148 JOURNAL. 



These, as the people of the country increased and became enlightened, 

 would naturally add to their numbers, and the government would 

 grow along with the people. I am too old not to be afraid of ready- 

 made constitutions, and especially of one fitted to the habits of a 

 highly civilised people applied too suddenly to an infant nation like 

 this. Nothing here can be too simple ; perhaps, the director and 

 senate, or at most, the director with a principal burgess from each 

 town, to be changed annually, and representing the council of the 

 primitive kings or patriarchs, would for many years suit such a state 

 of society better than any more complicated form of legislature. 

 To this council should certainly be called the chiefs of the army and 

 of the navy. With so limited a population, boards for the regulation 

 of different departments of government must be worse than useless. 

 Neither the men nor the money can be spared for such purposes, and a 

 single accountable chief from each department would answer every end. 



Here, where so few have received an education fit to become 

 legislators, the lawyers and the clergy must bear an undue propor- 

 tion to the rest. For the maritime town of Valparaiso a priest is 

 elected ; and the merchants, who will fill up the other places with 

 perhaps three or four soldiers, while there is no representative for the 

 navy, are men whose views have become contracted by their hitherto 

 confined speculations, and from whom, however well-intentioned, it 

 would be vain to expect any very enlightened proceedings. 



I am interested in the character of the people, and wish well 

 to the good cause of independence. Let the South American 

 colonies once secure that, and civil liberty, and all its attendant bless- 

 ings, will come in time. 



But I have been writing away the rainy morning, and indulging 

 in thoughts too much akin to those of Milton's conceited inhabit- 

 ants of Pandemonium. What have I to do with states or govern- 

 ments, who am living in a foreign land by sufferance, and who can 

 tell from experience 



" How small of all that human hearts endure 

 The part that kings or laws can cause or cure !" 



