persuaded, from all I hear, that this much-contested question could not
receive a better solution than by appealing to the present laws in
France. Game is here altogether the property of the land-owner; it is
freely exposed for sale, like other articles of food; and every one is
himself at liberty to sport, or to authorize his friend to do so over
his property, with no other restriction than that of taking out a
licence, or _port d'armes_, which, for fifteen francs, is granted
without difficulty to any man of respectability, whatever may be his
condition in life. In this particular, I cannot but think that France
has set us an example well worthy of our imitation; and she also shews
that it may be followed without danger; for neither do the pleasures of
the field lose their relish, nor is the game extirpated. The former are
a subject of conversation in almost every company; and, as to the
latter, whatever slaughter may have taken place in the woods and
preserves, at the first burst of the revolution, I am assured that a
good sportsman may, at the present time, between Dieppe and Rouen kill
with ease, in a day, fifty head of game, consisting principally of
hares, quails, and partridges.
But, while these men thus restrict the benefits derived from the
revolution, the case is far different with individuals of the other
parties, all of whom are loud and unanimous in its praises. The good
resulting from the republic has been purchased at a dreadful price, but
the good remains; and those, who now enjoy the boon, are not inclined to
remember the blood which drenched the three-colored banner. Thirty years
have elapsed, and a new generation has arisen, to whom the horrors of
the revolution live only in the page of history. But its advantages are
daily felt in the equal nature and equal administration of the laws; in
the suppression of the monasteries with their concomitant evils; in the
restriction of the powers of the clergy; in the liberty afforded to all
modes of religious worship; and in the abolition of all the edicts and
mandates and prejudices, which secured to a peculiar sect and caste a
monopoly of all the honors and distinctions of the common-wealth; for
now, every individual of talent and character feels that the path to
preferment and power is not obstructed by his birth or his opinions.
The constitutional charter, in its present state, is a subject of pride
to the French, and a sure bulwark to the throne. The rep
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