," continues he, "a happy tendency,
to preserve a character of weight and consequence."

Mr. Burke may call this law what he pleases, but humanity and impartial
reflection will denounce it as a law of brutal injustice. Were we not
accustomed to the daily practice, and did we only hear of it as the
law of some distant part of the world, we should conclude that
the legislators of such countries had not arrived at a state of
civilisation.

As to its preserving a character of weight and consequence, the case
appears to me directly the reverse. It is an attaint upon character;
a sort of privateering on family property. It may have weight among
dependent tenants, but it gives none on a scale of national, and much
less of universal character. Speaking for myself, my parents were not
able to give me a shilling, beyond what they gave me in education; and
to do this they distressed themselves: yet, I possess more of what is
called consequence, in the world, than any one in Mr. Burke's catalogue
of aristocrats.

Having thus glanced at some of the defects of the two houses of
parliament, I proceed to what is called the crown, upon which I shall be
very concise.

It signifies a nominal office of a million sterling a year, the business
of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise
or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. Every
ministry acts upon the same idea that Mr. Burke writes, namely, that the
people must be hood-winked, and held in superstitious ignorance by some
bugbear or other; and what is called the crown answers this purpose, and
therefore it answers all the purposes to be expected from it.