he principal, and the generality of the inhabitants
of those places, are not of what is called in England, the church
established by law: and they, or their fathers, (for it is within but a
few years) withdrew from the persecution of the chartered towns, where
test-laws more particularly operate, and established a sort of asylum
for themselves in those places. It was the only asylum that then
offered, for the rest of Europe was worse.--But the case is now
changing. France and America bid all comers welcome, and initiate them
into all the rights of citizenship. Policy and interest, therefore,
will, but perhaps too late, dictate in England, what reason and justice
could not. Those manufacturers are withdrawing, and arising in other
places. There is now erecting in Passey, three miles from Paris, a large
cotton manufactory, and several are already erected in America. Soon
after the rejecting the Bill for repealing the test-law, one of the
richest manufacturers in England said in my hearing, "England, Sir, is
not a country for a dissenter to live in,--we must go to France." These
are truths, and it is doing justice to both parties to tell them. It
is chiefly the dissenters that have carried English manufactures to the
height they are now at, and the same men have it in their power to carry
them away; and though those manufactures would afterwards continue in
those places, the foreign market will be lost. There frequently appear
in the London Gazette, extracts from certain acts to prevent machines
and persons, as far as they can extend to persons, from going out of the
country. It appears from these that the ill effects of the test-laws and
church-establishment begin to be much suspected; but the remedy of force
can never supply the remedy of reason. In the progress of less than a
century, all the unrepresented part of England, of all denominations,
which is at least an hundred times the most numerous, may begin to feel
the necessity of a constitution, and then all those matters will come
regularly before them.]

[Footnote 8: When the English Minister, Mr. Pitt, mentions the French finances
again in the English Parliament, it would be well that he noticed this
as an example.]

[Footnote 9: Mr. Burke, (and I must take the liberty of telling him that he is
very unacquainted with French affairs), speaking upon this subject,
says, "The first thing that struck me in calling the States-General,
was a great departure from the anci