to Man. While the storm breaks in pieces the cedar on the summit of the mountain, the herbage escapes the fury of the winds, and flourishes in peace at the bottom of the valley.

WISHES FOR THE NATION.

THE Nation is formed of the harmony of the three Orders, of the Clergy, of the Nobility and of the People, under the influence of the King, who is the Moderator of it. The deputies of these three orders are now met in the National Assembly, in the proportion nearly of 300 for the Clergy, of 300 for the Nobility, and of 600 for the People.

As the two first orders have for several ages united their interests, they may be considered as forming a single body which balances that of the People: from this therefore result two powers which re-act against each other, and whose counterpoise is necessary, as has been said, to the harmony of every modern Government. The King then is enabled to hold the monarchical balance in equilibrium, by casting his power into the popular scale, in case the Clergy and Nobility should discover a tendency. toward Aristocracy; or into that of the two first Orders, should the People incline toward Democracy, On this hypothesis, I have compared the State to a Roman balance; the two powers, to two levers of unequal magnitude; and Royalty to the moveable weight on the longer lever, for the pur pose of ascertaining the quantity weighed.

VOL. IV.

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We have considered the People, from superiority in point of number, as representing the longer arm of the balance, and the Clergy with the Nobility the shorter; but this small arm possesses a weight so powerful, that the effect of the greater is reduced to nothing, unless the King press on that side. On the side of the Clergy and Nobility are the ecclesiastical and military dignities and benefices, the better part of the lands of the kingdom, the disposal of all employments, and even the influence of Parliaments, those ancient fathers of the people, as well as the inclinations of multitudes of plebeians who aspire after approximation to the first by the acquisition of Nobility, or who suffer themselves to be enthralled by the hope of protection, and by the respect simply which high birth commands.

If the power of the People, whose number is at least forty times as considerable as that of the Clergy and Nobility, has been diminishing from age to age, so as to lose all it's prerogatives, and it's equilibrium against their united power, I conclude that the Deputies of the People are not sufficiently numerous in the National Assembly, in which they are only equal in number to those of the other Orders.

It is indeed computed that in the body of the Clergy, the parochial incumbents will incline towards the Deputies of the Commons, from the ties of blood; but will they not rather be disposed to incline toward their Bishops, from the ties of interest? Does not the spirit of corps generally absorb thatof family? The Deputies of the Commons then have nothing to oppose to the Deputies of the two

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first Orders, except the misery of twenty millions of men, or the despair which results from it.

They can balance the sentiment of interest in those corps only by the sentiment of the interest of the People, on which the public safety depends. Thus whether they vote as an order or individually, the struggle is unequal on their part; for they have reason to fear on the part of the other two Orders, the loss of votes from the attractions of fortune, whereas they have no hopes of gaining any but by those of virtue.

We have compared the State to a tree, of whichthe particular corps diverged into branches, and of which the People constituted the trunk. We have seen that the more the branches are multiplied, the more the trunk is enfeebled: but if, by a monstrosity of which Nature exhibits no example, the branches were more powerful than the trunk itself, the fall of that tree must be very easily effected.

In order to render still more sensible the harmony necessary to the different members of the State, I shall employ an image now of very ancient standing. The Nation may be represented as a ship; the People, with their labours, their arts and their commerce, is the hull of it, loaded with the naval stores, the provisions and the merchandize, of which the cargo constitutes the object of the voyage. To the hull must be proportioned all the other parts of the ship. The Nobility may be considered as the batteries which defend it; the Clergy as the masts and sails which put and keep it in motion; the opinions political, moral and religious, as the winds

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winds which drive it, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left; Administration as the cordage and pullies which vary the several manœuvres ; Royalty as the helm which regulates it's course, and the King as the pilot. To the interests of the People therefore the King is bound principally to attend, as a pilot pays his chief attention to the hull of the vessel; for if the upper parts are overloaded by masts too lofty, or by an artillery too ponderous, the vessel runs a risk of being overset. She is equally in danger of sinking, if the worms silently corrode her bottom, and open a passage for admitting the water.

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In following out this allegory, the power of the People ought to exceed in ponderosity that of the other two bodies, that the vessel of the state may be always brought back to it's equilibrium. Now it happens with the lapse of time in a State, as in the course of a voyage, in a vessel whose hull becomes lighter and lighter from the consumption of provisions and ship's-stores, which are removed from the lower parts of the ship to the higher. Thus the People has a constant tendency to rise towards the clerical and noble orders, by the attraction of benefices and patents of Nobility. The King therefore ought to oppose the power of the helm, to the united preponderating force of the Clergy and Nobility, in favour of that of the People, which needs the counterpoise of the Royal power to keep the balance even. Hence results the necessity then of increasing the number of the Deputies of the Commons in the National Assembly, in order to

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give the King himself the facility of exercising his proper power, which consists entirely in maintaining the political equilibrium. It is the preponde raucy in numberof the Representatives of the Commons over those of the Upper House, which se cures in England the Constitution of the State. This is the reason that in their political conten tions, it is very easily restored to an equilibrium, `because the interest, of the People, which is the natural interest, ever predominates there from the superior number of their Representatives. We may on the contrary compare several States of Europe, singularly remarkable for their feebleness, because the Clergy, or the Nobility, or both in concert, domineer without the concurrence of the People, to vessels overset, from being top-heavy, which are totally incapable of manoeuvring, but still keep floating, because the surrounding sea is in a state of tranquillity, but which, the moment the storm arises, are in danger of going to the bottom.

In the mean time, till experience shall have instructed us in what proportion the Clergy and No. blesse on one part, and the Commons on the other ought to have Deputies in the National Assembly, to preserve in it an equilibrium of power, it seems to me necessary to regulate it conformably to certain principals, without which it is impossible to franie any sage project, still more to execute it.

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1. The first principle which ought to be laid down is, That no proposition be there received or rejected by acclamation, but that at least one day be allowed for every Deputy to deliberate upon it at leisure; his opinion ought to be delivered in U 3 writing