more pleasant and less awakening doctrines. None of the aspects, which may attend the fates of the United States, in consequence of such an event, can be indifferent to a patriotick mind. If investigation satisfy any one, that with the result our peace, and perhaps our independence, is inseparably connected, and to human eye dependent, what good man shall refrain from giving it publicity? If there be errour, let it be exposed. If there be other grounds of hope, let them be fortified. But let no intelligent man be prevented, by clamour or intemperate insult, from publishing the result of his inquiries, whether they support, or whether they contravene our preconceived prejudices; lest when necessity shall make us willing to hear truth, the events of the world shall have made it too late to profit by it.

Our constitution has made it the right of every citizen, who pleases, perhaps the duty of all, who have leisure and ability, to investigate the interests of the nation and the conduct of its administration. He, who tells a people that they are invincible, that their wisdom is without danger of errour, their virtue incapable of corruption, their fates superiour to the common laws of the human constitution and the ordinary caprice of fortune, cannot fail to gather a great and attentive audience which he will retain, until a more supple and less scrupulous candidate shall offer more gross sacrifices to prejudice and vanity. He, who crosses their inclinations, contradicts their prepossessions, alarms their fears, exposes the nation's weakness, or censures its vices, seems at first to act the part of an enemy, is easily rendered an object of suspicion, and a willing ear is lent to those, who would make him a victim of popular hatred. Yet, with such thankless exertions, the truest patriotism is often identified. As the dangers which surround our liberty grow more immediate and press upon the senses, with a more irresistible obtrusiveness, will the penetration, which was able to discern the destructive germs of licentiousness in their first shootings, and the spirit which, fearless of obloquy, dared to display them in all their deformity, become the objects of admiration and honour. The people is a sovereign, as liable as any other to be beset by parasites and sycophants; and there is no more certain sign of a swift impending ruin, than when such alone gain their ear, and influence their authority.

The views, which Mr. Ames took of the dangers which beset the world from the preponderance of French power, led him

to look with gratitude and honour upon the exertions made by the British government, in defence of the liberties of that nation, and as he had taught himself to believe of the civilized world. His sentiment fell little short of veneration, which the hazards impending over his own country associated in his mind with the spirit of patriotism. Yet on this account to render the form of that government popular in the United States, or to recommend its adoption to his fellow-citizens, in preference to their own, was ever far from his thought.

«The idea of a royal or aristocratical government for America, is very absurd. It is repugnant to the genius, and totally incompatible with the circumstances of our country. Our interests and our choice have made us republicans. We are too poor to maintain, and too proud to acknowledge, a king."

"It is, and ever has been my belief, that the federal constitution was as good, or very nearly as good, as our country could bear; that the attempt to introduce a mixed monarchy was never thought of, and would have failed, if it had been made; and could have proved only an inveterate curse to the nation, if it had been adopted cheerfully, and even unanimously, by the people."

"The present happiness of that nation rests upon old foundations, so much the more solid, because the meddlesome ignorance of professed builders has not been allowed to new lay them. We may be permitted to call it a matter of fact government. No correct politician will presume to engage, that the same form of government would succeed equally well, or even succeed at all, any where else, or even in England under any other circumstances. Who will dare to say, that their monarchy would stand, if this generation had raised it? Who, indeed, will believe, if it did stand, that the weakness produced by the novelty of its institution would not justify, and, even from a regard to self-preservation, compel an almost total departure from its essential principles ?"

Mr. Ames had too deep an insight into the nature of the human heart and too thorough an acquaintance with history, not to be sensible that the government of a nation, to give prosperity and content, must grow out of the condition and circumstances of the people, and have reference to the state of their knowledge, property, virtue, and external relations; that the duty of a patriot was not to rest content with devising and recommending forms of government, but, by instilling sound principles into the minds of his fellow-citizens, to prepare the way for the gradual adoption of such new securities for their safety and liberties, as experience and opportunity should offer. In executing this duty, he was especially zealous to impress * Page 15. + Page 383. + Page 428.

deeply on the people the necessity of placing guards on the democratick tendencies of our constitution, and to stimulate them to the preservation of those checks which it had devised, and which he perceived ambition and party-spirit gradually undermining.

"Popular sovereignty is scarcely less beneficent than awful, when it resides in their courts of justice; there its office, like a sort of human providence, is to warn, enlighten, and protect; when the people are inflamed to seize and exercise it in their assemblies, it is competent only to kill and destroy. Temperate liberty is like the dew, as it falls unseen from its own heaven; constant without excess, it finds vegetation thirsting for its refreshment, and imparts to it the vigour to take more. All nature, moistened with blessings, sparkles in the morning ray. But democracy is a water spout, that bursts from the clouds, and lays the ravaged earth bare to its rocky foundations. The labours of man lie whelmed with his hopes beneath masses of ruin, that bury not only the dead, but their monuments."

Under the influence of this spirit, we find every part of his work abounding in illustrations and enforcements of those principles, on which, in his judgment, our republick could alone be made permanent.

"Experience has shewn, and it ought to be of all teaching the most profitable, that any government by mere popular impulses, any plan that excites, instead of restraining, the passions of the multitude, is a despotism: it is not, even in its beginning, much less in its progress, nor in its issue and effects, liberty."

"How little is it considered, that arbitrary power, no matter whether of prince or people, makes tyranny; and that in salutary restraint is liberty." S" Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination: it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent."

|| "If Americans adopt them, and attempt to administer our orderly and rightful government by the agency of the popular passions, we shall lose our liberty at first, and in the very act of making the attempt; next, we shall see our tyrants invade every possession that could tempt their cupidity, and violate every right that could obstruct their rage."

¶"The great spring of action with the people in a democracy, is their fondness for one set of men, the men who flatter and deceive, and their outrageous aversion to another, most probably those who prefer their true interest to their favour."

It is the chief object of all his writings to make the sober reason of society vigilant, to inculcate the necessity of self

control on the passions, to expose the dangers which resulted, in republicks, from ambition, licentiousness, vice and ignorance. The weight of his opinions is for the most part thrown against popular impulse and national prejudices. He touches with the spear of Ithuriel the evil spirit of democracy, in the midst of its malign whisperings at the ear of the American people, and to its own likeness; up he starts

Discovered and surprised.

His opinions concerning the questions, in controversy between the government of the United States and that of Great Britain, were modified by what appeared to him attainable good, and by his sense of the unquestionable exigency of the times, rather than by the result of any scholastick research or abstract reasoning. An extraordinary crisis in the state of mankind existed. It required the exertion of extraordinary powers by that nation, which alone seemed to possess the will and ability to maintain its independence. He admitted, that the law of selfpreservation was paramount to the right of neutrals to traffick in colonial produce. The plea of necessity seemed to him to be valid to the extent urged by Great Britain, in relation to that traffick. He was anxious that his country should not be involved in war for rights, which grew out of our neutral situation, and which would be lost, whenever it was abandoned.

His arguments are urged with more ingenuity than research. It was a subject on which books could throw but little light, as it was the result of recent relations among the nations of the world, of which those of former times had no example; or at least none of any strong affinity. The conclusiveness of his reasoning this is not the place, or the season to investigate. The question has been fully agitated in the presence of the American people; who have not shewn themselves willing (whatever may have been their opinion of the principle) to alter their relations, and take the state of a belligerent for the maintenance of their rights as neutrals to the colonial trade. The end of Mr. Ames's reasoning has been accomplished. His country is yet at peace, and we have not yet thrown ourselves into the scale of the French emperour, already too weighty for the residue of Europe.

It is not surprising that an argument, such as the reflections of Mr. Ames and his sense of duty impelled him to urge, should not meet with an indulgent, or very patient audience. To limit the field of mercantile enterprise is never likely to be received

with complacency by a commercial community. Those, who recommend the abandonment of present profit, out of respect to any principle, will ever be considered as little just to the interests of their country; and these, in vulgar estimation, are always its rights. Such will not fail to be made the objects of the clamour of the cunning, and if possible the victims of ambitious zeal.

But on this account the duty of every citizen of a free republick is not the less imperious, to utter any result of his reflections on the important interests of his country, with all the independence which his conscience commands, and which the laws authorize. To such questions he will bring indeed all the depth of investigation and perspicacity of perception, which his talents and opportunities permit. This duty performed, neither moral necessity nor political expediency can require that he should conceal or deny any result to which his researches may lead. Should he differ with those in power in his own, or agree with those who rule another nation, his obligation to truth, according to his perception of it, is imperious. How can this be elicited, if a predetermined result be required? or how can the people be benefited by investigation, if agreement with the opinions of an existing administration or a dominant party be claimed, under the penalty of being made odious? Those, who call this a British, that an American principle, whatever they may intend, in effect shackle the freedom of debate, by creating a prejudice, as if he who denied the latter was hostile to his country, or he who affirmed the former had leagued with its enemies.

The only inquiries concerning every principle ought to be its nature and consequences. On which side of the Atlantick it originated, or is maintained, ought to have no weight in the discussion. It is the interest of the people, in truth it is their privilege, that both sides should be discussed with talent and fidelity, to the end that their complicated interests may be placed before them in every variety of view, and that no errour may occur in that final judgment, to which they may be called. In this way the best chance is offered, ultimately, for a correct decision. If such privilege be denied, or if intelligent men by artful clamour be prevented from exercising it, though nominally free, we are in fact subjects of a despotism; the worse, because it is of the mind; worst of all, because it is exercised under the pretence and in the name of liberty.

(To be continued.)