The Revolution 345 



we have known the commonalty have been too apt to call lightly 

 for them. An aristocracy, not unduly influenced by the crown, 

 stands like a rock against such frenzies, and hath a direct 

 interest in the encouragement and support of peaceable maxims. 

 The remark is applicable to many other subjects, in which 

 mature deliberation is wanted to ballast the impetuosity of the 

 people. I always suppose the aristocratic body well constituted 

 upon the basis of a sufficient property, and at the same time no 

 unlimited power in the crown, to throw all the property of the 

 kingdom into the same scale, which is the case in England. 

 Thirdly, whatever benefits may arise from the existence of an 

 executive power, distinct from the legislative, must absolutely 

 depend on some intermediate and independent body between 

 the people and the executive power. Every one must grant 

 that if there be no such body, the people are enabled, when they 

 please, to annihilate the executive authority, — and assign it, as 

 in the case of the long parliament, to committees of their own 

 representatives; or, which is the same thing, they may appear, 

 as they did at Versailles, armed before the King, and insist on 

 his consent to any propositions they bring him; in these cases, 

 the seeming advantages derived from a distinct executive power 

 are lost. And it must be obvious, that in such a constitution as 

 the present one of France, the kingly office can be put down as easily 

 and as readily as a secretary can be reprimanded for a false entry 

 in the journals. If a constitution be good, all great changes in it 

 should be esteemed a matter of great difficulty and hazard : it is 

 in bad ones only that alterations should not be looked upon in a 

 formidable light. 



That these circumstances may prove advantages in an 

 aristocratical portion of a legislature there is reason to believe; 

 the inquiry is, whether they be counter-balanced by possible or 

 probable evils. May there not come within this description the 

 danger of an aristocracy uniting with the crown against the 

 people? that is to say, influencing by weight of property and 

 power a great mass of the people dependent — against the rest of 

 the people who are independent? Do we not see this to be very 

 much the case in England at this moment ? To what other part 

 of our constitution is it imputable that we have been infamously 

 involved in perpetual wars, from which none reap any benefit 

 but that tribe of vermin which thrive most when a nation most 

 declines: contractors, victuallers, pay-masters, stock-jobbers, 

 and mone\'-scriveners : a set by whom ministers are surrounded; 

 and in favour of whom whole classes amongst the people are 



