1802.) Letters between T. Mercer, cfg. & the Rt. Hon. E. Burke. 319 
their. gorbellies and their city luxury, is 
mot fo becoming. 
It is not calling the landed eftates,. 
poficfled by old prefcriptive rights, the 
** accumulations of ignorance and fuper- 
ftition,”? that can fupport me in fhaking 
that grand title, which fuperledes all other 
title, and which all my ftudies of gene- 
tal jurifprudence have taught me to con- 
fider as one principal caufe of the forma- 
‘tion of ftates; I mean the afcentaining 
and fecuring prefcription. But thefe are 
donations made in ** ages of ignorance 
and fuperftition.”” Be it fo. It proves 
that thefe donations were made long ago; 
and this is prefcripiion; and this gives 
rightand title. It is poflible that many 
eliates about you'were criginally obtained 
by arms, that is, by violence, a thing 
almott as bad as fuperftition, and- not 
much fhort of ignorance: but it is o/d 
violence ; and that which might be wrong 
in the beginning, is confecrated by time, 
and becomes lawful. This may be fuper- 
ftition in me, and ignorance; but I had 
rather remiain in ignorance and fuperitition 
than be enlightened and purified out of 
the firft principles of law and natural 
jultice. I never will fuffer you, if I can 
help it, to be deprived of the well-earned 
fruits of your induftry, becaufe others 
may want your fortune more than you do, 
and may have laboured, and do now Ja- 
bour, in vain, to acquire even a fub- 
fiftence. Noron thecontrary, if fuecefs had _ 
lefs {miled on your endeavours, and you 
had come home infolvent, would I take 
f:om any ‘* pampered and Juxurious Jord”’ 
in your neighbourhood one acre of his 
land, or one {poon from kis fideboard, to 
compenfate your lofles, though incurred 
‘(as they would have been incurred) in the 
courfe of a well-fpent, virtuous, and in- 
duftrious life. God is the diftributor of 
his own bleffings. I will not impioufly 
attempt to ufurp his throne, but will keep 
according to the fubordinate place and 
truft in which he has ftationed me, to fe- 
cure the order of property which I find 
eftablifhed: in my country. No guiltlefs 
man has ever been, nor ever will, I truft, 
be able to fay with truth, that ke has been 
obliged to retrench a difh at his tabie for 
any reformations of mine. wh 
You pay me the compliment to fuppole 
me a foe to tyranny and oppreffion, and 
you are therefore furprized at the fenti- 
ments I have lately delivered in Par- 
liament- I am that determined foe to 
tyranny, or I greatly deceive myielf in my 
character: and I am fure Iam an ideot 
in my conduct, It is becaufe i am, and 
mean to continue fo, that I abominate the - 
example of France for this country. I 
know that tyranny feldom attacks the 
poor, never in the firft inftance. They 
are not its proper prey. It falls on the 
wealthy and the great, whom by rendering 
objeéts of envy, and otherwife obnoxious 
to the multitude, they may more eafily 
deftroy; and, when they are deftroyed, 
that multitude which was led to that ill 
work by the arts of bad men, is itfelf 
undone for ever. 
I hate tyranny, at leaft F think fo; but 
I hate it. moft of all where molt are con- 
cerned init. Thetyranny of a multitude 
is a muliiplied tyranny. If, as foctety is 
conftituted in thefe large countries of 
France and England, full of unequal pro- 
perty, I mult make my choice (which 
God avert!) between the defpatifin of a 
fingle perfon, or of the many, my election 
is made. As much injultice and tyranny 
has been prattifed in a few months by 
a French democracy, as in all the arbi- 
trary monarchies in ‘Europe in the forty 
years of my obfervation. I {peak of pub- 
lic. glaring acts of tyranny; I fay nothing 
of the common effeéts of old abufive go- © 
vernments, becaufe I do not know that as 
bad may not be found inthe new. This 
democracy begins very ill; and I feel no 
fecurity, that what has been rapacious and 
bloody in its commencement, will be 
mild and protecting in its final fettle- 
ment. They catmot, indeed, in future, 
rob fo much, becaufe they have left little 
thit can be taken: I go to the full 
length of my principle. I fhould think 
the government of the depafed King of 
France, or of thelate King of Prufa, or 
the prefent Emperor, or the prefent Cza~ | 
rina, none of them, perhaps, perfectly 
good people, to be far better than the go- 
vernment of twenty-four millions of men, 
all as goed as you; and E do not know any 
body better ; fuppoling that thofe twenty~ 
four millions would be fubjeét, as infal- 
libly they would, to the fame unreltrained, | 
though virtuous, impulfes; becaufe it is 
plain, that their majority woald think 
every thing juftifed by their warm good 
intentions-—they would heat one another 
by their common zeal—counfel and advice 
would be loft an them—they would not 
liften to temperate individuals, and they 
would be lefs capabie, infinitely, of us0- 
deration, than the molt heady of thole 
princes. 
What have I to do with France, but - 
as the common intereft of humanity, and 
its example to this cezutry, engages me? 
i knew France, by obfexyation and ens 
Tt 2 Quiry, 
