РО CORRESPONDENCE. TO THE AUTHORS OF THE LONDON REVIEW. GENTLEMEN, As you have admitted the obfervations of your correfpondents on one or two late popular publications, I am induced to beg a place at the end of your Review for the following remonftrance with Dr Price, on his late ill-timed pamphlet on Liberty, and the application of its maxims to the prefent quarrel between England and America.-I might, indeed, have addreffed his political reverence in his own way; but the expence and difficulty of lufficiently diffufing a neceffary antidote to a poifon already fo widely fpread, induce me to folicit a place in your extenfively circulating and refpectable Review.-Indeed the importance of the matter, if you think the manner not defpicable, calls upon your profeffed candour and impartiality for infertion; as it cannot be expected, from your declared political principles, that in your critique on the Doctor's pamphlet, you will not give countenance to his production; though it appears to me calcu lated only to increafe the diffatisfaction at prefent prevailing throughout the kingdom. Your admiffion or rejection will be the criterion of your impartiality. Your's, SIR, TO THE REV. DR. RICHARD PRICE. T. D. "As, in the method in which I have chofen to addrefs you, it behoves me to be as clofe and concife as the occafion will permit, I fhall not proceed in the regular and methodical manner of a differtator, to expofe the fallacy of the feveral items of your elaborate Charge against, not only the government of your country, but your country itself. It is a threwd and juft obfervation of a writer, from whom you appear to have borrowed many of your political maxims, that there is nothing more problematical and doubtful than the fincerity of thofe Cofmopolites, who affect a general regard for others, and an univerfal love of mankind. If a man loves not his own house and country, his pretended love for families and countries he never faw, may be justly fufpected. The most extenfive circle of focial love has its centre at home; agreeable to that apt and most beautiful fimile of the poet's, Self-love fill ferves the virtuous mind to wake, As the fmall pebble ftirs the peaceful lake; "The Englishman who is not a Briton, and a true friend to this his native ifland, may declaim long enough before men of difcernment will believe him fincere in his profeffed friendship for the American Continent. You wish to throw off national prepoffeffion, (though to impofe on the populace you call it national prejudice) and own it is dillicult to do fo. It is, indeed, difficult for people to divett themfelves of that with which they are not invelled.-Were I not a true EngKhman, lithman, had I not an infeparable attachment to my native country, did I not feel for the intereft, the honour, the happiness of Great Britain, I might fpeculatively purfue your argument, and poffibly admire that airy fuperftructure, you have built on the most imaginary foundation. It is, as an Englishman, therefore, I charge you with acting inconfiftent with the love of your country; and what aggravates the charge, as a preacher of the gospel of peace, of behaving in a manner unbecoming the character of a chriftian minifter. Admitting, for a moment, the truth of your fpeculative politics, you cannot but know, what, in fact, you confefs, that this critical conjuncture is, by no means, a proper time for divulging and diffufing them. You know, you have owned, government has gone too far, honourably to recede. Nay, I will venture to fay, there is not a man, deferving the name of an Englifhman, who can wish, it should, at fuch a crifis, recede; however ready he may be to exclaim with you, "Detefted be the measures that have brought us into it ;" or to curfe the war that is the confequence. You fay, indeed, "A retreat is not impracticable." But have you fo little regard for the credit, for the intereft of your mother country, as to with the should make a difhonourable retreat, and that from her rebellious children ?-Grant it has been her cruelty (though perhaps it would be more properly termed her mistaken kindnefs) that has provoked them to rebellion, which party does it become, in fuch circumftances, to retreat? When both are equally in the wrong, is it the parent or child that should give up the point?-If the means of accommodation only are in difpute, and political cunning cannot adjust punctilios, why not have recourfe to the efficacious expedients of natural fimplicity? why not take the readieft method of folving the gordian knot? why not diffever at a fingle ftroke, what would take too much time to unravel? why not adopt the falutary fcheme of a refcinder? Dean Tucker's project would injure both the honour and intereft of this country lefs than yours.But, I had forgot, you are devoted to the Americans, and the honour and intereft of this country is with you out of the question. Under thefe circumstances, Sir, what is your reverence but, like a certain arch methodist, a fower of fedition? I might go farther, and ask, what are you but a traitor to that country, whofe interefts and whofe glory you are bound by all the ties of natural, civil, and religious liberty, to efpouse and fupport? I have as despicable an opinion of a mere attachment to the natale folum as you or any man; but I muft repeat, that I think the man, who loves not his native country, can love no other. It is an eafy matter for habitual infenfibility to affume the appearance of natural meeknefs, and for those who neither love nor hate any body, to feem wonderfully tender and affectionate to every body. I mean no perfonal reflection, Doctor, but I have known very ingenious men of this ftamp, who, fo far from being under the government of any ruling pailion, have had all their paffions fo much under their own rule and government, that they have been indifferent, calm, and cool enough to calculate, to the hundredth part of a farthing, the pecuniary advantages which individuals might reap from the misfortunes, the miferies, the murder of their fellow-creatures. — Such men may speculate, unaffected and at their ease, on fubjects; the difcuffion difcuffion of which affects others with anxiety and horror. I will, endeavour, however, to lay afide that paffion and prejudice which grow to me, to diveft myself as much as poffible of compaffion for the Americans and that love to my country, which I too fenfibly feel, to need any other proof of its propriety, and as calmly as I can, to difcufs a point or two with you, in which, I think your argument is not less defective in reason, than deftitute of fentiment. In the first place, you will give me leave to fay that your general argumentation on the fubject of civil liberty is as futile and frivolous, on the prefent occafion, as it is fantaftical and formal. Admitting the truth of your levelling principle, that in a ftate of nature individuals are equal, I deny that fuch a ftate ever had, or can have, exiftence. Man is naturally a focial being, and the rudiments of civil government were originally laid in the patriarchal dominion of the father of a family. A monarchial, and not a republican, form of government appears, therefore, to have fuggefted the primitive idea of focial fubordination. But, Let fools for forms of government conteft, That which is belt adminifter'd is best. Private men may be as arrant flaves, and public magiftrates as defpotic tyrants under an aristocratical or democratical government as under the rule of an abfolute monarch. Will you maintain, in defi ance of known experience, that in Holland, Geneva, Genoa, Venice and a hundred other free ftates, as they are called, the fubject is less restrained or oppreffed than in France, Denmark, Sweden and other defpotic states ?-You may declaim, indeed, as others have done before you, that " Liberty is the foil where the arts and sciences have flourished, and the more free a fate has been the more the powers of the human mind have been drawn forth into action." You may admire the luftre, with which the ancient free ftates of Greece fhine in the annals of the world ;" and contraft it with the state of the fame countries under the great Turk." But this is trite and puerile. I own, with you, that a dark and favage tyranny files the efforts of genius, while the depreffed and fettered mind lofes its fpirit and dignity. But this is owing to the quality and complexion of the times, more than the form of government. Is a fultan of the Eaft or an emperor of Morocco a more abfolute monarch than a king of France or Pruffia? Did arts and fciences flourish lefs under the tyranny of the Cæfars than during the boasted state of the freedom of the Roman republic? Did they ever flourish more, or were the powers of genius ever more fucceflively exerted than under Leo the tenth and Louis the fourteenth? If in the fupport of liberty, the focial happiness of mankind is to be confulted, as depending on the improvement of the mind and the exertion of the powers of human genius, we fhall regard the political ufe generally made of the terms liberty and flavery as vague and contemptible.Let us, for instance, fee what use your political reverence hath made of these terms. "A State you fay is free when it is governed by its own will."-And "In every free ftate, EVERY MAN is his own LEGISLATOR."-Such, indeed, is the improvement made in every branch of human knowledge, in this age of invention and difcovery, that I have heard of "every . man man his own broker-every man his own doctor-every man his own lawyer-but it was referved for the fuperlative ingenuity of Dr. Price to discover that in any ftate every man is his own LEGISLATOR! Admitting, for argument fake, what does not appear to be true in fact, that government originated with the people, that the fupreme power be actually lodged in the hands of the populace, whofe fovereign will is law. Can every individual have more than a proportional fhare in the general will of the whole? And how fmall a share is this in populous flates? How fmail a man's fhare of civil liberty, if it be no more than he fhares in common with millions of his fellowcountrymen? How little worth contending for is this liberty of acting according to one's own will? How little removed from flavery is that liberty in him who poffeffes but the hundred millionth part of the legiflature of his country? You, doctor, are a calculator, and perhaps can tell. Not that I mean to depreciate the bleffing of civil liberty; but I contend that it depends more on the power of acting according to the rules of right reafon, and political prudence; than on the power of acting according to one's own will.-I will not even deny that in the reduction of the rebellious Americans, they must neceffarily be fubjugated in fome degree to a state of fervitude: but, at the fame time, I mult fubfcribe to the truth of what is obferved by that ftaunch friend to all kinds of liberty, the author of the Social Compat; when he fays, "There are fome circumftances fo critically unhappy that men cannot preferve their own liberty but at the ex"pence of the liberty of others." If this be true of individuals, how much more true and applicable to the mother country and her colonies. You are for dividing the fovereign authority of the former, and making her share it with the latter. But the fame writer tells us 66 the fovereign authority is fimple and uniform, it cannot be divided without deftroying it." You alfo pretend that the general will may be reprefented He denies it, and justly ridicules that ideal fovereignty and imaginary freedom, which is lodged in the hands of reprefentatives. The English nation, fays he, in fpite of their boafted liberty, are free no longer than during the diffolution of parliament and while they are chufing their reprefentatives; an interval of freedom which they fo fhamefully abufe that they richly deferve to lose it."What would he fay were he now to attend the committees, fitting on the contested elections in confequence of Grenville's act. Would be not fhudder with horror at the wickednefs and profligacy both of the electors and elected? And would he not declare it the highest piece of impudence and prefumption for a people fo enslaved by principle and fo debauched by corruption to affect to call themselves free? In a word the qualification acts laid the axe to the root of patriotism and public virtue, and, of course of civil liberty, in this country. An act, by which virtus poft nummos is a maxim eftablished by the authority of the legislature; an act, by which a man of fix or three hundred a year is declared to be honester and lefs corruptible than another of less income, muft naturally tend to the discountenance of all public fpirit and national virtue. It has, befides, this impolitic and immoral tendency, an immediate tendency to bribery and corruption, by admitting no candidates but fuch as are qualified to pur chafe Chafe the votes of their conftituents. Till this qualification act be repealed, every thing that is, or can be done under the fuppofed falutary influence of Grenville's act, will ferve only to expote the wickednets of the parties; as it will be ineffectual to the ftopping that tide of corruption which, like a deluge, hath overwhelmed this finking land. The very pretence for this qualification act was frivolous; ic was fuppofed that men of middling circumftances had lefs probity and were more liable to temptation than men of opulent fortunes: but whoever knows any thing of mankind, knows that affluence is the most dangerous corrupter of the heart; that it ferves to increase our artificial wants, and that men are more subject to temptation from artificial wants than natural neceffities. It is this general corruption, reduced into a fyftem of late years, that hath reduced the conftitution of this country to that skeleton, which is daily exhibited as a model of political wifdom. Had that ingenious vifionary, De Lolme, brought over a marmotte in a box, like other Switzerland itinerants, he could not have afforded a more amufing or more futile entertainment to fuperficial understandings, than he has difplayed in his Confitution de L'Angleterre. England never poffeffed fuch a political conftitution, unlefs in the writings of fuch vifionaries as himself; or, if it did, it has long fince been rotten to the core, its vitals have been exhausted, and its Hefh hath wasted to the bone. Under thefe circumstances, to what purpofe is the application of the reveries of idle theory to a defperate difeafe? The mother is in actual labour, the throes of delivery rend her whole frame-the too-robuft and over-grown child is struggling in vain to burft her womb and get free.-It is an unnatural birth;-shall the parent perish to fave the child? and will you, doctor, humanely lend a hand to rip up the belly that bore you?-No, if human skill or divine providence afford no help, let he patrent live whatever be the fate of her offspring!-But this, you will fay, is declamation. It is fo, but I truft it is apt and pertinent: at leaft it is equally fo with thofe pompous nothings, with which your favourite great man hath fo repeatedly amufed the gaping croud, that has fo often looked up to him as the deliverer of this country, while he was only raifing up its vain-glory, to plunge it the deeper into the gulph of ruin. A word or two with you, on the fubject of this great man, and I take my leave. You speak of him as a friend to America as well as to Britain. I, who am not to be deceived by words judge from actions: and, if thofe truly fpeak the man, he is no friend to either; it is owing to this political god of your idolatry that the flamb-act was paffed and repealed. Lord Cm might have prevented both-he prevented neither-he chofe to be paffive in the one cafe and active in the other. You lament and fay every friend to Britain muft deplore his ill ftate of health, at this awful moment of public danger. For my own part, I can fympathife with him as a man, because I am fubject to the fame malady; but as a friend to Britain, I should rather rejoice that he is prevented from blowing up the embers of difcord and embarraffing thofe councils he cannot affitt, were I not perfuaded that fo little attention is now paid him, that his tropes and figures would be perfectly harmless. It is to just as little purpose, doctor, |