rior to the aggregate of the lately discovered Sout Seah Islanders: and the Major might as well have gone to the Druids, as to the Saxons, for his original and never-changing constitution!

A never-changing constitution would be a ridiculous in-. stitution. Every kind of institution ought to change with the will and the wants of the people as a whole. If the aggregate will and wants of a people, forming a community, be respected, all is done that is necessary to be done, even if the constitution was to be changed by every new assembly of their representatives. Who holds the right to assume the authority, to lay down a constitution for future ages not to be changed; when, perhaps, our successors may see, that we were as ignorant, as we now see our Saxon ancestors to have been? The very idea is preposterous; and Major Cartwright is not the half of a moral Reformer! He has gotten his hand impregnated with high sounding words, that are perfectly ridiculous, when they come to be analyzed, and he seems to know as little about the elementary principles of a Commonwealth, as those Saxon ancestors knew, with whom he wishes to be allied.

That the Romans had their camps, their entrenchments, and their public highways throughout this country, is not to be questioned. Positive procfs remain to this day in coins, in inscriptions, and in their military roads, extending throughout the Island; to say nothing of the artificial surfaces of the soil. From all that we know of the Romans of that age, we may be assured, that they improved the whole. face of the country and the condition of the inhabitants; for the practice of the Romans was not like our modern despots, to exterminate or corrupt, but to conquer and improve. Where good institutions previously existed, they were suffered to remain; and where they did not, they were introduced. It may therefore be concluded, according to existing knowledge, that the first real blessing introduced among the inhabitants of this Island, was the Roman invasion; and as I durst venture to say, that the Romans were not afraid nor ashamed of our Grandames, nor our Grandames of the Romans, and in the course of four centuries there must have been a pretty good mixture of the sorts; if the notion were not wholly ridiculous I should feel more proud of a Roman, than of a Saxon descent; and I feel convinced, that the amount of happiness among the people under the Saxon sway, will bear no comparison with that which existed under the constitution of the Romans.

We have no proofs that the Romans made many ravages among the people pre-existent on the Island, nor any kind of ravage further than where they were offered battle; but we know positively, that the inhabitants suffered by the departure of the Romans. But, as the Christian religion was very generally introduced among the inhabitants of the Island, before the Romans left, and as we know, that the Constantine before mentioned, was stationed on this Island, and from this Island asserted his claim to the Imperial Diadem, taking with him the flower of that army by which he conquered his competitors and gave an ascendancy to the Christian religion; we may be assured, that the Saxons must have made dreadful ravages, to have extirpated all trace of that religion from among the people who formed the Anglo-Saxon institutions with which the Major is so much enraptured. My opinion is, that the Saxons massacred every human being on the Island that would not conform to their sway and manners. That they left no trace of the Christian religion is evident, from what passed, at the end of two centuries, between Augustine the missionary monk, and King Ethelbert the Saxon. Ethelbert, was so ignorant as never to have heard of the Christian religion, and to say that the doctrine was wholly new and strange to his people, after Christianity had been six hundred years in existence! It had been well if they had been kept strangers to it, and if Major Cartwright, instead of being a Unitarian Christian, a talker about revealed religion, true religion, and natural religion, had been as warmly attached to the real Saxon Gods, Thor and Woden, as to the Saxon constitution!

Whatever the Saxons did towards exterminating the descendants of the ancient Britons and the Romans, we know, that when they had no other common enemy, they divided themselves into sects and fought against each other, keeping up a continual civil war and massacre throughout the Island! The Heptarchy, or seven different Saxon Kings at once, is a well marked era in the history of the country; and tradition, and something more than tradition, teaches us, that almost every village had its independent chief, subject to no restraints but his own will or the power of some other neighbouring chief! Whatever the Major may dream about the Saxon Constitution, such was its reality before the reign of Alfred! And the almost general cause of the assembly of the much boasted Wittenagemotes, was not to make civil laws, but to consult on the best means of defending the country against the invading Danes, who when not wholly masters of the country, made a practice of renewing their attacks upon it almost every summer! The laws and constitution of those times were those of robber fighting against robber, and power was always the prevailing law.

Alfred was the first to introduce any thing like regular laws and regular administration of law; and this he could only accomplish by hanging almost as many magistrates or judges as any other kind of criminals! We hear nothing of Alfred having assembled a Wittenagemote, after he had repelled the Danes and become absolute King

of the country! That he made wise laws himself, and justly administered them, no doubt remains; but he was one of those well disposed Kings, who, acquire good habits and good dispositions, by the difficulties they have to surmount to get at power! Besides, even though he had expelled the Danes, they were always ready for new irruptions; and Alfred saw, that he had no security against them, bat in the general affections of his people! Had such a constitution as the Major pretends to have found, been really and truly AngloSaxon, it would have been known in the reign of Alfred; but, it was not then known, nor did any such recognized principles exist! From the time of Alfred to the Norman Invasion, the Crown was as often in the hands of a Dane as a Saxon, each reigning as an absolute chief, with no law but his will. During that period there could have been

no such a constitution.

It is the common practice of a Kingly conqueror to find fault with the existing institutions of the country he conquers: in fact, a complete alteration and change of persons who hold power, is essential to the retention of his conquest. It is therefore likely, that William the Norman subverted, as far as possible, the previous customs of this country, which he conquered; and, with placing all power and all property in the hands of his vassals, he would also, as far as possible, introduce the customs of the country he had previously swayed. It is also likely, as was the case, that the oppressed inhabitants would cherish with delight their old institutions that once yielded them power and property, and use all their influence to recover, as far as possible, what they had lost: but to say, that the elements of a Republic ever existed in England for any stated period is more than is true. There never was such an instance in this country as a popular election of magistrates; neither chief magistrates, nor any other kind of magistrates, beyond the Corporations, though Major Cartwright and Mr. Northmore of Devonshire weakly attempt to found the present right upon a false pretence to the old precedent, instead of manfully contending for the morality of the matter, and founding the right upon its morality, as Thomas Paine did! Whatever is moral is a right; whether it has a precedent or not. They are contemptible and ignorant men, who call themselves reformers, and in talking of reform, talk of nothing but precedents! They are the mar-alls of improvement! The weeds that corrupt the good seeds of good principles, and suffer nothing to ripen into maturity! Republicans, we must destroy those weeds! I feel it to be a sacred duty, and in feeling it, I act upon it? Names nor influences shall deter me from any thing of the kind!

Look where I will into the history of this country, I cannot find a population that excites in my bosom an atom of respect! I see it rapidly improving at present; therefore, I reserve all my respect for the future, when it shall have a becoming foundation! The Saxons, as a rude and simple people, had some simple and admirable institutions; they were such as their wants suggested, and as there was no jealous power of such institutions at that time, war being the com

mon study of the chiefs, they were suffered to flourish during intervals of tranquility!

The population of the country has uniformly been a compound of the conquered and conquerors: or of Ancient Britons, Romans, Picts, Scots, Saxons, Danes, Normans, Dutch, and Germans! A pretty line of ancestors to boast of! Every new King, whether he has obtained rule by conquest or by stratagem, has brought his dependent retainers to flourish on the property and industry of the inhabitants; and in that respect, the industrious part of the people are treated as a conquered people to this day, in havto pension the Coburgs, the Brunswickers, the Guelphs, the Bentincks, and a thousand other pauper idle families! The reform that does not put a stop to this is good for nothing! It is a horrible maxim, that any family should live upon the industry of others, other than by services that are co-existent with the salary, that are approved and appointed to be performed by and for the people as a whole or by and for any part, so as the delegation is paid by those who delegate.

Major Cartwright's mind has always been running in Patriot Kings! and Patriot Statesmen among the aristocrats! Fatal delusion! He knows no more of the elements or principles of man, or the composition of the animal nature, than of what is essential to a commonwealth! The one depends upon the other. He never views the naked man; but always when decked in feathers and finery, making fine promises, or playing mad pranks!

There is one single thing in the Major's book that will stamp it with indelible disgrace and bring it into irretrievable contempt! He has praised the present King of Portugal to the skies, as the good old Saxon folk used to say! He is the Hero of the Major's book. We have his praises sung in the beginning, the middle, and the end! So much so, that the Major, or whoever made his list of contents, could not point all the necessary references! He is called the amiable JOHN of the house of BRAGANZA, royal champion of man's Rights and Liberties! Reader! that is the Major's note of admiration, not mine: I cannot express wonder enough without useing three notes!!! Another expression is: "With what intrinsic glory now shines John VI. of Portugal?"!!! Yes! he does shine with intrinsic glory! and he has just shewn us what his intrinsic worth is! He has played a deeper card than Ferdinand of Spain, and has succeeded in overthrowing that Constitution, to which he gave, what the Major calls "his frank and cordial concurrence!" The "father of his country" indeed! He is one of those fathers who spoil all the children; and the Major must relinquish his paternal claim to reform, unless he can learn, in his old age, to proceed upon better principles than he has yet avowed! The thing has long left him behind, and he must expect, that the young, the active, and the intelligent, will not be restrained within his notions of constitutional right! Oh! the "Amiable King of Portugal!" As the Major repeatedly calls him!

What is the oath of this, or any other execrable Christian worth, when it stands in the way of his desires?

I know nothing calculated to bring greater shame upon a man than an indiscriminate praise of living characters. The Major has fallen into this error, particularly in his preface. He speaks of the glory of a Sepulveda! Sepulveda! has turned traitor to his country! I am more afraid of praising than condemning. Knowing the stuff of which a King is made, I have always looked upon the King of Portugal as a baser villain than Ferdinand of Spain! The latter is no hypocrite, he has never disguised his sentiments! I do not like to see soldiers of any kind interfering with the laws of a country. Many will be sorry for this re-action in Portugal, but I rejoice! I see how good will come out of it. There will now be a general struggle throughout the Peninsula for a Republic, and by the "RIGHTS OF MAN" I will have a hand in it. It strikes me, that nothing could have been better timed than this kingly motion in Portugal! The mask is thrown off, and all will be now a warfare for an undisguised object! This is another specimen of the security of trusting constitutions to the keeping of a standing army, who are as ignorant, as their horses, and who have no interest in any settled order of things! War is the soldier's element, and war he will make if it be not made for him!

Good constitutions provide for nothing but the security of property and industrious people; thererefore, it is of the greatest importance, that such a constitution should extinguish all the elements of war and faction in the beginning: if this be not done, the elements of war and faction will be sure to extinguish the constitution! Such a King as that which the constitution of Spain sets up, is what no man will be content with! There ought to be no such office. I will say for myself, that I should look with contempt upon such an office, as that which the Kings of Spain and Portugal have had to fill under the new constitutions! It is a mockery of every thing in the character of magistracy, particularly, when connected with the high sounding name of King! If men are still such fools and such slavish beasts, as not to be able to live without a King; then, I say, that I would be an absolute King, or none at all! Your moderate reformers; your constitutional-king-men, are the go-between scoundrels of the earth: they have honesty enough for nothing; but in endeavouring to please all parties, they sacrifice all moral principle! They are the common traitors to the species, and can always change with changing circumstances! I am glad, that I am not much troubled by those men; for in truth, I am always afraid of them! In a priest, or an avowed slave, I know what I have to deal with: but in a man who can praise every thing in power, and make himself every thing, I always feel an instinctive danger!

This conduct of the King of Portugal and his standing ariny, is a proof, a case in point, that we must look for moral principle in the result and not as an element of a constitution. The elements of a good constitution are physical arrangements, that are required to pro