377 
H E L V 
joued a fecond year in office, the ffadtholder, the trea- 
furer, and the fecretary. They elected deputies to the 
general diets, or for foreign millions'; named the bailiffs 
in,their turns, molt of the cantons having fubjedt pro¬ 
vinces in common with others; and deliberated on all 
matters of more than u fu.al importance. For the dif- 
patch of the ordinary bulinefs, a council of regency was 
named ; each community, of which there were ten, 
electing fix counfeliors. The landamtnan, who prefided 
at this board, had the right of calling in additional 
members whenever he faw occafion. Each community, 
each parilh, each village, had its own independent jurif- 
diCtion; it conducted its. own pecuniary concerns, its 
revenue from lands, woods, and alps ; and chofe its 
fecal ar clergy. Thefe primary communities met at lead 
once a-month. 
Under the article Grisons, p. 31 of this volume, we 
have given fome account of the jurifprudence of that 
part of Helvetia from Coxe’s Travels : but the follow¬ 
ing notices from Mr. Planta’s Hiftory, we prefume, will 
(till prove acceptable: “ Among the allied dates, the 
government of the Grifon. country deferves particular 
notice ; as it will be vain to leek in hidory, or in the 
politics of our own times, a form fo purely democratic 
in its theory, and yet fo remote from it in the applica¬ 
tion. The three leagues .were, divided into twenty-fix 
' higher jurifdidHoris, and fubdivided into fifty-nine com¬ 
munities, many of them confiding of a Tingle village, 
each of which being a didindt, though very diminutive, 
republic, had its peculiar and independent conditution, 
chofe its own civil magidrates, confiding in general of 
an amman, podefta, or minfftral, and twelve jurats, its 
padors, and deputies to the general diet. AH thefe it 
had the power to cafhier, and, in cafe of delinquency, 
to punifh, without admitting the lead interference of the 
collective body, unlefs by way of interceflion. In thefe 
elections, and in all public deliberations, every male of 
a dated age had his vote. 
“ The link of union among thefe petty dates was the 
general diet to w hich each community fent one, and four 
of the larger ones two deputies. Thefe, together with 
the chiefs of each league, formed a body of fixty-fix mem¬ 
bers, who met in rotation at Coire, Davos, and Jlanz, 
about the beginning of September, and continued fitting 
about three weeks or a month. It is to be obferved, 
that thefe deputies were not authorized to decide on 
any quedion, but that they were bound in every indance 
to fend to their condituents a datement of the matter in 
agitation, and to demand fpecial inftructions, to which 
they were bound to adhere. Each community might 
however at all times wave this privilege, by invedmg 
its deputy with a general power to act according to his 
own difcretion : and as by far the majority of the electors 
were perfons w holly unqualified to judge upon complica¬ 
ted matters of government, it may well be imagined that 
every fociety of this nature would frequently be biafTed 
by a few of its members, fiiperior to the red either in 
mental qualifications, or the dill more prevalent influ¬ 
ence of property. Hence many of thefe unlimited pow¬ 
ers were obtained ; and even when they were wirhheld, 
it was generally in the power of the leaders, by fome 
ambiguity or peculiarity in the datement laid before 
the communities, to obtain tho deci/ion that bed luited 
their purpofes. There was no eftablifhed board or coun¬ 
cil, which could be confidered as an executive body. 
This will fuftice to point out to the reader, the princi¬ 
pal fpurce of the undue influence which at once defaced 
the mod-prominent features of this popular conftitution. 
An influence which men will in vain endeavour to coun¬ 
teract : and which, when the intereds or paflions of the 
leaders happen to be at variance, will ever open the 
doop to factions' and civil commotions, the horrors of 
which that country has abundantly experienced. Mr. 
Coxe’s judicious obfervations on the incoinpetency of 
annual elections by the people at large, towards i'ecuriug 
Vol. IX. Mo. 592. 
E T I A. 
the freedom of a date, are well worth "the ferious confi- 
deration of every Englifhman, who has the profperity 
of his country truly at heart.” 
Having thus taken a curfory view of the feveral com¬ 
ponent parts, the aggregate, of which formed the Hel¬ 
vetic,confederacy; we may now proceed to contemplate 
the bond of union, to which they chiefly owed the rank 
they long held among the powers of Europe; but 
which, as has been obferved by a writer of much autho¬ 
rity, was improperly called an union, fiiice, except in 
what concerned the common fovereignties, there were 
but few points in which they necefl'arily came in contact 
with each other. Its true denomination appears to have 
been that of a permanent defenjive alliance, the objeCt of 
which was the protection of each member againfl all 
foreign attacks, and the prefervation of interior tran¬ 
quillity, by the weighty preponderancy of a majority 
operating againfl thofe wljo betrayed a difpofition to 
create didurbances. It was by no means a representa¬ 
tive' government: it had no common adminiflration/no 
concentrated authority, no executive power, no public 
treafury, no mint: nor could it, even in its relations 
with foreign powers, be confidered as an individual 
date, fiiice mod of the alliances were made not with the 
collective body at large, but with one or more of the 
'members feparately, feveral of -them having exprefsly 
referved the .power-'of forming fucli coiineCtions. The 
diets, which thus appear to have been held more for 
the purpofe of communication, than either of leg-illation 
or any other functions of government, were either gene¬ 
ral or fpecial, ordinary or extraordinary. The general 
ordinary diets confided of the deputies of all the can¬ 
tons, and of thofe of the allies who were diftinguifhed 
by the appellation of aflociates. 
Previoufly to the prefent awful druggie, Europe was 
often not unap.tly reprefented as one great federal re¬ 
public. The benevolent perfons, who delighted to 
view it in this light,-and who exercifed their ingenuity 
in devifing plans for arbitrating the differences of nations 
by other modes than thofe of arms, might have found 
fomething like a model in the practice of the Helvetic 
confederacy; for the law of arbitration was the refult of 
mod of the compacts that had been entered into by thefe 
ffates ; and gave rife to many fecondary meetings, whiclj 
were fummoned for the purpofe of adjuffing difputes 
occafionally ari/ing between different-members of the 
confederacy. Whenever thefe occurred; each canton 
at variance fent two deputies to the place agreed upon 
in their treaties, and thefe, when their opinions were 
equally divided, chofe aifur-arbitrator from one of the 
neutral cantons. This umpire was for; the time abfolved 
from his oath of allegiance to his own fovereign, that 
none of his engagement's might clafh with the impar¬ 
tiality of his award. He was not allowed to propofe 
new opinion, but could only confirm one of thofe pfe- 
vioufiy delivered by the deputies : but his decifion was 
final. All the cantons were not equally bound to fubmit 
their differences to the law of arbitration, the old ones 
having referved the power of declining it, while thofe 
that entered late in the confederacy were bound to ad¬ 
here to it whenever it was propofed to them. 
Such nearly was the filuation of the Swifs cantons, 
or Helvetic confederacy, when the French revolution, in 
its. rapid progrefs of devaftation, reached that devoted 
country ! How fondly has the mind been accudomCd to 
dire£t its flights to Swifferland, and to contemplate in 
imagination its interefling inhabitants, the children of 
nature, brave, independent, and happy ; dwelling among 
ftupendous heights, fearful precipices, enchanting views, 
and amid f'cenery which exhibited matchlefs contrafts ! 
Alas! that Swifferland which delighted the traveller, 
and whither cultivated fancy roved with fo much plea- 
fure, exifls no longer ! Modern Helvetia, the infulated 
province of France, occupies, indeed the fame fpace in 
the map which-that happy country formerly filled, but 
5 D it 
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