1823.] 
been reading Necker’s “‘ Religious Opi- 
nions,” Hayley’s ‘Old Maids,” and Cum- 
berland’s fourth “ Observer.” Our whole 
stock is now exhausted; and, if the snip 
should not arrive with a fresh supply of 
books, we shall be obliged to write ro- 
mances, to preserve us from melancholy. 
I know not whether Atheism has made 
great progress in England; and perhaps, 
&e. 
At this moment, there is a greater fer- 
mentation throughout Europe upon the 
subject of government, than was perhaps* 
ever known at any former period. France, 
Holland, and Flanders, are alive toit. Is 
government a science, or not? Are there 
any principles on which it is founded? 
What are its ends? If, indeed, there is no 
rule or standard, all must be ascribed to 
chance. If there isa standard, what is it? 
It is easier to make a people discontented 
with a bad government, than to teach 
them how to establish and maintain a good 
one. Liberty can never be created and 
preserved without a people; and by a 
people, I mean a common people, in con- 
tradistinction from the gentlemen: anda 
people can never be created and preserved 
without an executive authority on one 
hand, separated entirely from the body of 
the gentlemen. The two ladies, Aristo- 
cratia and Democratia, will eternally pull 
caps, until one or other is victorious. If 
the first is the conqueror, she never fails to 
depress and debase her rival into the most 
deplorable servitude. If the last con- 
quers, she eternally surrenders herself into 
the arms of a ravisher. ; 
Kings, therefore, are the natural allies 
of the common people, and the prejudices 
against them are by no means favourable 
to liberty. Kings, and the common peo- 
ple, have both an enemy in the gentlemen; 
and they must unite, in some degree or 
other, against them, or both will be de- 
stroyed : the one dethroned, and the other 
enslaved. The common people, too, are 
unable to defend themselves against their 
own ally the king, without another ally in 
the gentlemen. It is, therefore, indis- 
pensably necessary, that the gentlemen in 
a body, or by representatives, should be 
an independent and essential branch of 
the constitution. By a king, I mean a 
single person, possessed of the whole exe- 
cutive power, 
You have often said to me, that it is 
difficult to preserve the balance. This is 
true: it is difficult to preserve liberty. 
Bat there can be no liberty without some 
balance ; and it is certainly easier to pre- 
serve a balance of three branches than of- 
two. If the people cannot preserve a 
balance of three branches, how is it possi- 
ble for them to preserve one of two only? 
If the people of England find it difficult to 
preserve their balance at present, how 
would they do if they had the election of 
2 
Stephensiana, No. XXIII. 
331 
a King and a House of Lords to make 
once a-year, or once in seven years, as 
well as of a House of Commons? It 
seems evident, at first blush, that pe- 
riodical elections of the King and Peers in 
England, in addition to the Commons, 
would produce agitations that might de- 
stroy all order and safety, as well as li- 
berty. The gentlemen, too, can never 
defend themselves against a brave’ and 
united common people, but by an alliance 
with a king; nor against a king, without 
an alliance with the common people, IJtis 
the insatiability of human passions that is 
the foundation of all government. Men 
are not only ambitious, but their ambition 
is unbounded; they are not only avarici- 
ous, but their avarice is insatiable. ‘The 
desires of kings, gentlemen, and commen 
people, all increase, instead of being sa- 
tisfied, with indulgence. ‘This fact being 
allowed, it will follow, that it is necessary 
to place checks upon them all. 
Iam, &c. Joun ADAMS. 
Thomas Brand Hollis, esq. 
Is this a letter from a republican am- 
bassador, which is so full of the praise 
of kings? was it written by a citizen of 
the United States of America, the inha- 
bitants of which elect both their senate 
and chief magistrate ? 
Here follows some passages from 
another, addressed to the same geli- 
tleman :— 
I wish I could write romances. True 
histories of my wanderings, and waiting 
for ships and winds, at Ferrol and Corun- 
na, in Spain; at Nantes, L’Orient, and 
Brest, in France; at Helvoet, the Island of 
Goree, and Over Hackee, in Holland ; and 
at Harwich, Portsmouth, and the Isle of ’~ 
Wight,in England; would make very en- 
tertaining romances in the hands of a good 
writer. 
It is very trne, as you say, that ‘ royal 
despots endeavour to prevent the science 
of government from being studied.” But 
it is equally true, that aristocratical 
despots, and democratical despots too, 
endeavour to retard the study with equal 
success. The aristocracies in Holland, 
Poland, Venice, Bern, &c. are inexorable 
to the freedom of enquiry in religion, but 
especially in politics, as the monarchies of 
France, Spain, Prussia, or Russia. It is 
in mixed governments only that political 
toleration subsists; and in Needham’s 
“Excellencies of a Free State, or right 
Constitution,” the majority would be 
equally intolerant. Every unbalanced 
power is intolerant. 
P.S.—Mrs. Adams and I have been to 
visit Cavisbroke Castle, once the prison of 
the booby Charles. “ At what moment 
did Cromwell become ambitious?” is a 
question I have heard asked in England, 
I answer, before he was born. He was 
ambitious 
